Summary
noting that the focus of the "least serious" mitigator is on the defendant's specific conduct in the current case, but the defendant's past criminal history may nevertheless be relevant to the extent it sheds light on the defendant's motivations or mental state
Summary of this case from Yagie v. StateOpinion
Court of Appeals No. A-11175 No. 6164
03-25-2015
STEVEN E. DILTS JR., Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Marjorie Mock, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Diane L. Wendlandt, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal 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 No. 1KE-10-985 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, First Judicial District, Ketchikan, Trevor Stephens, Judge. Appearances: Marjorie Mock, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Diane L. Wendlandt, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal 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, Steven E. Dilts Jr. was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and first-degree sexual abuse of a minor for digitally penetrating his fourteen-year-old stepdaughter. At sentencing, the superior court merged the two counts and sentenced Dilts to 25 years of imprisonment with 5 years suspended.
Dilts appeals his convictions and his sentence. Dilts argues first that the superior court erred when it admitted various statements that Dilts made to the police. He argues that these statements were so drunkenly nonsensical that they had little probative value and significant potential to confuse and mislead the jury. For the reasons explained here, we conclude that the superior court did not abuse its discretion in admitting these statements.
Dilts next argues that the superior court erred in rejecting his proposed mitigating factor under AS 12.55.155(d)(9) — that his conduct was "among the least serious included in the definition of the offense." We conclude that the superior court properly rejected Dilts's proposed mitigator, given the facts of his case and the arguments he made below.
Lastly, Dilts argues that the superior court erred in failing to refer his case to the statewide three-judge senencing panel on the ground that the low end of the applicable presumptive range, 20 years to serve, was manifestly unjust. We conclude that the court's decision to sentence Dilts within the applicable presumptive range was not clearly mistaken.
Facts and prior proceedings
In the early morning hours of December 12, 2011, after an evening of drinking, Steven Dilts and his wife Kelly Dilts returned to the home they shared with Kelly's fourteen-year-old daughter, S.A., and the couple's two young sons. When they arrived home, Dilts stayed outside with a neighbor and continued to drink. Kelly went inside, checked on the children, and then fell asleep before Dilts came inside.
Shortly thereafter, S.A., who had fallen asleep on the living room couch that evening, awoke to find Dilts stretched out next to her with his body weight partially on top of her. Her pajama pants and underwear were pulled down, and she felt Dilts's finger inside her vagina. S.A. managed to move out from under Dilts, ran to her room, and texted Kelly, her mother.
Kelly woke when Dilts came into the bedroom and nudged her. At the same time, she heard her phone vibrate with a text message from S.A. After reading the text message, Kelly went to S.A.'s bedroom to talk to her and then called the police. The police arrived shortly thereafter and interviewed Kelly, S.A., and Dilts, who was very intoxicated. The interviews with S.A. and Dilts were recorded.
Dilts was arrested and later indicted on one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of first-degree sexual assault.
AS 11.41.434(a)(2).
AS 11.41.410(a)(1).
At Dilts's first trial, Dilts's drunken statements to the police were played for the jury with minor redactions. The prosecutor initially argued that some of the statements — references to getting "caught up with the thirteen-year-old" — were admissions to the sexual abuse. However, after it became clear from other trial testimony that Dilts's statements about getting "caught up" were references to Dilts's child-support payments for his thirteen-year-old biological daughter, the prosecutor partially abandoned his inculpatory interpretation and largely conceded that Dilts's statements referenced the child-support payments.
The jury in Dilts's first trial was unable to reach a verdict on either of the counts, and the trial ended in a mistrial.
At Dilts's second trial, Dilts objected to the admission of his statements about being "caught up with the thirteen-year-old." He argued that, because these statements referred to his child-support obligations, the statements were irrelevant to the State's case and could be misunderstood by the jury to refer to some kind of sexual impropriety. In response, the prosecutor argued that the statements were relevant to show how drunk Dilts was that night and to provide context for Dilts's other statements to the police. The prosecutor also stated that he had no intention of arguing that the "getting caught up" statements referred to anything other than Dilts's obligation to pay child-support.
The superior court concluded that Dilts's statements about being "caught up with the thirteen-year-old" were relevant to the State's case and not unfairly prejudicial. Dilts then requested that the jury be instructed that the statements referred only to his child-support obligations. The court denied this request.
The jury convicted Dilts of both charges at his second trial. The jury also separately found statutory aggravating factor AS 12.55.155(c)(18)(A) — that the offense was committed against a member of the same social unit as the defendant. At sentencing, the superior court merged the sexual assault conviction with the sexual abuse of a minor conviction.
Prior to sentencing, Dilts filed two proposed statutory mitigating factors — AS 12.55.155(d)(9) (conduct among the least serious within the definition of the offense) and AS 12.55.155(d)(12) (harm caused by past and currently charged conduct consistently minor and inconsistent with a substantial period of imprisonment). Dilts also asked the court to refer his case to the statewide three-judge sentencing panel on the grounds that (1) he had extraordinary potential for rehabilitation and (2) manifest injustice would result if he was sentenced within the presumptive range of imprisonment.
Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens rejected Dilts's proposed mitigators. The judge ruled that Dilts's conduct in sexually abusing his stepdaughter, over whom he had assumed a parental role, was not among the least serious conduct included in the definition of the offense. The judge also ruled that Dilts's prior criminal history — which consisted of twenty-two misdemeanor convictions, including five misdemeanor assaults — did not qualify as "consistently minor."
The court also found that Dilts had failed to prove that he had extraordinary potential for rehabilitation or that sentencing him to a term within the applicable presumptive range would be manifestly unjust.
After making these findings, the court sentenced Dilts to 25 years of imprisonment with 5 years suspended, 20 years to serve, a sentence within the applicable presumptive range of 20 to 30 years.
AS 12.55.125(i)(1)(A)(ii).
Did the superior court abuse its discretion when it allowed the prosecutor to introduce Dilts's statements about getting "caught up with the thirteen-year-old"?
On appeal, Dilts argues that the superior court erred in allowing the prosecutor to introduce his statements about being "caught up with the thirteen-year-old." He asserts that these statements were of marginal relevance and had the potential for misleading or confusing the jury. Dilts also argues that the prosecutor mischaracterized the statements during his summation to the jury by unfairly arguing that they represented admissions of guilt.
See Alaska R. Evid. 403.
We have listened to the prosecutor's closing argument, and we disagree that the prosecutor mischaracterized the statements to the jury. In his closing argument, the prosecutor was clear that the "caught up" statements referred to Dilts's child-support obligations and that it was Dilts's other statements to the police that showed consciousness of guilt — in particular, his comment that it was up to the police and S.A. and her mother to decide what would happen next.
Given that there was never any argument or suggestion to the jury that the "caught up" statements should be understood as anything other than referring to Dilts's child-support payments, we find no merit to Dilts's claim that the statements should have been excluded as more unfairly prejudicial than probative.
Did the superior court err in rejecting Dilts's proposed statutory mitigating factor that his conduct was among the least serious included in the definition of the offense?
At sentencing, Dilts argued that his conduct was among the least serious included in the definition of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor because his conduct was fueled by alcohol, limited to digital penetration, and lasted only a few moments. The superior court rejected this proposed mitigator, finding that Dilts had not shown that his conduct was in any way atypical for this type of offense. The court emphasized that Dilts's conduct was aggravated by the fact that he lived with the victim and had assumed a parental role over her for the preceding five years.
We review a sentencing court's rejection of a statutory mitigating factor de novo. Having reviewed the record in this case, we agree with the superior court that Dilts failed to meet his burden of showing that his conduct fell outside the broad range of typical conduct for this type of offense.
See Michael v. State, 115 P.3d 517, 519 (Alaska 2005).
See State v. Parker, 147 P.3d 690, 695 (Alaska 2006).
On appeal, Dilts argues that the superior court improperly focused on his prior criminal history and poor prospects for rehabilitation in rejecting the "least serious conduct mitigator." We agree with Dilts that the focus of the "least serious conduct mitigator" is the defendant's specific conduct in the case being prosecuted, not the defendant's larger criminal history. But the defendant's criminal history can never-theless be relevant to this mitigator to the extent that it sheds light on the defendant's motivations or culpable mental state.
Here, the superior court focused on Dilts's prior criminal record and ongoing substance abuse issues for a limited, and proper, purpose: to evaluate his claim that his conduct was unplanned and solely the result of alcohol.
Did the superior court err in denying Dilts's request to send his case to the three-judge panel?
Dilts argued below that his case should be sent to the three-judge panel based both on the non-statutory mitigating factor of extraordinary potential for rehabilitation and because a sentence within the presumptive range would be manifestly unjust. The superior court concluded that Dilts did not have extraordinary potential for rehabilitation, finding that Dilts had a significant history of alcohol abuse and criminal offenses, and that he had presented no evidence to suggest that he was capable of overcoming his alcohol problem. The superior court rejected Dilts's claim of manifest injustice for similar reasons, and noted that Dilts's arguments were primarily an attack on the legislative determination of the appropriate presumptive range for this type of offense. The court also emphasized the particularly detrimental impact on S.A. of having her stepfather abuse her trust.
On appeal, Dilts does not argue that the superior court erred in rejecting his other proffered ground for referral to the three-judge panel, AS 12.55.165(a) — the non-statutory mitigating factor of extraordinary potential for rehabilitation.
On appeal, Dilts renews his argument that a sentence of 20 years to serve is manifestly unjust in his case. Having independently reviewed the sentencing record in this case, we conclude that the judge's decision to sentence Dilts within the applicable presumptive range was not clearly mistaken.
See Knipe v. State, 305 P.3d 359, 363 (Alaska App. 2013).
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Conclusion
We AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.