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Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance stated this week that town has employed a full roster of prosecutors and is not dropping felony fees on account of quick staffing. The announcement comes 9 months after the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica reported the mass dismissals.
“Public security begins with accountability — and we can’t maintain individuals accountable if we don’t have prosecutors in court docket,” LaFrance stated in a information launch, saying that Alaska’s largest metropolis has stuffed all “frontline” prosecutor jobs for the primary time since 2020. “This was about greater than filling positions. It was about rebuilding the programs that maintain Anchorage secure.”
An investigation by the newsrooms, printed in October, discovered that metropolis prosecutors dropped a whole lot of misdemeanor circumstances as a result of there weren’t sufficient attorneys on the payroll. Between Might 1 and Oct. 2 of final yr, town dropped greater than 250 home violence assault circumstances and greater than 270 drunken driving circumstances on account of an incapability to fulfill the 120-day deadline Alaska units for upholding a defendant’s proper to a speedy trial.
Days after the investigation got here out, the state of Alaska introduced it could assist prosecute metropolis circumstances to keep away from speedy-trial dismissals.
However these state prosecutors are not wanted. Based on town, the municipal prosecutor’s workplace now has a full employees of 12 “frontline” prosecutors who take circumstances to trial, plus a supervisor and an lawyer who recordsdata motions and appeals. The one emptiness, they stated, is a supervisory position: deputy municipal prosecutor.
That quantities to a emptiness charge of about 7% within the prosecutor’s workplace. In distinction, greater than 40% of metropolis prosecutor positions have been vacant as of mid-2024, in response to a metropolis spokesperson.
At a Wednesday “trial name” listening to at downtown Anchorage’s Boney Courthouse, Assistant Municipal Prosecutor Andy Garbe introduced town was able to go to trial in case after case, together with a drunken driving arrest, weapons fees and home violence assaults. It was a far totally different scene from September, when prosecutors have been routinely compelled to drop fees in circumstances nearing the speedy-trial deadline.
“We’re not within the place we have been final fall,” Garbe stated, referring to the compelled dismissals. “That’s not taking place anymore.”
Metropolis prosecutors stated they’re nonetheless dismissing circumstances for causes apart from speedy-trial deadlines. For instance, on Wednesday, Garbe moved to dismiss two circumstances, together with a home violence assault, citing elements such because the weak spot of the case and unavailable witnesses. A protection lawyer had warned the circumstances have been nearing the 120-day speedy-trial deadline, however Garbe stated the timing was not the explanation for the dismissals.
In Anchorage, metropolis prosecutors deal with misdemeanor circumstances whereas state attorneys usually prosecute felonies.
With essentially the most severe felonies, the state has lengthy handled issues aside from Anchorage’s mass dismissals. The newsrooms reported in January that some of those cases are delayed as long as a decade earlier than reaching trial. In March, the Alaska Supreme Court docket issued a series of orders aimed toward decreasing delays.
District Court docket Choose Brian Clark cited the Supreme Court docket orders on Wednesday when asking attorneys in the event that they have been able to go to trial, noting the pending deadline.
