LEWISTON – A Sabattus man who raped a Bates College student in a campus bathroom three years ago will be resentenced because the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a 4-3 decision Wednesday that his 24-year prison term was too harsh.
The new sentencing date has not been set.
In March 2003, Christian Averill, 24, was convicted of gross sexual assault for the sex attack. Two months later, Justice Thomas E. Delahanty II sentenced him to 34 years in prison with all but 24 years suspended.
That sentence, meant to ensure that Averill would be locked up until he was at least 40, fell into the higher range available under Maine’s sentencing laws.
“This rape ranks as one of the most heinous ways the act could be committed,” Delahanty told Averill during the 2003 sentencing.
At that time, Maine had a two-tier sentencing formula for the most serious class of crimes, which includes rape. The law said that people convicted of those crimes could be sentenced to up to 40 years, but that sentences of more than 20 years should be reserved for the most violent and heinous crimes.
Last year, Averill’s attorney, George Hess, argued before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court that Averill’s crime did not fall into that category.
Hess acknowledged that any rape is a serious offense. But he did not think Averill’s act of waiting for the woman in a bathroom at Pettengill Hall, then shoving her into a stall and raping her, fit the definition of the “most violent and heinous” ways to commit rape.
Hess took his argument a step further by arguing that recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions say that the decision of whether a sentence should go into the second tier should be made by the jury that hands out the verdict, not the judge.
Maine has traditionally left the job of sentencing solely up to judges. Juries render verdicts, then judges use their discretion to determine appropriate sentences based on facts presented at trials and other information about a defendant’s history.
Androscoggin County Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman had argued that the Supreme Court opinions were not relevant to Averill’s case because Maine set the maximum sentence at 40 years. Judges in Maine have for centuries used their discretion to decide which crimes deserve the highest sentences, she said.
Cashman emphasized that Justice Delahanty determined that Averill’s case warranted a sentence of more than 20 years after finding that Averill’s actions in the bathroom stall ranked among the most heinous ways in which someone could commit rape.
According to court testimony, the victim was studying for finals at Pettengill Hall in April 2002 when she paused to go to the bathroom.
Averill was waiting for her when she opened the door. She testified that he put her in a headlock, covered her mouth and shoved her into a stall where he raped her for a few minutes.
Averill was arrested weeks after the sex attack when DNA evidence pointed to him as the sole suspect in the case.
Averill, being held at the Maine Department of Corrections in Warren, will remain in prison until he is scheduled to be resentenced in the case. Prosecutors could request a sentencing trial. If a jury finds that Averill’s crime is among the most heinous, the court could still sentence him to up to 40 years, according to the Supreme Court decision.
Cashman did not want to discuss the decision until she had a chance to review it more closely. Hess could not be reached for comment.
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