State v. O'BRIEN

I respectfully dissent from the majority’s reversal of the double durational departure from the presumptive sentence.

In imposing its sentence, the sentencing court referred specifically to the following three reasons to support its departure: 1) the vulnerability of the victim due to age; 2) the vulnerability of the victim due to the reduction of her capacity because of the beer furnished to her; and 3) the fact that the incident occurred in an area of assumed safety, i.e., zone of privacy. The trial court also referred to O’Brien’s prior felony conviction for an offense in which the victim…