Alaska state judge dismisses murder case, citing widespread misconduct by local police

Yahoo

12 hours ago

The Southeast Alaska village of Metlakatla is seen in an undated photo. (Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities photo)
In an extraordinary order, a Ketchikan Superior Court judge has dismissed murder charges against a Metlakatla man, citing a lengthy series of errors, lies and evidence concealed from defense attorneys by the Metlakatla Police Department.
The errors, Judge Daniel Doty said last week in an order, were so severe that defendant Isaac Henderson cannot be guaranteed a fair trial. The order dismisses the charges against Henderson with prejudice, meaning that they cannot be brought again.
The dismissal was first reported by the Ketchikan Daily News.
'The record in this case established a unique and egregious pattern of discovery violations and misrepresentations about discovery,' Doty wrote.
'No remedy short of dismissal with prejudice would remedy the prejudice to Mr. Henderson or deter similar violations in the future,' he said.
Prosecutors with the Alaska Department of Law have filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider his dismissal.
Meanwhile, Angie Kemp, director of the department's criminal division since 2022, said on Friday that her division has suspended all work with the Metlakatla Police Department until the department undergoes reforms.
That extreme — possibly unprecedented — act means state attorneys will not prosecute criminal cases coming from Metlakatla's police department unless they involve particularly serious crimes.
'It's an extreme remedy, but one that's necessary,' Kemp said by phone on Friday.
Metlakatla is located at the tip of southern Southeast Alaska, on the Annette Island Reserve, Alaska's only Indian reservation.
Bruce Janes, a member of the local police department for 31 years and chief for eight, is no longer working there, Kemp said.
She's since spoken with Desmond King, chief of Metlakatla's fire department and now its interim police chief, requesting changes to police department procedures.
'And I've explained to him that until those steps are taken, the Department of Law can't continue to prosecute cases, absent extreme circumstances, out of Metlakatla where those cases involve Metlakatla Police Department officers,' Kemp said.
Metlakatla Mayor Albert Smith was out of the office and unavailable to talk by phone, town staff said on Friday. A message left on his cellphone was not returned.
King, speaking by phone, said that in addition to acting as fire chief and interim police chief, he's also the town's deputy police commissioner.
'I actually carry a few hats right now, while we're in the rebuilding stage. … We're in a very stressful situation,' he said.
Asked about Kemp's decision to temporarily stop work with Metlakatla's police, he said he was familiar with it.
'I totally understand that,' King said. 'That's what I would expect them to do, because it was some internal issues that we have to fix, and we're really going to be at Ground Zero. It's all about building everything as fast as we can, but as responsible as we can.'
Smith declined extensive comment, citing the mayor's unavailability on Friday, but said that officials in Metlakatla are aware of the department's problems and the need to fix them.
'It's going to be a long, long-term project, but there's a lot of of the infrastructure and smaller things that we can take care of immediately and be very proactive in re-establishing all the relationships we have with the DA's office, working with the Alaska Police Standards Council, (Bureau of Indian Affairs) Justice System, they're involved now. We have a lot of support. We definitely don't feel alone,' he said.
The turmoil surrounding the Metlakatla Police Department stems from the 2021 shooting death of Tyler Henderson. After an investigation by local police and Alaska State Troopers, the Department of Law charged Henderson's brother, Isaac, with his murder.
The case was frequently delayed, and Isaac Henderson's defense was repeatedly reassigned to five different public defenders who apparently took little action on the issue as it lingered in court.
Four years on, it remains unclear whether the shooting was accidental, an act of self-defense — as Isaac Henderson claimed — or murder.
As Henderson's trial approached, his attorneys — John Phillips and Julia Graves — began challenging some of the evidence that prosecutors planned to present.
Neither attorney answered phone calls Friday seeking comment.
During a series of evidentiary hearings in April, former Metlakatla police officer Austin McKeehan said that he falsified evidence reports.
Former police chief Janes, under questioning, said he had made false statements to the grand jury that indicted Henderson, falsely claiming that he submitted a piece of evidence to the state crime lab.
At the hearing, Janes admitted that the investigation was 'very sloppy' and 'probably the worst I've ever done.'
In another hearing, Janes testified that the department routinely destroys evidence logs every year, making it impossible to guarantee that evidence is properly stored and not tampered with.
On May 5, at a hearing the judge called 'shocking,' Janes revealed previously undisclosed witness interviews to both prosecutors and defense.
During a trial's 'discovery' process, prosecutors are required to share possible evidence with defense attorneys. Janes, at this point in the case, produced several pieces of hard-copy evidence from within the case file that had not been shared with either prosecutors or the defense.
'If the prosecutor did review the file, the prosecutor saw a number of items that he had not seen
before but failed to disclose those documents or identify them during the discovery
hearing. If the prosecutor did not review the file, the failure to do so is inexplicable,' Doty wrote in his order.
Before another hearing, Janes provided several hard drives to the prosecutor. Those contained possible evidence. The state contends that there was no time to share them with the defense before the hearing; the defense argued that withholding them until the hearing was part of a continued pattern.
Under normal circumstances, it would be appropriate for a judge to postpone the case until everyone is certain that all evidence has been fairly shared.
In this case, Doty said, he doesn't have confidence that will ever occur.
'Police officers knowingly completed inaccurate chain of custody logs, destroyed chain of custody logs, made contradictory and irreconcilable statements under oath about what physical evidence had been collected or tested, and stated — repeatedly and falsely — that they had provided all the available evidence in the case,' Doty wrote in his order.
'More importantly, though, the evidence here raised serious and substantial questions about whether the state has committed additional discovery violations that have not yet come to light,' he said, using 'state' to refer to both police and prosecutors.
Given that doubt, he said, it is appropriate to dismiss the case.
'In short, the police misrepresented or forgot so many facts about discovery that it is impossible to determine, and will likely not be possible to ever determine, whether the state complied with its discovery obligations in this case.'
In court, the Hendersons' mother, Naomi Leask, said she and other members of her family moved from Metlakatla to Ketchikan in order to stay with Isaac Henderson and secure his bail.
Speaking to Doty, she said that regardless of how the case is resolved, they do not expect to ever return to Metlakatla.
In town, said King, the interim police chief, there's work to be done.
'The temperature of our community, it feels a little off, the anguish and stuff that people feel,' he said. 'But you know, it's improving from this day, moving forward. We have to make sure we do it right and do it right by our people.'
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