Opinion ID: 2546657
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Whether the superior court applied the wrong intent standard

Text: Plaintiffs also contend that the superior court committed legal error by adopting the state's three-part test for determining whether law enforcement was racially based. [75] But we do not read the court's decision as adopting a three-part test; the cited passage of the court's post-trial findings simply discusses evidence that supports the superior court's ultimate conclusion that the state did not create a race-based system of law enforcement. The court was there permissibly distinguishing the VPSO program from the pre-statehood federal programs on which plaintiffs relied in attempting to prove their de jure claim. Plaintiffs also argue that it was error for the superior court in Paragraph 111 of its post-trial decision to require plaintiffs to show that race was a determinative factor for the state's action. The superior court, addressing the VPSO program, there concluded: But Plaintiffs have not established that in creating the VPSO program, or in creating any predecessors to that program, the State established a system of law enforcement in which a person's race or a community's racial composition were determinative factors in the type of law enforcement services to be provided. (Emphasis added.) Citing Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., [76] the plaintiffs argue that they only needed to prove that a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor, not a determinative factor. The state responds that the plaintiffs did not prove that race was even a motivating factor in the state's development of its law enforcement programs. The Supreme Court explained in Personnel Administrator v. Feeney that even though race does not have to be the determinative factor in a governmental decision for a court to find discriminatory intent, the government must have selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part `because of,' not merely `in spite of,' its adverse effects upon an identifiable group. [77] We conclude that although it would have been error to apply the determinative factor standard to the ultimate questionwhether the allocation of law enforcement services by the troopers was racially motivatedany possible error here was harmless because plaintiffs failed to prove intent under the correct standard. That VPSO services were mainly available in off-road communities that were predominantly Alaska Native does not establish that the allocation of trooper services was racially motivated. It simply reflects demographic reality in Alaska, as do the comments of the creators of the VPO and VPSO programs. Recognition by thoughtful state officials that Alaska Natives are the dominant demographic group residing in rural Alaska, and would be most of the recipients of the proposed supplemental law enforcement services, does not prove that race was a motivation for their decisions. Nor does it prove that they sought to develop a dual law enforcement system, much less that they wished to provide separate and substitute law enforcement services in off-road communities. Instead, the evidence permits a logical conclusion that the state developed its system of rural law enforcement based on financial and geographical constraints, and an evaluation of crime rates in those locations. Likewise, we are unpersuaded by plaintiffs' assertion that the superior court erred in assuming that the plaintiffs were required to show that state officials acted on the basis of hostility or racial disfavor toward Alaska Natives in order to show intentional racial discrimination. They base this argument on their contention that uncontradicted evidence shows that the state intentionally operates separate policing programs for Native villages. That Native villages are the primary beneficiaries of the VPO and VPSO programs does not compel a conclusion that the state intends to discriminate against Native villages; it only establishes that villages with those programs are provided services that other communities do not receive. The real question here is whether the state's allocation of law enforcement services by APSC-certified police officers was motivated by a discriminatory purpose. As to that question, the evidence produced at trial does not establish that the superior court clearly erred in finding that it was not.