Mat-Su lawsuit seeks to change state law

ANCHORAGE — A Mat-Su couple whose charges of growing marijuana were thrown out of court late last year have teamed up with a local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union to try and change state law.

The ACLU said in a press release that Robin Kling and Samantha Clymer were suing the state, “seeking to establish the right of all Alaskans to clear their names when they are unconstitutionally arrested or prosecuted.”

Kling and Clymer had nine budding marijuana plants and 17 starter plants plus .34 ounces of marijuana on their property in September 2010 when Alaska State Troopers were summoned there to investigate an altercation between Kling and his brother, Jeffrey Laplant.

Troopers sought and obtained a search warrant. But officers didn’t fully inform the court about the allegations and counter allegations of assault between Laplant and Kling, according to a November 2011 ruling by Superior Court Judge Gregory Heath who threw out the case.

He said Laplant wasn’t a reliable enough informant for troopers to have been given a search warrant without additional investigation.

“Investigator (Kyle) Young was more than negligent in his failure to disclose the additional information about the assault and Laplant,” the judge wrote. “Investigator Young violated his duty of candor to the court.”

The ACLU actually quotes that last line from Heath in its press release.

“Our clients, Samantha Clymer and Robin Kling, were subject to a Trooper who, in the words of a Superior Court Judge ‘violated his duty of candor to the court,’ and subjected them to an unconstitutional search and arrest. While the Court began the process of making them right, because of peculiarities of Alaska law, only this lawsuit can make them whole,” ACLU of Alaska Executive Director Jeffrey Mittman said in a prepared statement.

Kling and Clymer are asking the state to expunge their criminal records and return property seized in the investigation.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.