Court Opinion

ID: 9615892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:41:33.779942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:53.139369
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I believe Judge Gonzalez was clearly erroneous in finding Richards’ conduct to be among the least serious within the definition of first-degree robbery. On April 2, 1985, Richards entered a McDonald’s restaurant and robbed it, holding four employees at gunpoint and taking more than $400. The presentence report describes the robbery as follows:
[Witness C.A.] saw the defendant enter the west door of the restaurant, pulling a ski mask over his head as he walked. [C.A.] saw him jump over the counter and grab one of the employees. [C.A.] realized that a robbery was in progress, fled the store and ran to the Texaco station to call the police.
Employee T.K. was working the cash register window when the defendant grabbed her arm, put a silver gun to her ribs and told her he wanted all the money from the cash registers. T.K. and the defendant walked over to the day manager, A.B. The defendant ordered A.B. to open the drive-through window drawer. She opened it and gave him the money. He wanted to know if there were any large bills under the drawer. She pulled it out to show him there were none, and put the drawer back. She asked him if he wanted coins, and he shook his head, no. The defendant then grabbed another employee, S.H., who was standing behind the stove. He forced her at gun point to the walk through window area and made her sit on the floor with fellow employees, T.K. and V.I. They were all crying as the defendant and A.B. walked to other cash registers where A.B. was forced to open them and give him the money. The defendant repeatedly checked on the seated employees to tell them that they would be all right and for them not to move. He then asked A.B. where the safe was located. She told him that it was located in the back of the restaurant. He took her at gun point to it. She told him that it was difficult to open and might take a couple of efforts. After she failed on the second attempt, he said, “don’t be fucking with me,” and she told him she was not. She told him that she was a little nervous and could not get it open. He then “smacked” her with his left hand on the right side of her head but did not hurt her. This made her more nervous but she finally opened the safe. The defendant told her he had a friend waiting for him and walked out the front door. She did not close the safe because she feared she could not open it again. She walked out of the office to see if she could find him. The other employees told her that he jumped over the counter and left. She returned to the office to answer the phone and it was a woman from the Anchorage Police Department.
Although Richards objects in general terms to the tenor of language in the presentence report, he specifically disputes its description of the offense in only one particular: he notes that, at the sentencing hearing, A.B. did not testify that Richards “smacked” her but rather stated that “he brushed me up side the side of my head with his hand.... ”
Alaska Statute 12.55.155(d)(9) allows a mitigating factor to be found when “the conduct constituting the offense was among the least serious conduct included in the definition of the offense....” The plain language of this statutory provision requires the sentencing court, in determining whether the factor has been established, to evaluate the conduct of the accused in light of the statutory definition of the offense for which the accused was convicted.
*53The only arguable mitigated aspect of Richards’ conduct in committing the offense is that his gun was apparently unloaded and inoperable. Under applicable statutory definitions, however, Richards would have been subject to conviction of first-degree robbery and to a presumptive seven-year term if he had not displayed his gun (operable or inoperable), or, for that matter, even if he had been unarmed and only represented by words or conduct that he had a gun. See AS 11.41.500, AS 11.41.-510, AS 12.55.125(c)(2).
Given the applicable statutory definitions, it is difficult to understand how Richards’ conduct — committing an armed robbery of a commercial establishment by deliberately and openly threatening four separate individuals with what appeared to be an operable hand gun — can realistically be viewed as being among the least serious conduct within the definition of the offense. Richards’ conduct did not approximate a lesser offense nor did it qualify only marginally within the definition of first-degree robbery. To the contrary, it must be recalled that robbery is classed as a crime of violence. It is primarily an offense against persons, not property. Thus, based on his conduct, Richards could conceivably have been convicted of four counts of first-degree robbery instead of only one count.
Although the objective level of danger was no doubt somewhat reduced because Richards’ gun was inoperable, the emotional trauma and psychological damage occasioned by his conduct was certainly undiminished. To the victims of Richards’ crime, it must have been small consolation to learn, days or weeks after the robbery, that the gun Richards held to their ribs had been incapable of firing. Moreover, the fact that the gun was inoperable had no effect whatsoever on the risk that some third party, in response to the open display of the gun, might seek to intervene with a gun of his own, thereby causing further risk to those already threatened.
Even if Richards’ crime had involved only one victim, his conduct would fall squarely within the definition of the offense, and the risk resulting from his conduct would be precisely the type of risk against which the statutory provisions seek to protect. Thus, even if there had been only one victim, it seems to me that Richards’ conduct, when realistically considered, would fall well within the norm for the offense, despite his use of an inoperable hand gun. Considering, then, the fact that Richards’ robbery involved not one, but four separate individuals, it seems wholly inaccurate to characterize his conduct as among the least serious in its class.
If the sentencing court’s characterization of Richards’ conduct seems difficult to understand, the willingness of the majority of this court to condone that characterization seems utterly mystifying. Assuming the majority’s holding is to be taken at face value, any person who, using an unloaded firearm, commits an armed robbery involving four or fewer victims will qualify for mitigated treatment. If, as I suspect will be the case, the majority’s decision is not to be taken seriously, then I submit that it ill-serves the cause of justice, for the court will owe all similarly situated defendants a fair explanation of the reasons why they will not be entitled to the mitigation that Richards has received.
Obviously, Richards’ youth, his lack of a prior criminal record, the unsophisticated and impulsive manner in which he committed this offense, and his genuine remorse following apprehension are all legitimate concerns for the sentencing court. Yet these circumstances are unrelated to Richards’ conduct in committing the offense. They do not justify calling Richards’ conduct any less serious than it would be had it been committed by a seasoned professional who planned carefully before the crime. To the extent that Judge Gonzalez felt moved to reduce the presumptive term by virtue of Richards’ favorable background and his amenability to rehabilitation, the appropriate course of action would have been referral to the three-judge pan*54el.1 Indeed, Richards’ counsel appropriately requested such a referral. The presence of these factors did not, however, warrant the strained application of an obviously inapplicable mitigating factor.

. See Smith v. State, 711 P.2d 561 (Alaska App. 1985).