BOISE A judge doesn't have to give primary consideration to the possibility of rehabilitating a criminal defendant, the Idaho Court of Appeals says.
The court on Tuesday unanimously upheld the prison sentence of 20 years to life ordered for a man who sexually attacked a Kootenai County woman jogger.
Joseph H. Duskin, who was age 27 at the time, contended the sentence didn't give enough consideration to the possibility he could be rehabilitated.
In the first published decision written by new Judge Darrel R. Perry, the court said a sentencing judge doesn't have to meet all of the goals of criminal sentences. They are consideration of rehabilitation, protecting society and deterrence through incarceration.
''A sentence need not serve all the sentencing goals or weigh each one equally,'' wrote Perry, who was a magistrate judge in Lewiston before joining the appellate court. The goals of retribution and deterrence by themselves are enough to justice a sentence, he said, quoting a 1991 ruling.
District Judge James Judd sentenced Duskin to serve at least 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to committing an infamous crime against nature.
The judge noted Duskin had a 10-year history of violent and serious crimes in Alaska and failed to finish any period of probation without an additional violation.
Perry wrote two other decisions released Tuesday, both upholding criminal sentences based on similar grounds.
Frederick Daryl Koho lost his appeal from a sentence of 10 years to life for lewd conduct in an Ada County case. The court also rejected an appeal from Robert Hastings from his sentence of three and one-half to 101/2 years for sexual abuse of a child. It was an Ada County case.