Akers v. State
| Decision Date | 23 December 2016 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. A-12009 |
| Citation | 389 P.3d 65 |
| Parties | Bambi AKERS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Alaska, Respondent. |
| Court | Alaska Court of Appeals |
Renee McFarland, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Petitioner.
Donald Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Respondent.
Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, and Allard, Judge.
The Petitioner, Bambi Akers, is facing a probation revocation proceeding in the district court. Over Akers's objection, this revocation proceeding has been assigned to a magistrate judge. Akers argues that she has a statutory right to insist that a district court judge conduct the revocation proceeding.
To resolve this question, we must interpret AS 22.15.120 —the statute that defines the authority of magistrate judges.
No provision of AS 22.15.120 expressly deals with probation revocation proceedings. However, three subsections of the statute—(a)(5), (a)(6), and (a)(7)—potentially encompass probation revocation proceedings in misdemeanor cases.
In certain instances, a magistrate judge has plenary authority to adjudicate misdemeanors. Subsection (a)(5) of the statute declares that magistrate judges are empowered to "give judgment of conviction" in all misdemeanor cases where a defendant pleads guilty or no contest. And subsection (a)(7) of the statute authorizes magistrate judges to "hear, try, and enter judgments" in limited categories of cases—cases where the defendant is charged with committing a "minor offense" (a term defined in subsection (c) of the statute) or with violating a city or borough ordinance.
But subsection (a)(6) of the statute—the provision that covers all other misdemeanor cases—states that a magistrate judge is empowered to "hear, try, and enter judgments" in these cases only "if the defendant consents in writing that the magistrate may try the case".
The question we must answer is whether this last provision of subsection (a)(6)—the requirement of a defendant's affirmative consent—applies to Akers's case. Before we present our analysis of this question, we must describe the history of this litigation.
Underlying facts
In 2012, Akers was charged with driving under the influence.1 She was arraigned on this charge in front of Superior Court Judge Dwayne W. McConnell (sitting as a district court judge).2 At her arraignment, Akers reached a plea agreement with the State; Judge McConnell accepted her guilty plea and then sentenced her in accordance with the terms of the plea bargain.
Under this plea bargain, Akers received 3 days to serve and an additional 57 days suspended. After serving the 3 days, Akers was released on probation.
In early 2013, Akers was charged with a new misdemeanor offense (importation of alcoholic beverages), and the State filed a petition to revoke Akers's probation in the DUI case.
The State again offered Akers a plea bargain—an offer that was intended to resolve both the new offense and the petition to revoke Akers's probation in the DUI case. Specifically, the State offered to dismiss the new charge if Akers would admit the probation violation and agree to serve 15 days of her previously suspended 57 days.
Akers appeared in court before Magistrate Judge Darlene Johnson–Edwards and accepted the State's proposed plea bargain. Magistrate Johnson–Edwards accepted Akers's admission to violating her probation, and she sentenced Akers in accordance with the plea bargain (i.e. , she ordered Akers to serve 15 days of her previously suspended sentence).
During this revocation proceeding, no one asked Akers if she was willing to waive her right to have a district court judge conduct the proceeding.
About a year later (in March 2014), the State charged Akers with yet another probation violation—this time, for consuming alcoholic beverages. Although the State again offered Akers a plea agreement to resolve this matter, Akers rejected the offer and chose to have a hearing. She asked for an attorney, and the revocation matter was continued until June.
In June 2014, Akers and her attorney appeared before District Court Judge Nathaniel Peters. At the prosecutor's suggestion, Judge Peters scheduled the adjudication hearing in front of Magistrate Judge Johnson–Edwards—under the mistaken assumption that Magistrate Johnso–Edwards had been Akers's original sentencing judge.
Akers's attorney pointed out that this was wrong—that Akers had originally been sentenced by Judge McConnell. But Judge Peters ruled that Akers's probation revocation hearing should still be conducted by Magistrate Judge Johnson–Edwards, because she was the judicial officer who conducted the previous probation revocation hearing. Judge Peters reasoned that if Magistrate Johnson–Edwards was eligible to handle the previous petition to revoke, she remained eligible to handle the current petition.
When Akers's attorney continued to object that Akers was statutorily entitled to have the matter handled by a district court judge, Judge Peters ruled that Akers had waived her right to a district court judge when, in 2013, she consented to have Magistrate Johnson–Edwards preside over the previous revocation matter.
Akers then petitioned this Court to review the district court's ruling. We granted Akers's petition and ordered formal briefing.
How we interpret the provisions of AS 22.15.120
From the days when Alaska was a territory, and up to the present day, Alaska has relied on judicial officers who do not necessarily have formal training in the law. These judicial officers were first called "district magistrates" and, later, simply "magistrates".3 Currently (since January 2013), they are called "magistrate judges".4
Despite these changes in their title, one of the primary roles of magistrate judges has been to provide or enhance judicial services in rural locations. As our legislature declared in 1959, magistrate judges were intended to be "[judicial officers] of limited trial power sufficient to meet the immediate requirements of justice in the less populated areas of the state." SLA 1959, ch. 184, § 25.
Both of the parties to this appeal, Akers and the State, ask us to interpret AS 22.15.120 in light of this legislative purpose—but they draw very different inferences from this legislative purpose.
The State focuses on the legislature's intention to provide judicial services to the many locations where there is no sitting superior court or district court judge. The State argues that, in light of this need for judicial services in rural Alaska, we should broadly interpret the authority of magistrate judges.
Akers, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that magistrate judges are not required to have formal training in the law,5 and on the fact that the legislature intended magistrate judges to be judicial officers of "limited trial power". Akers argues that, because magistrate judges are not required to be lawyers, the legislature did not intend for magistrate judges to preside over criminal trials and other contested litigation—such as contested probation revocation proceedings—without a defendant's express consent.
There are difficulties with both parties' proposed interpretations of the statute.
The State's suggested broad interpretation of the statute is potentially at odds with the legislature's express intention of creating a judicial office with "limited trial power". We note that when the Alaska state legislature enacted the original version of AS 22.15.120 in 1959, the legislature included the language of subsection (a)(6) which bars magistrates from conducting trials without the defendant's consent. See SLA 1959, ch. 184, § 19. It is not clear where this provision came from; it is not found in the pre-existing territorial law. But the legislature's inclusion of this provision underscores its declared intention of limiting the authority of magistrates to conduct certain contested proceedings.
On the other hand, Akers's suggested interpretation of the statute—the suggestion that the legislature did not intend for magistrate judges to preside over any contested criminal litigation without the parties' consent—is clearly inconsistent with the provisions of AS 22.15.120. As we explained above, AS 22.15.120(a)(7) gives magistrate judges unfettered authority to preside over trials where the defendant is charged with a minor offense or with the violation of a city or borough ordinance.
It is true that the types of cases covered by subsection (a)(7) typically involve lesser penalties. In particular, prosecutions for the "minor offenses" defined in AS 22.15.120(c) do not involve any risk of incarceration.6 But defendants who are convicted of violating a local ordinance can face significant jail time7 —and magistrate judges are empowered to preside over the trials in those cases regardless of the defendant's consent.
Thus, even though Akers and the State have both identified important policies that the legislature may well have considered when drafting AS 22.15.120, the actual provisions of the statute (and the statute's limited legislative history) fail to convince us that either of these policies should be considered a paramount guide to resolving the issue presented in Akers's case.
With that, we turn to the language of AS 22.15.120 itself and the facts of Akers's case.
Application of AS 22.15.120 to the facts of Akers's case
AS 22.15.120 defines the authority of magistrate judges by affirmatively listing the types of proceedings that magistrate judges are empowered to conduct. This list of authorized proceedings is exclusive: the statute begins with the words, "A magistrate shall preside only in [the following] cases and proceedings". Thus, if AS 22.15.120 does not affirmatively grant magistrate judges the authority to preside in a particular type of case or proceeding, magistrate judges do not have that authority.
AS 22.15.120(a)(5) authorizes magistrate judges to "give...
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