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Ipalook v. State6/30/1999
4070 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. 4070
Appeal from the Superior Court, Second Judicial District, Barrow, Michael I. Jeffery, Judge.
James B. Ipalook pled no contest to two class C felonies from two separate cases: one count of felony driving while intoxicated and one count of third-degree assault. Superior Court Judge Michael I. Jeffery imposed a composite 7-year term with 2 years suspended. Ipalook argues that his sentence is excessive. Because we conclude that Ipalook's sentence is not clearly mistaken, we affirm.
Facts and proceedings
On July 24, 1997, someone called the North Slope Borough Police to report that Ipalook was driving a pickup truck while intoxicated. Officer Mohn responded to the call and found Ipalook stumbling away from a stopped truck. Officer Mohn contacted Ipalook. Ipalook stated that he was stoned from smoking marijuana. Officer Mohn told Ipalook he was under arrest for driving while intoxicated. Ipalook attempted to flee and struggled with Officer Mohn until Mohn sprayed Ipalook with pepper spray.
Because Ipalook had two prior DWI convictions in the previous five years, the State charged Ipalook with felony driving while intoxicated. The State also charged Ipalook with resisting arrest and driving while license revoked. The court released Ipalook on bail conditions the next day, July 25.
On July 26, 1997, Eileen Simmonds called the North Slope Borough Police for help because Ipalook was at her home violating a domestic violence restraining order. Police officers went to her home and found Ipalook hiding under a couch. The officers told Ipalook he was under arrest for violating the restraining order. When the officers tried to handcuff Ipalook, he escaped from their grasp, grabbed a hunting knife, and raised it at the officers. The officers drew their handguns. After a stand-off of almost half an hour, the officers managed to take Ipalook into custody. Ipalook had been drinking. For his misconduct on July 26, the State charged Ipalook with first-degree stalking, violation of a domestic violence restraining order, and third-degree assault.
Ipalook pled no contest to the driving while intoxicated charge and the third-degree assault charge. The State dismissed all the other counts.
Although Ipalook's criminal record included a conviction for third-degree sexual assault, a felony, the conviction was too old to trigger presumptive sentencing on his current class C felony convictions. Besides the prior sexual-assault felony and the two misdemeanor DWI charges that were predicate convictions for felony DWI, Ipalook had a record of misdemeanor convictions that began in 1975 and included seven assaults, three charges of disorderly conduct, three charges of criminal trespass, two charges of joyriding, and one charge each for malicious destruction of property, unauthorized entry, reckless driving, and a local option alcohol offense. Ipalook also had his probation revoked multiple times in the prior felony case, and committed many of his other crimes while on probation for earlier charges.
The State gave notice that the court could consider statutory aggravating factor (c)(8) when sentencing for the felony DWI. Because no notice had been given that (c)(8) could apply to Ipalook's sentence on
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