Alaskans who lived in the state during the Gov. Bill Walker Administration recall how bad crime got during that era under Walker’s Senate Bill 91, which allowed criminals to get bounced from jail with no penalties time and again. The justice system was a revolving door and Alaska became known as a lawless place, until Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2019 signed the law repealing the crime-spree legislation.
Anchorage has a catch-and-release problem just like SB 91. It’s called Rule 45.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has built a budget blueprint for cities showing how to have that revolving door of criminals without state legislators repealing it. All cities must do is to stop prosecuting crime and let the clock run out.
The municipal prosecutor’s office at the Anchorage Mayor’s Office is overwhelmed with cases. The office, which deals with all the misdemeanor cases in the city, as well as assaults, domestic violence, thefts, disorderly conduct and more, can’t keep up.
In addition to the local cases brought through arrests, there are State of Alaska cases that start out as felonies, but are reduced to misdemeanors and end up in the municipal prosecutor’s inbox.
With 13,000 cases per year, Anchorage currently doesn’t have enough prosecutors to handle the workload in what is quickly becoming a lawless city.
The backlog has led to about 60 cases a week being automatically dismissed by the court, simply because the cases run out of time set by the Supreme Court.
The law known as Rule 45 relates to getting a speedy trial, which is defined as a trial within 120 days.
Since thousands of cases are not brought to trial within that time in Anchorage, that 240 cases a month adds up to about 2,880 potential criminal convictions a year that are dismissed due to Rule 45.
Read how Rule 45 works at this link.
In addition, Anchorage leadership now has a “restorative justice” mindset, as defined by portions of the mayor’s first budget document.
In Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s budget, she lays out more money for parks and trails, and funds for diversity and equity offices, but no more hiring of criminal prosecutors.
That means the management of criminal cases is, by design, working as Senate Bill 91 intended all along.
Criminal defense attorneys in Anchorage now look like rock stars because their clients are getting off scot free, as long as they don’t violate their conditions of probation while they await trial. They just have to keep their noses clean for 120 days, and they will not have to face justice.
It’s now clear that Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is cognizant of how this works. She has already let experienced prosecutors go, and the prosecutor’s office has hired seven new very green prosecutors, but the office needs as many as 30 prosecutors to handle the workload. She has budgeted for no more criminal prosecutors.
In her budget, LaFrance adds more money to administration in the Municipal Attorney’s Office and takes 4.68% of the funds away from the criminal prosecutors.
She has added no positions to the criminal division, while boosting the civil division budget by 7%. The civil division deals with impounded vehicles, and provides “legal counsel, support, and advice on specific legislation, the Municipal Code, Charter, legislative procedures, the responsibilities and authority of the Municipality; represent the Municipality and its officials and employees in civil litigation.” This civil division handles DEI complaints and other civil lawsuits.
The mayor has already thrown in the towel on dealing with the criminal class that is now running the homeless encampments, and the dismissal of charges may ultimately lead to low morale in the police force; why bother arresting people for theft if they’re just going to skirt Rule 45 due to a planned lack of prosecution by the LaFrance Administration?
Notably, the mayor has also proposed no increases in police office personnel in Anchorage, now a force of 614 full-time positions, or about one officer for every 471 residents, roughly the national average.
Businesses in the downtown neighborhood in Anchorage are reporting a sharp increase in burglaries and daytime thefts and some business owners are discussing hired armed security for their establishments or sleeping in their businesses at night.
This is exactly what the case still is in Bethel; the “justice system” here is a joke.
I am sure Lafrance and her cohorts will enjoy their 24 hour police protection we the serfs get to pay for while we have to beef up our own security systems and buy weapons and ammo to protect our own lives and property.
Wont be long and Anchorage will reach numbers of car theft reach the record setting highs we saw during the pantsless days of the Berkowitz’s clown show.
We need to supply them with a house in the mayor’s neighborhood.
Then the assembly can also have half way houses in their neighborhoods.
Lafrance must be Claman’s girlfriend. He’s so dumb he still brags about how he was the architect of SB91.