Robber, drug abuser gets five-year sentence

PALMER — A man who robbed two women in October of last year was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison.

“It’s not my life goal to continue using drugs,” Shane Edwards, 36, said at his sentencing hearing. Then added about the robbery, “If I could take it back I would.”

Assistant District Attorney Kerry Corliss said that as part of the deal the state would dismiss all but one count of robbery in Edwards’ case and agree to dismiss another outstanding theft case in which Edwards was accused of stealing a purse from a vehicle while a young child watched.

“Obviously, we had some difficulty with a 4-year-old child being our witness,” Corliss said of why the state decided to drop that case.

She said Edwards has admitted to using cocaine regularly and to drinking $40 worth of booze per day before he landed in jail.

“One can assume he was supporting these activities through nefarious means,” she said.

She said Edwards’ chances for rehabilitation were “guarded,” noting he has had chances to reform in the past and hasn’t taken the opportunity. She pointed, in particular, to a felony conviction for manufacturing drugs in Washington state.

“The level of his crimes are escalating as well as the level and duration of his drug use,” Corliss said.

She asked for a seven-year term with two years suspended and five years of probation, which was the term Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen eventually imposed.

Edwards’ attorney, Lance Wells, asked for a seven-year term with three years suspended, for four years to serve and two years’ probation.

“He’s sober because he’s incarcerated and hopefully he can maintain that sobriety,” Wells said. “I’d ask the court not to give up on Mr. Edwards.”

Regarding the probation, he said that in his experience, drug offenders usually violate probation within months of their release. Imposing five years of probation would be excessive, he said.

“When we deal with people with ongoing drug problems, either they’re going to make it or they’re not,” Wells said.

He also pointed out that Edwards didn’t randomly select his victims; that he knew the people in the house were dealing drugs and that cocaine was among the items stolen in the robbery.

“This was essentially a drug rip-off,” he said.

In handing down the sentence, Kristiansen said the robbery was particularly violent, that one of the victims said she was knocked unconscious, that Edwards had threatened to go and get his gun, and that there was a child witnessing the whole thing.

“I cannot find that giving the defendant the minimum sentence as Mr. Wells suggests is proper,” Kristiansen said. “Not all people who are addicted to controlled substances such as cocaine choose to engage in criminal conduct.”

Though she took all of Corliss’ recommendations for the sentence, she also took one of Wells’ suggestions and agreed to recommend Edwards for drug treatment.

“Clearly if he gets his drug issue under control, then he has a better chance of rehabilitating in other ways,” Kristiansen said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.