Court Opinion

ID: 9789502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:37:12.872228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:22.662695
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Chief Justice,
with whom RABINOWITZ, Justice, joins, dissenting.
I.
The ABA Standards for Criminal Justice state in part: “for most offenses, the maximum prison term authorized ought not to exceed ten years and normally should not exceed five years. Longer sentences should be reserved for particularly serious offenses committed by particularly dangerous offenders_” 3 American Bar Association, Standards for Criminal Justice § 18-2.1(e) (2d ed. 1980). The standards essentially define “dangerousness” in terms of repetitive criminality, requiring that the offender have been previously convicted of two felonies within the last five years and have spent in excess of one year in prison. See id,., § 18-4.4(c). The 10-year benchmark employed by the court of appeals in this case is similar to and, in part, based on the ABA rule.1
This court has long looked to the ABA standards for guidance. Beginning in 1974, we approved the previous ABA recommendation that “except for cases involving particularly serious offenses, dangerous offenders and professional criminals, maximum prison terms ought not to exceed 5 years.” Donlun v. State, 527 P.2d 472, 475 (Alaska 1974) (emphasis in original). We adhered to this recommendation in later cases. See Black v. State, 569 P.2d 804, 805 (Alaska 1977); Salazar v. State, 562 P.2d 694, 697 (Alaska 1977).
After passage of the Revised Criminal Code in 1978, this court continued to look to § 18-2.1(e) for guidance in sentencing. In fact, several times we felt the need to justify the imposition of sentences in excess of the ABA’s five-year recommendation for “normal” cases. See Pascoe v. State, 628 P.2d 547, 550 (Alaska 1980); State v. Graybill, 695 P.2d 725, 730 (Alaska 1985). The standards have continued to be influential with this court on a number of sentencing issues. See, e.g., Pears v. State, 698 P.2d 1198, 1204-05 (Alaska 1985) *969(justification for and length of prison term); Leuch v. State, 633 P.2d 1006, 1010-11 (Alaska 1981) (necessity of confinement). Thus we have relied on the ABA standards in our sentencing decisions before and after revision of the Criminal Code.
In my view, the court of appeals’ 10-year benchmark is salutary. It expresses a sentencing guideline which is supplemental to but not inconsistent with our statutory system of presumptive sentences. It adds structure and meaning to the unquantified list of 26 aggravating factors set out in AS 12.55.155(e). Without guidelines of this nature any one of the 26 statutory factors might be thought sufficient to increase a presumptive sentence to the maximum possible sentence for the offense in question (for example, from 5 years to 20 years to use the range presented by the present case). The Austin rule discussed and approved in the majority opinion and in part II of this dissenting opinion serves the same function.
The goal of Alaska’s presumptive sentencing system is “the elimination of unjustified disparity in sentences and the attainment of reasonable uniformity in sentences.” AS 12.55.005. This goal is furthered by the 10-year benchmark since it sets out with fair specificity when a sentence in excess of 10 years may be warranted.
Further, the objective of our statutory system of appellate review of sentences2 is the regulation of the broad range of sentencing discretion granted to trial judges. DiPietro, The Development of Appellate Sentencing Law in Alaska, 7 Alaska L.Rev. 263, 270 (1990). It was anticipated that this discretion would be curbed not only by review of individual sentences, but by the development of rules which would evolve in the course of individual case adjudication:
Proponents of appellate review argued that appellate judges could regulate trial court discretion in two ways: they could review individual sentences, modifying those found to be excessive or too lenient, and they could in the process articulate standards and guidelines governing the imposition of criminal sanctions.
Id. The 10-year benchmark is a rule which has been articulated in the course of case-by-case adjudication just as the proponents of appellate review of sentencing anticipated. For the majority opinion to conclude, as it does, that the benchmark is unauthorized simply because a higher sentence was within the maximum range permitted by statute is profoundly contrary to the reform contemplated by the legislature when it instituted appellate review of sentences.
For the above reasons, I disagree with today’s majority opinion which eliminates the 10-year benchmark.
II.
As noted, the court of appeals disapproved of the sentence imposed by the trial court on the basis of the 10-year benchmark. There is another guideline which potentially governs this case which the court of appeals did not discuss. This is the so-called “Austin rule,” which provides that: “[njormally a first offender should receive a more favorable sentence than the presumptive sentence for a second offender.” Austin v. State, 627 P.2d 657-58 (Alaska App.1981) (per curiam). The Austin rule, however, does not apply to the “exceptional case.” Id. at 658. Under the Austin rule, Wentz’s sentence could not exceed 10 years since that is the presumptive sentence which a second felony offender would receive for the crime of which Wentz stands convicted.
The court of appeals did not reach the question whether the Austin rule or the “exceptional case” exception applied in this case.3 It seems to me that the majority *970should, taking the view that it has of the 10-year benchmark, remand this case to the court of appeals, with instructions to determine whether this case is governed by Austin or whether it is exceptional. Instead, the majority asserts that “the case before us clearly represents an ‘exceptional’ case” under the Austin rule.
Like my colleagues, I think that this is a serious and tragic case. Unfortunately, our criminal law reports contain a pantheon of serious and tragic cases. Among the class of cases relevant here, first degree assault charges where aggravating factors exist which justify a sentence greater than the five-year presumptive term, it is not clear to me that this case is necessarily exceptional. Serious physical injury is an element of first degree assault, AS 11.41.-200, and at least one aggravating factor, such as vulnerability of the victim, must be present before the sentencing judge can even slightly increase the sentence to one greater than five years. AS 12.55.-125(c)(1).4
The normal division of functions between a final and an intermediate appellate court requires that reasonably arguable questions such as this be answered by the intermediate court in the first instance.5 This is especially true where the answer is one uniquely within the special competence of the intermediate court as is the case here, since the court of appeals reviews hundreds of criminal cases annually while the exposure of this court to the criminal caseload is far more limited.6 Thus the court *971of appeals is better situated than we are to determine whether this case is truly exceptional. On this ground, as well, I disagree with the present opinion.

. The 10-year rule adopted by the court of appeals permits sentences in excess of 10 years more broadly than the ABA standards. Whereas the ABA version seems to provide for an extended sentence only in cases of recidivists, see § 18-2.1(e), the court of appeals’ version provides for such sentences for either recidivists or "those whose conduct involved premeditated attempts to kill or seriously injure.” Pruett v. State, 742 P.2d 257 (Alaska App.1987). Moreover, the court of appeals’ 10-year rule applies only to class A or class B felonies. Thus, for example, it does not limit sentences for first- or second-degree murder. See, e.g., Denbo v. State, 756 P.2d 916, 917 (Alaska App.1988) (affirming 75-year sentence for first-degree murder in case of 21 year old with no previous felony convictions); Adkins v. State, 776 P.2d 1058, 1059 (Alaska App.1989) (affirming sentence exceeding the 20- to 30-year benchmark for second-degree murder established in earlier case).

. Appellate review of sentences was authorized by the legislature in 1969 with the passage of what is now AS 12.55.120.

. Although Wentz did not press hard on the Austin issue before the court of appeals, he did raise the issue. In arguing that his sentence was excessive, Wentz began by showing that his sentence exceeded the presumptive sentence for a second offender and that the Austin rule allowed this only in exceptional cases. He proceeded to argue that his case was comparable to other cases where only 10 years total imprison*970ment was imposed. However, the court of appeals did not address the Austin issue in its opinion, perhaps because its resolution of the 10-year benchmark issue made any decision on the Austin issue unnecessary.

. For cases involving serious physical injury where there was no finding of exceptionality, see Pruett v. State, 742 P.2d 257 (Alaska App.1987) (defendant, whose background included possible involvement in the death of her husband and suborning of perjury, struck an elderly person on a daily basis with a hammer); Rhodes v. State, 717 P.2d 422 (Alaska App.1986) (defendant fractured his infant daughter's skull); cf. Smith v. State, 739 P.2d 1306 (Alaska App.1987) (defendant fled scene of accident in which he negligently caused death of other driver). Cases which were found to be “exceptional" are distinguishable from Wentz: Sweetin v. State, 744 P.2d 424 (Alaska App.1987) (deliberate burning, dropping, and near drowning of infant daughter resulting in, among other things, serious brain damage, blindness, and deafness); Seymore v. State, 655 P.2d 786 (Alaska App.1982) (court placed primary emphasis on former convictions for similar sexual offenses involving the same victim, the defendant’s stepdaughter); Koganaluk v. State, 655 P.2d 339 (Alaska App.1982) (per curiam) (defendant, with two state felony convictions and more recent misdemeanors, violently raped a vulnerable elderly woman in her home); Austin v. State, 627 P.2d 657 (Alaska App.1981) (per curiam) (defendant’s extensive record included many charges which would have been felonies if he had been an adult at the time of the offense).

. See State v. Ridgely, 732 P.2d 550, 551 (Alaska 1987) (remand after reversing court of appeals for consideration of issues left undecided in original opinion); Relational Sys. Int'l Corp. v. Cable, 303 Or. 71, 733 P.2d 1379, 1379-80 (1987) (en banc) (per curiam) (remand necessary after reversing court of appeals where that court had addressed only one of two assignments of error); Lasher v. Mueller Brass Co., 392 Mich. 488, 221 N.W.2d 289, 293 (1974) (remanded to court of appeals to get benefit of its reasoning if subsequent appeal proved necessary); Warren v. Crockett, 211 Tenn. 173, 364 S.W.2d 352, 355 (1962) (remanded to court of appeals where the court was instructed to consider the issues which were presented to it yet not decided because of its initial ruling); Driver v. Worth Construction Co., 154 Tex. 66, 273 S.W.2d 603, 610 (1954) (no jurisdiction to consider issues not ruled on by court of appeals thus requiring remand to that court for consideration). This approach is not uniformly followed. See, e.g., Capitol Brick Inc. v. Fleming Manufacturing Corp., 722 S.W.2d 399, 401-02 (Tex.1986) (where option exists to remand or rule on issue left unresolved by intermediate court, the better practice is to decide the issue).

.As one commentator has stated:
The court of appeals, which has decided well over 1,100 sentence appeals since its creation in 1980, has adopted the role envisioned by the original proponents of appellate review. It routinely reduces excessive sentences to bring them in line with sentences given in comparable cases, and has created an extensive body of case law articulating appropriate sentencing principles, establishing benchmark terms for many classes of offenses, and establishing standards for the extent to which sentences can be increased in aggravated cases. ... By virtue of the volume and completeness of the sentencing law that it has created, the Alaska Court of Appeals is one of the most active sentence review courts in the nation.
*971DiPietro, The Development of Appellate Sentencing Law in Alaska, 7 Alaska L.Rev. 265, 295 (1990).