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Mund v. State2/3/1999
3980 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 for any proposition of law, nor as an example of the proper resolution of any issue.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT
No. 3980
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Eric T. Sanders, Judge.
At about 6 o'clock in the morning of April 20, 1995, Timothy E. Mund drove at high speed down Northern Lights Boulevard, a major Anchorage thoroughfare. He ran several red lights and finally broadsided a truck, injuring the driver.
Immediately after this collision, Mund fled his vehicle and hailed a taxi. The police soon stopped the taxi just a few blocks from the scene of the collision. Mund was taken to a hospital, where his blood was drawn; his blood alcohol level was .21 percent.
Following a jury trial, Mund was convicted of two felonies: third-degree assault, and failure to provide identifying information and render aid after being involved in an injury accident. He was also convicted of four misdemeanors: failure to stop at the scene of an injury accident, driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit to a breath test, and resisting arrest.
Mund had three prior felony convictions, as well as a lengthy record of misdemeanors and traffic offenses stretching back to 1982. For the current offenses, Judge Eric T. Sanders sentenced Mund to a composite term of 5 years, 205 days.
Mund first asserts that the State failed to present any credible evidence that he was the driver of the vehicle. At Mund's trial, the other occupant of the vehicle, Robert Dodge, testified that a third person, named "Cliff" had been driving at the time of the collision. Based on Dodge's testimony, Mund argues that Judge Sanders should have granted his motion for judgment of acquittal on the five charges that required proof of this fact. (Proof that Mund had been driving the car was required for all of the charges except resisting arrest.)
Mund's argument is frivolous. The State presented one witness who observed Mund driving the car just before the collision, three witnesses who observed Mund get out of the car at the scene of the collision, and two more witnesses who heard Mund admit that he had been driving the car. True, Robert Dodge testified at trial that "Cliff", not Mund, had been the driver, but the State presented a witness (a mutual friend of Mund's and Dodge's) who testified that Dodge had earlier admitted that Mund was the driver. This evidence was sufficient to take the case to the jury.
Mund's remaining arguments are all challenges to his sentence.
Mund first argues that his composite sentence is excessive. Because Mund had previously been convicted of three felonies, he was a "third felony offender" for presumptive sentencing purposes and he therefore faced a presumptive term of 3 years' imprisonment for the crime of third-degree assault. Mund's other felony offense - failing to provide identifying information and render aid at the scene of an injury accident - is not a classified felony, but the maximum punishment for this crime is 10 years' imprisonment, making it analogous to a class B felony. We have previously relied upon this analogy when reviewing a defendant's sentence for this crime. Because Mund was a third felony offender, he would have faced a 6-year presumptive term if he had been convicted of a class B felony - a term longer than the 5½-year composite sentence Mu
Page 1 2 Alaska DUI Attorneys
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