Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

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

Michael Rae was a prisoner in the custody of Alaska’s Department of Corrections (DOC). In January 2015, he filed a complaint (labeled a “petition”) alleging that DOC lacked the constitutional authority to hold him. In an attached motion for expedited consideration he asserted that he had been “subjected to numerous forms of cruel and unusual punishments” including solitary confinement and impediments to his ability to conduct legal research. In June 2015, the superior court sua sponte dismissed the complaint with prejudice because Rae failed to “advance any cognizable or discernable claim.” Rae filed both a motion for reconsideration and a notice of his intent to seek a default, following up with a 75-page application for a default judgment. The superior court denied reconsideration, concluding that “Rae’s main point of contention is that [DOC] has no legal authority to hold him or exist at all” and that the “argument is without merit and the relief sought is not available to Rae.” The Alaska Supreme Court agreed the complaint failed to state a cognizable claim, and affirmed the dismissal. View "Rae v. Alaska Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

In May 2014, the Alaska Department of Corrections found inmate Sababu Hodari guilty of a disciplinary infraction. Hodari appealed the Department’s decision to the superior court, arguing that the Department violated his right to due process by failing to follow prescribed procedure in the disciplinary hearing. While the appeal was pending the Department reversed its decision and removed the disciplinary records from Hodari’s file. The superior court then found that Hodari had effectively prevailed on his appeal, and it allowed him to recover costs and fees from the Department. Hodari moved for an award of $4,800 in attorney’s and paralegal fees. The court awarded Hodari fees and costs but did not specify the amount of the award in its order, so the Department moved for clarification of the fee-award order. In its clarification order the court stated that because Hodari had not shown that the paralegal fees were for legal work “ordinarily performed by an attorney,” he was only entitled to $1,800 in attorney’s fees. Hodari appealed, arguing that the superior court abused its discretion in refusing to award him paralegal fees. The Alaska Supreme Court disagreed, and therefore affirmed the superior court’s fee award. View "Hodari v. Alaska Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

In November 1999, Alaska filed a felony information charging Sean Wright with sexually abusing two young girls. Wright was not arrested or indicted on these charges until almost five years later. He moved to dismiss the charges, claiming, among other reasons, that his right to a speedy trial had been violated. The superior court denied this motion. On appeal, the court of appeals ordered a reassessment of Wright’s claim. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded speedy trial time begins to run from the filing of an information, and that that the superior court did not err in attributing primary responsibility for the delay to Wright. View "Alaska v. Wright" on Justia Law

In the course of the 2016 budgetary process, the Alaska legislature appropriated a sum of money for dividend distributions. But the governor vetoed about half of the appropriation, and the legislature did not override the veto. One current and two former legislators later sued to effectively set aside the governor’s veto. The thrust of their argument was that a 1976 constitutional amendment creating the Alaska Permanent Fund gave the legislature constitutional authority to pass laws dedicating use of Permanent Fund income without need for annual appropriations and, therefore, not subject to annual gubernatorial veto. The legislators argued that the longstanding dividend program was a law exempt from the anti-dedication clause. The superior court ruled against the legislators, concluding the legislature’s actual use of the income remained subject to normal appropriation and veto budgetary processes. The narrow question this case presented for the Alaska Supreme Court's review was whether the 1976 amendment to the Alaska Constitution exempted the legislature’s use of Permanent Fund income from the Constitution’s anti-dedication clause. The Court concluded "no" — the 1976 amendment did not exempt the legislature’s use of Permanent Fund income from the Constitution’s anti-dedication clause. Although the superior court did not reach this question, the court’s ultimate conclusion nevertheless was correct: the legislature’s use of Permanent Fund income is subject to normal appropriation and veto budgetary processes. View "Wielechowski v. Alaska" on Justia Law

Providence Alaska Medical Center terminated Dr. Michael Brandner’s hospital privileges without an opportunity to be heard after determining he had violated hospital policy by failing to report an Alaska State Medical Board order requiring him to undergo an evaluation of his fitness to practice medicine. Brandner unsuccessfully challenged this action through the hospital's hearing and appeal procedures. Brandner thereafter took his cause to court, seeking reinstatement and damages for the alleged due process violations both in the procedures used and in the substantive standard applied in his termination. The superior court found no such violations and that he was not entitled to reinstatement. Brandner appealed. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, finding that Brandner was not entitled to reinstatement or post-termination-hearing damages. However, the doctor's due process rights were violated when he was not given a hearing following termination of his hospital privileges. The matter was remanded for further proceedings. View "Brandner v. Providence Health & Services" on Justia Law

In 2013, a number of pro se prisoners moved the superior court to enforce the terms of a 1990 Final Settlement Agreement and Order in "Cleary v. Smith," a class action by inmates regarding prison conditions. In 2014 Superior Court Judge John Suddock dismissed the prisoners’ motions, concluding that the Final Settlement Agreement was unenforceable because it had been terminated in 2001 when Superior Court Judge Elaine Andrews found that the requirements for termination had been met. But Judge Andrews did not terminate the Final Settlement Agreement because she determined that the Alaska Prison Litigation Reform Act was only constitutional if it did not terminate the Final Settlement Agreement. Judge Andrews’s 2001 Order became the law of the case when it was issued. Because Judge Suddock failed to make required findings when reversing the law of the case, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed Judge Suddock’s Order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Barber v. Alaska" on Justia Law

A father requested court-appointed counsel in a child custody modification proceeding after learning that the mother had hired a private attorney. The court denied the request. The father (supported in part by several amici curiae) claimed that the denial violated his due process and equal protection rights under theAlaska Constitution. The Supreme Court disagreed, declining to expand its prior decisions by mandating court-appointed counsel for every indigent parent in a child custody proceeding when the opposing parent was represented by private counsel. The Court concluded that on the facts of this case the father’s constitutional rights were not violated by the denial of court-appointed counsel. View "Dennis O. v. Stephanie O." on Justia Law