Air Force veteran Wanless gets hearing on prison sentence reduction

Oct. 8--FORT WALTON BEACH -- Aaron Wanless, a local Air Force veteran serving 28 years in prison on multiple aggravated assault charges for a 2015 incident in which he threatened his father with a knife and fired at Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies, will get a hearing on a motion to have his sentence reduced for a second time.

In an order filed Tuesday, Okaloosa County Circuit Judge William F. Stone directed Wanless' attorney, Robert Malove, who filed the motion seeking the hearing, to work with the State Attorney's Office to schedule a hearing to be held via the Zoom videoconferencing tool.

The order does not set a date for the hearing.

The charges against Wanless stem from a heavily publicized incident at a home on Yacht Club Drive. Wanless was subsequently charged with a single count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm with discharge, and a single count of aggravated assault with a firearm with discharge.

Wanless had faced as long as 85 years in prison rather than the 48 years to which he initially was sentenced. Prosecutors had offered a plea deal of five years in prison, but Wanless, represented at the time by a public defender, rejected that offer in favor of proceeding to trial. Prosecutors sought a 68-year sentence during the 2017 trial, and Wanless eventually was sentenced to 48 years.

Stone reduced that sentence to 28 years in September 2019. The reduction was based on a decision earlier that year by the First District Court of Appeal on the application of the state's now-repealed "10-20-Life" law governing gun-involved crimes.

The law -- repealed in 2016, but in force at the time of Wanless' offenses -- had mandated a 10-year sentence for crimes in which a gun was displayed, a 20-year sentence for crimes in which a gun was used, and 25 years or more for crimes in which someone was wounded.

Wanless' 48-year sentence was the result of sentences on some charges running consecutively, rather than concurrently with one sentence term covering multiple counts. After the September 2019 hearing, sentences handed down for some of the charges were set to run concurrently, thus reducing the time Wanless would stay in prison.

In the motion seeking a hearing on Wanless' sentence, Malove asked prosecutors to waive minimum mandatory sentencing requirements, and to modify the sentence to just more than eight years -- the sentence imposed on the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge filed in connection with the knife attack -- or alternatively, to set the sentence on that charge to run concurrent to the sentence imposed on the other charges, which would leave Wanless with a 20-year sentence.

In Tuesday's order directing that a hearing be held, Stone writes that the record of the case shows that in the initial 2017 sentencing hearing, "evidence was presented concerning a downward departure" in Wanless' sentencing, but that hearing eventually became focused on another subject, the question of whether the state's "10-20-Life" sentencing statute applied.

"In reviewing the motion and record, the Court finds it appropriate to further consider the evidence concerning a downward departure regarding the sentence imposed" in connection with aggravated assault by threat charge, which covered Wanless' attack on his father with the knife.

Florida law allows a "downward departure" from the lowest permissible sentence for a felony charge -- with the exception of capital felonies, which include such crimes as murder and armed kidnapping -- under a number of circumstances considered by the state to be mitigating factors in connection with the commission of a crime.

Malove addresses potentially mitigating circumstances in his 15-page motion. The motion notes that at the time of the incident, Wanless was under treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses at the local Department of Veterans Affairs. Those circumstances stemmed from Wanless being injured in a non-combat motorcycle accident while on active duty with the Air Force -- almost losing a leg -- and his subsequent honorable discharge.

"Upon return to civilian life, (Wanless') mental health steadily spiraled downward," the motion notes. It also describes the incident that landed Wanless in prison as "a mentally ill veteran's failed attempt to commit 'suicide-by-cop.' "

In comments Wednesday on the judge's order, Malove said, "We are hopeful that Judge Stone will grant a downward departure and reduce our client's sentence after taking into consideration the victim's wishes, his military service to our country and his resulting PTSD."

Stone's order for a hearing comes in the wake of the State Attorney's Office filing its response to Malove's motion for that hearing. In that response, Assistant State Attorney Cassie K. Reed contends that the "current sentence imposed is lawful and any modification would be contrary and unsupported by the laws of this State."

Elsewhere in the response, the State Attorney's Office notes a provision of state law in which "(o)nly the prosecuting attorney has the discretion to waive the minimum mandatory sentence."

Also in the response, Reed points to a provision of state law noting that it "is the intent of the Legislature that offenders who actually possess, carry, display, use, threaten to use, or attempt to use firearms or destructive devices be punished to the fullest extent of the law ... ."

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