Latest news with #AlaskaDepartmentofLaw
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
'Badly mishandled': In scathing order, judge dismisses Metlakatla murder charge because of faulty police investigation
Jun. 6—A Ketchikan judge dismissed a murder charge against a Metlakatla man accused of fatally shooting his brother, saying the local police department badly botched the investigation and then lied about it in court, and the prosecution failed to correct the errors, dooming the prospect of a fair trial. The only appropriate remedy, wrote Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Daniel Doty in an order released May 27, is to dismiss with prejudice the murder charge against Isaac Henderson in the death of his brother, effective Friday. A dismissal with prejudice means the case is permanently over. "The state has badly mishandled this case," the judge wrote. The dismissal — meaning the case could not be retried — represents a stunning rebuke for prosecutors and police in a high-profile homicide case in Alaska's only tribal reservation, and revealed the depth of dysfunction in the community's local police department. Bruce Janes, the longtime police chief in Metlakatla, was fired after the judge's findings. Janes could not be reached for comment. The Alaska Department of Law said it had advised the Metlakatla Police Department that it would need to make "substantial reforms" before the state would "continue to prosecute cases referred by their agency," wrote Angie Kemp, the director of the department's criminal division, in a statement emailed to the Daily News on Friday. The state Office of Special Prosecutions will assume responsibility for prosecuting active cases from Metlakatla and will assist the community "working toward successful reform," Kemp wrote. Metlakatla Mayor Albert Smith told the Ketchikan Daily News that he was "shocked" by the findings about the department, and had "initiated an immediate change in leadership." Smith did not respond to a request by the ADN for comment. On Friday, prosecutors filed a motion asking the court to reconsider whether the "drastic, litigation ending sanction of dismissal is warranted" and offering a point-by-point defense of contentious evidence issues. The order asks the court to hold off on the dismissal until the motion has been considered. The charge stemmed from the 2021 death of Tyler Henderson, a Metlakatla man who was profiled in the documentary "Alaska Nets," about a championship high school basketball team in the Southeast Alaska community. At the time, prosecutors said that Isaac Henderson had shot his brother in the head during an argument at their home in Metlakatla on Dec. 5, 2021, with several other people in the house at the time. A grand jury indicted Isaac Henderson on murder charges. The case dragged on without resolution for more than three years and was reassigned five times to different defense attorneys but was headed for a 2025 trial, the judge's order said. According to the order, it wasn't until a pre-trial hearing in May that it became clear the prosecution had not turned over evidence to defense attorneys that could have bolstered Henderson's claim of self-defense and his contention that the gun may have been actually fired by another man in the house, who'd been grappling with him to get it out of his hands. Prosecutors are required to hand over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys in criminal cases, a process known as discovery. Testimony at a hearing also showed that the initial police investigation had been incomplete, with the first responding officer admitting that he'd faked evidence logging forms and had failed to take witness statements at the scene. Janes — who had worked for the Metlakatla Police Department for 31 years and had been chief for eight years — admitted that the department's practice was to routinely fake evidence logging forms, raising the judge's concerns about evidence handling and chain of custody, according to the order. The investigation of Henderson's death was "very sloppy" and "probably the worst I've ever done," Janes testified, according to the filing. Doty, the judge, called the police department's lack of standard evidence handling procedure "extraordinary." The judge described a second hearing in May as "shocking." He concluded that the police chief had repeatedly lied about evidence and procedures, including about a piece of a ceiling tile. Janes admitted to lying in grand jury testimony that a ceiling tile from the trailer had been collected and taken to the crime lab for examination. "The Chief stated that his sworn grand jury testimony was false and that police did not actually collect the tile," the judge wrote. Because of the generally chaotic and fault evidence logging, the court, he said, "cannot determine what happened to the ceiling tile." "The Metlakatla Police Department has designed discovery policies that guaranteed evidence would be lost, destroyed, or overlooked," Doty wrote. "The (police) did all those things here, and compounded its errors by repeatedly misrepresenting facts about discovery. And the prosecutor's office, which inexplicably continued to accept the Department's representations and relay those representations to the Court, failed to correct those errors." "It is important to know that what happened in this case is extremely rare," wrote Kemp, of the Department of Law. "The dismissal of a case for these reasons, any case, is extraordinary. It's made more tragic given the nature of the case." In a statement to the court, Naomi Leask, a longtime local cultural educator in Metlakatla and the mother of both Isaac and Tyler Henderson, wrote that the case had devastated her family. The recent revelations about the weakness of the police investigation had been hard to process, she wrote. "The sheer amount of information that I have only received within the last few months has been incredibly hard to process because I have felt everything from grief, anger, to relief," Leask wrote. While mourning one son, she'd also been enduring the murder charge against another son, she wrote. Isaac Henderson had lost his membership in the Metlakatla Indian Community, and the family had decided to leave their home. "I've made the incredibly tough decision to relocate my family once this all settles," she wrote. "I'm not even 100% sure where to go because I don't even know where home is anymore."
Miami Herald
14-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Dog scratch sparks dispute that ends in deadly attack, Alaska officials say
A man became angry when a dog scratched his wife and later fatally shot his 20-year-old neighbor and wounded another person, Alaska prosecutors said. David Dumpson, 31, was sentenced to 95 years in prison, with 20 years suspended, in the May 2020 shooting that killed Andrew Alston and injured Luis Ross-Rivera, the Alaska Department of Law said in a May 13 news release. McClatchy News reached out to Dumpson's attorney May 14 and was awaiting a response. Alston was Dumpson's neighbor in Anchorage, prosecutors said. A dog belonging to a friend of Alston's scratched Dumpson's wife on May 24, 2020, according to prosecutors, who said police were called about the incident. 'Dumpson was angry at his neighbors' and yelled slurs, prosecutors said, adding that he later got a hold of a gun. That evening, Alston and Ross-Rivera, who was 21 at the time, came back home, and 'Dumpson again called them derogatory names,' prosecutors said. Dumpson and Ross-Rivera started fighting, 'and Dumpson shot Ross-Rivera in the head,' prosecutors said. Dumpson then fired at Alston, shooting him three times, walking off, and then coming 'back to shoot Alston in the head,' according to prosecutors. Alston was trying to give aid to the wounded Ross-Rivera when he was killed, prosecutors said. On a GoFundMe page, Alston was described by his father as 'a bright lively kid who had dreams and ambitions and was working towards them.' He 'will be remembered by a lot of people,' his father said, adding 'he was loved by so many.'
Miami Herald
16-04-2025
- Miami Herald
Man convicted in sexual assault of sleeping camper decade ago, AK officials say
A man has been convicted nearly a decade after he's accused of physically and sexually assaulting a woman at an Alaska campground, officials said. Andrew Byrd, now 43, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual assault and one count each of second- and third-degree assault after a two-week trial, the Alaska Department of Law said in an April 15 news release. McClatchy News reached out to Byrd's attorney for comment April 16 and was awaiting a response. The assault happened in May 2015 at a campground in the Portage area, according to prosecutors. A woman said she woke up at the campground with a man's hand on her mouth, and he strangled her and assaulted her sexually, prosecutors said. The man had been camping at another site close by, according to prosecutors. A sexual assault kit was done, and it was tested after state troopers in 2016 received a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant, prosecutors said. But while 'a male DNA profile was identified' and entered into a national database, there was no immediate match, according to prosecutors. The case became cold 'despite a thorough investigation,' prosecutors said. But that cold case status changed in 2023, when the state crime lab alerted troopers to a potential match 'that linked the unknown male DNA profile collected from the victim's sexual assault kit to a DNA sample collected from Andrew Byrd,' prosecutors said. 'At trial, jurors heard testimony from the victim, who described the sexual assault, as well as from other witnesses and DNA analysts,' according to prosecutors. Byrd took the stand as well, according to prosecutors, although they didn't detail what he said. Byrd's sentencing hasn't yet been scheduled, prosecutors said. Portage is about a 60-mile drive southeast from Anchorage.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Illegal voting charges against American Samoans in Whittier highlight unique citizenship status
Apr. 10—State prosecutors have charged 10 Whittier residents from American Samoa accused of illegally voting in local and state elections with perjury and voter misconduct — cases highlighting the unique citizenship status of American Samoans, and a national effort to reevaluate it. In indictments filed April 4, the state of Alaska charged the Whittier residents — all members of an extended family — with voting illegally in multiple recent elections, saying that because they were born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, they are not American citizens but instead are nationals, and do not have the right to vote. The state contends the defendants misrepresented themselves as U.S. citizens on voting paperwork. People born in all other U.S. territories, including Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Marianas, receive American citizenship by birth, but those born in American Samoa are considered U.S. nationals. The recent cases put Alaska on the forefront of a national debate about the citizenship status of American Samoans. "This is, to our knowledge, the first time any state has prosecuted American Samoans for any crime based really solely on their place of birth," said Neil Weare, an attorney and co-founder of Right to Democracy, an organization that advocates for reform to laws related to the U.S. territories and is involved in the cases. None of the 10 people charged were available for comment this week. All are due to be arraigned in May. Right to Democracy contends that because American Samoans are born on U.S. soil, under the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, they have a constitutional right to be recognized as citizens. The prosecutions are only about upholding the current law, said John Skidmore, the Alaska Department of Law criminal division chief. "If people don't like the laws and think they should be changed, there's a process for doing that," he said. The charges are not the first time the state has prosecuted members of the family for voting-related crimes. In 2023, the state filed charges against a Whittier woman, Tupe Smith, who ran for school board in the community and won. Election officials found Smith was born in American Samoa and filed voter misconduct charges against her, saying she claimed to be a U.S. citizen when she was not. Smith was arrested in front of her children, Weare said. She was booked at the Anchorage jail before posting bail, according to court records. Her case remains unresolved. Then, last September, a group of Alaska State Troopers descended on the tiny Prince William Sound town, interviewing some members of an American Samoan family related to Smith. "We were targeted," Smith's husband, Michael Pese, told Alaska's News Source at the time. Pese was among the 10 people charged this month with voter misconduct. It was a stunning display of force for such an investigation, said Mara Kimmel, the director of the ACLU of Alaska, which has been monitoring the case. The investigation and prosecution were the result of a complaint, Skidmore said. State agencies investigate reports of voter fraud or misconduct every election cycle, he said. "We probably get a handful per year," Skidmore said. "It's a small number that we actually find evidence that people violated criminal law." Skidmore said that the state was simply upholding election integrity. "When somebody has violated the law, that's what we're concerned with," he said. "We don't look at ethnicity, we don't look at race, we don't look at political background. None of that stuff matters to us. What matters is that the laws in place are followed." The cases are important for American Samoans in Alaska, said Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, the executive director of Pacific Community of Alaska. American Samoa has been under the control of the United States for 125 years, and American Samoans have among the highest rates of service to the military, and yet are not citizens, Toleafoa said. "You pay allegiance to a country that does not see you as equal," Toleafoa said. The majority of Samoans over about 20 years old in Alaska are likely from American Samoa and therefore U.S. nationals, said Toleafoa. According to 2020 U.S. census data, about 2.5% of Alaska's overall population is Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian. Much confusion has surrounded the voting status of American Samoans in Alaska for years, Toleafoa said: People born in American Samoa are eligible for many benefits, including the Permanent Fund dividend, which leads to automatic voter registration, Toleafoa said. American Samoans can also receive U.S. passports. And some say they had been advised they could vote in local elections, but not national elections. The state should have conducted an education campaign, said Weare. "There's a lot of reason people are confused, but rather than conduct an education campaign to address the confusion, they're arresting people in their homes ... and seeking, with these new filings, up to 10 years in jail," he said.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Alaska disability advocates fear impacts from federal lawsuit in which state says Medicaid services are at risk
Feb. 26—JUNEAU — A coalition of Alaska disability advocates is raising concerns about the potential impacts of a federal lawsuit the state joined in September. Alaska and 16 other states filed the suit — State of Texas et al v. Becerra et al — in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The states challenged regulations the Biden administration enacted last year to update disability discrimination law in areas such as health care, education and employment. The regulations amended Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating against people with disabilities. The 17 Republican-led states joined the complaint for various reasons. The Biden administration's regulations stated that "gender dysphoria" may be considered a disability for discrimination protections, the states argued. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who initiated the lawsuit, sought to challenge those protections. But that was not the impetus for the state of Alaska joining the lawsuit. The Alaska Department of Law in September said the Biden administration's "sweeping" new regulations would impose "unfunded mandates" on states, particularly for Medicaid services in Alaska. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said the state risked losing federal funding if it failed to comply with the law. He said substantial costs could be borne by the state, and Medicaid providers may stop offering services if the regulations survive. Republicans in Congress this week advanced a spending plan that calls for cutting billions of dollars from Medicaid. The Section 504 issue is unrelated. Disability advocates across the U.S., and in Alaska, have been outraged and concerned by the suit. The 48-page complaint contains language asking that Texas Judge James Hendrix strike down Section 504, although the states on Feb. 19 filed a joint status report that clarified they are not seeking to have Section 504 eliminated in its entirety. Instead, the legal challenge would focus on requirements that disabled Americans get services in the "most integrated setting" — meaning in places where disabled people can interact with other people as much as possible, the states said. Taylor said there had been "misunderstandings" and "misinformation" about the suit. "Despite the fearmongering going on, the reality is that if the new rule is allowed to stand, there will be less services available for those who currently receive benefits under Section 504," he said by email last week. The state of Alaska, in its complaint, said "it is not fiscally feasible for its system of care to provide all services across the State in the Final Rule's definition of the most integrated setting in every instance." The Statewide Independent Living Council of Alaska and several other disability advocacy groups said 90,000 Alaskans rely on discrimination protections through Section 504. They wrote a letter to Taylor last week, urging him to withdraw the state from the lawsuit. "You directly attack every Alaskan with a disability, along with their friends, families, and communities," the groups said. In their five-page letter, Alaska disability advocates pushed back against the state's assertions. They said the Biden administration's regulations do not impose new requirements for community-based care. The state can also get exemptions, they said. "A lot of the claims as they lay out are actual issues with Section 504 itself, and not anything implemented by the Final Rule (put in place by the Biden administration)," said Amanda Coelho, assistant executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Alaska. Mark Regan, legal director of the Disability Law Center of Alaska, said the new regulations clarified existing requirements. But he said they were not new. "I'm skeptical that Medicaid providers — or potential Medicaid providers — in Alaska are being discouraged from doing anything because of the Section 504 regulations," he said in a Friday interview. Regan added it was "a good thing" for disability advocates that the lawsuit in Texas appeared to be moving slowly. Judge Hendrix requested the next status update from the states in April.
