ROY F. SILAS, Appellant,
v.
STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appeal
from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage,
Trial Court No. 3AN-99-1814 CR Michael L. Wolverton, Judge.
J.
Adam Bartlett, Anchorage, under contract with the Office of
Public Advocacy, for the Appellant.
Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of
Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney
General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, and Allard, Judge.
OPINION
MANNHEIMER, Judge
As a
condition of his probation, Roy F. Silas was ordered to
participate in sex offender treatment as directed by his
probation officer, and to "not... discontinue
treatment" unless he had his probation officer's
approval. After Silas had participated in a sex offender
treatment program for over a year, the program director
terminated him from the program for various reasons (reasons
that we will examine in this opinion). Based on Silas's
termination from the treatment program, the State petitioned
the superior court to revoke his probation, alleging that
Silas had violated his probation by discontinuing his
treatment without permission.
Silas's
attorney argued that Silas had not "discontinued"
treatment, but rather that Silas had been involuntarily
discharged from the treatment program without good reason.
The
superior court ruled that it did not matter why Silas was
terminated from the treatment program. The court interpreted
Silas's condition of probation as requiring Silas to
continue treatment until his probation officer said
otherwise, and that Silas was in "technical
violation" of his probation because he had been
discharged from the treatment program - regardless of whether
there was good cause for Silas's discharge.
We
conclude that the superior court's ruling was error. If
it was true that Silas was discharged from the treatment
program for no good reason (or for improper reasons), then
Silas's discharge from treatment would not establish good
cause for the court to revoke Silas's probation.
As we
recently explained in Pulusila v. State, ___ P.3d
___, 2018 WL 2272568 (Alaska App. 2018), our law
forbids a sentencing court from revoking a defendant's
probation unless the court finds that the facts surrounding
the defendant's violation of probation constitute
"good cause" to revoke probation.
Pulusila, 2018 WL 2272568 at *2, 3, 6. In this
context, "good cause" means a finding that
"the corrective aims of probation cannot be
achieved", and that "continuation of [the
defendant's] probationary status would be at odds with
the need to protect society and society's interest in the
probationer's rehabilitation." Id. at *3,
quoting Trumbly v. State, 515 P.2d 707, 709 (Alaska
1973).
In
Silas's case, the superior court never reached the
factual merits of the defense attorney's contention that
Silas was terminated from treatment without good reason.
Thus, Silas's case still presents disputed issues of fact
that the superior court must address and resolve - and we
remand Silas's case to the superior court for that
purpose.
Silas's
case also presents other issues related to his conditions of
probation.
At the
probation revocation hearing, the superior court rejected
Silas's request that he be allowed to socialize with
Patsy Schreiber, his romantic partner and the mother of his
children. Because the superior court failed to offer any
plausible basis for this restriction on Silas's family
relationship, we reverse the superior court's ruling on
this matter.
Additionally,
after the superior court revoked Silas's probation, the
court added several new probation conditions. The court
ordered Silas to enroll in domestic violence treatment, even
though his case apparently presents no issue of violence. The
court also ordered that, if a medical professional deemed it
appropriate, Silas would be required to enroll in a
residential treatment program. By adding the possibility of
forced participation in residential treatment, the superior
court illegally increased Silas's sentence. See
Christensenv. State, 844 P.2d 557, 559 (Alaska App.
1993). We therefore direct the superior court to rescind
these conditions.
Underlying
facts
In
1999, Roy F. Silas was convicted of second-degree sexual
abuse of a minor. He was sentenced to a term of active
imprisonment, followed by probation for 10 years (with a
5-year suspended term of imprisonment). One of Silas's
conditions of probation required him to participate in sex
offender treatment as directed by his probation officer, and
not to discontinue treatment without his probation
officer's approval.
After
Silas was released on probation, his probation officer
directed him to participate in sex offender treatment. In
January 2011, Silas entered the sex offender treatment
program run by the Center for Psychosocial Development. He
participated in this program for more than a year, until May
2012, when he was arrested for stealing a laptop computer.
Several
weeks later, Silas was released from custody in connection
with the theft of the laptop, and he re-entered the sex
offender treatment program. But after a period of time, the
director of the treatment program, Julie Holden, terminated
Silas from the program. According to the discharge summary
prepared by Holden, Silas was terminated from the program
because he possessed several pornographic videos, because he
did not adhere to his curfew, and because he was
"unwilling[] to fully engage and participate in
treatment".
After
Silas was discharged from the sex offender treatment program,
the State petitioned the superior court to revoke his
probation. The State alleged that Silas violated the
requirement that he was "not to discontinue
treatment" without his probation officer's approval.
At the
ensuing revocation hearing in the superior court, Silas's
attorney argued that Silas had not "discontinued"
his sex offender treatment - rather, Silas had been
terminated from the program against his will. Through his
cross-examination of Silas's probation officer and his
cross-examination of Holden, as well as through Silas's
own testimony, the defense attorney tried to show that Holden
had terminated Silas from the program based on erroneous
assumptions about Silas's ...