MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE, Petitioner, v. WAYNE EDWARD BEEZLEY, Respondent.
Court of Appeals No. A-12850
Trial Court No. 3AN-16-2755 CR
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
August 17, 2018
No. 2614
Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, and Allard and Wollenberg, Judges. Judge MANNHEIMER.
NOTICE
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O P I N I O N
Petition for Review from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Douglas Kossler, Judge.
Appearances: Sarah E. Stanley, Assistant Municipal Prosecutor, and William D. Falsey, Municipal Attorney, Anchorage, for the Petitioner. No appearance for the Respondent. Renee McFarland, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for amicus curiae Alaska Public Defender Agency.
The defendant in this case, Wayne Edward Beezley, stands accused of the Anchorage municipal offense of reckless driving.1 Under the Anchorage Municipal Code, a person convicted of reckless driving may be imprisoned for up to 1 year.2 This 1-year maximum penalty was established at a time when the maximum penalty provided for class A misdemeanors under state law was also 1 year‘s imprisonment. See the pre-2016 version of
But in 2016, the Alaska legislature modified
met, then the maximum sentence for a class A misdemeanor is 30 days’ imprisonment. See
In essence, the legislature created a presumptive sentencing ceiling of 30 days’ imprisonment for most class A misdemeanors — a ceiling that cannot be exceeded unless the State proves one of the factors listed in subsection (a)(1) of the statute.
Even though the municipal offense of reckless driving is not a “class A misdemeanor“, the district court ruled that the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling codified in
The Municipality has petitioned us to review and reverse the district court‘s ruling. When Beezley‘s court-appointed attorneys, the Denali Law Group, filed no response to the Municipality‘s petition, we invited the Alaska Public Defender Agency to enter this case as an amicus curiae to argue Beezley‘s position. And because the district court‘s rationale apparently applies to State prosecutions for reckless driving under
For the reasons explained in this opinion, we agree with the district court that the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling established in
A more detailed examination of the legal background of this case
As we explained earlier, the legislature has amended
The problem in Beezley‘s case arises from the fact that
All of the misdemeanor offenses defined in our state‘s criminal code (Title 11 of the statutes) are explicitly designated as either class A or class B misdemeanors, so the application of
But there are other misdemeanor offenses defined in titles other than Title 11, and (as we are about to explain) many of these misdemeanors are neither class A nor class B. Instead, they are non-classified.
There is a provision of the criminal code,
But
a specified penalty — because Title 28 contains a general provision,
See also
Similarly, Title 09 of the Anchorage Municipal Code contains numerous offenses which carry penalties of up to 1 year‘s imprisonment, but which are not designated as either class A or class B misdemeanors. These municipal misdemeanors are likewise non-classified.
The defendant in this case, Wayne Edward Beezley, is accused of one such municipal misdemeanor: the municipal offense of reckless driving.5
The relationship between the penalty for the state offense of reckless driving and the penalty for the municipal offense of reckless driving
In Alaska, home rule municipalities such as the Municipality of Anchorage are authorized
of Anchorage have each enacted provisions that prohibit reckless driving:
However,
Because of these statutes, a municipality may not enact penalty provisions for traffic offenses that exceed the penalties for the corresponding state traffic offenses (unless the Alaska legislature has otherwise expressly authorized the deviation).
In its brief to this Court, the Municipality of Anchorage assumes that the state offense of reckless driving and the municipal offense of reckless driving are equally governed — or equally not governed — by the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling codified in
We take the Municipality‘s briefing of this issue as an acknowledgement that if the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling codified in
Why we conclude that the presumptive sentencing ceiling established in AS 12.55.135(a) applies to the non-classified misdemeanor of reckless driving
Even though the language of
The 2016 amendment to
More specifically, the Public Defender Agency points out that Senate Bill 91 was the product of recommendations issued by the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission.8 The Commission found, based on prison population data for the preceding decade, that “incarceration [was no] more effective at reducing recidivism than
non-custodial sanctions” — that, indeed, for low-level offenders, sending them to prison seemingly increased the rate of recidivism.9
Based on these findings, the Commission issued several recommendations whose purpose was to try to ensure that Alaska‘s prison space was reserved mainly for violent and other serious offenders.10 One way to accomplish
But in the discussions surrounding
Even though this legislative history indicates that the legislature failed to expressly consider the non-classified misdemeanors codified in other titles of the Alaska statutes, the Public Defender Agency argues that the legislature‘s purpose in revising
This may all be true, but it is no easy task to map
But to resolve Beezley‘s case, the only issue we need to decide is whether the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling applies to the non-classified offense of reckless driving.
As defined in
In contrast, several class A misdemeanors require proof of actual injury to persons or damage to property.14 It is questionable whether the legislature would impose a presumptive 30-day ceiling on the sentences for these class A misdemeanors while, at the same time, deciding to allow unrestricted sentencing of up to 1 year‘s imprisonment for an act of recklessness that does not result in injury or property damage.
In this same vein, we note that the class A misdemeanor offense of driving under the influence,
Because misdemeanor driving under the influence is expressly designated as a class A misdemeanor,16 it is subject to the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling codified in
In analogous circumstances, where the literal wording of sentencing statutes would lead to illogical discrepancies between the sentence for a more serious crime and the sentence for a less serious one, this Court has interpreted the sentencing statutes in a manner that eliminates the sentencing incongruity. For example, in Pruett v. State, 742 P.2d 257 (Alaska App. 1987), this Court reconciled sentencing statutes which imposed a 5-year presumptive term of imprisonment for manslaughter but which imposed a greater punishment (a 7-year presumptive term) for the less serious crime of first-degree assault (i.e., inflicting serious physical injury). We held that sentencing for first-degree assault had to be governed by the same 5-year presumptive term that applied to manslaughter.18
Likewise, in Smith v. State, 28 P.3d 323 (Alaska App. 2001), this Court reconciled sentencing statutes which imposed a 5-year presumptive term of imprisonment for manslaughter but which imposed a greater presumptive term (7 years) for the less serious offense of first-degree weapons misconduct — i.e., discharging a firearm from a moving vehicle, even if the discharge did not injure anyone. Again, we held that the presumptive term of imprisonment for the less serious offense could not exceed 5 years.19
As in Pruett and Smith, we conclude that the legislature could not have intended to create the sentencing discrepancy that would exist if the 30-day presumptive sentencing ceiling applied to driving under the influence but did not apply to reckless driving.
We therefore conclude that the presumptive 30-day sentencing ceiling codified in
The decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Notes
- the conviction is for a crime with a mandatory minimum term of 30 days or more of active imprisonment;
- the trier of fact finds the aggravating factor that the conduct constituting the offense was among the most serious conduct included in the definition of the offense;
- the defendant has past criminal convictions for conduct violative of criminal laws ... similar in nature to the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced;
- the conviction is for an assault in the fourth degree under
AS 11.41.230 ; or - the conviction is for a violation of (i)
AS 11.41.427 , or (ii)AS 11.41.440 , or (iii)AS 11.41.460 , if the indecent exposure is before a person under 16 years of age, or (iv)AS 11.61.116(c)(2) , or (v)AS 11.61.118(a)(2) .