## Facts

- Donald Scott Chaney and another man picked up a woman in Anchorage, drove around, beat her, forcibly raped her multiple times (the jury found two rapes), and took money from her purse.
- Chaney was indicted on two counts of forcible rape and one count of robbery.
- A jury found Chaney guilty on all three counts.
- The superior court imposed concurrent one-year prison terms on all counts, with parole eligibility left to the parole board’s discretion.
- The State appealed only the sentence as too lenient under AS 12.55.120(b), a statute newly authorizing sentence review; when the state appeals, the court may not increase the sentence but may approve or disapprove it in a written opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether the concurrent one-year sentences, given the violent sexual assaults and robbery, were too lenient under Alaska’s sentencing purposes.
2. What objectives should guide sentencing decisions in Alaska.
3. How an appellate court should conduct sentence review when the state appeals but the court lacks authority to increase the sentence.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court disapproved the sentence as unduly lenient and inadequate to serve accepted purposes of criminal punishment.
- The court did not modify the sentence because AS 12.55.120(b) barred an increase when only the state appeals.
- The court articulated five sentencing objectives: rehabilitation, isolation to protect the public, specific deterrence, general deterrence, and community condemnation to reaffirm societal norms.
- The court concluded that a one-year concurrent term with potential early parole failed to reflect the seriousness of the conduct and risked weakening general deterrence and community condemnation.

## Legal Principles

- Sentencing in Alaska must be evaluated against multiple objectives, not solely the offender’s rehabilitative prospects.
- The recognized sentencing purposes are: (1) rehabilitation, (2) isolation for public protection, (3) deterrence of the offender, (4) deterrence of others, and (5) community condemnation to reaffirm societal norms.
- When the state appeals a sentence as too lenient under AS 12.55.120(b), the appellate court may express approval or disapproval with reasons but may not increase the sentence.

## Conclusion

The court used its new sentence-review authority to disapprove a one-year concurrent sentence for rape and robbery as inconsistent with Alaska’s sentencing goals, and it established a five-factor framework—rehabilitation, isolation, specific deterrence, general deterrence, and community condemnation—to guide future sentencing decisions even though it could not raise the sentence on the state’s appeal.


State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441 (Alaska 1970)