Council takes testimony on local judges

PALMER — The face that decides your speeding ticket, whether you get to see your kids, or how much time you’ll spend behind bars could change this fall.

Two Palmer superior court judges and a district court judge are among about 40 judges who could stand for retention in the November elections. Kari Kristiansen, Vanessa White and David Zwink are listed among 38 names that appear on a list provided by the Alaska Judicial Council. The council is tasked with providing an evaluation of all the judges on the list, plus three appellate court judges, according to Alaska Judicial Council executive director Susanne DiPietro.

Judges themselves have until Aug. 1 to file to stand for retention, and voters will decide whether they will retain the robes and gavel.

The council also has the option of recommending or not recommending retention for specific judges based on their evaluation, DiPietro said.

Voters across Alaska’s Third Judicial District, which includes Palmer, Anchorage (including jurisdictions in Sand Point and Saint Paul), Kenai, Cordova, Dillingham, Glennallen, Kenai, Kodiak, Naknek and Unalaska, will decide the fate of judges hundreds of miles away. Statewide, voters could decide whether to retain appellate judges.

At a public hearing to solicit feedback on all judges Thursday afternoon, White was the only Palmer judge to be mentioned. Comments about White focused on a single case: the conviction and sentencing of Clayton Allison for the murder of his 15-month-old daughter Jocelynn Allison in 2008. Clayton Allison received a 30-year sentence following his conviction.

Clayton’s wife, Christiane “CJ” Allison, along with family members, testified that they had been provided with lists of subjects they weren’t allowed to speak about on the witness stand, and said White favored the prosecution over the course of the trial. Clayton Allison’s family has maintained his innocence since the conviction.

Clayton Allison appealed his conviction in 2015.

“We faced an absolutely horrific situation,” Christiane Allison told council members. “An accident turned into false allegations of murder.”

At the beginning of the process, Christiane Allison said she felt White had treated her as another victim in a horrible tragedy, but that White’s attitude changed over time. “She seemed to treat me as more of an adversary in court than as a victim,” she said.

Among the rulings she cited: attorneys could not present evidence on Jocelynn’s post-mortem diagnosis with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome Type 3, a genetic disorder associated with irregularities in the muscles and bones; evidence that Clayton Allison had worked with disabled children was barred; and the district attorney was allowed to “threaten” witnesses with perjury on the stand.

The family also had rejected a plea bargain with a two-year sentence and instead shortly before trial, Christiane Allison said.

“She (White) said I was a very clever young woman and she was going to have to be careful with me,” she said.

Robert Vaughn, Christiane’s father, echoed Christiane’s assertions about White’s alleged prosecutorial bias. Bethany Grothe, Christiane’s sister, focused on White’s facial expressions during one of two stints on the stand.

“I would like to say that Judge White showed extreme bias against my sister while she was on the stand and made it appear to the jury that she had a dislike or distaste for what my sister was saying by looking up at the ceiling and giving very extreme expressions and never ever looking at my sister,” Grothe said.

Grothe also focused on an aside White made during Clayton Allison’s sentencing, when White said she wasn’t sure what happened on the day when first responders showed up to the Allison house. Clayton Allison was alone with Jocelynn that day and told first responders he discovered Jocelynn at the bottom of eight steps, according to testimony at the trial.

“She stated at the end she (White) doesn’t know what happened when Jocelynn died, neither does the court, and she sentenced him to 40 years,” Grothe said. “I don’t believe that determination should have ever been made based on something that she doesn’t know what happened.”

The judicial retention election will take place Nov. 8.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.