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Court opinion:
In January 2021, a person jaywalks across a road. He is returning to his car from a bakery, carrying "a box of custard cups", so his vision is obscured. He trips over a large pothole (4 ft × 1 ft × 2 in or 1.2 m × 0.3 m × 5 cm) and breaks a hip. Accordingly, he sues the municipal govt.
The trial judge dismisses the lawsuit. In a different case, a person sued over a sidewalk that for 18 years had been obviously dangerous and near which the municipal govt. had repeatedly done repair work, and that was sufficient to prove that the municipal govt. had notice of the dangerous condition. However, in this case, the pothole was quite small at first and grew larger only gradually, and it existed for only six years. (Indeed, it was genuinely recognizable as a pothole only for two years, according to Google Street View's photographs.) This is not sufficient evidence for a jury to find that the municipal govt. knew or should have known of the dangerous condition, since nobody reported it until after the accident.
The appeals panel reverses and remands for trial. Between 2018 and 2019, the municipal govt. made several repairs immediately adjacent to the pothole. And, between 2018 and 2020, the municipal govt. was seeking to get a grant from the state govt. for resurfacing this road, and was actively inspecting the area for problems to be included in that resurfacing project. All this is sufficient for a jury to find that the municipal govt. knew or should have known about the pothole, even though nobody reported it until after the accident.
(The pothole was temporarily patched in March 2021, and was permanently fixed by the resurfacing project in July 2021.)
Bonus hentai:
March 2019: A mother notices something strange about her two daughters, 12-year-old "Kelly" and 13-year-old "Taylor". She brings them to the hospital, and is surprised to learn that they are both pregnant. Taylor gives birth a few days later. In police interviews, the daughters do not provide any leads, and deny that the mother's romantic partner is the culprit.
June 2019: Kelly gives birth. The police obtain a DNA sample from the romantic partner.
September 2019: The DNA test shows that the romantic partner is the father of both babies. The father is arrested and is charged with fifteen felonies, and then is released on his own recognizance (zero bail; this isn't mentioned in the opinion, but is indicated on the docket).
March 2021: Taylor gives birth again. Presumably the father made the most of being out on bail.
August 2022: The father pleads guilty to three felonies—impregnating Taylor at age 12, impregnating Kelly at age 11, and impregnating Taylor again at age 13. He is sentenced to 25 years in prison (without the possibility of parole).
This second one? Not. Fun.
Particularly hilarious is that the father's three sentences were run concurrently, rather than consecutively—so he did not receive any extra penalty for the third pregnancy (or, indeed, for the second one).
The sentence imposed was pursuant to a plea deal, so one can't make any judgments about whether it's the same as if there were only two rapes.
The minimum sentence under state law for a single one of these acts would have had the exact same punishment. So it's either no effective increase in sentence for the third (conviction for) rape, or someone who committed enough (almost-certainly repeated) rape of two very young minors, after having been caught by DNA evidence, would have been allowed to plea to a much lesser crime than a single one of them.
Which isn't better.
((On the upside, pretty good chances it's a life sentence, no matter what the court decided! Though from a rule of law perspective, not too happy about Kennedy v. Louisiana ending up there, either.))
Maybe it'll have some marginal impact on parole hearings, but I think NJ's 'mandatory minimums' restrict parole eligibility, too.
You're assuming that if there was only one victim, or one act, he would have been convicted of the same crime. It's possible that, had that been the case, he would have plead to a lesser offense.
I'm pretty explicitly spelling out why the alternative wouldn't be judged much better, given the background and details available.
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