For the Record

By Andrew Wellner

Frontiersman

PALMER — A three-judge sentencing panel decided Friday not to modify the findings of Superior Court Judge Eric Smith when he sentenced Shane Harapat, 21, to five years in prison for the February 2003 shooting death of 16-year-old Kenny Alcantra.

Harapat was convicted Oct. 12, 2004, of manslaughter. Neither Harapat’s attorney nor the prosecutor at trial disputed Harapat shot Alcantra. At issue was how reckless he was in handling the .44 magnum weapon the day it went off and killed Alcantra.

As of his appearance before the panel Friday, Harapat had been released on parole, having served more than three years of his sentence, mostly at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward. His parole is due to expire October 2009.

After his conviction, Harapat appealed to the state’s appellate court, which found the original judge faced a tough call and should have sent the sentencing to the three-judge panel. Harapat’s attorney, John Richard, argued Friday the sentence should be halved.

“What would be the practical effect of reducing his sentence by half?” asked one of the three judges, Michael Thompson of the Superior Court in Ketchikan.

“It would eliminate the rest of his parole,” Richard said.

Richard argued the sentence imposed on Harapat was manifestly unjust and that his client had shown an extraordinary possibility for rehabilitation.

“If a 16-year-old with no prior problems doesn’t have an extraordinary potential for rehabilitation compared to our average offender, … I just don’t know who does,” Richard said.

Given Harapat’s age and the fact that he wasn’t tried as a juvenile, the five-year sentence was unjust, Richard said. “It is extraordinary for a 16-year-old to be processed through our system as an adult for a homicide.”

Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak argued Harapat hadn’t shown any capacity for rehabilitation extraordinarily greater than other parolees. Some of the progress he’s made in prison or after are commendable, but he’s currently jobless and unproductive, Kalytiak said.

Kalytiak also said the five-year sentence was required at the time for a manslaughter charge of this nature and that since then the Legislature has changed that to a range of seven to 11 years. To be manifestly unjust, the sentence would have to shock the judges’ consciences. Harapat used marijuana before the incident that took Alcantra’s life. Kalytiak said the case wasn’t that different from a lot of other reckless shootings in the Valley.

For his part, Alcantra’s father, Joseph Alcantra, agreed with Kalytiak saying he’d never heard any remorse from Harapat.

“I can’t believe the audacity of someone to appeal a sentence that was, in my opinion, too light to begin with,” Joseph Alcantra said.

“I know that if he told us the truth, the truth would be much darker than anyone can imagine,” said Alcantra’s mother, Gail M. Alcantra.

Harapat said that he has many times expressed remorse and apologized to Alcantra’s family. Kenny Alcantra, he said, was a close friend.

“This was a pure and simple accident,” Harapat said. “This man was my brother, in every sense but blood. … I choose in his honor to live the best I can for both of us.”

In the end, the panel decided not to find the sentence unjust and sent Harapat back to Judge Smith for resentencing.

All three judges took a turn in explaining their decision.

Stephanie Joannides of the Superior Court in Anchorage told Harapat that, in the panel’s opinion, he needed a parole officer “to help you stay on track.”

Joel Bolger of the Superior Court in Kodiak said, “We just felt that it was an especially reckless use of a firearm.”

Noting the evidence shows Harapat at least partially cocked the revolver’s hammer back before it went off, Bolger said, “It’s just an especially tragic and reckless combination of factors in the way the firearm was treated.”