Court Opinion

ID: 9537614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:20:27.962002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:49.674671
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
In Kwallek v. State, 658 P.2d 794 (Alaska App.1983), we held that the general restriction against retroactivity of statutes, set forth in AS 01.10.100(a), precluded application of the amended bail statute, AS 12.30!-040(b), to a defendant who had been convicted of a class A felony and was granted bail pending appeal prior to the effective date of the amended bail statute. Our holding in Kwallek stood for the narrow proposition that, once a defendant was convicted and admitted to bail pending appeal under the former bail statute, his or her right to release pending appeal had in effect accrued; we held this right to be. of sufficient importance that any attempt to alter it by application of the amended bail statute, following that statute’s effective date, would constitute a prohibited retroactive application of law.
I do not believe that any broadening of our holding in Kwallek is justified. Since no right to release pending appeal could in any realistic sense be said to accrue prior to a defendant’s conviction of a crime, I believe that use of the amended bail statute in cases where defendants have been convicted after the statute’s effective date does not constitute retroactive application of the law within the meaning of AS 01.10.100(a). Furthermore, I am unable to conclude that application of the amended bail statute to defendants convicted after its effective date poses any ex post facto problem. I do not think that the amended bail statute can properly be characterized as punitive in nature or in its primary purpose. Moreover, unlike statutes involved in the ex post facto cases relied upon in the majority opinion, the amended bail statute does not operate to increase the actual length of the jail term that a defendant must ultimately serve.
Accordingly, I believe that the trial court properly denied Parker’s application for bail, and I dissent from the court’s decision reversing the trial court’s ruling.1

. I find no merit in Parker’s claim that AS 12.30.040(b) violates due process or equal protection.