Morrell v. State

BOOCHEVER, Chief Justice,

dissenting in part.

I believe that the sentence in this case was excessive. The court sentenced Morrell to life imprisonment on the kidnapping charge to run consecutively to the eight ten-year concurrent terms of imprisonment he was sentenced to on the forcible rape convictions and the five-year concurrent term on his conviction of the single count of assault with intent to commit rape. I, in no manner, intend to minimize the atrocious conduct involved in this case nor the seriousness of the crime. Nevertheless, Morrell did release his victim without serious physical harm. Under these circumstances, I do not believe that the total sentence imposed for the incidents involved should exceed life imprisonment.¹ To the extent that the additional sentences were made to run consecutively to the life imprisonment sentence, I believe that the trial judge was clearly mistaken.

1 . AS 33.15.080 specifies in part:

However, no prisoner may be released on parole who has not served at least one-third of the period of confinement to which he has been sentenced, or in the case of a life sentence, has not served at least 15 years.