Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11353 Court of Appeals No. A-11354 No. 613
01-07-2015
JOAN MOLLY ALSTROM, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Jane B. Martinez, Law Office of Jane B. Martinez, LLC, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Donald Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Michael C. Geraghty, 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 Nos. 3AN-02-5514 CR & 3AN-11-967 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Jack W. Smith, Judge. Appearances: Jane B. Martinez, Law Office of Jane B. Martinez, LLC, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Donald Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Michael C. Geraghty, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Hanley, District Court Judge. JUDGE ALLARD.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Following a jury trial, Joan Molly Alstrom was convicted of felony driving under the influence based on eyewitness testimony that she had been driving while intoxicated, her poor performance on field sobriety tests, and a Datamaster breath test result of .248.
On appeal, Alstrom argues that this evidence was legally insufficient to support her conviction because there were various reasons why the jury should have distrusted the Datamaster results and concluded that Alstrom was not under the influence. But Alstrom's arguments view the evidence in the light most favorable to her, rather than in the light most favorable to upholding the verdict as the law requires. Because the State's evidence was legally sufficient, we affirm Alstrom's conviction.
See Iyapana v. State, 284 P.3d 841, 848-49 (Alaska App. 2012).
At the time Alstrom committed the felony driving under the influence offense, she was already on probation for first-degree assault and driving under the influence. The superior court subsequently revoked her probation in that earlier case and imposed 11 months of the almost 4 years of Alstrom's remaining suspended time.
On appeal, Alstrom argues that the 11-month sentence is excessive, pointing out that the prosecutor only requested 3 months for the probation revocation. Having independently reviewed the record of Alstrom's sentencing, we conclude that the 11-month sentence on the probation revocation is not clearly mistaken given the seriousness of the underlying offense, Alstrom's various failures on probation, and her long history of alcohol abuse.
See McClain v. State, 519 P.2d 811, 813-14 (Alaska 1974).
--------
We AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.