Court Opinion

ID: 9550359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:34:30.134488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:26.550193
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I am convinced that the fact that there were two rather than three victims made absolutely no difference in the court’s sentence as to Count I. Thus, I see no need for reconsideration of the sentence on that ground.
With regard to the double jeopardy issue, rather than ordering Byrdsong’s name “deleted from Count I,” I think that we should order the superior court to simply impose a single sentence, geared to the more serious offense as we said should be done in such cases in Whitton v. State, 479 P.2d 302, 312 (Alaska 1970). The result may be the same, but I think the two approaches are conceptually different.
Next, I have grave reservations about the majority’s holding that the ten year minimum sentence called for by AS 11.15.295 should be reduced by one-half in the case of an attempted armed robbery. It is extremely difficult for me to believe that the legislature actually intended, in enacting that section, to treat differently the “successful” armed robber and the one who found himself unable to complete the offense because the pockets of his intended victim happened to be empty, or because *20some other factor prevented his commission of all of its essential elements. I am more inclined to think that the legislature probably intended the phrase “during the commission of a robbery” to include both completed and incompleted, i. e., attempted robberies. If that was indeed the case, however, the legislature left its intent hopelessly unclear when it then failed to reconcile the conflict that arose between the new section, AS 11.15.295, and AS 11.15.240 as modified by AS 11.05.020. For this reason, like my colleague Justice Matthews, I think the more sensible approach is to construe AS 11.15.295 as not applying to an attempted robbery, and I join in his criticism of the majority’s contrary construction.
I share also the other views expressed by MATTHEWS, J. Otherwise, I concur in the majority opinion.