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Sproates v. State (12/12/2003) ap-1908
Sproates v. State (12/12/2003) ap-1908
NOTICE
The text of this opinion can be corrected before the
opinion is published in the Pacific Reporter. Readers
are encouraged to bring typographical or other formal
errors to the attention of the Clerk of the Appellate
Courts:
303 K Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Fax: (907) 264-0878
E-mail: corrections@appellate.courts.state.ak.us
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
MICHAEL W. SPROATES, )
) Court of Appeals No.
A-8495
Petitioner, )
Trial Court No. 3KN-02-2228 CR
)
v. )
) O P I N
I O N
STATE OF ALASKA, )
)
Respondent. )
[No. 1908 December 12, 2003]
)
Petition for Review from the District Court,
Third Judicial District, Kenai, David S.
Landry, Magistrate.
Appearances: David D. Reineke, Assistant
Public Defender, and Barbara K. Brink, Public
Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.
Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney
General, Office of Special Prosecutions and
Appeals, Anchorage, and Gregg D. Renkes,
Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer
and Stewart, Judges.
STEWART, Judge.
Under Alaska Criminal Rules 5(e)(2), 5(e)(4), and 5.1,
a defendant who has been charged with a felony but who has not
yet been indicted by the grand jury is entitled to a preliminary
examination in the district court. If the defendant is in
custody, this preliminary examination is to be held within the
ten days following the defendants initial appearance; if the
defendant is not in custody, twenty days are allowed.1
The purpose of the preliminary examination is to
determine whether there is good cause to maintain the courts
criminal jurisdiction over the defendant either by holding the
defendant in custody or by requiring the defendant to abide by
conditions of release imposed under AS 12.30.020-029. If the
State establishes probable cause to believe that the defendant
has committed a criminal offense, the district court will
continue its criminal jurisdiction over the defendant i.e., hold
the defendant to answer to the grand jury.2 If the State fails
to establish probable cause, then the defendant is to be
discharged from custody and freed from any conditions of release
although this does not prevent the State from presenting the case
to the grand jury.3
In the present case, Michael W. Sproates was charged by
complaint with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a
minor,4 a felony offense. Sproates was unable to post bail, so
he remained in custody following his arrest. Sproatess initial
appearance took place on December 12, 2002. At that time, the
district court scheduled Sproatess preliminary examination for
3:45 p.m. on December 20, 2002 a day that fell within the ten-
day time limit for defendants in custody.
But when the parties appeared in court for the
scheduled preliminary examination, the prosecutor informed the
magistrate that the State was presenting Sproatess case to the
grand jury that same day. At the prosecutors request, the
magistrate agreed to delay the preliminary examination until 5:30
that afternoon.
When Sproatess attorney appeared for the 5:30
preliminary examination, the magistrate informed the attorney
that he had heard (informally) that the grand jury had indicted
Sproates, although the grand jury had not yet presented its
indictment in the superior court. Because of the grand jurys
action, the magistrate refused to hold Sproatess preliminary
examination, or even to go on record to announce that no hearing
would be held. The magistrate declared that, because of the
grand jurys action, he believed that the district court no longer
had any jurisdiction over Sproatess case. Sproatess attorney
asked that Sproates be released from custody since no preliminary
examination had been held, but the magistrate refused to release
Sproates.
The grand jury had in fact voted to indict Sproates on
the afternoon of December 20th, but this indictment was not
returned i.e., presented in an open session of the superior
court5 until December 24th.
The question in this case is whether Sproates was
entitled to be discharged from custody when the magistrate
declined to hold Sproatess preliminary examination and the State
presented no evidence that Sproates had committed an offense. We
conclude that Sproates was entitled to be released, and that he
was unlawfully held in custody for the four days between the
aborted preliminary examination and the return of the indictment
in the superior court. We further conclude that, even though
this issue is moot in Sproatess case, we should decide the issue
because it is an important question that might otherwise evade
review.6
As we have already explained, an unindicted defendant
who is held in custody on a felony charge is entitled to a
preliminary examination within ten days.7 If, at the close of
the preliminary examination, the State has failed to establish
probable cause to hold the defendant, the defendant must be
discharged.8 In Sproatess case, the State declined to present
any evidence to justify Sproatess continued detention; moreover,
the magistrate declared that the district court had lost its
authority to conduct the preliminary examination at all.
In its brief to this Court, the State now concedes that
the magistrate was mistaken [in his] belief that [the district
court] lacked jurisdiction to hold a preliminary examination.
That is, the State concedes that the district court continued to
have jurisdiction over Sproates until the grand jury formally
presented its indictment to the superior court on December 24th.
Nevertheless, the State asserts that Sproates was not
entitled to release on December 20th. The State points out that,
under Criminal Rule 5(e)(4)(A), the district court has up to ten
days to hold the preliminary examination of a defendant who is in
custody. From this, the State infers that the district court can
refuse to hold a scheduled preliminary examination, so long as
the ten-day maximum time limit has not yet been exceeded. In
other words according to the State, a defendant can automatically
be held in custody for ten days without a showing of probable
cause.
But Criminal Rule 5(e)(4)(A) does not say this. The
rule declares that the defendants preliminary examination shall
be held within a reasonable time, and it sets an outer limit to
the definition of reasonableness i.e., in no event later than
... 10 days.9 Here, Sproatess preliminary examination was
scheduled for December 20th (the eighth day following his initial
appearance), and no one has suggested that this scheduled date
was unreasonable. Accordingly, the district court was not at
liberty to simply ignore the scheduled hearing and wait for the
ten-day maximum time limit to expire. Instead, the district
court was obliged to hold the preliminary hearing as scheduled,
absent a request to continue the hearing to a later time within
the allotted ten days or to a time outside the ten-day limit if
extraordinary circumstances [made a further] delay ...
indispensable to the interest of justice.10
The State argues that, even though the magistrate was
mistaken about the district courts purported lack of
jurisdiction, the magistrates refusal to hold Sproatess
preliminary examination was nevertheless consistent with Criminal
Rule 5(e)(4) because extraordinary circumstances required a delay
of the hearing. The State contends that, because the grand jury
had voted to indict Sproates, the scheduled preliminary
examination became essentially superfluous, and the district
court would have endangered the public if the court had released
Sproates on the 20th.
There are two problems with this argument. First, the
prosecuting attorney never asked the magistrate to delay
Sproatess preliminary examination on this basis (that is, delay
the examination until the grand jury had a chance to return its
indictment in open court), and thus the magistrate never ruled on
this issue. Instead, as we have explained, the magistrate simply
refused to hold any proceedings at all, having erroneously
concluded that the grand jurys vote had deprived the district
court of all jurisdiction.
Second, the States argument does not rest on a claim of
extraordinary circumstances. Rather, it rests on circumstances
that will predictably occur again and again: a grand jury votes
to indict a defendant at approximately the same time as the
defendants scheduled preliminary examination, but the indictment
is not returned in the superior court until a later day.
This situation does not justify a deviation from the
normal law governing preliminary examinations. Rather, the
correct solution to this problem is illustrated by the facts of
Buchanan v. State.11 In Buchanan, when the parties appeared in
court for the defendants scheduled preliminary examination, the
prosecutor announced that the State was about to present
Buchanans case to the grand jury and that, for this reason, the
State would decline to present any evidence at the preliminary
examination.12 Upon hearing the prosecutor declare that the
State would not present any evidence to establish that Buchanan
was guilty of a criminal offense, the district court dismissed
the charges against Buchanan and released him from custody.13
We conclude that this is the result mandated by
Criminal Rule 5.1. If, in circumstances similar to Sproatess
case, the State believes that the release of a particular
defendant would be inconsistent with the public safety, the State
has two ready options: either (1) present evidence of the
defendants guilt at the preliminary examination, or (2) schedule
the grand jury hearing so that the indictment can be returned
before the defendants scheduled preliminary examination. In
addition, when circumstances present a true emergency, the State
can ask the district court to delay the preliminary examination
past the time limit specified in Criminal Rule 5(e)(4), to give
the grand jury additional time to consider the defendants case
and return its indictment in the superior court.
But the district court violated Criminal Rules 5(e) and
5.1 in Sproatess case when, in the absence of a request for a
continuance, the court declined either to hold the preliminary
examination or to order Sproates discharged from custody. As a
result, Sproates was illegally imprisoned between the afternoon
of December 20th and the time the grand jury presented its
indictment to the superior court on December 24th.
The action of the district court is DISAPPROVED.
_______________________________
1 Alaska R. Crim. P. 5(e)(4).
2 See Alaska R. Crim. P. 5.1(i).
3 See Alaska R. Crim. P. 5.1(h).
4 AS 11.41.434(a)(2).
5 See Alaska R. Crim. P. 6(n)(2) & (n)(3)(i).
6 See State v. Roberts, 999 P.2d 151, 153 (Alaska App.
2000).
7 Alaska R. Crim. P. 5(e)(2), 5(e)(4).
8 Alaska R. Crim. P. 5.1(h).
9 Alaska R. Crim. P. 5(e)(4)(A).
10 See Alaska R. Crim. P. 5(e)(4).
11 561 P.2d 1197 (Alaska 1977).
12 Id. at 1208.
13 Id.
