A unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court  issued an interesting sentencing opinion today in NJ v. McFarlane, No. 075938 (April 7, 2016) (available here).  Reading the whole opinion is worthwhile, but you will get the drift about why judges should watch what they say:

Defendant chased an unarmed man, whom he was attempting to rob, and shot him in the back with a revolver.  The victim was alive and gasping for air after he fell to the ground, but defendant robbed him and left him to die.  Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, among other things, and sentenced to sixty years in prison.

We are called upon to determine whether defendant’s sentence should be vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing before a different judge, because the trial judge remarked during a subsequent, unrelated status conference that he always gives sixty-year sentences to a defendant convicted by a jury of first-degree murder.  While we acknowledge the judge’s subsequent explanation for his remarks, preservation of the public’s confidence and trust in our system of criminal sentencing requires that the matter be remanded for resentencing by another judge of the same vicinage.