Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Carney highlighted efforts to reduce case backlogs and asked lawmakers to fund new judges and long-delayed courthouse maintenance during the annual State of the Judiciary address on Wednesday.
Carney pointed to a pair of December reports from the Anchorage Daily News, ProPublica and Bethel public radio station KYUK. They told the story of a man who spent seven years in jail awaiting trial for a murder he did not commit, and the victim’s family’s ongoing search for justice.
Carney is also the judicial branch’s chief administrator, and she says the reports remind the court system that it must remain committed to resolving cases quickly and fairly.
"I know that the cases with extreme delay are outliers compared to the vast majority of criminal cases and the time it takes to resolve them, but it's still heartbreaking to think of the anguish that victims suffer and the problems that delays cause to everybody involved in criminal cases," Carney said.
But the court system has made significant progress, Carney said. She said courts had cleared a pandemic backlog, with the number of open cases significantly below pre-pandemic levels. She said the number of felony cases more than two years old has been cut by more than half since 2023.
Carney thanked prior chief justices for their work bringing the backlog down, and she says she’s recently put out a new policy tightening existing limits on orders known as continuances, which delay court proceedings.
Carney also celebrated the rededication of the Utqiagvik Courthouse to honor an Indigenous legal pioneer. She called magistrate Sadie Brower Neakok a “trailblazer” and highlighted her commitment to ensuring language access for Indigenous people, starting before statehood.
"She regularly held court at her kitchen table and did it in Iñupiaq when the people appearing in front of her didn't understand English," Carney said. "When she became a state court magistrate, she and magistrate Nora Guinn from Bethel insisted that they be able to hold court in the language that their community members understood."
Carney also came with requests. She asked lawmakers to open the state’s purse to fund a new judge in Palmer to handle the growing workload in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The last time the state added a judge to the state’s fastest-growing region was in 2006, according to the court system, and in the meantime, the population has grown 40% and the number of cases filed has risen 55%.
Carney said the court system has tapped retired judges and those from other communities to fill in at the Palmer courthouse to handle criminal cases and other urgent matters, but she said she was concerned delays could mount in other areas without a new judge.
The chief justice also urged lawmakers to fund long-delayed maintenance. She says court facilities across the state are badly in need of repair, including an administrative building in Anchorage.
The building has a crumbling facade, "barely keeping out the elements and the occasional vermin," she said.
"On the facade, close to head height, so that people passing by can see it, is a great big metal map of the state of Alaska," Carney said. "I'm sorry to tell you, Kodiak is no longer part of the state of Alaska."
Fortunately, Carney said the Kodiak-shaped hunk of metal did not land on any passing pedestrians. But she said the episode underscores the dire need to repair and upgrade courthouses.
Key lawmakers have said that despite a large deficit, they plan to prioritize school and state facility maintenance in this year’s budget.
