The New Jersey Revised Statutes are the state’s organized body of general law, and the fastest way to find a specific section is the Legislature’s free online database at njleg.state.nj.us, where you can browse by Title or search by keyword.1New Jersey Legislature. New Jersey Legislature Once you have the section, the standard citation inside New Jersey courts is N.J.S.A. followed by the Title, Chapter, and Section numbers, as in N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6.
Decoding a Statute Number
Every citation to the Revised Statutes follows a three-tier pattern: Title, Chapter, Section. Titles group laws by broad subject. Title 2C holds the Code of Criminal Justice; Title 39 covers motor vehicles and traffic.2Justia. New Jersey Revised Statutes Title 2C – The New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice3Justia. New Jersey Revised Statutes Title 39 – Motor Vehicles and Traffic Regulation Chapters divide a Title into narrower topics, and Sections contain the actual rules.
A reference to 2C:43-6 sends you to Title 2C, Chapter 43, Section 6, which sets sentencing ranges by degree of crime: 10 to 20 years for a first-degree offense, 5 to 10 years for second-degree, 3 to 5 years for third-degree, and up to 18 months for fourth-degree.4Justia. New Jersey Revised Statutes Section 2C-43-6 – Sentence of Imprisonment for Crime Once the Title:Chapter-Section pattern is familiar, unfamiliar citations become easy to navigate.
The “C.” Prefix
If you see a citation with a “C.” in it, you are looking at a law enacted after the 1937 revision that created entirely new material rather than amending an existing section. The Legislative Counsel in the Office of Legislative Services assigns the compiled number and places the provision where it best fits within the existing code.5New Jersey Legislature. New Jersey Legislator Handbook For lookup purposes, the C-prefixed number works the same way the regular Title:Chapter-Section number does.
Looking Up the Text
The Legislature’s online database is the quickest free source for the current text of any section. Enter the Title:Chapter-Section number, or search by keyword if you don’t know the citation yet.
Read the Legislature’s own disclaimer before relying on what you find. The database may include laws that have expired, been ruled inoperable by a court, or not yet taken effect because a condition hasn’t been met, and effective dates are not typically displayed.6New Jersey Legislature. Disclaimer The database is also unannotated: it contains the raw statutory text and nothing about how courts have interpreted it, and it will not flag a section that has been struck down on constitutional grounds. For anything with real stakes, cross-check against an annotated edition or recent case law.
Annotated Editions
The New Jersey Statutes Annotated, published commercially, adds case annotations, historical notes, and cross-references to each section. The annotations summarize court decisions interpreting the statutory language, which is often where the practical answer lives when the text is ambiguous. County law libraries and academic law libraries carry these volumes in print and digital form.
When You Need the Original Enacted Text
Before a new law is codified, its Chapter Law (also called Session Law) version is the authoritative text. The New Jersey State Library maintains digitized Chapter Laws dating back to 1776, which is where to look when you need to see what the legislature actually wrote before codification reorganized it, especially for laws that amended multiple sections across different Titles.7New Jersey State Library. New Jersey Chapter/Session Laws
How to Cite a Section
In New Jersey courts, cite a statute as N.J.S.A. followed by the Title number, a colon, the Chapter number, a hyphen, and the Section number: N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6. The New Jersey Manual on Style for Judicial Opinions directs that statutes be cited as “N.J.S.A.” rather than the older abbreviations “R.S.” or “N.J.S.”8New Jersey Courts. New Jersey Manual on Style for Judicial Opinions
Federal courts and legal scholarship follow Bluebook or ALWD conventions. The same statute appears as “N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:43-6 (West)” or “N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:43-6,” depending on which published compilation you are citing.9Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. State Statute Citations “N.J.S.A.” is understood in those settings as well, but if local rules require Bluebook format, use the longer form.
Court Rules Are Cited Differently
New Jersey Court Rules are not statutes and use their own abbreviation, “N.J. Ct. R.,” followed by the rule number. N.J. Ct. R. 2:6-2, for example, points to an appellate procedure rule.10Legal Information Institute. Basic Legal Citation – New Jersey Mixing the two citation formats is an easy mistake for anyone working with both sources at once.
Statutes Versus the Administrative Code
Statutes set the broad rules; the operational details are usually in the New Jersey Administrative Code (N.J.A.C.), where state agencies publish regulations that implement the authority the legislature gave them. Every regulation must trace back to a specific statutory provision as its legal basis.11New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. Administrative Codes and Related Statutes When an agency regulation references or paraphrases a statute, the regulation must include a citation to the underlying statutory authority.12Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 1-30-2.2 – Incorporation by Reference
One structural difference matters for research. Administrative regulations expire: every adopted chapter in the Administrative Code has a seven-year lifespan and must be formally readopted to remain in effect.13Legal Information Institute. New Jersey Administrative Code 1-30-6.4 – Expiration Date for Adopted Rule Statutes remain in force indefinitely unless the legislature repeals them or a court strikes them down. If you are checking whether a regulatory requirement is still active, confirm the regulation has been readopted even when the authorizing statute is unchanged.
When the Text Alone Doesn’t Answer the Question
If a statute’s wording is ambiguous, courts look to legislative history to determine what the legislature intended. New Jersey legislative history typically includes introductory statements attached to the original bill, committee statements explaining why a committee recommended passage, fiscal notes estimating the law’s cost, and the Governor’s signing or veto messages.14Rutgers Law School. New Jersey Legislative History Research Guide
The New Jersey State Library compiles legislative histories for all general and permanent laws, pulling together the documents that express the purpose behind each enactment; appropriations bills, temporary acts, and standalone repealers are excluded.15New Jersey State Library. New Jersey Legislative Histories The Library’s digital collection, assembled by its research librarians, is the most accessible starting point when you need to understand why a particular law was passed or what problem it was meant to solve.