Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Alaska Board of Game promulgated regulations managing caribou hunting in Game Management Unit 13. A hunter challenged the regulations on constitutional and statutory grounds, arguing that they wrongfully interfered with his subsistence hunting rights, and also sought a judicially imposed public reprimand of an assistant attorney general representing the Board. The superior court dismissed the claim against the attorney, granted summary judgment upholding the regulations, and awarded partial attorney’s fees to the State and an intervenor defendant. The hunter appealed. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal and summary judgment orders, but vacated the attorney’s fees awards and remanded for further proceedings. View "Manning v. Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game" on Justia Law

Michael Wagner shot and killed his landlord, Steven Key, in 2006. The superior court ruled that the prosecution could use Wagner's police interview to impeach him if he took the stand at his murder trial. Wagner argued on appeal that the police violated his right to remain silent, and that the court's ruling prevented him from testifying. The Supreme Court affirmed, finding that on the trial court record, it was impossible to tell whether the court's ruling affected Wagner's decision not to testify, whether the prosecution would have impeached him with his police statement, or whether this evidence would have affected the jury. The Court, therefore, concluded that Wagner had not preserved his "Miranda" claim for appellate review. Wagner's conviction was affirmed. View "Wagner v. Alaska" on Justia Law

A criminal defendant exercised his constitutional right not to testify at trial. The prosecutor, in her rebuttal closing argument, commented that two people knew what had happened on the night in question, and only one of them, the victim, had testified. The defendant did not object to the comment, and the jury convicted him of attempted murder. The court of appeals, reviewing the defendant’s unpreserved claim of error, determined that the prosecutor’s remark violated the defendant’s right against self-incrimination. But the court of appeals concluded that there was no plain error because “at least some reasonable judges could have concluded that the problem was not egregious enough to warrant a mistrial, and that the problem could be handled through curative instructions.” After its review of the case, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, but on different grounds: because the error, even though obvious, non-tactical, and affecting a substantial right, was harmless beyond a reasonable dou View "Goldsbury v. Alaska" on Justia Law

Defendants in two criminal cases failed to object to errors at trial: in "Moreno v. Alaska," the admission of improper testimony regarding Jorge Moreno's exercise of his right to be free from compelled self-incrimination; in "Hicks v. Alaska," the lack of a jury unanimity instruction when the prosecutor directed the jury that it could find Mary Hicks guilty of either of two episodes of allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol. Moreno and Hicks both appealed, and in each case, the appellate court held that the defendants failed to show that the error was not the result of counsel's strategic decision not to object. Moreno and Hicks filed petitions for hearing before the Supreme Court, arguing that the burden of proof should be on the State to show that their counsels' failures to object were the result of tactical decisions. They also contended that the court of appeals erroneously speculated on the purported tactical benefits they received due to their attorneys' lack of objections. Lastly, they each requested an evidentiary hearing to develop the record on this issue. The Supreme Court granted review to determine whether to apply an evidentiary presumption or to place a burden of proof on a party to establish that a defendant's lack of objection at trial was or was not the result of defense counsel's intelligent waiver or tactical decision not to object. The Court concluded, however, that Alaska case law compels neither result: defense counsel's tactical reason for failing to object, or counsel's intelligent waiver of an objection, should be plainly obvious from the record before foreclosing the reviewing court's consideration of the remaining plain error elements. The Court reversed the court of appeals' decisions on this issue. But it concluded that Moreno suffered no prejudice despite the error in his case, and affirmed the court of appeals' decision upholding Moreno's conviction on this alternate ground. Hicks's case was remanded to the court of appeals for further proceedings. View "Moreno v. Alaska" on Justia Law

Appellants Richard Hughes, the Alaska Miners Association, and the Council of Alaska Producers challenged Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell's certification of a ballot initiative that would require final legislative approval for any large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation located within the Bristol Bay watershed. Appellants argued that the initiative violated the constitutional prohibitions on appropriation and enacting local or special legislation by initiative. Following oral argument, the Alaska Supreme Court issued an order affirming the superior court's summary judgment order in favor of the State and the initiative sponsors, and allowing preparation of ballots to proceed. View "Hughes v. Treadwell" on Justia Law

Robert Gillam and two of his business ventures filed suit, alleging that the Alaska Public Offices Commission should not have been allowed to investigate and decide whether Gillam and his businesses had committed certain campaign finance violations. Gillam alleged that both the Executive Director and the Chair of the Commission were biased and that further consideration by the Commission would violate his right to due process protected by the Alaska and federal constitutions and his Alaska constitutional right to a fair investigation. The superior court concluded that Gillam’s claims were not ripe and that Gillam has failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Upon review, the Alaska Supreme Court agreed that there was an administrative recusal procedure for Gillam’s state law claims and that Gillam needed to exhaust that remedy before bringing his state law claims to court. The Court also agreed that Gillam’s federal due process claim was not ripe because the recusal procedure might resolve that claim. View "RBG Bush Planes, LLC v. Kirk" on Justia Law

Joe Garibay was at the Sam's Club in Fairbanks when he collided with a woman’s shopping cart, waking her baby. She demanded an apology, but Garibay swore at her instead. Assuming he was drunk because of the beer in his cart and his threatening manner, the woman called the police, then followed Garibay out to the parking lot to get his license plate number. When a police officer arrived a few minutes later, the woman told him that Garibay was “maybe . . . a drunk,” that he had threatened her in front of her children, and that she wanted him charged with assault. Informed that an assault charge was unlikely, the woman asked that the police at least “find that guy to make sure he’s not drunk.” The officer assured her that they would try to find Garibay and “make sure he’s not, you know, drunk driving, something like that.” Police subsequently stopped him, then arrested him for driving under the influence of alcohol. The Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Garibay’s driver’s license for 90 days, and the superior court affirmed the revocation. Garibay appealed, arguing that the police stop constituted an unconstitutional search and seizure requiring that evidence of his drinking be excluded from the license revocation proceedings. The Supreme Court affirmed on the basis that the exclusionary rule applied in license revocation proceedings only in exceptional circumstances not present here. View "Garibay v. Alaska, Dept. of Administration, Division of Motor Vehicles" on Justia Law

Major forest fires swept through areas south of Fairbanks in the summer of 2009 and approached properties owned by appellants (the landowners). Firefighters working under the direction of the State Department of Forestry intentionally set fire to the landowners’ vegetation. The burnouts deprived the advancing wildfires of fuel and saved the structures. But the landowners sued the State, bringing a takings claim under the eminent domain provision of the Alaska Constitution, article I, section 18, and tort claims for negligence and intentional misconduct. The Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s dismissal of the tort claims because of governmental immunity; it reversed its dismissal of the constitutional claim, remanding it to the superior court for further consideration of whether the specific exercise of the State’s police powers at issue here was justified by the doctrine of necessity. View "Brewer v. Alaska" on Justia Law

J.W. was the son of Jeanette Myre, a member of the Asa’carsarmiut Tribe, and John Wheeler, a non-member. In 2007 Myre petitioned the Asa’carsarmiut Tribal Court to assume jurisdiction over the custody of J.W. After a hearing in which both parents participated. The tribal court awarded Myre primary physical custody and granted Wheeler limited visitation rights. In 2011 Wheeler kept J.W. at the end of a visitation period, then initiated custody proceedings in Alaska superior court. Myre moved to enforce the 2007 tribal court custody order; the superior court found it to be a lawful custody order and returned J.W. to Myre’s custody. In 2012 Myre was arrested for child endangerment, and the State of Alaska assumed protective custody of J.W. Wheeler moved for modification of the custody order in the superior court. The Asa’carsarmiut Tribal Council intervened in the superior court proceeding to argue that the superior court lacked jurisdiction to modify the tribal court custody order. The superior court concluded it had modification jurisdiction and determined there had been substantially changed circumstances such that modification was in J.W.’s best interests. The superior court awarded Wheeler primary physical custody. Neither Wheeler nor Myre appealed the superior court’s decision, but the tribal council appealed, arguing that the superior court lacked modification jurisdiction. The narrow question before the Alaska Supreme Court was whether the tribal council has standing to appeal the superior court’s modification decision in light of the parents’ election not to appeal that decision. Concluding that under this circumstance, the tribal council did not have standing, and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. View "Asa'carsarmiut Tribal Council v. Wheeler" on Justia Law

In 1992, Robert Farmer and his wife, Kathy, bought Wolverine Lodge in Glennallen from Peggy Jo Watson. The purchase price of $365,000 was secured by a deed of trust on the property. Farmer defaulted on the mortgage for the first time in 1996, but he cured before the foreclosure sale occurred. In 2012 Farmer defaulted again. Farmer was almost five months late on the payments, had not paid the real estate taxes or room taxes, and had no insurance on the property. Watson paid all of these expenses herself in order to keep the property up-to-date and insured. She testified that "Farmer promised many times that he would bring the loan current and obtain insurance,” but “[h]e never did." In March 2012 Watson commenced nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings. Watson’s attorney recorded a notice of default and a notice of sale, and distributed them to Farmer by mail and personal service. Notice of the nonjudicial foreclosure sale was published in the Alaska Journal of Commerce and posted at various locations in Anchorage. The nonjudicial foreclosure sale was postponed six times. It was initially set for July 25, but Watson postponed it until August 29. On August 28 Farmer filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Watson again postponed the sale, this time at Farmer’s request, until September 26. Because of the ensuing automatic bankruptcy stay, the sale was postponed until October 31, then until November 28, then again until December 19, and finally until December 27, when the sale actually took place. Watson’s attorney was the only attendee at each of the scheduled sales. Each of these postponements was announced publicly on the sale date, and the trustee signed the notice of postponement every time. Farmer was not otherwise notified of any of the postponements, and, at the time of the actual sale, he alleged that neither "[he], [his] wife, nor [his] bankruptcy attorney knew . . . that a deed of trust foreclosure sale was scheduled for December 27, 2012." Farmer argued that equity required re-notice after each postponement and that the lack of re-notice violated his due process rights. The superior court granted summary judgment to Watson. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed: equity does not require re-notice after postponement of a nonjudicial foreclosure sale and notice of a postponement by public announcement satisfies due process. View "Farmer v. Alaska USA Title Agency, Inc." on Justia Law