Assistant DA in hot water: Prosecutor resigns in wake of plagiarism charges

PALMER -- An assistant district attorney resigned last week after the law school she attended suspended her law degree for two years in a plagiarism issue.

Kim Carnot resigned from the Palmer District Attorney's office in light of the suspension, which rendered her ineligible to be licensed by the Alaska Bar Association. Carnot was able to practice law in the agency up to 10 months under a state statute that allows people who haven't yet passed the bar to do so while they establish their Alaska residency.

Carnot had taken the bar exam and was awaiting results of that. In light of the suspension, Carnot will be ineligible to be licensed because she has no law degree under the sanction, said Deborah O'Regan, executive director of the Alaska Bar Association. That prohibits her from practicing law during the two years her degree is suspended.

Stephanie Willbanks, associate dean for academic affairs at Vermont Law School, said the university suspended both Carnot's masters degree and her jurisprudence degree in light of a plagiarized article she submitted to the Vermont Law Review that was published.

"An Eye for an Eye: Does God Sanction Capital Punishment?" was originally published in the Utah Law Review. The Vermont Law Review published it under Carnot's name in 1999.

The university "revoked" the article recently after it was discovered to be plagiarized. The school was alerted by the article's original authors and others who noticed it matched both content and title with the Utah Law Review article.

"It's kind of sticky, revoking an article that is already published," said Charles Papirmeister, a librarian at the Vermont Law School. The article is no longer available on the university's Web site and a sticker was mailed to all subscribers asking them to place it on the cover of that issue. The sticker states that the article is not a valid one and apologizes for the plagiarism.

Pat Gullufsen, the state's chief prosecutor who oversees DA offices, said he couldn't comment on Carnot's resignation because it is a personnel matter. Carnot had been with the agency since August, handling misdemeanor cases. Prior to that, she was a clerk for Judge Beverly Cutler.

"I did make a mistake and I'm willing to accept the consequences," Carnot said Friday. "I'm willing to do public service for two years and serve the community in any way I can."

Carnot said she volunteered to resign from the DA office and she is currently looking for a community project.

At the end of the two-year suspension, Carnot can apply to the Vermont Law School to have her degrees reinstated, Willbanks said. If they grant her appeal, she will able to again practice law.