State of Alaska Department of Law

The Special Litigation Section in the Attorney General’s Office is recruiting for an experienced civil litigator to handle a diverse caseload. Special Litigation attorneys work in a team environment, collaborating with subject matter specialists and appellate attorneys to handle complex, high profile, and/or expedited litigation at the trial court level. The attorney will handle all aspects of trial court litigation from initial pleadings through discovery, dispositive motion practice, and trial. Travel both in Alaska and out of state may be required. Attorneys in the Civil Division work on matters of statewide importance, all while living and enjoying all Alaska has to offer. If you enjoy complex and impactful legal work along with dramatic scenery, outdoor activities like skiing, hiking, kayaking, and abundant wildlife, then the Alaska Department of Law, Civil Division is the place for you. Flexible schedules, including hybrid telework arrangements, may be available. Learn more at: https://lnkd.in/grXdXuA8 #WeAreAKLaw #Attorney #CivilAttorney #Alaska #DepartmentOfLaw #AttorneyGeneral #SpecialLitigation #Complex #HighProfile #Litigation #StatehoodDefense #SupremeCourt #AlaskaSupremeCourt

On July 23, 2024, after a six-day trial, a jury found 37-year-old Alec Thomas Kameroff guilty of three counts of Sexual Assault in the First Degree, four counts of Sexual Assault in the Second Degree, and eight counts of Assault in the Third Degree against his former wife, and one count of Assault in the Third Degree against his sister. Over the course of trial, a Kenai jury heard that the defendant and victim were married from approximately 2016 through late 2021. The jury heard throughout the course of their relationship, the defendant engaged in repeated acts of domestic abuse against the victim, including a prior physical assault for which he was convicted in January 2019. The jury further learned that the defendant engaged in a pattern of coercive, demeaning, and controlling behavior against the victim, who has worked hard to overcome limitations associated with an intellectual disability. The jury heard that on January 13, 2020, the defendant and victim were in Kenai visiting family. After being left alone at the family residence, the defendant, who was heavily intoxicated, demanded that the victim perform oral sex. The victim initially refused, but after being threatened with physical violence, ultimately acquiesced, and performed a brief act of oral sex. The defendant thereafter ordered the victim to lay down on the floor where he then engaged in an act of penile-genital penetration, without the victim’s consent. When the defendant again demanded oral sex, the victim continued in her refusal. The defendant thereafter struck the victim in the face and ear, forcing her again to perform oral sex. While forcing her to perform the act, the defendant taunted the victim, asking her, “Is this rape? Is this rape?” as she cried through the act. The violence continued over the course of the night into the next morning as the defendant and victim drove back to their home in Willow. At one point prior to leaving the residence in Kenai, Kameroff pulled out a knife and held it towards the victim, threatening her with it. During the drive to Willow, Kameroff again hit his wife in the face. On arrival in Willow, the defendant continued his assault of the victim, kicking her in the side and ultimately placing her in a headlock resulting in her loss of consciousness. The defendant’s sister, who had been picked up by the couple in Anchorage, attempted to intervene. The defendant thereafter punched his sister in the jaw. The jury was presented with extensive documentation of the victim’s injuries obtained over the first four days of the investigation. Sentencing is scheduled for December 6, 2024, at 10:00 AM. As this is the defendant’s second sexual felony conviction, he faces a presumptive minimum sentence of at least 55 years, with a potential sentence of up to 99 years. #WeAreAKLaw

Today, the State of Alaska filed a challenge to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) so called “Conservation and Landscape Health Rule.” “The United States Government works within a system of checks and balances,” said Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor “but this administration has shown a determined attitude to circumvent that system to achieve its goals. More often than not, the executive branch does exactly what it did with this BLM rule. It creates rules and policies through agencies to serve its purpose when laws are not created by Congress. That practice undermines our system of governance in America, and, in this instance, removes opportunities from Alaskans to use their own lands.” The state argues that the implementation of the rule violates the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which had already identified lands to be protected and provided which lands were to be open to multiple uses, including natural resource development. The Landscape Health Rule would allow the BLM to withdraw sections of land from “multiple use” status and authorize those lands for “restoration” and “mitigation” purposes. This authority is nowhere in statute and instead was simply created by the BLM to fill a manufactured need. In the 48 years since Congress enacted FLPMA, BLM has never once asserted this broad authority. The rule that they have now promulgated creates a new preservation system from whole cloth. ANILCA contains a “No More” clause which established that no additional lands in Alaska would be placed in the conservation system without the direct approval of Congress, FLPMA contains similar restrictions. Additionally, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) also required BLM to examine the environmental effects of its proposal, the agency failed to do so and instead relied on a “categorical exclusion.” The State argues that the Landscape Health Rule attempts to circumvent mandatory Congressional approval and bypass required environmental reviews. #WeAreAKLaw #Alaska

Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore briefed the Alaska Governor’s Council on Human and Sex Trafficking this morning on criminal justice legislation that passed, House Bill 66.  The Governor signed the bill this month. All provisions take effect Jan. 1. Deputy AG Skidmore said the new law gives a better encapsulation of how a person is induced into sex or human trafficking and creates a new crime for a patron of a victim sex trafficking.  HB 66 also  addresses drug distribution crimes, allows officers to summarize witness and victim statements at grand jury, addresses competency evaluations in criminal trials and civil commitments. On Sex Trafficking: The law amends Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree. This includes the list of ways sex trafficking and human trafficking are committed. Among the list: - threats to expose confidential information -destroying or concealing identification or immigration documents -withholding food, clothing, lodging, or medications -supplying and withholding controlled substances -threats to collect debts. HB66 did not amend Human or Sex Trafficking in the First Degree, those are in statute as previously listed. The new law: -Defined a new crime: a patron of a victim of sex trafficking. This is a new crime in the state of Alaska. -HB 66 did not increase penalties for any sex trafficking crime as other bills had proposed to do. The sentencing scheme stayed the way it was, including the lack of sex offender registration requirements for most sex trafficking crimes. #WeAreAKLaw

Today, Superior Court Judge Bride Seifert sentenced 56-year-old Trevor Latimer to prison for Possession of Fentanyl with Intent to Deliver, Possession of Methamphetamine with Intent to Deliver, and Possession of Methamphetamine for his role in what was described by the Homer Police as the largest drug bust ever in Homer. In June of 2023, after conducting an investigation that led to them obtaining search warrants, Homer Police Officers seized from an apartment in Homer illegal drugs and proceeds that included more than a pound of methamphetamine, more than 200 fentanyl pills, cocaine, heroin, scales, drug paraphernalia, and $10,000 in cash. As part of the investigation, police arrested Latimer, Andrea Eden, Richard Falcone, Gregory Troupe, and Cathy Thomas. The evidence, which included surveillance and cell phone searches showed that Eden and Falcone, who lived in the apartment that the drugs were seized from, had the drugs they were selling brought into Homer from Colorado. Latimer was convicted of four felony charges by a Homer jury after a seven-day trial in March of 2024. The evidence at trial showed that Latimer was an accomplice to Eden and Falcone and was one of the people who helped them distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine. In sentencing Latimer, the Court found that Latimer played a minor role in the drug distribution scheme. However, the Court also found that Latimer had an extensive criminal history with five prior felony convictions that included crimes against a person, five prior misdemeanor convictions, a history of assaults, and prior similar behavior. Latimer was sentenced to 20 years in prison with five years suspended for Possession of Fentanyl with Intent to Distribute. He was also sentenced to eight years in prison with two years suspended for Possession of Methamphetamine with Intent to Distribute, and he was sentenced to four years in prison for Possession of Methamphetamine. The Court ordered that some portions of the sentences will run concurrently so that Latimer’s composite sentence will be 18 years to serve in prison with an additional seven years of suspended time. The Court also ordered that upon release from prison, Latimer will be on probation for the maximum of 15 years. #WeAreAKLaw

Summer law school interns at the Alaska Department of Law for the Civil Division engaged in two mock trials today before Superior Court Judge David Nesbett and Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman at the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage. The 17 interns practiced courtroom decorum while giving opening statements, interviewing witnesses, cross-examining, and giving closing arguments. Judge Nesbett gave praise to the group on their skills and encouraged them in their future roles as attorneys to be prepared, be gracious to court staff, to walk away from notes, look jurors in the eye and connect as people. “Theyre 1Ls, and they did an amazing job! I would really like to compliment the work that they did” -Chief Assistant Attorney General Jessica Leeah #WeAreAKLaw #Alaska #LawIntern #Intern #Internship #LawSchool 

Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor has joined a 12-state coalition that filed a brief Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a case about protecting parental rights. The brief asks the Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court that dismissed a lawsuit brought by a parent when a school helped a student with their gender transition without the parent’s knowledge. “My stance on this issue is consistent and clear,” said Attorney General Taylor “it is the primary role and responsibility of parents to care for their children and instill in them moral beliefs, principles and core values. Public institutions, like schools, have no moral or legal authority to impart core values in contradiction to those taught by a child’s parents. The idea that some school officials feel their position is so morally superior to parents that they override the parents’ decisions on such important and core issues like gender identity and health is absolutely abhorrent. And to do so in secret is immoral. Schools exist to teach children basic competencies in core subjects like math, history and science and they are invaluable to our society in that regard. But schools should not try to take the place of parents in the raising of their children.” The brief argues that some states have expressly banned policies that withhold this information from parents. “Withholding policies often not only violate these state laws but also infringe fundamental, long-standing constitutional rights,” the attorneys general write in their brief. In the case, a parent sued her local school board and several school officials after they allegedly withheld information about her child’s gender identity. She says school officials did not tell her that her child was using a new name and that school officials were referring to the child by new gender pronouns. School officials also allegedly did not tell the parent that a school employee gave her child two chest binders to assist in gender transition. Laws and reporting requirements exist currently that allow schools to act if abuse or neglect is occurring in the home, but those laws do not allow school employees to supersede parents choices concerning gender identity. The attorneys general argue that the school in this case, and the lower court that dismissed the lawsuit, failed to account for the right of parents to “direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” You can read the brief here: https://lnkd.in/d7dv32-d #WeAreAKLaw #Alaska #ParentalRights

Today, Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore met with reporters to discuss how the Office of Special Prosecutions in the Alaska Law Department reviews officer-involved shooting cases. There have been nine officer-involved shootings in Alaska in 2024, five of them in Anchorage since May. “The Office of Special Prosecutions’ review of use-of-deadly-force incidents protects the due process for the person shot and the officer,” said Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor. “The reviews are an integral part of delivering justice in Alaska.” The release of video from body-worn cameras by officers is frequently requested. Often, such requests come while officers are still gathering evidence, or the case is being reviewed by officers and prosecutors to determine whether criminal charges should be filed. Deputy Attorney General Skidmore addressed the appropriate timing for such release. “Requests for the release of body-worn video prior to the completion of review for possible criminal charges creates a tension between the public’s desire for transparency and the constitutional due process rights of potential defendants,” said Deputy Attorney General Skidmore. Deputy Attorney General Skidmore also provided an update on the status of all pending officer-involved shooting cases. For more information visit: https://lnkd.in/g8raigDj #WeAreAKLaw #Alaska #CriminalJustice #DepartmentofLaw #DistrictAttorney #SpecialProsecutions #OfficeOfSpecialProsecutions

Today, Superior Court Judge Jason Gist sentenced Kelly Crane to a composite 64 years in jail with 12 years suspended, 15 years of supervised probation, and sex offender registration and treatment. On Oct. 26, 2023, at the conclusion of a 17-day jury trial, a Kenai jury convicted Crane, 61, of Soldotna of sexually abusing one pre-school age girl and two grade-school age girls living in his home over the Spring and Summer of 2019. Evidence at the trial showed that Kelly Crane committed the most serious offense of Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the first degree against the youngest of three sisters, a four-year-old girl, and committed multiple counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the second degree against her oldest sister. When Crane attempted to sexually abuse the middle sister also, she reported it to an older relative who notified the police. The jury convicted Crane of 1 unclassified felony count of Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the First Degree, 2 class B felony counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the Second Degree, and 1 class C felony count of Attempted Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the Second Degree. #WeAreAKLaw #Alaska #Soldotna #DistrictAttorney #CriminalJustice

Friday, July 12th, after a four-day trial, a jury found 32-year-old Daniel Nick guilty of Kidnapping, Coercion, two counts of Assault in the Third Degree, Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance in the Fourth Degree, Unlawful Contact, and four counts of Violating Conditions of Release. The convictions relate to crimes that occurred against a domestic partner in Kwethluk in August 2023. The jury deliberated for 40 minutes before returning its verdicts. Less than two weeks prior to this incident, Nick was released on bail in a different case in which he is alleged to have committed arson and attempted murder against the same victim. That case is still open and awaiting trial. Nick is presumed innocent of all charges in that case. The case was investigated by the Alaska State Troopers and prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Bailey Woolfstead of the Office of Special Prosecutions’ Rural Prosecution Unit and Bethel District Attorney’s Office Intern Chad Flanders. Tundra Women’s Coalition provided victim advocacy services to the victim throughout the trial. After the verdict, the defendant was remanded pursuant to statute and is being held without bail, pending sentencing. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 12, 2024, at 8:30 a.m. in Bethel. Nick faces a sentencing range of 5 to 114 years to serve. #WeAreAKLaw