Opinion ID: 2623956
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City's Claim Against the Department of Corrections for Reimbursement of Housing Expenses

Text: The city argues that the Alaska Constitution and Alaska Statutes require the state to take custody of and care for pre-arraignment prisoners arrested for violating state law by Kotzebue police. It contends that this obligation arises under article I, section 12 of the Alaska Constitution and AS 33.30.011(1). Article I, section 12 addresses criminal administration, providing in relevant part: Criminal administration shall be based upon the following: the need for protecting the public, community condemnation of the offender, the rights of victims of crimes, restitution from the offender, and the principle of reformation. [6] The city asserts that this language places responsibility for Alaska's criminal justice system on the State of Alaska. It specifically contends that the language makes the department responsible for custody of state-charged offenders, citing a footnote from State v. Chaney [7] to support this assertion. But neither the constitutional provision nor the Chaney footnote supports the city's position. Article I, section 12 describes the general goals that Alaska's criminal justice system must strive to attain. It addresses the criminal justice system as a whole and does not assign responsibility to any particular agencies within that system for housing city-arrested prisoners before arraignment. Likewise, the city's reliance on State v. Chaney is unavailing. Chaney dealt with issues of criminal sentencing [8] and did not purport to address the central issue presented here: responsibility for housing and transporting unarraigned prisoners. Moreover, the Chaney footnote lends scant support to the city's constitutional theory; it simply states the general proposition that [o]peration of our system of penal administration in Alaska is dependent upon a properly staffed and functioning [Department] of Corrections which has, in addition to probation and parole functions, the responsibility for treatment, rehabilitation, and custody of incarcerated offenders. [9] Nothing in this language refers to individuals who have been arrested but not yet arraigned, nor does it purport to define the precise scope of the department's responsibility for arrested persons who have not yet been committed to state custody. The city's argument also relies heavily on AS 33.30.011(1), which broadly defines the duties of the commissioner of corrections with respect to correctional facilities. In relevant part, the provision directs the commissioner to establish, maintain, operate, and control correctional facilities suitable for the custody, care, and discipline of persons charged or convicted of offenses against the state or held under authority of state law.[ [10] ] Because Kotzebue police officers make arrests only for violations of state law, the city reasons, this provision's reference to persons . . . held under authority of state law requires the commissioner to provide correctional facilities for every individual arrested by the Kotzebue police. But in directing the commissioner to establish, maintain, operate, and control correctional facilities that are suitable for such prisoners, the statute hardly implies a responsibility extending to individual prisoners or specific categories of prisoners. More important, the city's contention that this provision sets out specific, unequivocal dictates largely ignores a companion provision, AS 33.30.071(b), which defines the events that trigger the department's duty to provide suitable prison facilities. This provision specifies that [t]he responsibility of the commissioner under AS 33.30.011 begins when a prisoner is accepted into the commissioner's custody or admitted into a correctional facility. [11] Under subsection .071(b), then, the duties described in AS 33.30.011 begin only when a prisoner is accepted into the commissioner's custody or admitted into a correctional facility. [12] The first stated trigger of the dutybeing accepted into the commissioner's custodyis not defined by statute or regulation. The superior court plausibly viewed this phrase as a reference to prisoners who are committed by a court to the department's custody but have not yet arrived at a correctional facility. [13] So construed, this provision has no relevance here. The second triggering condition set out in subsection .071(b) is admission to a correctional facility. Alaska Statute 33.30.901 defines correctional facility to mean a prison, jail, camp, farm, half-way house, group home, or other placement designated by the commissioner for the custody, care, and discipline of prisoners. [14] Under the department of corrections' regulations, admission to a correctional facility is governed by 22 Alaska Administrative Code (AAC) 05.020; at the time the Kotzebue jail closed, this regulation allowed arresting officers to admit prisoners to a correctional facility by either producing commitment papers from a court or executing a remand-to-custody order in the presence of booking staff. [15] When read in conjunction with these provisions, as it must be, [16] AS 33.30.071(b) can be seen as triggering the department's responsibility to provide for suitable custody of a prisoner when an arresting officer delivers a state-charged prisoner (together with a properly executed remand-to-custody form) to a booking officer at any jail that has been designated by the commissioner for the custody, care, and discipline of prisoners. [17] This language suggests that the commissioner must specifically designate a jail as a suitable place for housing prisoners before it can qualify as a correctional facility. The need for a specific designation also finds support in the history of AS 33.30.011(1) and AS 33.30.071. Alaska Statute 33.30.071(b) specifically refers to the duties set out in subsection .011(1). As already mentioned, subsection .011(1) broadly directs the commissioner to establish, maintain, operate, and control correctional facilities suitable for the custody, care, and discipline of persons charged or convicted of offenses against the state or held under authority of state law.[ [18] ] Subsection .071(b) elaborates on subsection .011(1) by making it clear that the commissioner's responsibility to carry out these duties begins when a prisoner is accepted into the commissioner's custody or admitted into a correctional facility. [19] Before the current version of AS 33.30.071(b) was enacted in 1995, [20] subsections .071(a) and (b) both addressed the custodial duties established under AS 33.30.011(1), but only insofar as these duties applied during the early stages of custody; unlike the current provision, the earlier version of AS 33.30.071 assigned these duties to the commissioner of public safety rather than the commissioner of corrections. Subsections .071(a) and (b) formerly provided: (a) Notwithstanding AS 33.30.011(1), the commissioner of public safety shall provide for the custody, care, and discipline of prisoners pending arraignment, commitment by a court to the custody of the commissioner of corrections, or admission to a state correctional facility. . . . (b) The responsibility of the commissioner of public safety under (a) of this section does not begin until a prisoner is accepted into the custody of the commissioner of public safety, or admitted into a correctional facility or other facility designed for holding prisoners, and the commissioner of public safety is notified of the acceptance or admission.[ [21] ] The legislature amended section .071 in 1995; the amendment shifted responsibility for early custody of prisoners from the commissioner of public safety to the commissioner of corrections. [22] In addition, the amendment changed the scope of the duty. [23] Whereas the earlier version required the commissioner of public safety to provide for prisoners pending arraignment, commitment by a court to the custody of the commissioner of corrections, or admission to a state correctional facility [24] and further specified that this duty began when the commissioner accepted the prisoner into custody, [25] the amended form of section .071 dropped all mention of responsibility for prisoners pending arraignment and merely imposed responsibility on the commissioner of corrections beginning when a prisoner is accepted into the commissioner's custody or admitted into a correctional facility. [26] Although the city downplays the significance of omitting the earlier reference to custody pending arraignment, we agree with the state that the omission indicates that the 1995 legislature did not intend to make the commissioner categorically responsible for all prisoners held on state charges pending arraignment. This evidence of legislative intent reinforces the appropriateness of interpreting subsection .071(b) as triggering the commissioner's custodial responsibilities under AS 33.30.011(1) only upon a prisoner's remand to a jail that has been designated by the commissioner for the custody, care, and discipline of prisoners. [27] The Kotzebue jail necessarily met this designation requirement before its state contract expired. [28] The crucial question here, then, is whether the jail continued to be a designated place for the custody, care, and discipline of prisonersand thus continued to qualify as a correctional facility to which prisoners arrested for state offenses could be remandedafter the city's contract with the state expired at midnight on June 30, 2003. As already noted, the superior court ultimately found that the Kotzebue jail ceased to be a correctional facility as of July 1, 2003, so that the department had no duty to take custody of any unarraigned city prisoners as of that date. In reaching this conclusion, the court essentially equated the existence of a valid contract to run the Kotzebue jail with the jail's status as a correctional facility as defined by statute. [29] But the commissioner's power to enter into contracts for confinement and care of prisonersa power established under AS 33.30.031 [30] is not necessarily coextensive with the commissioner's authority to designate suitable placements for the custody, care, and discipline of prisoners an authority implicitly encompassed in AS 33.30.011(1)'s list of the commissioner's duties and expressly recognized in AS 33.30.901(4)'s definition of a correctional facility or facility. We have already observed that a contract allowing a regional jail to operate as a correctional facility suffices to designate the jail as a suitable place to house prisoners awaiting arraignment. Yet it hardly follows from this that a contract is a necessary ingredient of a designation. Nor does the state cite any provision of law or legal authority supporting the conclusion that a lapse in a jail's contractual arrangements with the department necessarily equates to a withdrawal of designation and automatically nullifies the jail's status as a designated facility. The commissioner's powers to enter into contracts and designate suitable placements for prisoners may well overlap to a considerable extent, but they arise from independent statutory sources and do not necessarily merge. Here, the limited evidence in the record on summary judgment fails to establish that the city's unilateral resolution to close the jail at the moment its longstanding contract expired automatically resulted in withdrawing the commissioner's designation of the jail as a suitable place to remand prisoners. The power of designation belongs to the commissioner, not the city, and the portions of the contract quoted in the appellate record do not address the topic of designation. [31] Correspondence between the parties undeniably shows that both sides used the contract's impending expiration date as a bargaining chip to encourage the opposing party to relax its demands regarding the contract's renewal. For example, on June 6, 2003, City Manager Reich evidently sent Commissioner Antrim a letter warning that the city expected to close the jail at the end of the month if the department refused to increase its contractual payments. Reich's letter was accompanied by a copy of the city council's pending resolution proposing to direct Reich to close the jail and a copy of a memo from City Attorney Evans to Kotzebue Police Chief Ed Weibl discussing alternative arrangements in the event of closure. Commissioner Antrim responded on June 18, predicting that the city's proposed decision would cause it to suffer significant adverse impacts. The commissioner disputed Evans's legal position and emphasized that the department was still prepared to provide $589,000 in funds through the Community Jails Program to assist the City of Kotzebue. Relying on his view of the law, the commissioner also argued that, [s]hould the City of Kotzebue execute its resolution to close the city jail, your police department will have to make arrangements to deliver offenders to a Department of Corrections facility and would be placed in the logistically unenviable position of transporting its arrestees to a state operated correctional facility. Nothing in this exchange amounted to an official notice of withdrawal of the commissioner's designation. Although the parties advanced escalating threats in attempting to negotiate a renewed contract, they took no definitive step to end the jail's use as a suitable holding place for persons arrested by the Kotzebue police. As already noted, the contract's expiration and the city's unilateral action of closing the jail did not by themselves withdraw the commissioner's designation. Two days after the contract expired, when the city reopened the jail, the Alaska State Troopers formally declined to transport prisoners from the jail to the court for arraignment. But this action was based on the department of public safety's belief that it lacked statutory responsibility for transporting prisoners, not on the department of corrections' withdrawal of designation. On the record before us, it appears that the first official communication notifying the city that the commissioner of corrections had actually decided to end the jail's designation as a suitable place for holding prisoners arrested by the Kotzebue police occurred on July 18, 2003, when the department of corrections' Director of Institutions, Mike Addington, sent City Manager Reich a letter declaring that the department would make no additional funding available to the jail. That same day, City Attorney Evans sent a letter by fax to Commissioner Antrim, reaffirming the city's decision not to sign the department's proposed fiscal year 2004 contract. Division Director Addington's letter to Reich expressed Addington's respect [for] the decision of the Kotzebue City Council not to sign the [fiscal year 2004] contract but went on to confirm the department's decision that we do not have the resources to provide the City of Kotzebue with the additional funds to run the jail. As of July 18, then, the city unquestionably received formal notice that the department had actually withdrawn authorization for prisoners to be placed at the Kotzebue jail, thereby effectively ending the jail's designation as a correctional facility. Because the record reveals no actual withdrawal of designation until July 18, we find no basis for concluding that the department of corrections was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law on the issue of reimbursement for any housing costs incurred by the city before that date. Based on our conclusion that the Kotzebue jail ceased to be a correctional facility as of July 18, 2003, we must vacate the superior court's summary judgment order on this point and remand for modification of the judgment to the limited extent that it summarily denies the city's housing-reimbursement claim for the period between July 1 and July 18. Conversely, we affirm the court's order denying reimbursement of housing expenses from July 18 forward.