Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Federal law mandated a prison disciplinary decision include a written statement of the evidence relied on and the reasons for the decision. In this case, the superior court affirmed a decision finding a prisoner “guilty” without any further explanation. The court reasoned that the prisoner was not prejudiced because the disciplinary hearing was recorded, and the prisoner was able to adequately explain his version of the evidence in his appeal. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded the written disciplinary decision or the audio recording must ordinarily include a specific statement satisfying federal law: a mere finding of “guilty” is generally insufficient. The Court reversed the superior court’s decision affirming the decision of the Department of Corrections. View "Huber v. Alaska, Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Lieutenant Governor of Alaska declined to certify a proposed ballot initiative that would establish a permitting requirement for activities that could harm anadromous fish habitat, reasoning that the initiative effected an appropriation of state assets in violation of article XI, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution. The initiative sponsors filed suit, and the superior court approved the initiative, concluding that the proposal would not impermissibly restrict legislative discretion. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded the initiative would encroach on the discretion over allocation decisions delegated to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game by the legislature, and that the initiative as written effected an unconstitutional appropriation. But the Court concluded the offending sections could be severed from the remainder of the initiative. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the superior court and remanded for that court to direct the Lieutenant Governor to sever the offending provisions but place the remainder of the initiative on the ballot. View "Mallott v. Stand for Salmon" on Justia Law

A father requested primary physical custody of his daughter, modifying a previous shared custody arrangement. The mother opposed the change, arguing there had not been a substantial change in circumstances. The superior court ordered a limited custody investigation to resolve a factual dispute related to the change in circumstances, promising a second hearing on the daughter’s best interests. But after the custody investigator reported that the daughter wanted to live with the father, the court granted the father primary physical custody without holding a second hearing. The mother appealed, arguing solely that her due process rights were violated by the failure to hold the second hearing. The Alaska Supreme Court vacated the custody modification and remanded for further proceedings because the failure to hold the second hearing denied the mother due process. View "Laura B. v. Wade B." on Justia Law

Abigail Caudle was a 26-year-old apprentice electrician when she was electrocuted on the job while working for Raven Electric, Inc. Her mother sought workers’ compensation death benefits or other damages related to her daughter’s death. Acting on the advice of attorneys but representing herself, she brought a claim before the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board, arguing in part that the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Act was unconstitutional because it inadequately compensated for her daughter’s life, particularly given the circumstances of her daughter’s death, and because it failed to consider her future dependency on her daughter. The Board denied her claim, and the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission affirmed the Board’s decision. The Commission also ordered the mother to pay the employer’s attorney’s fees and costs. The Alaska Supreme Court held that the mother’s constitutional rights are not violated by the Act. However, the Court reversed the Commission’s award of attorney’s fees. View "Burke v. Raven Electric, Inc." on Justia Law

Police entered the defendant Antonio Jordan’s property and found 15 marijuana plants, which when stripped and dried yielded over a pound and a half of marijuana. At trial, the court excluded the defendant’s testimony that he believed he possessed less than four ounces of marijuana (the statutory limit) and failed to instruct the jury that it had to find a culpable mental state with regard to the marijuana’s weight. The jury convicted the defendant of possessing at least four ounces, a class C felony. On appeal, the court of appeals held that the trial court erred both by barring the defendant’s testimony about his subjective belief and by omitting a mental state element from the jury instructions. But finding these errors harmless, the court affirmed the defendant’s conviction. Defendant argued on appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court (for the first time) that the alleged errors at trial were structural errors. The Supreme Court agreed conditionally and in part, holding that omitting from jury instructions a contested element of an offense was structural error. Furthermore, the Court held that the restriction on the defendant’s testimony in this case was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, though the Court did not reach the question whether it was structural error. “Our decision of these issues, however, assumes that the defendant’s possession of marijuana in a greenhouse on his residential property should be afforded the same constitutional protections given to his possession of marijuana in the home. Whether this is a legitimate assumption was not decided in either the superior court or the court of appeals.” The Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded to the superior court to consider in the first instance whether the constitutional protections applied. View "Jordan v. Alaska" on Justia Law

The Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) found an inmate guilty of making a false statement to a staff member about work he was supposed to do. The inmate was ordered to pay in restitution half the amount of his wages for that work. The inmate appealed, arguing that DOC violated his due process rights by refusing to allow him to call witnesses at his disciplinary hearing. The Alaska Supreme Court recognized prisoners have a constitutional right to call witnesses at a disciplinary hearing and that the hearing officer’s failure to call the inmate's requested witnesses was prejudicial. The disciplinary decision was reversed and the matter remanded for a new hearing. View "Walker v. Alaska Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) found an inmate guilty of making a false statement to a staff member about work he was supposed to do. The inmate was ordered to pay in restitution half the amount of his wages for that work. The inmate appealed, arguing that DOC violated his due process rights by refusing to allow him to call witnesses at his disciplinary hearing. The Alaska Supreme Court recognized prisoners have a constitutional right to call witnesses at a disciplinary hearing and that the hearing officer’s failure to call the inmate's requested witnesses was prejudicial. The disciplinary decision was reversed and the matter remanded for a new hearing. View "Walker v. Alaska Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Alaska court of appeals recently read Roman v. Alaska, 570 P.2d 1235(1977) as requiring that a sentencing court affirmatively review all probation conditions proposed in the presentence report, even if the defendant has not objected to those conditions. It applied that requirement to Dean Ranstead’s sentence appeal and remanded to the superior court. The State petitioned for hearing. The Alaska Supreme Court agreed with the court of appeals that a sentencing court bears responsibility for ensuring that probation conditions satisfy the requirements of Roman and are not otherwise illegal. But the Court found a sentencing court was not required to make particularized findings to support the imposition of a proposed probation condition to which the defendant had not objected. Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals’ decision to the extent it vacated probation conditions to which Ranstead did not object. View "Alaska v. Ranstead" on Justia Law

Matthew Pease-Madore filed nearly a dozen administrative appeals of prison disciplinary proceedings in the superior court; he filed three appeals from the superior court’s decisions with the Alaska Supreme Court. The first of the three appeals related to a November 17, 2014 incident in which he reportedly told an officer, “I’m not going to be in jail forever and it is going to be very interesting when I meet certain people on the streets.” From this, Pease-Madore was charged with making “threats to another of future bodily harm” in violation of 22 Alaska Administrative Code (AAC) 05.400(d)(6) (2004). The United States Supreme Court held that federal procedural due process requires “a ‘written statement by the factfinders as to the evidence relied on and reasons’ for the disciplinary action.” The Alaska Supreme Court held that due process under the Alaska Constitution required a “verbatim record of the [disciplinary] proceedings.” The superior court concluded that the incident reports and the audio recordings of the three disciplinary hearings satisfied due process, and denied the three appeals. The prisoner argued on appeal to the Alaska Court that the verbatim record requirement was in addition to and not in place of the federal written statement requirement. He also argued the written disciplinary decisions were inadequate and could not incorporate the incident reports or be supplemented by the verbatim records and that no showing of prejudice would be required if the federal due process requirement was not met. Finding no reversible error in the superior court’s decision, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. View "Pease-Madore v. Alaska Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

In early 2010 Alvin Wassillie was serving out the remainder of a felony sentence at the Parkview Center halfway house in Anchorage. On February 19 he left Parkview on a pass to look for a job. Around the time of his return that afternoon a staff member saw someone toss a white bag through an open window into an upstairs room. Other staff members searched the room and found a white bag with a bottle of vodka in it. Parkview’s security manager identified Wassillie as the person who threw the bag (and presumably the vodka) into the building. Bringing alcohol into the facility was a violation of its rules, so Wassillie was asked to wait in the lobby while a report was made and the Department of Corrections (DOC) was contacted to take Wassillie back to jail. After waiting several hours in the lobby, Wassillie walked out of the facility. A jury found Wassillie guilty of escaping from a halfway house, and the court of appeals affirmed his conviction. The Alaska Supreme Court granted a petition for hearing on the issue of whether the conviction should be overturned because of the invalidity of the grand jury’s indictment. Wassillie argued that the indictment was based on inadmissible hearsay evidence — an incident report prepared by a staff member at the halfway house, relaying another resident’s description of the defendant’s conduct and introduced to the grand jury through the testimony of an uninvolved supervisor. The State countered that the incident report fell under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and that even if it was inadmissible hearsay the conviction should not be reversed because any error in the grand jury proceeding was later made harmless by the error-free trial. The Supreme Court held that the incident report did not fall under the business records exception to the hearsay rule and should have been excluded. Because the evidence was otherwise insufficient to support the grand jury’s decision to indict, the indictment was invalid and the conviction had to be reversed. View "Wassillie v. Alaska" on Justia Law