In Anchorage, some felony cases are taking years to resolve, despite a state law mandating trials occur within 120 days after someone is charged.
In a recent investigative story, Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica journalist Kyle Hopkins found that those deadlines are rarely being met and, in some cases, trials are being delayed for so long that accusers die before justice can be served.
A centerpiece to the reporting is a sexual assault from 2017, which Hopkins says had all the hallmarks of an open-and-shut case.
Below is the transcript of an interview with Hopkins on Alaska News Nightly. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kyle Hopkins: One reason we were looking at that case was it seemed like one that would be resolved fairly quickly because you had multiple witnesses and you had DNA evidence. It was a broad daylight sexual assault of two people. It was witnessed by a woman who called 911, and was describing, kind of in real time, this sexual assault occurring. So, you know, jurors could hear her, the recording of her saying, ‘This man is raping this woman right now. It's happening right now. I'm watching it.’ And then police arrived pretty quickly. So you have a couple police officers who are on the scene, and you have one who actually picks the suspect, or defendant, up off of one of the victims, and so he was able to testify. And so just a lot of evidence, and it just struck me as the type of case that if one is going to be resolved fairly quickly, that would be it, right? It's not a he said, she said case. And the fact that there were two victims. So I was just curious why a case like that would not be resolved, you know, in the first or second or third year or fourth year or fifth year. COVID happened toward the end of that timeframe. But most of those delays were, you know, pre-COVID.
Wesley Early: That case happened seven years before a verdict was reached in December. What happened there? And did you find that it's indicative of a trend?
KH: The way that this case speaks to a trend is that you have, you know, defense attorneys who are asking for many, many delays. One way that case can be resolved is if the defendant and the defense, they agree to a plea agreement. They agreed to plead guilty, usually to a reduced charge. But if that doesn't happen, then the case has to go to trial. You know, we're guaranteed in Alaska by the state constitution that we will go to trial within 120 days of being arrested, unless you ask to delay the case. And what happens is, in some of these cases, the defense will ask to delay the case again and again and again, and sometimes they'll say it's because they're negotiating for a plea deal. But other times, no reason is given. Often, no reason is given. What it speaks to is that we just have a small number of criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors in the state, and even judges who are able to handle these trials. And so, our system gets overwhelmed very, very quickly. And the easiest thing to do when it's overwhelmed is to kind of kick the can down the road and delay, delay, delay. So year after year, suddenly you look at a case and it's been delayed, you know, 50 times, 70 times. You know, 5 years, 7 years, 10 years. And that's not super unusual. We found many examples of that happening in Anchorage.
WE: And you report that taking a long time to go to trial often benefits those who are accused of crimes, especially in some of the cases you note where the accusers have died. How are these delays continuing to persist?
KH: Well, one thing we heard again and again, we heard it from prosecutors especially, is that a delay tends to benefit the defense because, say, it's been five years since the arrest happened. Well, you know, the police officer who made the arrest, that person might have retired, they might have moved out of state, they might not be available to testify anymore in front of a jury. The cases that we looked at involved victims who were unhoused and so, kind of especially vulnerable. And when the case dragged on for five or six or seven years or longer, they died. They died outdoors. The life expectancy of someone unhoused in Anchorage is shorter than, you know, those of us who have housing. And if a case goes on long enough, the chances increase that that victim will die and will not be able to testify, and sometimes that victim is the only person who can testify to say lack of consent. And at that point, the case falls apart, and the prosecutor is kind of forced to give a plea deal.
WE: And what do you see as the solution here?
KH: You know, one thing I've heard from retired judges is that we just need to be careful about how we try and solve these problems because, say, we start to rush every case to trial. That doesn't benefit anyone. If the defense attorney doesn't have enough time to kind of adequately prepare for trial, then maybe that case is not handled correctly, and then it gets reversed. Whatever happens gets reversed on appeal. But I think there's a danger in over-correcting and then kind of forcing everything to go to trial too quickly. And that also is problematic. So, you know, one thing I think they could consider is they could look at maybe not having pre-indictment hearings in Anchorage. There's some of these types of hearings that are early on after someone's arrested, where it's really likely that the case is just going to get kicked down the road, and no one's really explaining why, right? So it could be that maybe judges would, especially in Anchorage, kind of demand that defense attorneys and prosecutors really give a good reason for a delay and kind of hold their feet to the fire, and then set cases for trials, rather than just automatically accept every request for a delay.
