APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS HAZELWOOD SENTENCE

By ROSANNE PAGANO
The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE- Alaska's Appeals Court on Thursday upheld the sentencing of former Exxon skipper Joseph Hazelwood to 1,000 hours of community service as punishment for the 11 million-gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound.

Hazelwood, the veteran captain who lost his job after the tanker wreck in 1989, has yet to serve any portion of the sentence after his conviction in 1990 of negligently discharging oil -- a misdemeanor.

An Anchorage Superior Court jury acquitted Hazelwood of operating a tanker while drunk. The spill, the nation's worst, polluted hundreds of miles of Alaska shoreline, disrupted fishing seasons and killed thousands of birds and mammals.

Hazelwood's sentence remains on hold while appeals are pending. A New York-based lawyer for Hazelwood said Thursday another appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court is possible.

''We understand the courts have spoken, but we'll see what we can do,'' Thomas Russo said. Thursday's ruling is the fifth Appeals Court or Alaska Supreme Court review of the case.

In an interview Thursday, Superior Court Judge Karl Johnstone, who presided over the trial, said he believed it could be another decade before Hazelwood's appeals are exhausted and a sentence is served.

''It was a symbolic sentence,'' said Johnstone, who is now retired. ''Capt. Hazelwood was responsible for soiling some pristine country. I thought the ideal thing would be for him to soak up some of that oil with rags and get a feel for what happened.''

Johnstone said Hazelwood struck him as a ''perfectly good person, except for this one thing.''

In its unanimous ruling, the Appeals Court said Johnstone had not erred in requiring Hazelwood to do 1,000 hours of work service, which Johnstone had said should include scrubbing oily rocks.

The court also rejected Hazelwood's contention that evidence about the skipper's blood-alcohol level and his report of the spill to the Coast Guard were improperly introduced at the trial.

Assistant attorney general Cynthia Cooper said that in opposing Hazelwood's appeal, the state acknowledged that Johnstone had improperly allowed some evidence.

But the state said -- and the Appeals Court agreed -- that lapses had amounted to harmless error because jurors either had disregarded the evidence or had already heard it from another witness.

For instance, Hazelwood objected to the state playing for the jury a tape recording of his early morning report of the spill to the Coast Guard in Valdez, in which the skipper said the tanker is ''evidently leaking some oil.''

His lawyers also objected to testimony from an Alaska State trooper who said that he had asked Hazelwood what the problem was and the skipper had replied: ''You're looking at it.''

Cooper said jurors had heard essentially the same information, properly admitted, through other witnesses.

Certain prosecution evidence about Hazelwood's approximate blood-alcohol content also was improperly admitted, the appeals court said. But because jurors had acquitted Hazelwood of operating a vessel while drunk, the court said admitting that evidence also amounted to harmless error.

The Appeals Court has twice reversed Hazelwood's misdemeanor conviction and twice seen its findings rejected by the Alaska Supreme Court.

Johnstone, who says presiding over the Hazelwood trial was a career high in his 17 years on the bench, said Thursday he does not believe justice has been thwarted because the ex-captain has yet to serve out his sentence.

''Keep in mind he'll never pursue his career any more,'' Johnstone said. ''I think the captain has been vilified more than most who commit a misdemeanor.''

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