Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10542 Trial Court No. 3HO-06-050 Cr No. 5803
02-15-2012
ALEXANDRA D. LAURITSEN, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: David D. Reineke, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Jean E. Seaton, Assistant District Attorney, Sitka, and John J. Burns, 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.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Homer, Margaret L. Murphy, Judge.
Appearances: David D. Reineke, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Jean E. Seaton, Assistant District Attorney, Sitka, and John J. Burns, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
MANNHEIMER, Judge.
Alexandra D. Lauritsen appeals her conviction for felony refusal to submit to a breath test after she was arrested for driving under the influence. Lauritsen argues that the evidence presented at her trial was insufficient to support a guilty verdict.
AS 28.35.032(a).
At trial, Lauritsen conceded that she refused to take the breath test, but she testified that she refused the test because of her belief that the police officer administering the test was a "crooked cop" who would falsify the results in order to secure her conviction for DUI. Lauritsen asserts that, because of her belief that the test administrator was dishonest, the State failed to establish one element of the offense of breath-test refusal: the requirement that the person declining the test acted with knowledge that the test was "intended to produce material evidence" pertaining to the charge of driving under the influence. See Svedlund v. Anchorage, 671 P.2d 378, 385 (Alaska App. 1983).
Even assuming that Lauritsen declined the breath test based on a sincere belief that the officer was going to dishonestly manipulate the test results, Lauritsen's belief, and her act of refusing the test, would still be consistent with a finding that Lauritsen understood the purpose of the test — i.e., understood that it was intended to produce evidence relevant to the question of whether she was under the influence.
Indeed, Lauritsen's decision to refuse the test is seemingly premised on her knowledge that the test was intended to produce material evidence. Lauritsen's proclaimed motive for refusing the test was her fear that the officer would falsely inflate the test result, and that the result would later be used against her in the DUI prosecution. This means that Lauritsen did understand the purpose and significance of the test — even though she may have distrusted the test administrator. Lauritsen was legally obligated to take the breath test, but she had a right to seek an independent chemical test if she distrusted the police-administered breath test. (Lauritsen was offered an independent test, but she declined it.)
Accordingly, even if we viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to Lauritsen, the evidence is sufficient to support her conviction for breath-test refusal. But we are required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to upholding the jury's verdict. Viewing the evidence in that light, a reasonable jury could have found that Lauritsen's proclaimed motive for refusing the test was not credible.
(We note that the State presented evidence that Lauritsen had refused the breath test on a prior occasion, and that she was ultimately acquitted of the related DUI charge. In the present case, the prosecutor argued to the jury that, based on her earlier experience, Lauritsen made a strategic decision to refuse the breath test: "[This strategy] worked for her once. Why not again?")
For all of these reasons, the judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED.