Court Opinion

ID: 9576409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:24:12.22754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:03.053971
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the parts of the court’s opinion that affirm violations stemming from Skvore’s involvement in ACT and SFS, but disagree with the parts that affirm violations based on Skvorc’s involvement with the Canadian DFO. Concerning the latter violations, I would conclude that they must be reversed because they were never properly charged.
My chief disagreement is with the court’s conclusion that the attorney general is entitled to launch formal, public proceedings under AS 39.52.350 without following the preliminary procedures governing complaints set out in AS 39.52.310 and without making a formal determination of probable cause as required under AS 39.52.350(a). I read these provisions to require all Ethics Act charges, including charges initiated by the attorney general, to be commenced by the filing of a complaint and to allow public accusations to be filed only after the subject of the complaint has had an opportunity to respond and after the attorney general has made a formal determination of probable cause.
*1208Alaska Statute 39.62.310, the Ethics Act provision governing the filing of complaints, unequivocally applies to actions initiated by the attorney general:
(a) The attorney general may initiate a complaint, or elect to treat as a complaint, any matter disclosed under AS 39.52.210, 39.52.220, 39.52.250, or 39.52.260....
(b) A person may file a complaint with the attorney general regarding the conduct of a current or former public officer. A complaint must be in writing, be signed under oath, and contain a clear statement of the details of the alleged violation.
Under subsection (f) of the same provision, when the attorney general determines that a complaint is worthy of investigation, the subject of the complaint must be given formal notice of the allegations and an opportunity to respond:
If the attorney general accepts a complaint for investigation, the attorney general shall serve a copy of the complaint upon the subject of the complaint, for a response.
Alaska Statute 39.52.340 requires all proceedings relating to the filing and investigation of an Ethics Act complaint to be strictly confidential:
Except as provided in AS 39.52.335, before the initiation of formal proceedings under AS 39.52.350, the complaint and all other documents and information regarding an investigation conducted under this chapter or obtained by the attorney general during the investigation are confidential and not subject to inspection by the public.[1]
Only when an investigation establishes that a complaint filed under AS 39.52.310 is supported by probable cause does AS 39.52.350(a) authorize the attorney general to file a formal charge — an “accusation.” And only upon the accusation’s filing does the process become public:
If the attorney general determines that there is probable cause to believe that a knowing violation of this chapter or a violation that cannot be corrected under AS 39.52.330 has occurred, or that the subject of a complaint failed to comply with a recommendation for corrective or preventive action, the attorney general shall initiate formal proceedings by serving a copy of an accusation upon the subject of the accusation. The accusation shall specifically set out the alleged violation. After service, the accusation is a public document open to inspection. Except as provided in AS 39.52.370(c), all subsequent proceedings are open to the public.
Not until a proper accusation is filed does the personnel board acquire jurisdiction.2
The court today interprets these provisions differently, concluding that they allow the attorney general to institute Ethics Act proceedings without filing a complaint. While acknowledging that “the investigation and accusation process may begin with a complaint either received or initiated by the attorney general,”3 the court nevertheless holds:
But that is not the only way the accusation process can begin. If the attorney general determines that “there is probable cause to believe that a knowing violation [of the Act] has occurred,” AS 39.52.350(a) provides that the attorney general “shall initiate formal proceedings by serving a copy of an accusation” on “the subject of the accusation.” That determination does not necessarily require that there be a prior complaint.... [4]
In reaching this conclusion, the court mistakenly reads section .350 in isolation, overlooking its relationship to other sections of the Ethics Act and ignoring the legislative history underlying these provisions. The *1209legislative history of Alaska’s Ethics Act provides a compelling basis for concluding that its drafters intended the act’s provisions governing complaints and accusations to describe a uniform process for prosecuting all Ethics Act violations — a process that prohibits the attorney general from bypassing complaints and that requires formal, pre-accusation determinations of probable cause.
The legislature enacted Alaska’s Executive Ethics Act in 1986 as Senate Bill 391; its provisions dealing with complaints and accusations are set out in article 4.5 The governor’s sectional analysis of article 4, forwarded to the legislature on April 2, 1986, makes it clear that the article’s provisions are closely related and contemplate an integrated, two-step system for prosecuting Ethics Act violations: “Article 4 ... establishes a complete process for handling of complaints regarding violations of the provisions of AS 39.52.”6
Moreover, the sectional analysis specifies that the state must follow section ,310’s provisions governing the handling of complaints even when the attorney general is the initiating party: “This section sets out the procedures for handling a complaint, whether filed with the attorney general or initiated by the attorney general, and establishes the conditions under which a complaint will be accepted and investigated.”7 Furthermore, the analysis describes only one way of initiating formal proceedings under section .350: the attorney general first makes a determination of probable cause, and then “initiates formal proceedings by serving an accusation upon the subject of the complaint.”8 By referring to the newly accused employee as “the subject of the complaint,” (and by subsequently referring to formally accused employees as “the subject[s] of the accusation”9), the sectional analysis unmistakably indicates that section .350’s formal accusation process is to be initiated only when section .310’s preliminary complaint process has already been used.
In my view, sound public policies support article 4’s progressive structure and militate in favor of enforcing its uniform procedural requirements. The court decides otherwise by determining that procedural due process does not require this procedure.10 But while procedural due process concerns certainly are implicit in section .310’s provisions governing complaints and in section .350’s provisions governing probable cause and formal accusations, due process is not the only policy that favors strict adherence to article 4’s procedural requirements.
By prohibiting public disclosure of Ethics Act proceedings until the first stage of the process is complete, article 4’s procedural structure safeguards privacy rights of state employees and protects confidential personnel records from unwarranted disclosure.11 The statutory structure also encourages voluntary, informal resolution of complaints.12
Here, by initiating formal proceedings without filing a complaint and without making a formal determination of probable cause, the state deprived Skvorc of the process prescribed under sections .310 and .350. And by prematurely exposing him to formal public charges, the state also deprived him of his right to confidentiality, virtually dooming any realistic possibility of an informal private *1210resolution. Considering the violation of Skvorc’s privacy rights, I do not believe that the initial procedural error was cured by the procedural’rights that the state subsequently accorded Skvorc; nor do I think that the undeniably strong evidence against Skvorc can justify a finding of harmless error.
Admittedly, the Attorney General’s Office served Skvorc with the functional equivalent of a complaint when it sent him its December 13, 1993, letter notifying him of allegations concerning his involvement in a private business — ART—and his participation in soliciting grants through SFS — the partnership that he had established with Patrick Simon.13 Although the state failed to provide Skvorc with the original letters of complaint that Skvorc’s supervisors wrote to the Attorney General’s Office, the state’s recitation of the substance of the allegations in its December 13 letter substantially complied with the requirements of section .310 with respect to the allegations discussed in the letter. Therefore, to the extent that the formal accusation incorporated the charges earlier described in the complaint — or to the extent that it set out charges that were reasonably foreseeable in light of the information contained in the December 13 letter — the formal accusation should be considered properly filed and procedurally sound.
But the formal accusation did not simply restate or elaborate on the charges set out in the attorney general’s December 13 letter of complaint. Rather, it advanced two entirely new factual theories of misconduct, one relating to Skvorc’s dealings with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Winnipeg; the other relating to his dealings with the British Columbia branch of the DFO. Each of these new factual theories resulted in multiple newly alleged counts of misconduct. Skvorc thus stood accused of engaging in numerous violations that had not been covered in the original complaint, that bore no close connection to the originally alleged misconduct, and that were not reasonably foreseeable based on the facts alleged in the December 13 letter. Since these acts had never before been raised by complaint, I would conclude that they were not properly raised in Skvorc’s amended allegation and that they accordingly should have been dismissed.
The court insists that once a complaint has initially been filed, neither the Ethics Act nor due process requires newly discovered violations to be charged in a new .or amended complaint:
[Bjeeause the attorney general must find probable cause before serving the accusation, the accusation process itself requires a preliminary probable cause finding and gives the employee notice of the charges. The Act does not require, or imply, that violations discovered during an investigation must be included in an amended complaint before they can be alleged in an accusation. And the statute specifying the content of complaints does not require amendment. The benefits of Skvorc’s proposed procedure seem dubious, and are not mandated by the Act or due process.[14]
The court’s reasoning is flawed in two ways. First, contrary to the court’s view that the Ethics Act does not require new violations to be charged in new or amended complaints, the language and legislative history of article 4 reveal that sections .310 and .350 are intended to operate in tandem, requiring all new actions under the Ethics Act to be initiated by a complaint. To the extent that an investigation discloses new violations that fall clearly beyond the scope of an initial complaint, it follows that the act does require the filing of a new or amended complaint.15
*1211Second, even if the court is correct in predicting that the accusation process alone sufficiently protects alleged violators’ procedural due process rights, the court’s focus on due process misses the point at issue.16 The core concern here is not one of procedural notice or fairness; rather it involves the personnel board’s statutory authority.
The legislature has created a new species of ethical offenses that are punishable by substantial penalties; these penalties apply over and above any sanction that can be directly meted out through ordinary personnel actions taken by a state worker’s employing agency. Jurisdiction over this new class of misconduct is vested in the personnel board. But the board’s authority to act depends upon the existence of a properly filed charge. When the attorney general improperly bypasses the requisite first step of the charging process and directly engages the second by filing an accusation that has not been preceded by a complaint and a formal determination of probable cause, that accusation is not properly before the board, and, lacking authority to hear the new accusations, the board cannot properly find new violations.
Thus, while I agree with the court’s disposition of other violations, I would vacate all counts of misconduct reflecting Skvorc’s involvement with the Canadian DFO.

.At all times applicable in Skvorc's case, this provision made violation of the confidentiality provision a class A misdemeanor. See former AS 39.52.340(a) (1986). Article 4 of the Ethics Act was extensively amended in 1998, and the misdemeanor penalty was then deleted. See AS 39.52.340(a), as amended by ch. 74, § 98, SLA 1998.

. See AS 39.52.350(c)-(d); AS 39.52.360; AS 39.52.370.

. Op. at 1198.

. Op. at 1198-1199 (footnote omitted).

. AS 39.52.310-.370.

. 1986 Senate Journal at 2213 (emphasis added).

. Id. (emphasis added).

. Id. at 2214 (emphasis added).

. Id.

. The court reasons that “the amended accusation gave Skvorc adequate and timely notice of the charges against him. Skvorc also had an opportunity to respond to the accusation, and therefore had an adequate opportunity to be heard and to contest all the charges, except, possibly, those encompassed by Count XXIX. Due process does not require the procedure he proposes.” Op. at 1199.

. AS 39.52.340 guarantees confidentiality at the pre-accusation stage of proceedings. A measure of the significance that the act attaches to this guarantee can be seen in the former section ■340’s provision making breach of confidentiality a class A misdemeanor. See former AS 39.52.340(a) (1986).

. AS 39.52.330 provides the attorney general latitude to recommend informal actions to correct violations when complaints do not warrant formal proceedings.

. See Op. at 1196.

. Op. at 1198-1199 (footnote & paragraph break omitted).

. Requiring amended complaints would not cause inordinate delay, as suggested in the court’s opinion. See Op. at 1198. To the extent that the originally charged misconduct is borne out by an investigation that also reveals new misconduct, the original complaint will of course be free to proceed to accusation and a hearing, unaffected by the new misconduct, whose existence can be alleged in the form of a new complaint that will independently make its way through the first step of the complaint process. If, on the other hand, the investigation reveals no probable cause to support the original complaint but a new charge that supplants it, then there is all the more reason to require the initial stage of the proceedings to begin anew.

. In declaring that the one-step process used in this case comports with due process, the court overlooks potentially troubling problems. For example, the court assures us that amended complaints are unnecessary because the probable cause requirement protects against unwarranted accusations: “Reinvestigating after the accused • responds to an amended complaint would be of little utility, given that the attorney general must find probable cause before filing an accusation[.]” Op. at 1199. But the court’s sanguine assumption concerning what the attorney general "must” do before filing an accusation does not necessarily reflect what the attorney general actually does.
Here, neither the accusation nor the amended accusation contains even a pro forma finding of probable cause. Both charging documents begin with the conclusory assertion that they are founded "upon information and belief based on reasonable investigation." Nor is there any sound basis for presuming that the attorney general made a probable cause determination but simply failed to state the determination expressly. Any such presumption is refuted in this case by Count XXII of the amended accusation, which describes two specific incidents of misuse of state equipment for personal interest, and then summarily charges: “On information and belief, Mr. Skvorc has used state equipment on other occasions for his private business interests.” This conclusory assertion of additional unspecified violations based only on “information and belief” obviously was not predicated on a finding of probable cause; indeed, its stated basis virtually alleges the lack of probable cause. Yet at the hearing this allegation grew to encompass twenty-two specific violations — all evidently unearthed sometime after the accusation was filed.
No drafter who had given serious thought and regard to the statutory probable cause requirement would have included the unspecified allegations of Count XXII in the accusation. These accusations raise serious doubts concerning whether a probable cause determination was made as to any part of the amended accusation. Skvorc has not argued that the amended accusation should have been dismissed for lack of a probable cause determination. Accordingly, the point deserves no consideration. But the presence of Count XXII's charging language is nonetheless telling, for it undermines the court’s confident assurances that the one-step process it approves today fully suffices to meet our concerns for procedural fairness.