State in the Interest of C.V., a Juvenile, ? N.J. ?, 2010 N.J. LEXIS 235 (March 22, 2010) - "The issue in this appeal is whether a juvenile is entitled to credit on her suspended sentence for the time she spent in two residential treatment programs.... As made evident by the family court judge's multiple attempts to find a suitable residential placement for C.V. and, moreover, his delay in imposing a suspended sentence, C.V.'s placements at YCS and VisionQuest were meant to facilitate her rehabilitation. Although each program placed on her restrictions similar to those that had been imposed on S.T. at Pinelands, YCS and VisionQuest imposed those rules and physical restrictions in order to create the best environment for treatment.
C.V. was never physically confined at the facilities; indeed, she succeeded in running away from both. Thus, we have no disagreement with the Appellate Division's unassailable determination that C.V.'s placements in YCS and VisionQuest do not satisfy the intended concept of detention in Rule 5:21-3(e) to qualify for mandatory day-to-day credit....
We hold that the Family Part court retains the flexibility, in appropriate cases, to grant a probationer who violated or otherwise imperfectly performed the conditions of probation a lesser custodial sentence than the previously suspended sentence. The court's authority to resentence provides the mechanism for that adjustment when the court believes it to be appropriate.
Merely because a juvenile is not entitled to mandatory credit on his or her custodial sentence does not deprive the court of its ordinary flexibility in crafting a just sentence. In sum, the Family Part court here was limited only by the maximum statutory term provided by N.J.S.A. 2A:4A-44(d) for C.V.'s offense...."
