Tucson, AZ - The Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two in Tucson has decided a new DUI case. The opinion was issued on July 30, 2009 . The name of the case is Arizona v. Douglas Scott Perrin. At this time, no citation is available.
Mr. Perrin was convicted of DUI related Manslaughter and felony aggravated DUI. The court sentenced him to 12.5 years in prison, followed by 10 years of intensive probation. Mr. Perrin filed a motion for post-conviction relief, claiming that the court should vacate his sentence (which was substantially aggravated and beyond the standard penalty) for several reasons:
- The court didn't give him notice that it intended to consider that high range of sentences;
- His lawyer at the time was ineffective because he didn't object to it;
- The court considered improper factors.
Perrin appealed based on a newly decided case, State v. Schmidt, which said that using a catch all factor as the sole basis for aggravating a sentence is improper. The catch all factor allows judges to use their imaginations in deciding to impose a greater than normal sentence.
The Schmidt case said that the catch-all factor was vague and therefore couldn't be used as the only factor for aggravating a sentence. Allowing it to be otherwise would give a judge unfettered discretion to hand down aggravated sentences.
For that reason, the Court of Appeals vacated Perrin's sentence and sent him back to the trial court to be re-sentenced.
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