Judge orders assault of 2-year-old case back to court

PALMER — A man who was convicted of assault for slamming a door into a 2-year-old boy has had his sentence overturned.

Arthur Larue, 34, was charged with assault in March 2008 in Palmer District Court. He was eventually sentenced to one year in prison, the maximum possible sentence for the assault count to which he pleaded guilty. Larue later appealed that sentence, saying it was excessive.

Judge Gregory Heath, who handed down that sentence, had watched a video of the assault. Larue had taped himself slamming the door into the boy and knocking him to the floor. The tape also contained evidence that drugs were being used in the home where the boy was assaulted. Heath described the assault as premeditated and cruel, perpetrated against a particularly vulnerable victim. Thus he imposed the maximum one-year sentence.

Although the appeals court agreed with Heath that Larue’s conduct was cruel, that his victim was vulnerable and that the assault was premeditated, there was a piece of Heath’s sentencing comments that made the sentence problematic.

Judge David Mannheimer, who wrote the appellate court’s opinion, said it had to do with Larue’s capacity for rehabilitation.

Mannheimer’s opinion quotes Heath saying, “All I can … infer from the facts presented to me (is) that there was some sort of bizarre drug-induced thinking … going on. … I’m finding … based on the circumstances presented to me, that it was most likely caused by … the drugs that were being used in the home.”

According to Mannheimer, Heath’s finding that drugs played a role should have resulted in a sentence that included a requirement that Larue seek drug treatment. Rehabilitation, Mannheimer noted, is one of the legally mandated goals of criminal sentencing. And although the weighing of those sentencing goals is usually left up to the sentencing judge, in this case, Mannheimer wrote, Heath used his discretion poorly.

“Given Judge Heath’s express finding regarding the likely cause of Larue’s criminal behavior, we conclude that it was an abuse of discretion for Judge Heath to fail to address the goal of rehabilitation in his sentencing remarks,” Mannheimer wrote.

The court sent Larue’s case back to Heath so the defendant could receive a new sentence with a rehabilitation component. But Mannheimer was clear that the appellate court took no position on whether the one-year term was appropriate.

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