Crime & Courts

Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens is the new presiding judge for the First Judicial District, which encompasses Juneau and the rest of Southeast Alaska.

Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Walter Carpeneti yesterday (Tuesday) appointed the presiding judges for the state’s four judicial districts.

Superior Court Judge Ben Esch has been named presiding judge for the Second Judicial District covering the most northern areas of the state, including Barrow, Nome and Kotzebue superior courts.

Superior Court Judge Sen K. Tan is the presiding judge for the Third Judicial District for Southcentral Alaska and the Aleutian chain; and Superior Court Judge Douglas Blankenship will preside over the Fourth. The huge district is administered from Fairbanks, and extends from the Canadian border west to the Bering Sea.

Three of the four presiding judges have served in their district for more than a decade. Stephens was appointed to the superior court in the first district in 2000. Esch has served in the second district since 1996, and Tan has been a superior court judge in the third district since 1996. Blankenship was appointed to the bench in the fourth district in 2005.

In addition to regular judicial duties, presiding judges are administrators, business managers, and must make sure their district trial courts follow statewide court objectives and policies. The one-year terms begin in January. Incumbents can be reappointed.

Juneau Police say two teenage girls were taken to the hospital yesterday afternoon (Sunday) after being struck by a car on Glacier Highway.

Neither girl was seriously hurt. A 48-year-old man was cited for failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk.

Three teenage boys have been charged with vandalism, after getting caught in the alleged act at Melvin Park in the Mendenhall Valley.

According to Juneau Police, on December 4th a woman witnessed the boys spray painting some bleachers at the park and setting fire to the paint.

After the woman called to report the incident, Capital City Fire and Rescue responded to the park and located the three boys. Police were able to question them and determine that they were responsible for the vandalism.

According to a JPD release, the boys – age 12, 13 and 15 – are each charged with 4th degree criminal negligent burning.

Damage to the bleachers is estimated at 400 dollars.

The state Department of Health and Social Services has identified the daycare provider shutdown Wednesday as a result of abuse allegations.

Department spokesman Clay Butcher says Colleen Tilley had her child care provider’s license suspended, pending an investigation. Juneau Police had said in a press released that Tilley’s license was revoked. But Butcher says that will only be the case if the abuse allegations are proved true.

“The childcare program office is going to do a complete investigation and based on that the license will either be revoked or unsuspended if there is nothing questionable deemed to have happened,” Butcher says.

He says the department’s investigation will coincide with JPD’s.

Police served a search warrant Wednesday at Tilley’s Switzer Village residence, which doubles as an in-home daycare service. On December 9th, two 4-year-old boys reported getting bruises while at the daycare.

Three other children in the home when officers arrived and were picked up by their parents prior to police leaving the residence.

Police Spokeswoman Cindee Brown-Mills says two counts of misdemeanor assault have been forwarded to the CBJ Law Department. The investigation continues.

The U-S Senate voted overwhelmingly 95-3 to confirm Judge Morgan Christen to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today (Thursday).

Alaska’s Senators sung her praises on the Senate floor before the vote. Republican Lisa Murkowski noted the ground-breaking significance Christen’s seating on the court.

“This is really, Mr. President an historic nomination,” said Murkowski. “Only two Alaskans have had an opportunity to serve on the 9th Circuit. And both those judges were somewhat predictably men.”

Christen had been a justice on the Alaska Supreme Court since 2009. She was appointed by former Republican Governor Sarah Palin. Earlier in her career, Christen was appointed to the state Superior Court bench by Democratic Governor Tony Knowles.

Democratic Senator Mark Begich – who recommended Christen to President Obama – spoke of her volunteer work and philanthropy in Alaska.

“I’ve known Morgan for years and am continually impressed by her keen legal mind, her outstanding record of public service and her ability to carve plenty of time out of her schedule for extensive volunteer work,” Begich said.

The seat on the 9th Circuit has been vacant for 18 months since Judge Andrew Kleinfeld took senior status. The court has jurisdiction over much of the west, including Alaska, California, Washington and Montana. It’s headquartered in San Francisco and is the largest of the nation’s 13 courts of appeals.

Judicial confirmations have been happening slowly in the Senate because they’ve become political cannon fodder. A handful of Republicans have intentionally held up votes, even when the judges’ actual nominations aren’t controversial.

The “no” votes for Christen came from conservative Republican Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and David Vitter of Louisiana.

Narcotics officers say they shut down a marijuana grow operation on North Douglas Highway sometime Wednesday night.

Few details were released Thursday morning by Juneau Police Department officials, but they say as many as 181 plants were found after a search warrant was served at a residence at the 5000 block of the highway.

Along with the plants, grow equipment was also confiscated. Total value of everything seized was estimated at $200,000.

A tenant of the residence, 27-year old Scott Eberhardt, was charged with misconduct involving a controlled substance in the fourth degree and taken to Lemon Creek Correctional Center to await arraignment Thursday afternoon.