Politics

In final weeks of term, Gov. Bill Walker appoints four judges

Two weeks before his final day as governor, Bill Walker has appointed four judges to spots on Alaska’s judicial benches.

In Bethel, assistant public defender Terrence Haas will replace Alaska Superior Court judge Dwayne McConnell, who is retiring. In Juneau, Valdez District Court judge Daniel Schally will fill a new Superior Court seat created by the Alaska Legislature earlier this year.

In Kenai, Superior Court Judge Charles Huguelet will be replaced by assistant district attorney Jason Gist. On the Alaska Court of Appeals, Fairbanks Superior Court judge Bethany Harbison will replace retiring judge David Mannheimer.

Under the Alaska Constitution, Alaska’s judges are selected under a merit-based system. The seven-member Alaska Judicial Council solicits applicants for judicial vacancies, then picks a list of finalists after conducting a series of interviews and surveys.

That list of finalists (which must include at least two names for every vacant position) is forwarded to the governor, who makes a final selection.

The state constitution requires “the governor” to make a decision within 45 days, but in the case of these four vacancies, the lists of finalists were completed in the first full week of November. That meant the 45-day window overlapped both the end of Walker’s term as governor and the beginning of Mike Dunleavy’s term. Dunleavy will be sworn into office Dec. 3.

“The positions became vacant and recommendations were made by the Alaska Judicial Council during my term, so the decision to move forward with appointments was appropriate,” Walker said through spokesman Austin Baird.

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Though he will not fill these four seats, the governor-elect will have ample opportunity to choose judges in the first few months of his term. The Judicial Council is already drafting a list of nominees for vacant or soon-to-be-vacant Superior Court seats in Utqiagvik, Kodiak and Palmer (two seats). An Anchorage District Court seat is also available. The selection of Harbison for the appeals court opens a vacancy on the Fairbanks Superior Court, and the pick of Schally for Juneau also opens a District Court seat in Valdez.

In selecting Schally for the Juneau seat, Walker again bypassed Juneau defense attorney Julie Willoughby. Walker had selected Willoughby for another Juneau Superior Court vacancy earlier this year but rescinded his pick after learning of comments Willoughby made in a legal brief while defending a client accused of sexually abusing a child.

Willoughby argued in the brief that a man’s sexual assaults against a 12-year-old girl were a “mutually satisfying sexual adventure” and did not harm the child, Walker chief of staff Scott Kendall told the Associated Press in July.

“Each of these statements is disturbing individually,” Kendall said in a statement at that time. “Collectively, these arguments shocked the conscience of Governor Walker and his advisers.”

Walker’s decision to recant his pick was criticized by the head of the Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, who wrote in a letter to the ADN that defense attorneys “make what may be unpopular arguments. To punish a lawyer for doing so is wrong and denotes a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the defense lawyer.”

In Bethel, Haas was selected over Utqiagvik magistrate David Roghair, who has applied for the superior court vacancy in that farthest-north city.

On the court of appeals, Harbison was on the list of finalists alongside assistant attorney general Tim Terrell and Juneau Superior court judge Philip Pallenberg.

The list of Kenai finalists also included private-practice attorney Roberta Erwin, Schally of Valdez, and assistant district attorney Shawn Traini of Palmer. Traini has applied for the Anchorage District Court vacancy.

James Brooks

James Brooks was a Juneau-based reporter for the ADN from 2018 to May 2022.

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