Palmer judges overloaded, local backlog often means waiting for justice

People arrested for crimes in the Mat-Su Valley probably learned the hard way that the Palmer court's backlog often means waiting for justice -- and too often waiting in jail.

The Valley's increasing population hasn't met with an increasing court budget to hire more judges and attorneys, however, said Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak.

That's just one of the reasons for the backlog in a judicial region that sprawls out to cover not only Mat-Su, but outlying towns like Glennallen, Cordova and Valdez.

Palmer courts handled 11,938 cases in 2000, according to figures from the Alaska Court System's 2000 annual report, published this year and released to the Frontiersman last week.

Each Palmer judge heard 3,290.3 of those cases -- that's about 1,200 more cases in one year per judge than in the Anchorage trial courts.

Palmer has the highest number of dispositions, or cases processed from start to finish, per judicial position of any court in the state -- even though the Palmer court only had 8.6 percent of the state court system's caseload. Anchorage, which handled 43 percent of the state's load, distributed 2,050 cases per judge.

"The Valley is growing faster than the court system is growing," Kalytiak said. "I think that applies not only to judges but all the agencies associated with the court system."

Only two Superior Court justices regularly hear cases in the Valley -- Judges Beverly Cutler and Eric Smith, along with one District Court judge, Suzanne Lombardi, and one magistrate, David Zwink.

Murder cases take the longest to make their way through the system. It's not unusual in the Valley for a murder case to take two years to go to trial.

But the ones that really burn, said Palmer Public Defender Greg Heath, are cases in which the person eventually is acquitted, after spending months in jail.

One such case involved a young man charged with rape. Matthew Voyles, a developmentally disabled man, spent four months in jail before his accuser admitted she lied.

"She admitted she'd made the whole thing up," Heath said. "His name had been splattered over the papers, he served all that jail time and went through hell while his case was still being investigated."

Misdemeanor cases often involve people spending more time in jail than they would have been sentenced to serve.

New laws enacted increase the work load for the whole system, from cops to judges, Kalytiak said.

"New provisions are added to existing laws at each legislative session," he said. "This brings extra cases into all the offices -- domestic violence, enforcement of minors consuming alcohol, new child in need of aid cases. All these mean more work. Misdemeanor cases, DWIs and people driving with a revoked license place a big burden on our office, so that we can't just focus on the more serious crimes."

Mat-Su doesn't have specialized courts -- like those administered by the Municipality of Anchorage -- to relieve pressure on state courts by separating traffic violation and animal control cases from weightier civil and criminal cases.

The borough is not in a position to create a similar entity, said Mat-Su Borough Manager John Duffy, because the borough is a second-class borough and does not have the power to do so, unless voters gave it that power.

Mat-Su law enforcement has received funding, creating the largest Alaska State Trooper detachment here in the Valley. A lot of manpower is "out there to enforce new laws," Heath said.

"But when you pass new laws, you have to fund the whole system. You can't just fund agencies at the beginning of the system and not the back end such as district attorneys and judges," Heath said. "Our district court is strained. You can go over to the courthouse and see that a judge might have 80 cases to hear that one day."

Public defenders wait a month or more sometimes to receive police reports, Heath said. That hinders their ability to negotiate plea bargains. "We can't prepare for trial, can't get them out of jail when we don't have the actual report that clarifies evidence against a client."

One client sits in Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on drunken-driving and weapon violation charges. He was arrested Sept. 9, and yet by Oct. 12, the public defender's office still had not received a police report, Heath said.

Palmer Police Chief George Boatright said his officers are in no better position than the rest of the system. They don't have funding to hire a full-time investigator, for example, who could handle the reports.

"My guys have to write their own reports for every case. And if a call comes in, that takes priority over their reports," Boatright said. "We have less law enforcement officers per capita than Anchorage when you consider the expanse of this area is the size of Maine."

Kalytiak agreed the system is seriously overworking everyone, but said cases aren't getting dismissed due to failure to carry a case through the courts in the required time. "It would be nice to have more judges," he said.

Due process rights are at stake, said Heath. If an acquitted person had the resources to sue, he or she could ask for a monetary amount for each day spent in jail, and other reimbursements.

"The problem is that a lot of people do not have the money to file a civil suit," Heath said. "The Legislature really needs to take a look at this Valley, at our limited resources."