Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11813 No. 6298
03-02-2016
ROBERT CARL MEEHAN, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Sharon Barr, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. William A. Taylor, Assistant District Attorney, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3AN-12-8849 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Kevin M. Saxby, Judge. Appearances: Sharon Barr, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. William A. Taylor, Assistant District Attorney, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge SUDDOCK.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Robert Carl Meehan stole a truck while intoxicated and then led the police on a high-speed chase. Based on this conduct, Meehan was convicted of first-degree vehicle theft, felony driving under the influence, and failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer. Meehan was ultimately sentenced to a composite term of 11 years with 3 years suspended (8 years to serve).
AS 11.46.360(a)(1); AS 28.35.030(n); and AS 28.35.182(a)(1), (a)(2), respectively. Meehan was also convicted of second-degree theft for stealing the truck, AS 11.46.130(a)(1), but that conviction merged with the first-degree theft conviction for purposes of sentencing.
Meehan argues that this composite sentence is excessive. He acknowledges that the superior court was justified in imposing some additional time in excess of the 5 years to serve he received for his single most serious offense — felony driving under the influence. But he argues that the court was clearly mistaken in imposing an additional 3 years to serve for vehicle theft and felony eluding.
For the reasons explained here, we find no merit to Meehan's claim, and we therefore affirm his sentence.
Facts and proceedings
On the evening of August 26, 2012, Meehan entered an unlocked vehicle owned by Fausto Ortiz. He took a set of keys from the vehicle and used them to steal a different vehicle owned by Ortiz, a truck. The theft was captured on Ortiz's home surveillance system; Ortiz turned over the video of the theft to the police.
At about 4:15 a.m. the following morning, a police officer heard squealing tires and spotted a truck with Ortiz's license plate number. After a backup patrol car arrived, the officer activated his overhead lights and the truck pulled over. The officer then parked in front of the truck and the second patrol car pulled in behind. But when the first officer got out and yelled at the driver to turn off the ignition and show his hands, the driver instead sped away. The officers pursued him as he ran several stop signs and eventually drove into a lane of oncoming traffic at sixty miles per hour. At that point, the officers called off the pursuit as unsafe to the public.
Later that morning, another officer found Ortiz's stolen truck, which had been abandoned. Around the same time, the officer who viewed Ortiz's surveillance video saw the man from the video walking through a nearby residential neighborhood. When the officer approached the man, later identified as Robert Meehan, the officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and observed him to be unsteady. After Meehan failed a horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the officer arrested him and discovered Ortiz's truck key in his pocket. A breath test showed that Meehan had a blood alcohol level of .204 percent, more than twice the legal limit.
See AS 28.35.030(a)(2).
The State charged Meehan with numerous crimes, and he was ultimately convicted of felony DUI, first-degree vehicle theft, and felony failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer.
Following these convictions, but before sentencing, Meehan was convicted of a separate felony DUI based on conduct that occurred before the events in this case. Meehan was sentenced to 5 years with 2 years suspended (3 years to serve) for that previous offense. The State also filed a petition to revoke Meehan's probation in another case. The court ultimately imposed 1 year to serve for this probation violation.
In this case, Meehan faced sentencing on three class C felonies: felony DUI, first-degree vehicle theft, and felony failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer. Meehan faced a presumptive sentencing range of 3 to 5 years for each of those offenses. The court found two statutory aggravating factors: AS 12.55.155(c)(15) (three or more prior felony convictions), and AS 12.55.155(c)(21) (a criminal history that included repeated instances of criminal conduct similar to the offense for which he was sentenced). Meehan proposed no mitigating factors.
AS 28.35.030(n); AS 11.46.360(c); AS 28.35.182(e).
AS 12.55.125(e)(3).
With respect to the felony DUI conviction, the superior court found that Meehan was a worst offender and imposed the maximum sentence of 5 years with no time suspended. The judge concluded that this sentence was justified by the Chaney sentencing goals of community condemnation, deterrence, and protection of the public. The judge emphasized Meehan's "alarming criminal record," which included sixteen prior convictions—including four DUIs—and nine probation revocations. Noting that this was not the first time Meehan had driven a stolen vehicle while intoxicated, the sentencing judge predicted that "it's just a matter of time before someone does die, or is seriously injured as a result of ... intoxication followed by vehicle theft followed by driving."
The court found that Meehan's other two offenses, vehicle theft and failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer, were not worst offenses. The court nevertheless concluded that the primary sentencing goal should be the protection of the public. But because the court also found "some hope for rehabilitation," it suspended a portion of these sentences, imposing 5 years with 2 years suspended for first-degree vehicle theft and 4 years with 1 year suspended for felony failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer. The court made the active terms of imprisonment concurrent to each other but consecutive to the 5-year sentence imposed for felony DUI. Meehan thus received a composite term of 11 years with 3 years suspended — 8 years to serve.
Meehan now appeals his sentence.
Why we conclude that Meehan's sentence is not clearly mistaken
The starting point for analyzing an excessiveness claim regarding a composite sentence is the ceiling the Alaska Supreme Court established in Neal v. State. Under Neal, when a defendant is sentenced for two or more crimes, the defendant's composite sentence may not exceed the maximum term of imprisonment for the defendant's single most serious offense, unless a more severe sentence is justified by the sentencing goals listed in AS 12.55.005.
628 P.2d 19, 21 (Alaska 1981).
Phelps v. State, 236 P.3d 381, 392-93 (Alaska App. 2010) (expanding the sentencing rule in Neal, 628 P.2d at 21); see also State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441, 443-44 (Alaska 1970).
Meehan concedes that the superior court made the necessary findings to justify a composite sentence in excess of the 5 years imposed for his felony DUI. But he argues that the judge was clearly mistaken in imposing so much additional time — 3 years of incarceration — based on his convictions for vehicle theft and failure to stop.
As noted earlier, Meehan faced a presumptive sentencing range of 3 to 5 years for each of these offenses. The superior court imposed the minimum 3-year presumptive term for each offense, to run concurrently to each other. Meehan does not challenge this aspect of his sentence. Instead, he argues that the superior court should have exercised its statutory discretion to make these terms of imprisonment concurrent or partially concurrent, rather than running the 3-year terms fully consecutive to the 5-year sentence he received for felony DUI.
AS 12.55.125(e)(3).
See AS 12.55.127(b).
Meehan offers four reasons why the superior court was clearly mistaken in failing to make the 3-year terms at least partially concurrent to the 5-year DUI sentence: (1) all of his offenses were part of the same criminal episode; (2) only his felony DUI was a worst offense; (3) he had greater rehabilitative prospects than the sentencing court recognized, given his asserted willingness to participate in treatment; and (4) he was already serving a 3-year sentence for his prior felony DUI, and the sentencing judge imposed an additional 1-year sentence for his probation violation.
In assessing a composite sentence for two or more criminal convictions, we must decide "whether the combined sentence is clearly mistaken, given the whole of the defendant's conduct and history." After reviewing the superior court's findings and the sentencing record, we conclude that the combined sentence the court imposed is not clearly mistaken. The superior court could reasonably conclude that Meehan's conduct in stealing a truck and eluding the police, although part of the same criminal episode, violated societal interests sufficiently distinct from his felony DUI to warrant a significant consecutive term of imprisonment—particularly given Meehan's history of committing similar crimes.
Brown v. State, 12 P.3d 201, 210 (Alaska App. 2000).
The fact that the superior court did not find Meehan's vehicle theft and eluding offenses to be "worst offenses" does not change this analysis. As the superior court observed, these offenses were "particularly dangerous in combination with the felony DUI." When two police officers sandwiched the stolen truck between their patrol cars, Meehan recklessly sped off. He ran several stop signs and drove sixty miles per hour in an oncoming lane of traffic, forcing the police to abort the pursuit. As the State points out, if no significant additional jail time were imposed for flagrant eluding, impaired drivers would have less incentive to submit to police authority when ordered to do so.
We also find no merit to Meehan's claim that the superior court placed too little weight on his prospects for rehabilitation. It is the role of sentencing courts to determine the proper priority and weight to place on the Chaney sentencing criteria in a particular case. Here, the sentencing court discounted Meehan's prospects for rehabilitation based primarily on his criminal record. In the fifteen years preceeding Meehan's sentencing in this case, his lengthiest crime-free period lasted from June 30, 2006, to July 26, 2010 — and Meehan served a 3-year flat sentence during those four years. Meehan's criminal record included repeated thefts and DUIs, as well as nine revocations of probation and a parole violation. Meehan was in fact on probation when he committed the offenses in this case, and he was also on bail for a separate charge of felony DUI. He completed a treatment program while he was incarcerated in 2011 but had relapsed.
Asitonia v. State, 508 P.2d 1023, 1026 (Alaska 1973).
Given this record, the superior court was not clearly mistaken in placing greater emphasis on the Chaney sentencing criteria of isolation, deterrence, and community condemnation than on the goal of rehabilitation. As we have previously observed, "the most reliable indicator of future danger is an offender's willingness to reoffend despite previous efforts at deterrence or rehabilitation."
Keyser v. State, 856 P.2d 1170, 1177 (Alaska App. 1993).
Finally, Meehan argues that his sentence is excessive in light of the sentences imposed in two other cases — specifically, the 3-year sentence he was already serving for a felony DUI he committed in 2011, apparently also while driving a stolen vehicle, and a 1-year term the judge separately imposed for a 2010 probation violation. The sentencing record makes clear that the court was aware of the sentences Meehan received in these other cases, and we conclude that the court was not clearly mistaken in imposing the sentence that it did.
See Preston v. State, 583 P.2d 787, 788 (Alaska 1978). --------
Conclusion
We AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.