Court Opinion

ID: 9597747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:02:32.633525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:49.317950
License: Public Domain

SINGLETON, Judge,
dissenting.
Judge Carlson sentenced Newell to four ten-year maximum sentences for four counts of robbery in the second degree, a class B felony. AS 11.41.510(a)(1); AS 12.-55.125(d). The sentences were concurrent in part and consecutive in part so that Newell faces a composite sentence of twenty years.1 In addition, Judge Carlson restricted Newell’s parole during the entire twenty-year period. The majority affirms the sentence, but strikes the parole restriction. I agree that the prison sentence is not clearly mistaken. However, I am also satisfied that this is one of the rare cases in which a judicial restriction on parole is warranted. I therefore dissent from the decision to strike the parole restriction.2
Newell gave only brief attention to the parole restriction in his sentencing memorandum. Essentially, he makes three arguments. First, Newell contends that former AS 33.15.230 permitted the trial court to restrict, but not eliminate parole. The majority notes that this section had been repealed and therefore does not apply to Newell, but does not address his argument.
Second, Newell incorporates his argument that a twenty-year sentence is unreasonable and reasons that, a fortiori, a twenty-year parole restriction is also unreasonable. Newell relies on AS 12.55.005(1) as interpreted in Graybill v. State, 672 P.2d 138, 142 (Alaska App.1983), rev’d, 695 P.2d 725 (Alaska 1985) for the proposition that the “just deserts” theory of sentencing requires (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado) that the punishment fit the crime rather than the criminal and establishes a maximum permissible punishment regardless of potential recidivism. Newell seems to argue that if Graybill’s *878sentence of seven and one-half years was excessive, his twenty-year unsuspended sentence is excessive. This argument is weakened by the fact that the supreme court reversed our decision in Graybill and affirmed Graybill’s sentence. It is noteworthy that the supreme court not only rejected our result, but specifically disapproved of the reasoning, adopted by New-ell, which lead to that result. See State v. Graybill, 695 P.2d 725, 728-31 (Alaska 1985). The majority rejects Newell’s major premise without citing Graybill and concludes that a twenty-year sentence is not clearly mistaken. Thus, the majority rejects two of Newell’s three arguments.
Newell’s third argument, which the majority accepts, is that the trial court did not make separate findings of fact regarding parole limitations. The trial court did not specifically find that Newell had to be isolated for the entire twenty-year period without possibility of parole in order to protect the public.3 While it is true Judge Carlson did not enter the proper fact findings, the normal remedy for inadequate or incorrect fact findings is a remand not a reversal. Jackson v. State, 616 P.2d 23, 24-25 (Alaska 1980). See also Spencer v. State, 642 P.2d 1371, 1377-78 (Alaska App.1982); DeGross v. State, 768 P.2d 134, 138 (Alaska App.1989). But see Qualle v. State, 652 P.2d 481, 486 (Alaska App.1982) (court may not impose both a long sentence and limit parole eligibility). It is only where the record could not justify the required findings that this court may simply reverse and implicitly make its own contrary findings. See Gullard v. State, 497 P.2d 93, 94 (1972) (nineteen-year-old first felony offender received ten-year sentence for traffic manslaughter; court affirmed sentence but vacated parole restriction in light of defendant's youth and the length of his sentence).
Nevertheless, on this record I agree that a remand would be fruitless. Judge Carlson would simply enter the required findings and reimpose the original sentence restricting parole. The record so clearly supports a parole restriction that any other course is highly unlikely. See Neal v. State, 628 P.2d 19, 21 (Alaska 1981) (dispensing with specific fact findings under similar circumstances where established recidivism indicated defendant’s propensity for future criminal conduct).
While the magic words may not have been uttered, it appears to me that the necessary fact findings are implicit. It would appear that findings that would constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an increase in the presumptive term will also justify a parole restriction. See Whitlow v. State, 719 P.2d 267, 269-70 & n. 5 (Alaska App.1986). It would also appear that a finding that the defendant cannot be rehabilitated within the prescribed period would justify parole restriction. See Bloomstrand v. State, 656 P.2d 584, 591 (Alaska App.1982) (parole may be restricted to insure that defendant receives necessary rehabilitation). Here Judge Carlson’s findings satisfy both tests. He found exceptional circumstances and imposed a twenty-year composite sentence. He also implicitly found that Newell will not be rehabilitated within the twenty-year term. By affirming the twenty-year sentence, the majority in effect accepts the first finding and offers no persuasive reason for rejecting the second.
Where a defendant receives a maximum sentence because of the heinousness of his or her offense, but has never been incarcerated for a substantial period of time or been on probation or parole, the record may not support a restriction on parole no matter how bad the defendant’s offense or his psychological prospects. See Gullard, 497 P.2d at 94; Lawrence v. State, 764 P.2d 318, 321-22 (Alaska App.1988); Qualle, 652 P.2d at 486. In this case, however, Newell has served a substantial period of incarceration on more than one occasion. Newell has been in and out of jail during most of the past eighteen years, *879and has been on probation and parole numerous times.4 He has failed every time. Newell was also on parole at the time of his instant offenses. Under the circumstances, the trial court did not err in concluding that Newell’s capacity for parole and probationary supervision has been sufficiently tested and that he should not be paroled or placed on probation in the future.5

. Newell’s plea to a four-count complaint left him vulnerable to maximum consecutive sentences totaling forty years. Judge Carlson gave Newell about one-half of the maximum.

. Newell argues that this sentence is consecutive to time he must serve on prior offenses because of parole or probation revocation. The parties do not appear to know exactly how much additional time is involved and the majority does not consider the issue.

. Sentences in excess of ten years or the maximum sentence for the defendant’s most serious offense must be based on the need for isolation and cannot be justified by considerations of rehabilitation, deterrence of self or others, or reaffirmation of community norms. See DeGross v. State, 768 P.2d 134, 140-141 n. 1 (Alaska App.1989).

. A review of the many presentence reports in this case indicates that beginning in 1970 and continuing through 1987 Newell had been paroled or on mandatory release seven times. He has never cooperated with parole officials and has consistently committed new crimes while on parole. The record supports a finding that Newell cannot function on parole.

. Neither Jackson nor Spencer is inconsistent with this view. Jackson, like Qualle and Lawrence, was a first felony offender. See Jackson, 616 P.2d at 24. Spencer’s criminal record is not set out. Hence his situation may have been the same as Qualle and Lawrence. The majority’s suggestion that a restriction on parole constitutes an inappropriate distrust of the parole board was expressly rejected in Bloomstrand, 656 P.2d at 591.