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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
| FRED A. BAKER, | ) |
| ) Court of Appeals No. A-9791 | |
| Petitioner, | ) Trial Court No. 3AN-05-10005 Civ |
| ) | |
| v. | ) |
| ) O P I N I O N | |
| STATE OF ALASKA, | ) |
| ) | |
| Respondent. | ) No. 2094 April 20, 2007 |
| ) | |
Petition for Review from the Superior Court,
Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Michael
L. Wolverton, Judge.
Appearances: Fred A. Baker, in propria
persona, Seward, for the Petitioner. John K.
Bodick, Assistant Attorney General, Office of
Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage,
and Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General,
Juneau, for the Respondent.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer
and Stewart, Judges.
MANNHEIMER, Judge.
Fred A. Baker is pursuing a petition for post-
conviction relief in the superior court, and he has lodged a
petition for review. In his petition, Baker challenges the
superior courts failure to enter summary judgement in his favor.
Bakers petition has not yet gone forward because a
preliminary problem has arisen: the parties disagree on how to
calculate the filing fee that Baker must pay to pursue this
appellate litigation.
Baker is indigent and, thus, he would normally qualify
for an exemption from this Courts normal filing fee of $150.00.
However, Baker is currently a prisoner, and his petition for post-
conviction relief constitutes litigation against the state as
defined in AS 09.19.100(1). Because of this, Baker must pay the
mandatory minimum filing fee specified in AS 09.19.010.
Baker and the State agree that Bakers mandatory minimum
filing fee must be calculated using the formula specified in AS
09.19.010(d), but they disagree concerning how this formula
should be interpreted. The pertinent portion of AS 09.19.010(d)
states:
In setting the [mandatory minimum] fee, the
court ... shall require the prisoner to pay
filing fees equal to 20 percent of the larger
of the average monthly deposits made to the
prisoners account described in (b)(2) of this
section, or the average balance in that
account, not to exceed the amount of the full
filing fee required under applicable court
rules.
As can be seen, this subsection requires the
filing fee calculation to be based on the
average monthly deposits to, and the average
balance in, the prisoners account described
in [subsection] (b)(2) of this [statute].
Subsection (b)(2) of the statute
declares that a prisoner shall submit to the
court ... a certified copy of the prisoners
account statement from the correctional
facility in which the prisoner is being ...
held for the six-month period preceding the
submission of the [prisoners pleadings].
Thus, the reference in both subsections
(b)(2) and (d) is to the prisoners account
[in] the correctional facility in which the
prisoner is being ... held.
The problem is that, following the
enactment of AS 33.30.201(d) in 2006,
prisoners have two separate accounts: their
normal prisoner account (what the Department
calls the funds available account) which
contains money that the prisoner can spend
for everyday purposes, and a forced savings
account to which the prisoner has no direct
access. This forced savings account contains
money whose primary purpose is to provide
funds for the prisoner when the prisoner is
eventually released from custody.
The question presented here is
whether the money in a prisoners forced
savings account should be considered when a
court calculates the prisoners mandatory
minimum filing fee under AS 09.19.010(d).
The statutory background
In the past, the State of Alaska apparently
provided discharge payments (colloquially known as
gate money) to prisoners upon their release. This
gate money was part of the financial assistance
package intended to help prisoners re-establish
themselves in the community.
However, under 22 AAC 05.590,1 Alaska
prisoners now receive no discharge payment or gate
money upon their release. This regulation reads:
Upon release of a prisoner, the
department will not provide a discharge
payment or gate money to the prisoner. Each
prisoner is [only] entitled to receive any
work program compensation and prisoner fund
account money due [the prisoner] at the time
of release.
Thus, when prisoners are released
from prison, they receive only the money
remaining in their prisoner fund account
(as well as any wages that have already been
earned but that have not yet been deposited
into the prisoners account).
This account was the only prisoner
account that existed in 1995 when the Alaska
Legislature enacted AS 09.19.010 et seq, the
chapter of the statutes that establishes the
mandatory minimum filing fee for prisoners
pursuing civil litigation against the State.
Thus, when the legislature established the
rules for calculating a prisoners mandatory
minimum fee, these fee-calculation rules
unambiguously referred to the average monthly
deposits to, and the average balance of, this
one prisoner account.
But in 2006,2 the legislature
enacted AS 33.30.201(d), a law that requires
the Commissioner of Corrections to withhold a
portion of a prisoners wages and place this
money into a special forced savings account
whose primary purpose is to ensure that the
prisoner will have some minimal amount of
money at the time of their release.
Under AS 33.30.201(d), a prisoners
forced savings account is funded by mandatory
transfers of a portion of the prisoners
wages. Subsection (c) of AS 33.30.201
declares that various portions of the
prisoners wages must be disbursed for child
support, restitution, utility fees, and the
prisoners normal account (the account that
the prisoner can use to make discretionary
purchases of clothing, commissary items,
etc.). Then, under subsection (d), the
remaining money
[shall] be credited to the prisoner and ...
must be retained by the department for the
primary purpose of being available to the
prisoner at the time of release. The
commissioner shall maintain individual
prisoner accounts for those earnings. The
commissioner may, however, permit the
prisoner to draw on a portion of that money
for other purposes that the commissioner
considers appropriate.
That is, the money in a prisoners
forced savings account is restricted. Its
primary purpose is to provide funds for the
prisoner to use when the prisoner is
eventually released from custody. Before
that time, the money in the forced savings
account can be spent only with the approval
of the Commissioner of Corrections. The only
money to which a prisoner has ready,
discretionary access is the money in the
prisoners normal account.
When the legislature created the
forced savings accounts in 2006, the
legislature did not amend the fee-calculation
rule specified in AS 09.19.010, nor did the
legislature amend any other portion of AS
09.19 to indicate how they wished to handle
the new forced savings accounts. Indeed,
even today, the administrative regulations of
the Department of Corrections contain no
reference to a forced or mandatory savings
account. Instead, these regulations continue
to refer to a single prisoner fund account.
See 22 AAC 05.105, 22 AAC 05.106, 22 AAC
05.331, and 22 AAC 05.590.3
But although there are no
administrative regulations governing these
forced savings accounts, the Commissioner of
Corrections has issued a policy that
addresses these accounts. In December 2005,
apparently anticipating the legislatures
passage of AS 33.30.201(d) the following
spring, the Commissioner adopted Policy No.
304.01, Prisoner Wage Disbursal. (A copy of
this Policy is appended to this opinion.)
Under Policy No. 304.01, a
prisoners wages are divvied up and
distributed according to the following rules,
in the listed order of priority:
Priority court-ordered support up to 40% of wages
One for the prisoners
dependents
Priority reimbursing the State up to 5% of wages
Two for violent crime
compensation paid to
victims of the
prisoners crimes
Priority restitution payments up to 10% of wages
Three ordered by the
sentencing court
Priority civil judgements up to 5% of wages
Four arising from the
prisoners criminal
conduct
Priority fees for the prisoners actual fees, up to a
Five utilities; see AS $3.00 maximum per month
33.30.017
Priority personal discretionary up to 25% of wages
Six uses (e.g., clothing,
photocopying, and
purchases from the
commissary)
Priority fines ordered by the up to 10% of wages
Seven sentencing court
Priority Mandatory Savings 35% of wages until the
Eight i.e., the forced balance in the forced
savings account savings account reaches
required by AS 33.30. $250; thereafter, 5% of
201(d) monthly wages
Exception: Inmates
serving 8 years or more
are exempt from Mandatory
Savings.
Rule for Any wages remaining after
any [the foregoing]
Remainder: priorities have been
satisfied will be equally
allocated to personal use
(Priority Six) and
mandatory savings
(Priority Eight).
As the attentive reader will see,
the percentages listed in the right-hand
column total more than 100 percent. This
means that, depending on the amount of money
taken from a prisoners wages under Priorities
One through Seven, there may not be much left
for the prisoners forced savings account.
Moreover, even when the forced
savings account is fully funded as provided
under Priority Eight, the account will grow
relatively slowly after the balance reaches
$250 because, at that point, only five
percent of the prisoners monthly wages will
be distributed to the account.
Prisoners wages are low. Under AS
33.30.201(a), these wages are essentially
capped at fifty percent of the minimum wage.
From this Courts experience examining
prisoner account statements, it is often the
case that only a few dollars per month will
be deposited into a prisoners forced savings
account.
Finally, the Commissioner has
declared that [i]nmates serving 8 years or
more are exempt from Mandatory Savings. On
its face, this language appears to mean that
prisoners who receive sentences of 8 years or
more will never have a forced savings
account. Seemingly, such a rule would
conflict with the statutory mandate that the
Commissioner establish a forced savings
account for every prisoner. It would also
mean that the prisoners sentenced to the
longest terms of imprisonment might have
little or no money when they are released.
Conceivably, this language is meant to convey
a different rule the rule that no forced
savings deduction will be made from a
prisoners wages until the prisoner has less
than 8 years remaining in their sentence.
This interpretation is supported by the
wording of another portion of the same Policy
section VII-B.3.a. [Sic: there is no section
VII-B.3.b.] This subsection of the Policy
states: Prisoners who are more than 8 years
from their tentative release dates will
automatically receive an exemption from the
mandatory savings deduction.
The factual background
Since the enactment of AS 09.19 in 1995, this
Court has repeatedly been asked to calculate mandatory
minimum filing fees for prisoners pursuing litigation
against the State. Because, under AS 09.19.010(d), the
mandatory minimum filing fee hinges on the average
monthly deposits made to the prisoners account ...
[and] the average balance in that account for the
preceding six months, any prisoner who applies for a
reduction of the normal filing fee must provide the
records from their prisoner account. More
specifically, the prisoner must ask the prison
administration to provide account statements for the
prisoners use.
This Court takes note that sometimes the
prison administration furnishes account statements for
both the prisoners normal account and the prisoners
forced savings account, while at other times the prison
administration furnishes only the prisoners normal
account statements, with no mention of the forced
savings account.
Moreover, in the past, when this Court has
questioned why the Department has included a prisoners
forced savings account balance when calculating the
mandatory minimum filing fee, the Departments answer
has been that the Commissioner has concluded that
paying filing fees is an appropriate use of a prisoners
forced savings account money see AS 33.30.201(d) and,
therefore, the balance in the prisoners forced savings
account should be included in the filing fee
calculation.
But the Department is apparently not applying
this policy in a uniform manner.
For instance, this Court has another pending
case, Esmailka v. State, File No. A-9812, in which the
average balance of the prisoners forced savings account
was $891.16. Combining this forced savings account
balance with the much smaller average balance in the
prisoners normal account ($59.25), Judge Mannheimer
ordered the prisoner, David Esmailka, to pay the full
filing fee of $150 because twenty percent of Esmailkas
combined balances was an even larger amount of money.
Because Esmailkas normal account did not have
sufficient money to cover this $150 filing fee, he
attempted unsuccessfully, it appears to obtain the
needed money from his forced savings account. Esmailka
sent a letter to this Court, stating that he tried to
draw money from his forced savings account to pay the
filing fee, but [the] DOC Deputy Commissioner denied
[his] request. As a consequence, Esmailka explained,
he does not have sufficient money to pay the $150
filing fee.
The Clerks Office treated Esmailkas letter as
a motion for full-court reconsideration of the filing
fee issue, and the Clerk served Esmailkas letter on the
State on March 9th. As of today, the State has filed
no response.
These inconsistencies in the Departments
handling of this matter have prompted us to re-examine
the use of a prisoners forced savings account when
calculating the mandatory minimum filing fee under AS
09.19.010(d). For the reasons that follow, we conclude
that the forced savings account balance should not be
used for this purpose.
Why we conclude that the balance in a prisoners forced
savings account should not be used when calculating the
prisoners mandatory minimum filing fee under AS
09.19.010(d)
As this Court explained in George v. State,
944 P.2d 1181 (Alaska App. 1997), the mandatory minimum
filing fee provisions of AS 09.19 were intended to
deter prisoners from filing endless recreational
litigation and frivolous litigation. Id. at 1186,
quoting the governors transmittal letter that
accompanied House Bill 201 (19th Legislature), 1995
House Journal 488-89.
As we noted in George, prisoners often have
[little] at stake if they litigate and lose, and
litigation often constitutes a diversion from the
monotony of prison life. Id., 944 P.2d at 1188. The
legislature decided to try to deter prisoners from
filing frivolous lawsuits by placing a modest economic
restraint on a prisoners decision to initiate a lawsuit
that is, by requiring prisoners to pay a mandatory
minimum filing fee based on a percentage of their
available resources. Id. at 1186-88.
AS 09.19.010(d) lists two alternative
formulas for calculating this minimum filing fee:
twenty percent of the average monthly deposits to the
prisoners account, or twenty percent of the average
balance of that account. Under this statute, the
mandatory minimum filing fee is the greater of these
numbers (unless this number exceeds the normal filing
fee, in which case the prisoner must simply pay the
normal filing fee).
It appears that the legislature recognized
that if the mandatory minimum filing fee were
calculated based simply on a prisoners account balance,
this would act as a disincentive for prisoners to save
their money. That is, prisoners would soon learn that
their mandatory filing fees would be close to zero if
they spent nearly all of their disposable income and
maintained only small balances in their prisoner
accounts.
This would tend to defeat the purpose of the
mandatory filing fee (i.e., to inhibit frivolous
litigation). Moreover, it would also tend to defeat
another important legislative purpose: encouraging
prisoners to save for their future. As explained
above, prisoners do not receive discharge payments or
gate money when they are released from prison. The
only money they receive is the money remaining in their
prisoner account. Thus, any law that gives prisoners
an incentive to spend all of their money before they
leave prison tends to defeat the rehabilitative goal of
having prisoners leave custody with at least a modest
amount of money to ease their transition back into
society.
Accordingly, the legislature provided an
alternate method for calculating the mandatory minimum
fee: a percentage of the average monthly deposits to
the prisoners account. Under this alternate
calculation, the mandatory minimum fee is based on the
monthly average of the money going into a prisoners
account, whether that money is spent or not. Thus,
even if a prisoner routinely spends all of their
available money, this would not relieve the prisoner of
the obligation to pay a significant mandatory minimum
filing fee.
As explained above, each prisoner had only
one prisoner account when the legislature established
the mandatory minimum filing fee in 1995. Thus, when
the legislature set the rules for calculating a
prisoners mandatory minimum fee, these rules
unambiguously referred to the average monthly deposits
to, and the average balance of, this one account. But
since 2006, because of the enactment of AS
33.30.201(d), the Department of Corrections is required
to maintain a separate forced savings account for
prisoners money that must be retained by the
department for the primary purpose of being available
to the prisoner at the time of [their] release.
The existence of the forced savings accounts
creates an ambiguity in the rules governing the
calculation of the mandatory minimum filing fee under
AS 09.19.010(d).
Under this statute, a prisoners mandatory
minimum filing fee is calculated by reference to the
average balance in [the prisoners] account. The
question is: should the accumulated money in a
prisoners forced savings account be included when
calculating the average balance of the prisoners
account? Or should the calculation of the average
balance be limited to the funds in the prisoners normal
account i.e., the money that is available, without
limitation, to the prisoner for discretionary spending?
(This issue is moot with respect to the
alternate calculation prescribed by AS 09.19.010(d)
the calculation of the average monthly deposits to the
prisoners account. The Department of Corrections funds
a prisoners forced savings account by initially
depositing all of the prisoners available wages into
the prisoners normal account, and then immediately
transferring a percentage of those wages to the
prisoners forced savings account. Thus, the amount of
deposits into the prisoners normal account will always
be higher than and will necessarily include the
deposits into the prisoners forced savings account.)
There was no mention of this fee-calculation
problem during the several legislative committee
discussions of Senate Bill 310 (24th Legislature), the
bill that ultimately became SLA 2006 ch. 58 and that
enacted the forced savings account provisions of AS
33.30.201.4
The question, as we see it, is whether the
Commissioners decision to require prisoners to pay
filing fees from their forced savings accounts is
inconsistent with the legislatures mandate, in AS
33.30.201(d), that the primary purpose of the forced
savings accounts is to provide funds for prisoners at
the time of their release.
As a practical matter, a prisoner who works
throughout a lengthy term of imprisonment can
accumulate several hundred dollars in their forced
savings account enough money so that the balance in
this account equals or exceeds $750. (This is the
situation confronting David Esmailka in File
No. A-9812.)
If this forced savings account balance is
then used to calculate the prisoners mandatory minimum
filing fee under AS 09.19.010(d), the prisoner will be
forced to pay the normal filing fee of $150 because
the statute requires a mandatory filing fee equal to 20
percent of the prisoners average account balance,
unless that 20 percent would exceed the normal filing
fee. Thus, once a prisoner accumulates $750 in their
forced savings account, this statutory calculation will
always result in the prisoner paying the normal $150
filing fee (since one-fifth of $750 equals $150).
At first blush, this result might seem fair.
What difference should it make whether a prisoner has
accumulated $750 in their normal account as opposed to
their forced savings account? Either way, the money
belongs to the prisoner.
But as this Court explained in George, the
requirement of a mandatory minimum filing fee was
intended to discourage frivolous or recreational
litigation by confronting prisoners with the trade-off
faced by everyone else who initiates litigation: if
the prisoner chooses to pursue the lawsuit, they will
have to use money that otherwise would have been
available to purchase other things that they might
want.
This rationale applies to the money in the
prisoners normal account, but it does not apply equally
to the money in the prisoners forced savings account.
A prisoner has ready access to the money in
their normal account. They can use it for any
permissible purpose for instance, to purchase
clothing, or postage, or candy bars, or to make
donations to charity simply by asking. If the
prisoner is required to pay a mandatory filing fee from
this account, the prisoner will necessarily lose a
portion of their ability to make these discretionary
purchases and expenditures. Thus, the legislatures aim
of discouraging frivolous litigation will be advanced.
But a prisoner has no discretionary access to
the money in their forced savings account. By statute,
the primary purpose of this account is to accumulate
money for the future for the day when the prisoner is
ultimately released from custody. The legislature has
therefore declared that this money can be spent only
with the consent of the Commissioner. Although this
money belongs to the prisoner, it is beyond the
prisoners reach.
Because of this, there is no immediate trade-
off when money is taken out of the prisoners forced
savings account to pay a filing fee. This money does
not represent funds that the prisoner might otherwise
have used for pleasurable or other discretionary
purposes. The prisoners ability to make discretionary
purchases is completely unaffected by a reduction in
their forced savings account. Rather, the only effect
is a long-term effect: less money will be available to
the prisoner upon their release.
This leads to a second point. Under the
Commissioners interpretation of the law (i.e., the
Commissioners position that the balance in a prisoners
forced savings account should be included when
calculating the mandatory minimum filing fee),
prisoners will sometimes be required to pay a
substantial filing fee from their forced savings
account. The problem arises in this fashion:
A prisoner may have very little current
income, or a prisoner may spend about as much as the
prisoner earns; in either event, the prisoner will have
only a small amount of money in their normal account.
But, through prior years of forced savings transfers,
the prisoner may have several hundred dollars in their
forced savings account. If the balance in that forced
savings account is included in the calculation of the
mandatory filing fee under AS 09.19.010(d), the
prisoner will owe a substantial filing fee up to and
including the normal filing fee of $150. But because
the prisoners normal account contains little money,
this mandatory filing fee must come from the prisoners
forced savings account.
Money taken from a forced savings account is
commonly replenished only slowly. As explained above,
prisoners wages tend to be low, and after the balance
in a prisoners forced savings account reaches $250,
only five percent of the prisoners wages are
transferred to their forced savings account. As a
practical matter, this means that it may take a year or
two for the prisoner to replenish their forced savings
account after a filing fee of $150 has been withdrawn
from the account.
Because it may take a prisoner such a long
time to replenish their forced savings account, the
withdrawal of $100 to $150 from a forced savings
account tends to defeat the primary purpose of the
forced savings accounts i.e., the legislative purpose
of making sure that prisoners have a modest amount of
money when they are released, to ease their transition
back into society.
An acute instance of this problem is
presented in Bakers case. According to the prisoner
account statements furnished by the Department of
Corrections, Baker had no income from the beginning of
December 2005 through the end of November 2006. During
those twelve months, the only deposits to Bakers normal
prison account (his funds available account) consisted
of money transferred from his forced savings account to
pay court filing fees and associated costs (photocopies
and postage). And, because of those filing fees, the
balance in Bakers forced savings account fell from
$210.42 (on December 1, 2005) to $108.87 (on December
5, 2006).
In other words, Baker has lost approximately
half of his forced savings to filing fees and
associated court costs. And, because he currently has
no income, his forced savings account is not being
replenished. Nevertheless, the State argues that we
should calculate Bakers mandatory minimum filing fee
based on the average balance in Bakers forced savings
account over the relevant six-month period. This would
result in Baker having to pay another filing fee of
$31.29 almost one-third of the remaining money in his
already depleted forced savings account.
A third point: The Commissioners
interpretation of AS 09.19.010(d), combined with the
fact that the prisoners serving the longest sentences
are exempt from forced savings, likewise tends to
defeat the legislatures purpose of deterring frivolous
or recreational lawsuits against the State.
As explained above (in the chart), the
Commissioner has declared that [i]nmates serving 8
years or more are exempt from Mandatory Savings. It is
unclear whether the Commissioner means that all
prisoners who receive sentences of 8 years or more need
never make contributions to a forced savings account
or whether, instead, the Commissioner means that these
prisoners need not make contributions to a forced
savings account until the last 8 years of their
sentence. But, in either case, this rule tends to
defeat the legislative purpose of deterring frivolous
or recreational litigation.
Obviously, long-term prisoners generally have
a greater incentive to engage in recreational
litigation against the State. But under the
Commissioners policy, these prisoners are exempted from
having to devote a portion of their wages to a forced
savings account (or, at least, they are exempted from
this requirement until their final 8 years of
imprisonment). Thus, these prisoners who have a
greater incentive to initiate frivolous litigation are,
at the same time, less deterred from initiating that
litigation: they do not face the prospect of having
their mandatory minimum filing fee increased based on
the accumulated balance in their forced savings account
because they have no such account.
For these reasons, we reject the
Commissioners position that the balance in a prisoners
forced savings account should be included when
calculating the prisoners mandatory minimum filing fee
under AS 09.19.010(d). The Commissioners
interpretation of the statute does not significantly
further the aim of deterring frivolous litigation
because, as explained above, a prisoner faces no
immediate economic trade-off when the filing fee is
paid from the prisoners forced savings account.
Moreover, as also explained above, the Commissioners
interpretation of the statute tends to defeat the
legislative purpose of making sure that prisoners have
some modest amount of money upon their release.
This is not to say that the Commissioner is
barred from allowing the money in a prisoners forced
savings account to be used for paying a mandatory
minimum filing fee. As explained above, there will be
times when, because a prisoner has spent essentially
all of their income, the mandatory filing fee will be
calculated based on the average monthly deposits to the
prisoners account and the prisoner will not have money
readily available to pay this filing fee. In such
instances, it would not necessarily be an abuse of
discretion for the Commissioner to authorize payment of
the filing fee from the prisoners forced savings
account just as the Commissioner might likewise
authorize the release of forced savings for other
emergencies, hardships, or unanticipated needs.
In other words, we do not question the
propriety of section VII-B.2 of Department of
Corrections Policy 304.01, which states (in pertinent
part) that [m]andatory savings may be used to pay court-
ordered filing fees as determined [under] AS 09.19.010.
This provision of the Policy appears to be consistent
with the Commissioners authority under AS
33.30.201(d).5
But the question presented here is not
whether a prisoners forced savings may properly be used
to pay a mandatory minimum filing fee. Rather, the
question is whether the balance in the prisoners forced
savings account should be included in the calculation
of that mandatory filing fee. For the reasons
explained here, we conclude that the forced savings
account balance should not be included in this
calculation.
Based on the account statements provided by
the Department of Corrections, Baker had no income
during the six months preceding the filing of this
petition for review. The only deposits to his normal
(funds available) prison account consisted of money
transferred from his forced savings account to pay
court filing fees and associated costs. And, except
for the few days when the money to pay court costs was
temporarily sitting in his normal prison account, the
balance of Bakers normal prison account was zero.
It appears that the only reason this money
was ever present in Bakers normal prison account stems
from the accounting practices of the Department of
Corrections. Instead of releasing this money directly
from Bakers forced savings account, the Department
transferred the money to Bakers normal prison account
before allowing it to be spent on filing fees and
associated court costs. If not for this practice,
Bakers account would have had no deposits, and an
average balance of $0.00, throughout the relevant six-
month time period. We therefore will ignore this money
when calculating Bakers mandatory minimum filing fee
under AS 09.19.010(d).
When we perform the calculation specified by
AS 09.19.010(d) without reference to the balance in
Bakers forced savings account, and without reference to
the money that was temporarily transferred from Bakers
forced savings account into his normal prison account
to pay previous filing fees and associated costs, we
find that Bakers filing fee for this appellate
litigation is $0.00.
Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that Baker may
proceed with this petition for review without paying a
filing fee.
_______________________________
1This regulation was originally enacted as 7 AAC 60.590,
when the Department of Corrections was a division
within the Department of Health and Social Services.
See Administrative Register 63, effective September 10,
1977. The current form of the regulation was
promulgated in Administrative Register 101, effective
January 9, 1987.
2See SLA 2006, ch. 58, 7.
3Three of these regulations 22 AAC 05.105, 331, and 590
first appeared in Administrative Register 101
(effective January 1987). The fourth, 22 AAC 05.106,
was promulgated in 1999; see Administrative Register
150 (effective April 1999).
4Note: In the committee minutes listed here, the committees
are discussing House Committee Substitute for Senate Bill
310, as amended in the House.
Minutes of the Senate Finance Committee for March 27, 2006,
from 9:04 a.m. to 9:23 a.m.: The Committees discussion
centered mainly on how a prison worker program encourages
the rehabilitation of the prisoners who participate in the
program, by convincing them that there are tangible benefits
to honest labor.
Minutes of the House State Affairs Committee for April 13,
2006, from 8:03 a.m. to 8:50 a.m.: The Committees
discussion mainly dealt with the issue of whether working
prisoners would be covered by workers compensation
insurance, and the additional problem of making sure that
law-abiding workers were protected from competition by
criminal workers. (Remarks of Representative Lynn @ 8:44
a.m.)
Minutes of the House Labor and Commerce Committee for April
24, 2006, from 4:25 p.m. to 4:49 p.m.: Darwin Peterson, a
member of Senator Lyda Greens staff whose committee, the
Senate Finance Committee, was the sponsor of the original
bill explained that Senate Bill 310 was introduced at the
request of the Department of Corrections and that the intent
of the bill [was] to reinstate the Alaska Correctional
Industries program, which was [inadvertently] sunsetted,
along with the Correctional Industries Commission, in July
of 2005. According to Peterson, Senate Bill 310 would
reestablish and improve the aforementioned program. The
Committees ensuing discussion focused almost entirely on the
issue of whether prison labor would unfairly compete with
private industry and civilian labor. There was no
discussion at all of subsection (d), the provision that
created the forced savings accounts.
Minutes of the House Finance Committee for April 27, 2006,
from 8:52 a.m. to 9:18 a.m.: The Committees discussion
focused almost entirely on the issue of whether prison labor
would unfairly compete with private industry and civilian
labor. Again, there was no discussion at all of subsection
(d), the provision that created the forced savings accounts.
5Compare Wilson v. Dept of Corrections, 127 P.3d 826, 829
(Alaska 2006) (quoting Bartley v. State, Dept of Admin.,
Teachers Ret. Bd., 110 P.3d 1254, 1261 (Alaska 2005)): When
an administrative regulation is adopted under statutory
authority, [appellate courts] review the regulation to
determine whether it is consistent with and reasonably
necessary to carry out the purposes of the statutory
provisions conferring rule-making authority on the agency
and whether it is reasonable and not arbitrary considering
the legislative purpose. ... [A]n agencys interpretation
of a law within its area of jurisdiction can help resolve
lingering ambiguity [in that statute or regulation,] and [an
appellate court] should exercise restraint and look for
weighty reasons before substituting [its] judgment for the
agencys in interpreting a statute or regulation.
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