by Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Anchorage Daily News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
On May 1, a man in Anchorage, Alaska, called 911 to say he had “beat” his wife, according to a court document supporting an assault charge against him. When police stepped through the door of Vernon Booth’s apartment, they found the victim’s face bloody and her eye nearly swollen shut, the prosecution said.
You’re late, the charging document says he told officers. “She could have been dead by now.”
Four months later, prosecutors dropped the charge. It wasn’t because police made a mistake that got evidence tossed or because a jury found the defendant not guilty. Instead: The city said it did not have enough lawyers to take the man to trial. (Booth declined to comment on the case.)
Defendants in at least 930 Anchorage misdemeanor cases have walked free for this reason since May 1, the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found. These include people accused of crimes ranging from violating a restraining order to driving drunk with children in the backseat.
In one case, prosecutors said a mother told police she’d beaten her 5-year-old daughter with a belt. The prosecution said the girl, who was found with bruises across her back, told police she’d also been struck with a wire and a stick.
Dismissed.
Prosecutors accused one man of animal cruelty after he allegedly punched and choked a dog, while another allegedly raised fighting roosters found tied to barrels.
Dismissed.
More than 270 DUI cases.
Dismissed.
A grand total of three defendants have gone to trial since May, according to the city.
The cascade of failed prosecutions is especially disturbing in a state with the nation’s highest rate of women killed by men. More than 250 of the cases dismissed since May included charges of domestic violence assault, such as men allegedly punching, kicking or threatening to kill their wives or girlfriends. They include charges dropped against a state official accused of elbowing his then-girlfriend in the nose.
Two factors are at work in the mass dismissals. First, Alaska’s overloaded court system has limped along for years by allowing extensive trial delays, defying a state requirement for speedy trials. Second, the Anchorage prosecutor’s office, as in many American cities and states, is struggling to hold onto lawyers.
When a judge this year tried to clear out a backlog of Anchorage misdemeanors by having them brought forward as a group to regularly check which ones were ready for trial, defense attorneys pounced. They began demanding speedy-trial rights for their clients. The city couldn’t keep up. Cases started dying.
City officials say they’re aware of the problem. They have raised prosecutor pay and are hiring attorneys to take more cases to trial, in hopes the prosecutor’s office will be “fully back in action” in three to four months, according to City Attorney Eva Gardner.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, who took office July 1, said her transition team knew the lack of prosecutors was a problem, but she was surprised by the number of dropped cases.
“Right now, the prosecutors are frustrated, the police are frustrated. The public is frustrated. Victims are frustrated,” she said in an interview. “We see that. I see that, and this is something that we are working to fix.”
Attorneys use a courtroom jury box for seating as they await their turn during trial calls at the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News)Angela Garay, executive director of the state’s Office of Victims’ Rights, told an Anchorage judge in July that the city is doing wrong by people who call the police on abusers.
“This is unacceptable for victims to have cases dismissed because prosecutors can’t do their jobs,” Garay said.
At a hearing in which city prosecutors dropped two dozen cases, she warned that she planned to open an investigation if the mass dismissals continued.
“We’re Not Going to Hold You Accountable”The widespread failure to prosecute crimes has stayed largely below the public’s radar because the charges are misdemeanors — which in Anchorage, home to 39% of Alaskans, are pursued by city prosecutors rather than the state. Despite the low profile of these cases, they include allegations of serious, sometimes outrageous acts.
At least 70 cases of child neglect or abuse have been dismissed since May.
And, at a time when Anchorage drivers are killing pedestrians at a record pace, the city........