Opinion ID: 2635296
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Kelly's Request To Appear Personally at Trial

Text: Kelly maintains that the superior court abused its discretion by denying his pretrial request to allow him to participate in the divorce trial in person. He insists that the Department of Corrections could have transported him from the jail to the courthouse at minimal expense and without delaying the proceedings. By requiring him to participate in the trial telephonically, Kelly insists, the court robbed itself of the opportunity to fairly assess his truthfulness while he testified. Kelly further suggests that his absence from the courtroom handicapped his attorney by foreclosing all possibility of contemporaneous consultation at trial. Under these circumstances, Kelly claims, [p]rejudice should be presumed. Initially, we note that the record fails to support Kelly's claim that the court deprived him of the right to consult with his counsel. To the contrary, the record reveals that the superior court allowed Kelly's lawyer to speak privately with Kelly both times counsel requested to do so during the course of the trial. Furthermore, the record fails to convince us that Kelly met his burden of showing that his personal presence at trial was necessary to allow the court to evaluate issues of credibility. Kelly's burden on this point is established by AS 33.30.081(f), which prohibits courts from ordering a prisoner to be transported to court for civil proceedings unless the prisoner establishes an actual and pressing need: A court may order a prisoner who is a party or witness to a civil action or a witness to a criminal action to appear at a place other than within a correctional facility only if the court determines, after providing a reasonable opportunity for the commissioner to comment, that the prisoner's personal appearance is essential to the just disposition of the action. In making its determination, the court shall consider available alternatives to the prisoner's personal appearance including deposition and telephone testimony.[ [22] ] We have previously identified several factors to guide a trial court in determining whether a prisoner's personal appearance is essential to the just disposition in a civil action: In making its determination the trial court may take into account [1] the costs and inconvenience of transporting a prisoner from his place of incarceration to the courtroom, [2] any potential danger or security risk which the presence of a particular inmate would pose to the court, [3] the substantiality of the matter at issue, [4] the need for an early determination of the matter, [5] the possibility of delaying trial until the prisoner is released, [6] the probability of success on the merits, [7] the integrity of the correctional system, and [8] the interests of the inmate in presenting his testimony in person rather than by deposition.[ [23] ] We review a trial court's decisions regarding a party's telephonic appearance for abuse of discretion. [24] Under circumstances similar to those at issue here, we have previously found that a trial court was well within its discretion in denying a prisoner's motion to appear personally in a civil trial: While expressing his desire to be present at trial and intention to testify, [the appellant] did not demonstrate to the court what specific information he intended to convey through his testimony that would depend on his credibility, nor did he present the court with any basis on which to believe that the outcome of the case would depend upon his presence. Without a specific offer of credibility-dependent evidence or a demonstration in his motion of any material issues he intended to dispute, the court was well within its authority to deny [the appellant's] motion for transport.[ [25] ] In this case, Kelly's pretrial motion to appear personally at trial advanced no specific offer of credibility-dependent evidence; it merely noted that Kelly's credibility would be relevant to the court's decisions in classifying and valuing the marital property. As Judge Smith observed in rejecting this generalized contention during the trial, Kelly's testimony during the recent criminal trial had given the judge ample opportunity to observe Kelly's demeanor and Kelly offered no reason to expect that his personal presence during the divorce trial would add anything new. Moreover, the main points in contention at trial  Kelly's separate ownership of the marital home and his request for rehabilitative alimony  turned largely on evidence concerning past conduct of the parties that might have manifested their intentions concerning the status of their marital home and evidence concerning their current financial status. Because self-serving testimony describing a party's prior intent regarding a disputed item of property seldom deserves much weight, [26] Kelly's personal presence to give this sort of testimony would not have been crucial. Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Kelly's personal presence was not essential to the just disposition of the action. [27]