Deanthony Malik Harris v. State of Alaska

• Court: Court of Appeals of Alaska
• Decided: July 8, 2026
• Docket: A-14583
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

2026 WL 1970543

Only the Westlaw citation is currently available.

NOTICE: UNPUBLISHED OPINION

NOTICE This is a summary disposition issued under Alaska Appellate Rule 214(a). Summary dispositions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d).

Court of Appeals of Alaska.

DEANTHONY MALIK HARRIS, Appellant,

v.

STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.

Court of Appeals No. A-14583

July 8, 2026

Trial Court No. 3AN-16-09996 CR

Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Jack R. McKenna, Judge.

Attorneys and Law Firms

Appearances: Jane B. Martinez, Law Office of Jane B. Martinez, LLC, Anchorage, under contract with the Office of Public Advocacy, for the Appellant. Tamara E. DeLucia, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Stephen J. Cox, Acting Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Beach, Judges.

SUMMARY DISPOSITION

*1 DeAnthony Malik Harris was convicted, pursuant to a plea agreement, of two counts of second-degree murder after he and two other men entered an Anchorage home to commit an armed robbery and then shot and killed the couple who lived there in front of their five-year-old son.¹ The plea agreement left Harris's sentence open to the court.

At the sentencing hearing, the State argued that Harris was actively involved in shooting both of the victims. In support of this argument, the State presented testimony from a forensic expert and an investigating officer that indicated that each robber had a gun and all three guns were used to shoot the victims. This included ballistic evidence showing that one of the victims was shot with bullets from three different guns. (The ballistic evidence for the other victim was inconclusive, but she was shot with at least one of the same guns as the first victim.)

Harris asserted that he did not shoot either victim. He presented his own forensic expert, who testified that the ballistics evidence did not definitively show that Harris shot either of the victims.

Harris also testified on his own behalf. He stated that he was nineteen years old at the time of the offense, that he agreed to the robbery while under the influence of marijuana, and that his decision-making had been affected by the recent death of a close friend. He testified that the shooting occurred after one of the two victims charged Harris while he was guarding them. Harris claimed that his gun was discharged by the victim in the ensuing struggle, then knocked to the floor, and that one of the other robbers said he retrieved the gun during a later argument about Harris's failure to shoot. Harris was shot in the leg during the robbery, and he testified that he believed he was “most likely” shot during his struggle with the victim.

The superior court found that, while Harris was not the mastermind of the scheme, he was a “full and active participant” in the robbery and “at least [an] active participant[ ]” in the two murders. The court further found that Harris knew there was a young child present during the home invasion; that Harris had opportunities to abandon the plan; and that Harris nevertheless chose to proceed with the armed home-invasion robbery. Although the court concluded that it could not definitively find that Harris shot either of the victims, the court found that Harris's description of the shooting left the court “with questions” and that Harris being one of the shooters was “more consistent with the evidence and the inferences that could reasonably be drawn from that evidence.” The court also found that Harris had “very good” prospects for rehabilitation and that his actions were in part driven by his youth and immaturity. After balancing these factors, the superior court ultimately sentenced Harris to a composite sentence of 80 years’ incarceration with 20 years suspended (60 years to serve).²

*2 Harris now appeals, arguing that this sentence is excessive. Harris was sentenced to 30 years of active time for each second-degree murder count, at the top of the Page benchmark, for a composite 60 years to serve.³ Having independently reviewed the record, we conclude that Harris's sentence falls within the permissible range of reasonable sentences and not excessive.⁴ As the superior court found, Harris has strong rehabilitative prospects and his actions were, at least in part, driven by his youth and immaturity. But, as the court also found, Harris committed two particularly serious second-degree murders. After weighing these factors against each other, the court found that a substantial sentence was appropriate but that Harris did not need to be incarcerated for the rest of his life.⁵ None of these findings are clearly erroneous, and the superior court's sentence is consistent with its findings.

Moreover, as the court noted, Harris's sentence is lower than the sentences that his co-defendants — the other robbers who were present at the murder scene — received. Both of these co-defendants were older and played a more active role in planning and executing the robbery and murders. One received a sentence of 109 years following a trial.⁶ The other negotiated a sentence of 100 years with 20 years suspended (80 years to serve).

Harris also argues as part of his excessive sentence claim that the court functionally sentenced him to a life sentence in contravention of the principles of Fletcher v. State.⁷ But, as the superior court correctly ruled, Fletcher is not directly applicable because Harris, while youthful, was not a juvenile offender. Despite this ruling, the court recognized that, at nineteen years old, Harris was a youthful offender for whom the principles underlying Fletcher were nevertheless relevant — that, in the superior court's words, youthful offenders have a “lack of maturity, ... an underdeveloped sense of responsibility ... [and] are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside pressures.”⁸ Moreover, after acknowledging these principles, the superior court did not impose the functional equivalent of life without parole. Harris will be eligible for discretionary parole after 20 years (when he is thirty-nine years old) and mandatory parole after 40 years (when he is fifty-nine years old), which is not a de facto life sentence.⁹

*3 The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.

Footnotes

1

AS 11.41.110(a)(3).

2

The court sentenced Harris to 40 years with 10 suspended (30 years to serve) for each count of murder and ran each sentence fully consecutive to the other.

3

See Page v. State, 657 P.2d 850, 855 (Alaska App. 1983) (“[O]ne convicted of [second-degree murder] should receive a sentence of from twenty to thirty years.”).

4

State v. Hodari, 996 P.2d 1230, 1232 (Alaska 2000) (explaining sentences are reviewed on appeal under the “clearly mistaken” standard, which “implies a permissible range of reasonable sentences which a reviewing court, after an independent review of the record, will not modify” (quoting McClain v. State, 519 P.2d 811, 813 (Alaska 1974))).

5

See AS 12.55.005 (listing sentencing factors). On appeal, Harris also argues that the superior court did not sufficiently weigh his rehabilitative prospects when crafting this sentence. However, the court discussed those prospects extensively but ultimately weighed the fact that Harris's convictions were “among the most serious” second-degree murders more heavily when crafting the sentence. The superior court's decision to weigh the severity of Harris's conduct more heavily than his rehabilitative prospects was not an abuse of discretion. See Tucker v. State, 721 P.2d 639, 643 (Alaska App. 1986) (holding that determining the priority of the sentencing goals is within the sentencing court's discretion).

6

See Mann v. State, 2024 WL 713917, at *1 (Alaska App. Feb. 21, 2024) (unpublished).

7

See Fletcher v. State, 532 P.3d 286, 308 (Alaska App. 2023) (holding that, “before a sentencing court can impose a [functional] sentence of life without parole ... on a juvenile offender tried as an adult, [the court must] affirmatively consider the juvenile offender's youth and its attendant characteristics and ... provide an on-the-record sentencing explanation that explicitly or implicitly finds that the juvenile offender is one of the ‘rare’ juvenile offenders ‘whose crime reflects irreparable corruption’ ” (quoting Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479-80 (2012))).

8

See id. at 290 (noting that “children lack maturity and have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,” “children are more vulnerable to pressure from family and peers,” and “a child's character is not as well-formed as an adult's, and as a result, a child's actions are less likely to be ‘evidence of irretrievab[le] deprav[ity]’ ” (alterations in original) (quoting Miller, 567 U.S. at 471)).

9

Cf. id. at 292, 319-20 (holding that “a sentence that allows an opportunity for release only after 45 years” when defendant would be sixty was a de facto life sentence); see Wilson v. State, 579 P.3d 816, 820 (Alaska App.), reh'g denied, 2025 WL 3554207 (Alaska App. Dec. 2, 2025) (“Wilson's sentence that requires he serve at least 33 years before becoming eligible for release [when he will be approximately fifty years old] is not a de facto life sentence.”).

End of Document