Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12399 No. 6746
12-19-2018
LOGAN AARON PARSONS, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Lars Johnson, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3PA-13-032 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Palmer, Eric Smith, Judge. Appearances: Lars Johnson, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge MANNHEIMER.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
In 2015, the Alaska legislature amended AS 12.55.027(d) to grant defendants credit against their sentences of imprisonment for the time they spend under electronic monitoring while on bail release, provided that certain requirements are met. The two statutory requirements are (1) that the defendant must not have committed any new criminal offense while on electronic monitoring, and (2) that the defendant's conditions of electronic monitoring must require the defendant to be confined to a residence except for the specified types of absences listed in the statute.
Logan Aaron Parsons seeks credit against his sentence for 63 days that he spent under electronic monitoring in mid-2013. The State opposes Parsons's request on two grounds.
First, the amended version of AS 12.55.027(d) did not take effect until August 18, 2015. Until that time, AS 12.55.027(d) affirmatively barred sentencing courts from granting credit against a sentence of imprisonment for time spent under electronic monitoring. The State argues that the new version of AS 12.55.027(d) does not apply to periods of electronic monitoring that were served before the amendment of the statute — and, therefore, Parsons cannot properly claim credit for the time he spent under electronic monitoring in 2013.
Second, the State argues that even if the new version of AS 12.55.027(d) should be interpreted as retroactively allowing credit for pre-2015 periods of electronic monitoring, Parsons does not qualify for credit because he committed a new crime while he was under electronic monitoring. However, the State concedes that this issue was not properly litigated in the superior court, and that we should direct the superior court to conduct additional proceedings so that this matter can be reconsidered and properly resolved.
As we are about to explain, we agree with the State that the superior court needs to reconsider this matter. And for this reason, we conclude that we should not resolve the retroactivity question at this time.
As this Court recently held in State v. Bell, if a defendant commits a crime while under electronic monitoring, the defendant is not entitled to credit against their sentence for that period of electronic monitoring. Thus, if Parsons did in fact commit one or more new crimes while he was under electronic monitoring, the issue of whether the current version of AS 12.55.027(d) allows credit for pre-2015 periods of monitoring would become moot.
421 P.3d 128, 131-33 (Alaska App. 2018).
The litigation of Parsons's case in the superior court, and why we direct the superior court to reconsider Parsons's request for credit
In response to Parsons's request for 63 days' credit against his sentence, the prosecutor asserted that Parsons was ineligible for credit because he had committed new crimes while under electronic monitoring (by violating his conditions of bail release in various ways).
The prosecutor alleged that Parsons violated his bail conditions by (1) leaving his residence for unapproved purposes, (2) moving out of his residence and going to live at a church, after his mother kicked him off the property, and (3) failing to provide a urine sample. (Apparently, Parsons could no longer afford to pay for the urine testing, so he remanded himself to custody rather than submit another urine sample).
The superior court ultimately found that Parsons had violated his conditions of release. But in its order, the superior court did not specify which of the prosecutor's allegations the court found to be proved.
On appeal, the State concedes that, given the ambiguity of the superior court's order, it is not possible for this Court to meaningfully review the superior court's conclusion that Parsons violated his conditions of release. The State asks us to remand Parsons's case to the superior court so that the court can make specific findings as to which conditions of bail Parsons may have violated.
The State further acknowledges that the record in this case suggests that Parsons may have had valid defenses to at least some of the prosecutor's allegations, but these defenses were never fleshed out — apparently, because Parsons's attorney was laboringunder the mistaken impression that Parsons remained eligible for sentence credit unless he was formally charged with committing a new crime. We rejected this interpretation of AS 12.55.027(d) in State v. Bell: "The statute does not require that the defendant be formally charged with [a new] criminal offense, or that the defendant be separately convicted of that offense."
Bell, 421 P.3d at 131.
The superior court did not address Parsons's potential defenses, and the State concedes that this is an additional reason why a remand is required.
We agree with the State that these flaws in the superior court proceedings require us to remand Parsons's case to the superior court for reconsideration of these matters.
Conclusion
The decision of the superior court is VACATED, and the superior court is directed to reconsider Parsons's request for credit against his sentence. The superior court is authorized to hold new evidentiary hearings and conduct any other proceedings that it deems necessary.
The superior court shall report its findings to this Court within 120 days. The parties shall then have 30 days to file simultaneous briefs responding to the superior court's findings. After this Court has received the parties' briefs, we will resume our consideration of Parsons's case.