Court Opinion

ID: 9746827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:39:34.167748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:17.366972
License: Public Domain

COATS, Chief Judge,
concurring.
These cases are governed by prior decisions. When a court revokes a defendant's probation and imposes a sentence, the sentencing court is required to apply the Chaney criteria.1 The sentencing court is to consider the totality of the cireumstances, including the defendant's original offense, the nature of his violation of probation, and his intervening conduct while on probation.2 Furthermore, in Betzner v. State,3 we specifically rejected the argument that violating an important aspect of a plea agreement-in that case an agreement to testify for the State-"automatically justified imposition of the full suspended term." 4
In a related line of cases, we have held that a defendant may refuse probation.5 In State v. Auliye,6 we stated that "probation is a contract, and because this contract allows a judge to control a defendant's life in ways that the defendant may deem more burdensome than normal eriminal penalties, a defendant is free to refuse probation and to insist *852on a normal sentence."7 When a defendant refuses probation he "does not thereby forfeit the right to a sentence that is reasonable under the totality of the cireumstances of the case.8 In sentencing a defendant who rejects probation, the court is required to impose a sentence that comports with the Chaney sentencing criteria.9
Against the background of this case law, it is clear that Judges Bauman and Huguelet did exactly what the law required them to do: When Henry and Fulton rejected probation, the judges imposed a sentence based on the Chaney criteria. They properly concluded that the suspended sentences agreed to in the defendants' plea agreements were not controlling.
The State argues that the sentences are illegal because they violate the defendants' plea agreements. But the parties entered into those agreements with an understanding of our prior case law. And that case law has consistently held that when a defendant violates probation, the sentencing court imposes a sentence in accordance with the Chaney criteria.
The State also argues that it made important concessions to the defendants in return for their plea agreements, and that the sentencing courts therefore had no authority to eliminate any portion of the agreed-upon suspended sentences. But at sentencing, the State had the opportunity to point out the seriousness of the defendants' conduct, including the conduct underlying any charges the State dismissed as part of the plea agreements. And the sentencing courts were authorized to take this conduct fully into consideration in determining an appropriate sentence at the revocation hearing.
The State has not argued that the judges imposed sentences which were not a reasonable application of the Chaney criteria. Because I fail to see why a sentencing court should be required to impose a sentence greater than what the court concludes is necessary under the standard sentencing criteria, I concur in this court's decision.

. State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441, 443-44 (Alaska 1970); DeMario v. State, 933 P.2d 558, 562 (Alaska App.1997); Toney v. State, 785 P.2d 902, 903 (Alaska App.1990); Betzner v. State, 768 P.2d 1150, 1155-56 (Alaska App.1989) & 1157-58 (Bryner, C.J., concurring); Luepke v. State, 765 P.2d 988, 990-91 (Alaska App.1988).

. DeMario, 933 P.2d at 562.

. 768 P.2d 1150 (Alaska App.1989).

. Id. at 1155-56.

. Sweezey v. State, 167 P.3d 79, 80 (Alaska App.2007) (citing Brown v. State, 559 P.2d 107, 111 n. 13 (Alaska 1977) (citation omitted)).

. 57 P.3d 711 (Alaska App.2002).

. Id. at 717.

. Bland v. State, 846 P.2d 815, 818 (Alaska App.1993).

. Id.