(Getty Images)
The Alaska Court of Appeals has rejected an appeal from a man imprisoned for a murder he committed as a 17-year-old.
Philip Chad Wilson was sentenced to a 99-year sentence after his conviction and argued that under subsequent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Alaska Court of Appeals, his sentence was illegal because it amounted to a de facto sentence of life without parole.
On Friday, the Alaska Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that rejected his argument, noting that Wilson could receive discretionary parole by the time he turns 50 years old.
Alaska’s parole board granted only about one-third of requests for discretionary parole last year, and Wilson had argued that the parole board’s approval rate is so low that it doesn’t amount to a meaningful opportunity for release.
In 2020 and 2021, the appeals court approved fewer than one in five requests for discretionary parole. Those rates were significantly lower than historical standards; during the administrations of former Govs. Sean Parnell and Bill Walker, the parole board approved more than half of all discretionary parole requests each year.
“We conclude that Wilson’s challenges to the Alaska Parole Board’s procedures are premature because he has not yet gone through a parole hearing. And we hold that 33 years of incarceration is not a de facto life sentence,” wrote Judge Timothy Terrell, an appointee of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, on behalf of the court.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibits courts from sentencing children to life in prison without the possibility of parole, except in homicide cases.
Two years ago, the state appeals court ruled that the Alaska Constitution imposes further limits on top of those provided by the U.S. Constitution.
In that case, which involved a 14-year-old girl who pleaded no contest to three murders, the appeals court found that any sentence “that (requires) a juvenile offender to serve 45 years or more in prison before any type of parole release qualifies as a de facto life sentence.”
In Wilson’s case, a superior court judge ruled that because Wilson could receive parole after 33 years, his appeal fails the appeals court’s test.
Writing Friday, the appeals court said that multiple state supreme courts and legislatures have allowed children to be sentenced to 33 years or more in prison before parole. Wilson’s sentence is not unusual in that regard, it wrote.
With regard to the parole board’s performance, the court wrote, “Wilson’s statistics showing that the Board has granted parole to a minority of applicants in recent years does not prevent the Board from granting parole to any given applicant.”
Writing an amendment to the ruling, Terrell added that if the parole board were to postpone a parole hearing for Wilson and for similar child offenders, it “would be legally problematic … because this may extend their sentence to a length that could make it a de facto sentence of life without parole. I assume that the Parole Board will give full consideration to the applications of such offenders when they first apply for discretionary parole.”
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
