My lack of blogging has prevented me from posting the recent Court of Appeals decisions. There are three that I need to update on.
The first is Wells v. State (no relation to me). Ralph Wells was convicted for third degree assault (being 18 years or older and recklessly causing physical injury requiring medical treatment to a person under 10 years of age). Based on this, his probation was revoked in another case. Wells argued that there was insufficient evidence to convict him and thus insufficient evidence to revoke his probation. As any defense lawyer knows, a sufficiency of the evidence appeal is a 1-way ticket to post-conviction land. (For non-lawyers, it means that the client will lose the appeal and then go to the next step in the criminal process: post conviction. Lest anyone think I am cynical, some study I read about winning appellate issues shows that jury instructions were the ground used by appellate courts to most often order a reversal while sufficiency of the evidence was used the least. So, it's not just my cynicism. There's actual research).
However, as you might guess because this is a published opinion, Wells actually won. He won, however, not based on sufficiency of the evidence but on statutory definition. The statutory term "medical treatment" can have more than one meaning. Under the term most favorable to Wells, the medical care received by the kid in this case was not 'treatment". Thus, insufficient evidence to convict and thus to revoke probation. While the child saw the doctor, the docs said the kid would heal on his own. So, the kid required medical attention, but not necessarily medical treatment. There is prior case law supporting this difference. The court spends a great deal of time going over the rules of statutory construction and interpretation. Judge Mannheimer concurred, citing some of the bill's history and giving a more in depth discussion of the term "medical treatment". This is a good case for anyone having to deal with this particular statute, but also of statutory interpretation.
Next are two cases involving Mr. Nason. The first case, Nason v. State, deals with 2 primary issues: whether the search was valid, and whether the court erred in shackling Mr. Nason. Mr. Nason was charged with assault in the first degree for shooting someone and for misconduct involving weapons in the third degree (felon in possession). Ms. Heather Gillespie showed up at the Talkeetna Medical Clinic after she was shot. She claimed the shooting was accidental. She gave permission for the cops went to her cabin to investigate, but they found nobody. They interviewed her again, and she said that she did not shoot herself. She said that Mark shot her with his handgun, and maybe she still had it. She re-iterated that they could search her cabin, so they did so again. This time, they found Mr. Nason. They also found him with a pistol, which he was barred from possessing by a previous felony.
Nason argued that Ms. Gillespie did not give valid consent. The troopers testified and also presented a tape made of the conversation with Ms. Gillespie. (Once again, good Alaska law requires troopers to tape record conversations). That tape showed that she did give consent. The trial court denied his motion and the appellate court upheld the decision.
During Mr. Nason's trial, the troopers wanted him shackled. His attorney objected. The trial court ruled that this was a matter of security that was left up to the troopers. The Court held that that this was obviously erroneous. Case law, AK and US, prevent a jury from seeing a defendant manacled. Under AK law, the court must hold a hearing to determine if there is shackles are necessary. No hearing was held. However, it was not clear that the defendant was seen in shackles. So the court remanded for a hearing to determine what, if any, prejudice accrued to the defendant. Somehow, I doubt that the trial court will find any prejudice. This does not seem to be such a good case for third party consent because the facts as described seem to suggest that the consent was clear and the ownership of the cabin was not in doubt. It is a handy summary, but I'm not sure how much this case will be relied on for future third party consent decisions. It is a good case, though, for analyzing the shackling of prisoners. It sets out the requirement for a hearing as well as what the court must consider before ordering someone be shackled during a trial. I would read it if you have a client that you might suspect the troopers or DAs will ask be shackled.
But that's not all for Mr. Nason. In the next case, Mr. Nason challenged the AK DNA registry. As a convicted felon, Mr. Nason had to provide a DNA sample. He objected on equal protection, Fourth Amendment, and privacy grounds. (NOTE: The AK constitution has an explicit right to privacy). Essentially, the court finds that the equal protection argument is without merit. So, they rule that the DNA registry does not violate equal protection. However, they reject Nason's argument because, as briefed, it does not rebut the presumption of constitutionality. While noting the Kincaid decision of the 9th Circuit and other decisions, the Court notes that every single court has found DNA registry constitutional. That finding by the Alaska Court of Appeals, though, comes with a caveat. They note that these decisions are not unanimous in their reasoning. Further, Kincaid, while upholding the federal DNA law, was based on a plurality opinion rather than adherence to 1 argument. The dissent in Kincaide was also extremely vehement.
This is an interesting decision by the COA. I think that in different circumstances (namely, a felony property crime instead of a felony crime of violence, and also better briefing), the COA might well find AK's DNA registry unconstitutionally broad. I do not think they will reject it completely, but rather that it mandates providing a DNA sample for crimes where there is no real link between providing a sample and preventing or detecting future crimes. So while it was a defeat for Mr. Nason, I would be cautiously optimistic that this case might not be the end result and that the end result might be a good one for individual rights.
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