Ray v. State

Full title: Earl N. RAY, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee

Court: Court of Appeals of Alaska

Date published: Sep 16, 2011

262 P.3d 234 (Alaska Ct. App. 2011)

Opinion

No. A–10565.

2011-09-16

Earl N. RAY, Appellant,v.STATE of Alaska, Appellee.

Kelly R. Taylor, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

Before: COATS, Chief Judge, and MANNHEIMER and BOLGER, Judges.

Kelly R. Taylor, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.Mary A. Gilson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

OPINION

MANNHEIMER, Judge.

In October 1995, Earl N. Ray was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual assault and one count of second-degree sexual assault. These convictions stemmed from a criminal episode that occurred in May 1994—approximately three months before Alaska's Sex Offender Registration Act, AS 12.63, took effect. (The Act took effect on August 10, 1994.)

Ray served thirteen years in prison, and then he was released on probation in September 2007. Fifteen months later, the State filed a petition to revoke Ray's probation, alleging that he violated the conditions of his probation by contacting a member of the victim's family.

Superior Court Judge Beverly J. Cutler ultimately found that Ray had violated the conditions of his probation. She sentenced Ray to serve 1 year of his previously suspended jail time, and she further ordered that when Ray was released to probation again (after serving the year in prison), he would have to register as a sex offender under AS 12.63 during the remainder of his term of probation.

Ray now appeals the portion of the superior court's order requiring him to register as a sex offender.

During her remarks at Ray's probation revocation sentencing hearing, Judge Cutler acknowledged that sex offender registration was not “mandatory” for Ray's offenses, but the judge suggested that she nevertheless had the discretion to require Ray to register as a sex offender as one of the conditions of his probation. The State now concedes that this was wrong.