S 188 New Jersey Senate · 2026-2027 Regular Session

Requires certain juveniles to appear before court in county where incident giving rise to delinquency complaint allegedly occurred.

S 188 requires juveniles accused of certain delinquency offenses to appear in court in the county where the alleged incident occurred, rather than their residence county. For serious offenses (equivalent to adult crimes of the 1st-3rd degree under New Jersey law), the juvenile must appear in the incident county. For less serious offenses (4th degree, disorderly persons, or petty disorderly persons), the default is the juvenile's residence county, unless the court finds "good cause" to keep it in the incident county. Juveniles or their lawyers must object to venue changes within five days of receiving the complaint, and either side may request a venue change through a motion to the Family Presiding Judge.

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Jun 2026

Senate Passage

Jun 2026

General Assembly Passage

Governor

Introduced Jan 13, 2026 Last action Jun 30, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Technical Review Of Prefiled Bill → Introduced · 4 edits · Jan 13, 2026

MODERATE

This is a procedural transition from technical review to introduced status for S 188. The substantive statutory text is largely unchanged, but a new statement was added explaining the bill's purpose: requiring juveniles accused of first through third degree offenses to appear in the county where the incident occurred rather than their home county. Senator Stack was also removed as a co-sponsor.

SCOPE

Senator Stack was removed from the list of co-sponsors, reducing the bill's sponsorship by one senator.

TECHNICAL

A new STATEMENT section was added at the end of the bill explaining its purpose: juveniles accused of first through third degree offenses must appear in the county where the incident occurred; fourth degree and disorderly persons offenses remain in the juvenile's home county unless the court finds good cause to retain venue elsewhere. Objections to venue transfer must be made within five days, and multiple-defendant cases are venued in the incident county.

The status line changed from 'As reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee with technical review' to 'Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel,' reflecting the bill's progression through the legislative process.

A subsection heading 'Exclusive jurisdiction of the court and nature of jurisdiction.' was removed from Section 5, with the text now flowing directly into subsection (a).

Floor votes

How they voted

This bill passed the Senate by voice vote (no roll call recorded).

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Jun 30, 2026

Committee

Received in the Assembly, Referred to Assembly Community Development and Women's Affairs Committee

lower

Jun 30, 2026

Upper · Passed

Passed by the Senate (40-0)

upper

Jan 13, 2026

Introduced

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Judiciary Committee

upper

1 primary · 4 co-sponsors