Riley v. StateRiley v. State
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Bryner
OPINION
Before BRYNER, C.J., and COATS and SINGLETON, JJ. BRYNER, Chief Judge.
Tаmara Lynn Riley was convicted, after a jury trial, of murder in the first degree, in violation of
Riley and two other individuals, Ricky Eason and Harry Lewis, were convicted for the murder of Riley’s husband, Leon Riley, Jr. The evidence at Riley’s trial indicated that, in February 1984, Riley became employed as а dancer at PJ.’s, an Anchorage nightclub. There, she met Eason and Lewis. Riley became romantically involved with Eason. Apparently desiring to pursue her affair with Eason without interference
At the time of the murder, Tamara Riley was eighteen years of age. She had no record of criminal misconduct, either as an adult or as a minor. Riley had been married for less than a year before deciding to kill her husband. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Riley’s husband had ever been abusive toward her or that she would have had any cause for fеar had she attempted to obtain a legal separation from him.
In arguing that the ninety-nine year term she received is excessive, Riley urges this court to establish a benchmark sentence of sixty years’ imprisonment for first-degree murder. Riley relies on Page v. State, 657 P.2d 850 (Alaska Apр.1983), where we indicated that a sentencing range of twenty to thirty years was an appropriate benchmark for cases of murder in the second degree.
The benchmark for sentencing adopted in Page, however, was based on our survey of prior sentence appeals and was reflectivе of sentences previously imposed and approved in typical cases of murder in the second degree. No similar sеntencing pattern would justify adoption of Riley’s proposed sixty-year benchmark for first-degree murder. To the contrary, Alaska сases have consistently approved the imposition of maximum sentences for the offense. 1 Indeed, we are awarе of no decision of this court or of the Alaska Supreme Court holding a maximum sentence for first-degree murder to be excessive.
Certainly, this does not mean that a sentence below the legal maximum would be inappropriate in every case of first-degree murder or that a maximum sentence could never be considered excessive for the offense. Nor does it mean thаt, in such cases, the sentencing court is free to disregard the obligation to base its sentence on a careful assessment of all applicable sentencing criteria.
See State v. Chaney, 477
P.2d 441, 443-44 (Alaska 1970). While the inherent seriousness of the offense will almost invariably require that the goals of isolation of the offender, general deter
In the present case, however, the sentencing court did not fail to consider these goals. In imposing sentence, Judge Moody apparently accepted the state’s view that Riley in effect manipulated Eason and Lewis to assure that they would commit the murder of her husband. The murder was not a crime of passion. Rather, it was a deliberate, dispassionate killing carried out for substantial pecuniary gain. Prior to sentencing, Riley displayed little insight into the enormity of her crime and expressed little remorse or regret, except to the extent that she was able to recognize that being caught for the offense disrupted her own life. There is little, if any, information in the sentencing rеcord to indicate that rehabilitation is a realistic prospect for Riley in the foreseeable future.
In light of these factors, Judge Moody expressly found that Riley was among the worst offenders in her class and that she posed serious danger to the cоmmunity. For these reasons, Judge Moody imposed a maximum sentence of ninety-nine years’ imprisonment, despite Riley’s youth and her lack of prior criminal convictions. Having independently reviewed the entire sentencing record, we conclude that the sentence imposed by Judge Moody is not clearly mistaken. McClain v. State, 519 P.2d 811, 813-14 (Alaska 1974).
The sentence is AFFIRMED.
Notes
. See, e.g., Nukapigak v. State, 663 P.2d 943, 946 (Alaska 1983); Brown v. State, 601 P.2d 221, 235 (Alaska 1979); Vail v. State, 599 P.2d 1371, 1382 (Alaska 1979); Wilson v. State, 582 P.2d 154, 157 (Alaska 1978); Morgan v. State, 582 P.2d 1017, 1029-30 (Alaska 1978); Krukoff v. State, 702 P.2d 664, 666 (Alaska App.1985); Bangs v. State, 663 P.2d 981, 987 (Alaska App.1983); Williams v. State, 655 P.2d 779, 782 (Alaska App.1982); Hoover v. State, 641 P.2d 1263, 1264 (Alaska App.1982).
We recognize that the current first-degree murder statute does not require “deliberate and premeditated malice” and is therefore considerably broader than the first-degree murder statute that was in effect prior to the adoption of the Revised Alaska Criminal Code.
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