Jeffrey R. Cochran v. State Alaska

BURKE, Justice. OPINION Appellant Jeffrey Cochran was convicted, upon his plea of guilty, of one count of uttering a check with insufficient funds 1 and one count of forgery. 2 As a result, he was sentenced to a six-year term of imprisonment for the forgery offense, with three years suspended. On the second count, imposition of sentence was suspended for a stated period of five years, pursuant to AS 12.55.085, 3 and the period of suspension was ordered to run consecutively to the sentence for forgery. Appellant thereafter brought this sentence appeal, challenging the validity of the lower court's sentencing decision on two grounds. First, appellant claims that the total sanction constitutes excessive punishment in that it restricts his freedom for at least eleven years. Secondly, appellant claims that the sentencing Judge, in rendering his decision, improperly relied upon unverified information contained in the presentence report. We begin by addressing the second of these issues. Cochran argues that the presentence report and a letter attached thereto were replete with examples of unverified information, citing: (1) a statement attributed to his wife that, in a telephone conversation with her mother, the mother told her that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking for for dumping bad checks in Toledo, Ohio, and (2) allegations in a letter written by one of Cochran's victims that he had deceived and stolen from his friends. The use of this information, he contends, infringed upon his constitutional right to confront and cross-examine witnesses testifying against him.