PALMER — In a tearful, emotional hearing Thursday, a Wasilla 22-year-old received a 20-year sentence for rape.

Yako William Collins was arrested in 2008 and went to trial this summer. He was convicted of first-degree sexual assault.

His attorney, Bruce Brown, asked that the sentencing be handled by a three-judge panel rather than by Superior Court Judge Eric Smith. A three-judge panel has the discretion to go below the statutory minimum sentence — in this case 20 years. For Smith to do that he would first have to find there was some kind of legally defined mitigating factor, which there wasn’t in this case. Brown said his client had no criminal history beyond a traffic ticket and a shoplifting conviction.

“For such a significant crime he basically came out of the blue with no criminal history that would predict that this would happen,” Brown said. “He got way too drunk and completely lost his judgment.”

He said Collins had extraordinary rehabilitation prospects and that imposing a 20-year sentence would be manifestly unjust. There was some talk at trial that the victim and Collins had been making out prior to the rape and that his client simply misread her cues, Brown said.

Also, he argued, the victim herself had written a letter to Smith pleading for leniency.

But Assistant District Attorney Rachel Gernat argued that to go to a three-judge panel the case has to be an extraordinary one. And Collins’ was not.

“It sounds bad and it sounds flip, but it’s your garden-variety sexual assault,” she said.

Collins knew the victim. They both were at a party. She may or may not have been sleeping when the sex began but was awake when she told him no, Gernat said. At least in Alaska, she said, very few rapists are unknown to their victims. Most of the time there’s alcohol involved.

Even the letter from the victim, she said, wasn’t out of the ordinary. That sort of thing is common in domestic violence cases, for instance, in which women say they don’t want their abuser locked up, or incest cases when children say they just wanted the abuse to end, not for their father to be locked up.

“How would you like to be a 17-year-old girl and believe that the burden of someone going to jail rests all on you?” she asked.

She also pointed out that Collins hadn’t done anything since the case was filed to prove that he was serious about reforming himself. He hadn’t entered substance abuse treatment. Indeed, she said, he got picked up while out on bail, drunk in violation of his parole, and lied to the cops about who he was.

“Usually when someone is showing that they have extraordinary prospects for rehabilitation they have done something that shows that,” Gernat said.

She said the Legislature knew what it was doing in 2006 when it bumped up the minimum sentence for sexual assault. They knew the sentences were going to be harsh but wanted that to be a deterrent as an attempt to stem the tide of rape in Alaska.

When Smith declined to send the case to the three-judge panel, family and friends of Collins gathered for the hearing — many of whom testified to his winning personality and gentlemanly demeanor — broke out in tears.

“I love you Billy,” one of them called out.

Smith said, essentially, that there was nothing unique about Collins’ case. He also said the violations Collins committed while out on bail were egregious. But he stopped short of condemning Collins’ character.

“People who are not bad people do bad things. I’m being asked to sentence Mr. Collins for what he did,” he said.

He said he hoped that Collins would do what he can to redeem himself while in prison and emerge a productive member of society.

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