Court Opinion

ID: 9793620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:50:42.588681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:14.656711
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
filing a separate opinion in which CONNOR, Justice, joining.
I agree with the opinion of the Chief Justice concerning the search, and with much of the opinion concerning the sentence. However, I believe that the sentence is excessive.
This court noted in Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494 (Alaska 1975), that marijuana is a relatively harmless substance, “far more innocuous in terms of physiological and social damage than alcohol or tobacco,” Id. at 506, and held that an adult has a constitutional right to consume it at home. Of the four categories of drug offenses first identified in Waters v. State, 483 P.2d 199, 201 (Alaska 1971), marijuana offenses are the “most innocuous”, Salazar v. State, 562 P.2d 694, 696 (Alaska 1977), and sentences for them should fall “on the short end of the spectrum.” Id. The categories are, in descending order of gravity:
(1) smuggling or sale of large quantities of narcotics, or possession of large quantities for sale,
(2) smuggling or sale of small quantities of narcotics, or possession of small quantities for sale,
(3) possession of narcotics without intent to sell,
(4) marijuana offenses.1
Following the lead of the American Bar Association, we have often said that five years is the maximum prison term which should be prescribed for all but “particularly serious offenses, dangerous offenders and professional criminals.” 2 Less than a year ago we held that a twice convicted seller of heroin did not fall within the exceptional category which justifies a sentence longer than five years. Huff v. State, 568 P.2d 1014 (Alaska 1977).3 Thus, our recent decisions indicate that the maximum term of imprisonment for the most serious of drug crimes, the sale of heroin, should not exceed five years, except in extraordinary cases. Since marijuana offenses are at the bottom of the drug crime scale, a five year sentence for a first offender cannot be justified. Sustaining this sentence would be a denial of the principle that the sentence should fit the crime.4
I would vacate the sentence as excessive and remand for resentencing.

. We have recently reaffirmed our adherence to this gradation of drug offenses in Huff v. State, 568 P.2d 1014, 1017 (Alaska 1977) and Salazar v. State, 562 P.2d 694, 696 (Alaska 1977).

. Huff v. State, 568 P.2d at 1020; Salazar v. State, 562 P.2d at 697; State v. Trannel, 549 P.2d 550, 552 (Alaska 1976); American Bar Association Standards, Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures, § 2.1(d) (approved draft 1968).

. In Huff we held that the defendant should not receive concurrent sentences of more than four years, even though he had a prior felony record.

.In Hansen v. State, 582 P.2d 1041 (Alaska 1978), we recognized the need to grade down from the American Bar Association five year maximum term.