Court Opinion

ID: 9618341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:11:03.602674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:28.884209
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I cannot agree that the sentence imposed by the superior court is precluded under Pears v. State, 698 P.2d 1198 (Alaska 1985). The majority of the court reads Pears to compel a sentencing ceiling of eight years for first felony offenders convicted of multiple death drunken driving manslaughters. This reading of Pears is purely conjectural.
Two members of the supreme court in Pears concluded that the maximum term in that case should not exceed ten years to serve. Two other members would have affirmed the twenty-year term originally imposed. The fifth member of the court, Justice Rabinowitz, while concluding that a twenty-year term was excessive, expressed no view on what an appropriate sentence might be. Pears, 698 P.2d at 1205 n. 15.
In the present case, the majority apparently assumes that Justice Rabinowitz would not have approved a sentence of more than ten years. Both legally and logically, however, Justice Rabinowitz’ decision to refrain from deciding on an appropriate sentence should be taken at face *416value: it should be considered to give rise to no inference whatsoever. The majority’s attempt to second guess the court in Pears is ill-considered and bypasses the central issue in this case: whether the sentence imposed below is clearly mistaken.
In this regard, it is notable that, since deciding Pears, the Alaska Supreme Court has rendered two decisions of particular significance to the present case. In State v. Andrews, 723 P.2d 85 (Alaska 1986), the court recognized that the legislature, in enacting AS 12.55.025(e) and (g), expressed a preference for consecutive sentences in the .case of offenders convicted of violent crimes involving more than one victim. And in State v. Dunlop, 721 P.2d 604 (Alaska 1986), the court for the first time approved the imposition of separate convictions and sentences in cases like the present one, where a single, reckless act results in more than one death.
The supreme court’s opinions in Andrews and Dunlop weigh heavily in favor of a finding that the sentence imposed in this case is not clearly mistaken. Yet, inexplicably, the majority of this court continues to regard Pears as the last word on the issue, and sees it as a foregone conclusion that, whatever else Andrews and Dunlop may have done, they did.not alter the bottom line in Pears.
Pears is neither so rigid nor restrictive. The law of sentencing, like the law in general, is not static. I see nothing in Pears that weds our sentencing law irrevocably and in perpetuity to a maximum term of eight years for first offenders convicted of multiple victim drunken driving man-slaughters.
Applying the principles of Dunlop and Andrews, the superior court in this case imposed a logical, balanced, and appropriate sentence. That sentence may be somewhat higher than many sentences imposed in prior cases, where other sentencing principles were applied. That is not to say that the sentence is clearly mistaken. It is not.