Background
Dick Sky is a prisoner in the custody of the Alaska Department of Corrections, serving a composite sentence of 55 years for thirty-eight counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, one count of attempted first-degree sexual assault of a minor, and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor — crimes for which he was convicted following a 2002 jury trial in Juneau.
In August 2022, more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sky filed a pleading in the Superior Court, First Judicial District, arguing that continued incarceration constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Alaska Constitution. Sky was over sixty years old and claimed chronic health conditions — pneumonia, cirrhosis, arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage. He sought unconditional release to probation, expressly stating he was not challenging his underlying convictions. The superior court construed the filing as a petition for writ of habeas corpus. After resolving a dispute over the prisoner filing fee under AS 09.19.010, directing DOC to show cause, and receiving DOC’s answer, the court denied both Sky’s motion for unmonitored telephone communications with his then-incarcerated wife Cynthia and his habeas petition on the merits. Sky appealed, raising procedural, bias, and substantive constitutional claims.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. The Court of Appeals rejected each of Sky’s claims and upheld the denial of the habeas petition.
Habeas procedure — filing fee requirements: Sky argued that the superior court violated his due process rights by delaying habeas proceedings for five months while processing his motion to proceed at public expense under AS 09.19.010. The court disagreed. Alaska’s prisoner-litigation fee statute requires prisoners filing suits against the State to pay a filing fee or obtain a partial exemption by submitting certified financial documentation; the court was required to obtain that documentation before permitting Sky to proceed at public expense. Alaska Civil Rule 86(j)’s “summary manner” language imposes no specific deadline, and delaying proceedings until filing requirements are satisfied does not deny due process. Any procedural delay was in any event harmless, because Sky received an adverse ruling on the merits — and even if the delay were improper, it would not entitle him to the release he sought.
Judicial bias and recusal: Sky argued that Judge Carpeneti’s failure to implement habeas procedures immediately demonstrated bias requiring recusal under AS 22.20.020(a)(9). The court rejected this. Adverse rulings are not evidence of judicial bias, and Sky pointed to nothing beyond procedural decisions — the five-month filing-fee delay, the court’s refusal to strike DOC’s answer, DOC’s transfer of Sky during litigation without sua sponte court intervention, and the time allowed for DOC to respond — none of which established actual bias or an appearance of impropriety.
COVID-19 and Eighth Amendment conditions of confinement: To establish an Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim, an inmate must show a serious medical need — demonstrated by evidence that failure to treat a condition could result in further significant injury or the unnecessary infliction of pain — and that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to that need. Sky submitted no documentation of his claimed health conditions. He did not allege that he had contracted COVID-19 or that DOC had failed to take steps to mitigate the risk. The superior court found the risk was “inchoate” — essentially a generalized pandemic anxiety shared by every person alive during COVID-19, not a particularized medical need. Without evidence of deliberate indifference to a serious, individualized risk, the Eighth Amendment claim failed.
Scope of Alaska habeas corpus — a distinct and narrower writ: The court went further and expressed substantial doubt that habeas corpus was the right vehicle for Sky’s claim at all. Under AS 12.75.020, habeas corpus is unavailable to a person “properly imprisoned … by virtue of the legal judgment of a competent tribunal” — and Sky was not challenging the legal basis for his conviction or sentence. Alaska’s writ of habeas corpus, as recognized in Flanigan v. State, 3 P.3d 372 (Alaska App. 2000), is coextensive with the original common-law writ, which operated solely to test the jurisdiction of the sentencing court. Unlike federal habeas statutes — which some circuits have read broadly enough to permit COVID conditions challenges — Alaska has never legislatively expanded the scope of the writ. Under Alaska law, collateral attacks on a conviction or sentence are governed by post-conviction relief procedures under AS 12.72 and Alaska Criminal Rule 35.1, not habeas. Sky’s claim, even if cognizable under some federal habeas statute, did not fit within the Alaska common-law writ. Because Sky had not objected to habeas characterization and the claim failed on the merits regardless, the court left the question open without resolving it definitively.
Unmonitored spousal communications: Sky’s challenge to DOC restrictions on his communications with Cynthia was moot. Cynthia had withdrawn from the litigation on appeal, and no live controversy remained.
Key Takeaways
- Alaska’s habeas corpus statute (AS 12.75.020) bars the writ for any person properly imprisoned pursuant to a valid court judgment. Alaska has not legislatively expanded the writ beyond its common-law meaning, and the scope of Alaska habeas is narrower than federal habeas statutes that some circuits have extended to COVID-related conditions claims. Practitioners challenging conditions of confinement — rather than the legality of the underlying detention — should use ordinary civil litigation or post-conviction relief under AS 12.72, not habeas.
- Alaska’s prisoner filing-fee requirement under AS 09.19.010 applies to habeas petitions filed against the State. A court may properly require financial documentation before allowing a prisoner to proceed at public expense, and that delay does not constitute a due process violation even when Civil Rule 86(j) calls for “summary” habeas proceedings.
- An Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim requires proof of (1) a serious, individualized medical need — not generalized pandemic anxiety — and (2) deliberate indifference by prison officials. Conclusory assertions of high-risk health conditions, unsupported by documentation, and without allegations that DOC failed to mitigate COVID risks, are insufficient to sustain the claim years after the pandemic’s onset and after vaccine availability.
- Adverse judicial rulings are not evidence of bias requiring recusal. A recusal motion that rests entirely on a judge’s procedural decisions — including delays, response deadlines, and refusals to strike filings — will be rejected absent affirmative evidence of partiality under AS 22.20.020(a)(9).
Why It Matters
Sky v. State is the Alaska Court of Appeals’ most direct statement of how Alaska’s habeas corpus statute differs from its federal counterpart. The opinion is a caution to Alaska practitioners: the common-law writ, as preserved in AS 12.75.020, does not reach beyond the narrow question of whether the sentencing court had jurisdiction. Claims that the conditions of confinement are unconstitutional — even Eighth Amendment claims — belong in ordinary civil litigation or, where applicable, under the post-conviction relief statutes, not in habeas. Federal court decisions reaching COVID conditions claims in federal habeas proceedings offer no safe harbor in Alaska courts.
For Alaska criminal practitioners advising incarcerated clients about civil rights claims, the decision also reaffirms the Eighth Amendment standard: a claim requires evidence of a particularized, documented medical need and documented DOC indifference to it. The anxiety of living through a pandemic — however genuine — does not satisfy the deliberate-indifference test, especially when DOC is taking mitigation steps that the prisoner has not specifically challenged.