The Alaska Supreme Court held that the Kenai Peninsula Borough Planning Commission could deny a gravel-pit permit when listed conditions could not adequately minimize noise and visual impacts.
The Alaska Court of Appeals held that interference instructions subsumed the constitutional true-threat test, while vacating an unsupported probation search condition.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that pre-partnership property stays outside domestic-partnership division and extended marital-property tracing rules to unmarried partners.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that alleged ICWA defects in foster-care placement proceedings do not invalidate a separate, error-free parental-rights termination action.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that uncorroborated testimony about an oral agreement cannot overcome the presumption that inherited funds commingled in a marital home became marital property.
The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed a 90-day civil commitment and involuntary-medication order, holding that the trial court made an obvious but nonprejudicial error by failing to clarify whether voluntary treatment had been offered.
The Alaska Court of Appeals held that first-degree voter misconduct based on a false sworn statement requires proof that the defendant deliberately acted with a consciousness of wrongdoing, and it reversed the denial of Tupe Smith’s motion to dismiss her indictment.
The Alaska Supreme Court considered a post-appeal amended order despite procedural error and upheld termination because the record established neglect and failure to remedy.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that a child aged ten or eleven cannot nullify a GAL’s waiver of psychotherapy privilege, but may seek protection under CINA Rule 9’s balancing test.
The Alaska Supreme Court upheld DNR’s rule requiring rent on expired oil leases during an appeal and affirmed the agency’s refusal to add the remaining lease to the Badami Unit.
The supreme court held that the superior court could specify a reasonable width because the 1966 instrument did not do so. When an easement grant is silent, a court may supply terms reasonably necessary for enjoyment of the right. Because the landowners did not show that 60 feet was unreasonable or unnecessary, selecting that width was not an abuse of discretion. The central error concerned location, not width.
The court held that TCC qualifies as an arm of its member tribes. Its analysis considered the method of creation, the organization’s purposes, tribal control, the tribes’ intent to share immunity, and the financial relationship between TCC and its members. TCC’s state-law incorporation counted against immunity, and a small number of its member communities are not federally recognized tribes. But the remaining considerations carried greater weight: tribes organized TCC as a successor to a traditional Interior governing body, every member village elects a board representative, and TCC delivers core governmental services. Member tribes also authorized TCC to provide health services under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA), a federal statute that permits tribes to administer programs otherwise provided by federal agencies. That authorization supported both tribal intent and a sufficiently close financial relationship.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that officers must stop substantive questioning and clarify an ambiguous request for counsel made after a Miranda waiver, providing broader protection than federal law.
The Alaska Supreme Court adopted a first-to-file rule for concurrent state and tribal child-custody cases and required exhaustion of tribal remedies before a state-court jurisdictional challenge.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that legislative immunity prevented courts from reviewing a legislative ethics committee’s investigation and disposition of a complaint against a senator.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that housing needed to recruit and keep hospital staff near Norton Sound Health’s Nome hospital qualifies for the hospital-purpose property-tax exemption.
The Alaska Court of Appeals held that juvenile detention decisions may consider offense seriousness, culpability, accountability, and deterrence alongside rehabilitation and public safety.
The Alaska Supreme Court upheld a trust amendment that largely disinherited one son, deferring to findings of testamentary capacity and no undue influence.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that Civil Rule 60(a) permitted a trial court to correct custody findings drafted by counsel that materially departed from the court’s oral ruling.
The Alaska Supreme Court held that reversal of a parental-rights termination did not toll the one-year deadline to challenge a separate adoption decree, leaving the reopened CINA case moot.
The Alaska Court of Appeals vacated Nick Frankson’s sentence because the State undermined its plea agreement and the trial judge failed to obtain Frankson’s personal decision to maintain his pleas.
The Alaska Court of Appeals vacated Nick Frankson’s assault sentences on two grounds: the successor prosecutor breached the plea agreement by actively arguing against the parties’ agreed 720-day sentence on remand, and the superior court failed to personally address Frankson before proceeding to open sentencing after rejecting the sentencing agreement under Alaska Criminal Rule 11(e)(3). The court separately held that using Frankson’s nine prior assault convictions to find AS 12.55.155(c)(8) did not violate the Sixth Amendment under Erlinger v. United States, because determining that multiple dated assault convictions constitute ‘repeated instances of assaultive behavior’ requires examining only the bare conviction record — not the fact-laden inquiry that Erlinger held must go to a jury.
The Alaska Court of Appeals affirmed Lane’s DUI conviction under AS 28.35.030(a)(2), holding that the post-driving-drinking defense under AS 28.35.030(s) requires “some evidence” of actual post-driving consumption before a trial court must instruct the jury; an eight-minute gap between watercraft operation and a traffic stop, standing alone, did not meet that threshold. The court also called on the Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions Committee to revise the blood-alcohol-level DUI instruction to address its tension with the post-driving-drinking defense statute.
In a first-impression ruling, the Alaska Supreme Court held that a trial court does not abuse its discretion by removing a disruptive pro se civil litigant from trial, provided the court employs escalating, less-drastic measures and gives adequate warnings before ejection.