Court Opinion

ID: 9781681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:05:03.120095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:31.204345
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, dissenting, in part.
I disagree with the court’s decision to uphold Alaska’s punitive damages forfeiture statute. For the most part, I rely on the reasons set out in my dissenting opinions in Anderson II1 and Evans v. State;2 but I add one comment below to address a point regarding punitive damages forfeiture that is newly raised in today’s opinion.
The opinion suggests that the punitive damages forfeiture law can be sustained as minimally rational because it is similar to a fine: “the objectives of punitive damages,” the court declares, “are analogous to the objectives of civil and criminal fines.”3 Of course, fines and punitive damages undoubtedly do have the same general purpose. But beyond its reliance on this truism, the court’s proposed analogy between fines and forfeiture breaks down and becomes unconvincing: After all, unlike the punitive damages forfeiture provision, our justice system does not require the victim to prosecute the offender; nor does it force the prosecutor to pay the fine. So while the punitive damages forfeiture statute nominally serves the same purpose as a fine, it hardly advances this purpose in a rational manner.

. Anderson v. State ex rel. Central Bering Sea Fishermen’s Ass’n, 78 P.3d 710, 723-24 (Alaska 2003) (Anderson II).

. Evans ex rel. Kutch v. State, 56 P.3d 1046, 1075-76 (Alaska 2002).

.Op. at 822.