Court Opinion

ID: 9851870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:20:48.108471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:18.426779
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Webber’s right to exercise a peremptory challenge under Criminal Rule 25(d) first arose when he was cited for criminal contempt. He promptly sought to exercise this right. The majority of the court now-holds that, by accepting Judge Carlson as the trial judge in the antecedent divorce dispute and waiving his right to a peremptory challenge under Civil Rule 42(c), Web-ber forfeited his right to a peremptory challenge under Criminal Rule 25 before it even arose.
Certainly, as the majority points out, convenience in enforcing the divorce decree would favor having Webber convicted and sentenced by the judge who handled the divorce dispute. If the primary issue here were enforcement of the underlying civil judgment, then the majority’s position might make sense. However, had the trial judge been interested primarily in the continuing enforcement of its custody decree, he could readily have levied monetary sanctions or treated the matter as a civil contempt. Judge Carlson did not do so. Instead, he chose to accuse Webber of a criminal contempt. By so choosing, Judge Carlson clearly set into operation a new criminal action — one arising from but independent of the underlying custody dispute. Faced with an entirely new allegation — one amounting to a formal charge of criminal misconduct — Webber should now be permitted to exercise the full panoply of constitutional and procedural rights routinely accorded to the parties in other types of criminal cases.
The majority’s holding ignores the separate and independent nature of the contempt charge against Webber.1 It seems anomalous to recognize the contempt charge as a distinct and independent pro*336ceeding for purposes of triggering Web-ber’s constitutional rights to counsel and to jury trial but not for the purpose of triggering his right to a peremptory challenge under Rule 25.

. The majority’s reliance on McClenny v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 60 Cal.2d 677, 36 Cal.Rptr. 459, 388 P.2d 691 (Cal.1964), is misplaced, since that case is readily distinguishable. Although not entirely clear from the statement of facts in McClenny, it appears that the contempt proceedings at issue were principally civil in nature, aimed at compelling compliance rather than punishing noncompliance. Moreover, unlike California’s peremptory challenge statute, the Alaska rules dealing with peremptory challenges clearly distinguish between civil and criminal cases, separately providing for the right to exercise a peremptory challenge in each category of case. See Alaska R.Civ.P. 42(c), and Alaska R.Crim.P. 25(d). Thus, in the present case, Webber attempted to assert his right to peremptory challenge under Criminal Rule 25, not under Civil Rule 42.
Finally, cases decided by the Alaska Supreme Court after McClenny was decided in California make it apparent that, in failing to distinguish between criminal and civil contempt proceedings, the McClenny court adopted an approach that cannot be deemed acceptable in Alaska. Under Alaska law, it is crucial to determine, at the outset, whether a contempt proceeding is criminal or civil in character. While a civil contempt proceeding may properly be regarded as a continuation of the proceedings from which it arose, a person charged with criminal contempt is entitled to the full panoply of procedural and constitutional rights afforded in other areas of criminal prosecution; in other words, the issuance of a criminal contempt citation operates as the commencement of a separate criminal action. See, e.g., Diggs v. Diggs, 663 P.2d 950 (Alaska 1983); Weaver v. Superior Court, 572 P.2d 425 (Alaska 1977); State v. Browder, 486 P.2d 925 (Alaska 1971). See also Johansen v. State, 491 P.2d 759 (Alaska 1971).