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NOTICE
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opinion is published in the Pacific Reporter. Readers
are encouraged to bring typographical or other formal
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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
| LEN W. STICKMAN-SAM, | ) |
| ) Court of Appeals No. A-9307 | |
| Petitioner, | ) Trial Court No. 4FA-05-934 CR |
| ) | |
| v. | ) O P I N I O N |
| ) | |
| STATE OF ALASKA, | ) |
| ) | |
| Respondent. | ) No. 2049 - May 12, 2006 |
| ) | |
Petition for Review from the Superior Court,
Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Charles
R. Pengilly, Judge.
Appearances: James M. Hackett, Law Office of
James M. Hackett, Fairbanks, for the
Petitioner. Nancy R. Simel, Assistant
Attorney General, Office of Special
Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and
David W. M rquez, Attorney General, Juneau,
for the Respondent.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer
and Stewart, Judges.
COATS, Chief Judge.
This case requires us to construe Criminal Rule 18(e),
which allows defendants to request alternative venue sites in
criminal cases.
The State charged Len W. Stickman-Sam with
manslaughter. This offense was alleged to have occurred at or
near Galena. Under Criminal Rule 18(b) and the accompanying
table of venue locations, Superior Court Judge Charles R.
Pengilly set Stickman-Sams trial in Fairbanks.
Stickman-Sam filed a timely motion under Criminal Rule
18(e) for a change of venue to Nenana. Rule 18(e) provides that,
after venue is initially assigned, a defendant may move by right
for the setting of venue in [another] approved trial site
location if [that] location is the community within the venue
district with trial facilities nearest the place where the
alleged crime was committed.
The Administrative Director of the Court System has
approved Nenana as a felony trial location. See Administrative
Bulletin No. 27 (as amended effective February 19, 2004).
However, Judge Pengilly rejected Stickman-Sams request for a
change of venue to Nenana because he concluded that Nenana was
not the court location nearest the place where the alleged crime
was committed that is, nearest Galena.
Judge Pengilly acknowledged that, geographically
speaking, Galena is nearer to Nenana than it is to Fairbanks.
But Judge Pengilly noted that, as a practical matter, Galena is
nearer to Fairbanks because a person wishing to travel between
Galena and Nenana must normally travel through Fairbanks. The
judge concluded that Criminal Rule 18(e) should be interpreted as
referring to alternative court locations that are nearest to the
site of the crime as a matter of travel and logistics, rather
than as a matter of geography.
For the reasons explained here, we conclude that this
is not the proper interpretation of Criminal Rule 18(e) that,
regardless of available transportation routes, Rule 18(e) refers
to a court locations geographic proximity to the site of the
alleged crime. We accordingly reverse Judge Pengillys ruling and
direct that Stickman-Sams trial be held in Nenana.
Why we conclude that Criminal Rule 18(e)
refers to geographic proximity rather than
logistical proximity
As this Court pointed out in John v. State,1 Criminal
Rule 18 was designed to carry out the Alaska Supreme Courts
landmark decision in Alvarado v. State.2 In Alvarado, the
supreme court held that the Alaska Constitution guarantees
criminal defendants the right to have a jury selected from a pool
that represented a fair cross section of the community in which
the crime occurred[.]3 In light of the profound cultural
differences4 that separate the life of a typical Alaskan villager
from the type of existence led by residents of the larger cities
of this state, the supreme court held that it is unlawful for a
trial court to draw juries solely from the larger cities to
decide the cases of defendants charged with committing crimes in
rural villages.5
In order to comply with Alvarado, Alaska Criminal Rule
18 divides the state into twenty-five superior court venue
districts. Each venue district is centered around a city or town
designated as a suitable site for felony trials. Under Criminal
Rule 18(b), Fairbanks is the presumptive site for a felony trial
for a case that arises in the venue district in which Galena is
located.
Criminal Rule 18(e) gives defendants the right to
demand venue in an alternative site if that site has been
approved by the Administrative Director and if that site is the
community within the venue district with trial facilities nearest
the place where the alleged crime was committed.
Judge Pengilly recognized that the geographical
distance between Nenana and Galena was shorter than the
geographical distance between Fairbanks and Galena. But Judge
Pengilly noted that the most economical and efficient way to
travel between Galena and Nenana was by commercial air carrier
and the commercial carriers all use Fairbanks as their hub.
Thus, anyone traveling between Galena and Nenana must make an
intermediate stop in Fairbanks.
Based on this, Judge Pengilly concluded that, in a
practical sense that is, for the purpose of transporting
attorneys, witnesses, court personnel, and law enforcement
officers Galena is closer to Fairbanks than it is to Nenana.
Judge Pengillys reasoning makes sense, but it gives
insufficient weight to the underlying purpose of Criminal Rule
18. As we explained above, Criminal Rule 18 was intended to
codify the Supreme Courts decision in Alvarado. And Alvarado is
based on the premise that, when a crime is committed in rural
Alaska, the defendant has a right to a jury pool drawn from a
rural community. The Alvarado court condemned the process of
bringing defendants charged with committing crimes in rural
villages into the larger cities of Alaska, where their fate would
be decided by urban juries.
The supreme court expressly recognized that its ruling
would, in all likelihood, result in an increase in expenditures.6
But the court concluded that no monetary savings would justify
the perpetuation of a system which denies to a large segment of
our citizens the opportunity to participate in our system of
justice.7 Thus, the supreme court rejected administrative
convenience and monetary savings in favor of providing the
defendant with a jury pool that represented a fair cross section
of the community in which the crime occurred[.]8
Against this background, we conclude that when Criminal
Rule 18(e) speaks of the approved court location nearest the
place where the alleged crime was committed, the rule is
referring to geographic proximity rather than ease of
transportation and logistics. Ease of transportation and
logistics will almost always favor holding the trial in an urban
center thus defeating the policy of Alvarado. Geographic
proximity best serves the aim of obtaining jurors who are more
likely to share the culture and life experience of the community
where the crime occurred.
We accordingly conclude that the superior court should
have granted Stickman-Sams motion for a change of venue to
Nenana.
REVERSED.
_______________________________
1 35 P.3d 53, 55-56 (Alaska App. 2001).
2 486 P.2d 891 (Alaska 1971).
3 Id. at 903.
4 Id. at 894.
5 Id. at 899-901.
6 Id. at 905.
7 Id. at 905.
8 Id. at 903.
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