An ex-”Melrose Place” actress' vehicular homicide case will be assigned to a different judge for resentencing after the first judge refused to modify his sentence after it was deemed too lenient.

The three-year sentence imposed on Amy Locane for a crash that killed one person and seriously injured another was “a hair's breadth away from illegal,” and “shocks the conscience,” the Appellate Division said Friday in State v. Locane.

In July 2016 the appeals court said Superior Court Judge Robert Reed of Somerset County misapplied the aggravating and mitigating factors under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(a)(9) when calculating Locane's sentence.

Reed also failed to impose a mandatory bar on parole and failed to impose consecutive sentences based on the grave harm inflicted on two victims, the panel said. When the case was sent back to Reed for recalculation of Locane's sentence, he “imposed the same terms of imprisonment, employing virtually the same analysis of statutory aggravating and mitigating factors,” the appeals court said.

Locane was released from prison in June 2015 after serving two and a half years of her sentence for her involvement in the 2010 accident in Montgomery Township that left Fred Seeman seriously injured and killed his wife, Helene. But Locane may have to return to prison if a stricter sentence is imposed.

Locane, who appeared in one season of “Melrose Place” in 1992, had an estimated blood-alcohol content of 0.23, far in excess of the legal limit of 0.08, after leaving a party at a nearby home and striking the Seemans' car.

In November 2017, Locane and her ex-husband, Mark Bovenizer, agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a civil suit by the Seemans in U.S. District Court and the hosts who allegedly served drinks to Locane before the crash, Rachel and Carlos Sagebien, settled for $3.3 million.

After Locane was found guilty of second-degree vehicular homicide, third-degree assault by auto, and related offenses, Reed sentenced her to three years in prison in 2013. But he failed to consider the severity of the offense, improperly focusing on the sentence's impact on Locane's two young children, including one who suffers from Crohn's disease, and her successful efforts to control her alcoholism, the appeals court said.

After the sentence was sent back to Reed by the Appellate Division, he appeared to read that decision as requiring him to more fully explain his reasons for the sentence, wrote Judge Carmen Alvarez, who was joined by Judges William Nugent and Richard Geiger.

On remand, Reed said the fact that Locane killed one person and severely injured another did not “rule the day,” according to the appeals court.

Reed's imposition of the same sentence a second time in January 2017 drew an angry outburst in court from Fred Seeman, who, addressing Locane, said, “Having a sick child doesn't give you a pass to kill my wife.”

And before Reed imposed his sentence a second time, the appeals court said, Locane, who was married at the time of the crash but was divorced after serving her sentence, said that being served with a divorce complaint triggered “the closest I have ever come to completely falling apart.”

“It is remarkable that years after the incident, in writing to the sentencing judge, defendant still did not identify the crash, which killed one person and severely injured another, and the inebriation that led to it, as the worst moment of her life. That should have been of concern to the trial judge; it was not, and he did not factor it in when calculating defendant's risk to reoffend,” Alvarez wrote.

General deterrence has a particularly meaningful role in the present case, Alvarez said. The primary purpose of New Jersey's drunken driving laws is to curb the destruction and havoc caused by intoxicated drivers, Alvarez said.

Drunken drivers include a broad cross section of society, including individuals who would not otherwise come into contact with the criminal justice system, Alvarez said.

“It is important for the public as a whole to see that a drunk driver will not be shielded from the sanction of lengthy imprisonment should that driver kill or injure another while intoxicated, even if she or he previously led a blameless life,” Alvarez said.

Locane was represented by Gilbert Miller of Wronko Loewen Benucci in Somerville, New Jersey. He did not return a call about the case. The prosecution was represented by Assistant Somerset County Prosecutor Matthew Murphy. A spokesman for the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, Jack Bennett, said the office would not comment on the ruling.