Court Opinion

ID: 9528173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:38:00.090407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:18.577525
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
joined by RABIN-OWITZ, Chief Justice, dissenting in part.
I concur in the opinion of the majority, except with respect to the sentence. As to that, I agree that appellant should be sentenced to not more than twenty years for kidnapping, ten years for rape, and ten years for each armed robbery count, but I believe all of these sentences should be served concurrently. I reach this conclusion in light of the appellant’s youth, his prior record, and the fact that as crimes of this nature go, this was not a particularly brutal one and it apparently resulted in no permanent physical harm to the victim.1

. Contrast Helmer v. State, 616 P.2d 884 (Alaska 1980) a rape, assault with intent to kill and burglary in a dwelling conviction in which this court reduced a sentence from 30 to 25 years, even though the youthful assailant there intended to kill his victim and inflicted serious and permanent injuries on her, with Ahvik v. State, 613 P.2d 1252 (Alaska 1980) in which this court, in a three-to-two decision, reduced the sentence of another youthful rapist from five years to five.years with two years suspended where the victim was not physically harmed. Drawing on our most recent sentence appeal decisions, the present case seems factually most similar to Lacy v. State, 608 P.2d 19 (Alaska 1980) in which we affirmed a fifteen year sentence for rape, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, and petty larceny.