A deep knife wound in a woman’s armpit could just have easily wounded an artery that would have ended her life, Juneau District Attorney James Scott said in court.
“Absolute sheer dumb luck” is what Scott said allowed 36-year-old Robert Paul Jr. to walk away with just a one-year prison sentence instead of a lifetime.
“We would be arguing about whether he should be in jail (up to) 99 years,” Scott said Tuesday in Juneau Superior Court during Paul’s change of plea and sentencing hearing.
Paul pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault for injuring his 33-year-old girlfriend in an attack on Telephone Hill Park Feb. 4, an act that caught the attention of two bystanders who then intervened and kept Paul away from the woman until police arrived.
Police said the woman was treated for scratches, bruises and the knife wound at Bartlett Regional Hospital that same day. Scott said she did not appear in court for Paul’s hearing Tuesday because she was travelling. An update on her injuries was not provided.
Judge Philip Pallenberg accepted the agreement Scott and Assistant Public Defender Eve Soutiere presented, which gives Paul the maximum prison sentence for the class A misdemeanor. By taking the plea deal, Paul avoided trial on the more serious charges of second- and third-degree assault.
“I think that this is an acceptable and fitting sentence,” Scott said during Tuesday’s change of plea and sentencing hearing. He added that a felony trial would have created too many problems for the state. All the parties involved — including witnesses — were intoxicated at the time, he said.
“(Witnesses) who when they were re-interviewed didn’t remember when they were first interviewed,” Scott said.
The victim was also drinking the evening of the attack, according to a police complaint. Scott said the victim told officers she could not remember the moment the knife cut her because it was just a “blur.”
The police complaint alleged witnesses saw Paul sitting on top of the 33-year-old woman, punching and striking her.
On Tuesday, Scott told Judge Pallenberg he wouldn’t be surprised to see Paul again in court, given his past.
“Mr. Paul has a singularly terrible misdemeanor history,” Scott said, listing just a few of the disorderly conduct charges on Paul’s record in the last year alone. Paul’s criminal history includes more than two dozen criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and various other charges dating back to 2000, according to online court records.
Soutiere said her client, who could be heard holding back tears after Scott recounted the events of that evening, does not remember the incident the same way it was reported to police. Instead, Soutiere said Paul told her that he remembers people trying to attack him for money they thought he owed them and he took his knife out in defense. He doesn’t remember trying to hurt his girlfriend, Soutiere said.
Soutiere told the judge Paul has gone several stretches of years without committing alcohol-involved offenses and he has the potential to get past this one after he serves his jail time.
Scott called Paul “the luckiest man in the world” for not killing the woman and suggested Paul use the time to be thankful each day he did not cause her greater harm.
• Contact reporter Paula Ann Solis at 523-2272 or paula.solis@juneauempire.com.
