Court Opinion

ID: 9538337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:35:15.755367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:46.359737
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Justice,
dissenting, with whom BURKE, Justice, joins.
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the sentence imposed. The majority holds that the denial of parole eligibility constituted an increase in Nelson’s sentence, placing him in double jeopardy in violation of the Alaska and the United States Constitutions.1 Reliance is placed on Faulkner v. State, 445 P.2d 815, 819-20 (Alaska 1968). Faulkner, however, is not in point. In that case a sentence to serve a period of years was imposed on May 11, 1967, without placing any restrictions on eligibility for parole. Under the statute applicable at that time, the defendant was eligible for parole at any time.2 When, on June 29, 1967, a hearing was held on a motion to reduce the sentence, the court ordered that Faulkner not be eligible for parole until five years were served. We held that this constituted an impermissible increase in the sentence.
Here, in contrast, Nelson was initially given a five-year suspended sentence. He was placed on notice that if he violated his probation he could be sentenced to serve up to five years’ imprisonment.3 The possibility that the court would exercise its discretion as to whether to limit eligibility for parole was implicit in the imposition of the suspended sentence. Thus, when probation was revoked and a sentence of three years without eligibility for parole was imposed, it was within the range of the sentence imposed at the time he was placed on probation.4 There was thus no increase in sentence placing Nelson in double jeopardy.5
*505In view of Nelson’s past record,6 his failure to abide by the conditions of his probation, his fleeing the jurisdiction, his unauthorized departure from the Anchorage rehabilitation facility and malicious destruction of property while awaiting reimposition of sentence, I do not believe that the trial judge was clearly mistaken in imposing the sentence.7 I also would find that the judge properly considered the Chaney criteria.8

. U.S.Const., amend. V; Alaska Const., Art. I, § 9.

. See former AS 33.15.180.

. Although 1 do not consider it dispositive, the court advised Nelson that if he violated the terms of probation he would be “staring 5 years in the face and there will not be any deviation from that in any way.”

. It would be unreasonable to require a trial court to set a defendant’s eligibility for parole at the time it ordered a suspended sentence. That determination should be made only when it is clear that the defendant will be required to serve a term of imprisonment. It is only then that a rational determination of probable fitness for parole can be made.

. Cf. Shagloak v. State, 582 P.2d 1034 (Alaska 1978) (sentence increased where court changed a recommendation that parole not be granted *505for 5 years to an order that it not be granted for 5 years); Sonnier v. State, 483 P.2d 1003 (Alaska 1971) (sentence increased from 5 years to 10 years).

.Nelson has been convicted of two other felonies, burglary, and auto theft. He has also been convicted of numerous misdemeanors, in-eluding possession of marijuana, loitering while carrying a knife, drunk driving, unauthorized entry, escape, and disorderly conduct.

. State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441 (Alaska 1970).

. Id.