Opinion
A-14147
05-12-2023
Willie Keith Jackson, Appellant, v. State of Alaska, Appellee.
Trial Court Case No. 3AN-21-05729CR
Before: Wollenberg, Harbison, and Terrell, Judges.
ORDER
In 2021, the State charged Willie Keith Jackson with one count of felony driving under the influence and one count of leaving the scene of a vehicle accident.He is currently awaiting trial.
AS 28.35.030(n) and AS 28.35.050(b), respectively.
Jackson's bail was initially set at a $1,000 cash performance bond, with Pretrial Enforcement Division (PED) supervision and a third-party custodian requirement. The trial court subsequently reduced Jackson's bail to a $500 cash performance bond and a $500 unsecured appearance bond, with PED monitoring and house arrest. (The court deleted the third-party custodian requirement.) The court also precluded Jackson from possessing or consuming alcohol and required Jackson to submit to alcohol monitoring.
Jackson posted the required bond and was released from custody pending trial. Since his initial release from custody, Jackson has been charged with violating his conditions of release by consuming alcohol on several occasions. After Jackson was remanded on two of these occasions, the court imposed additional bail - first, a $500 cash performance bond, and then, an additional $450 cash performance bond. Jackson is back in custody following a new violation. In addition to the original charges, Jackson now faces four counts of violating conditions of release.
AS 11.56.757(a).
Following his most recent remand, the court initially required Jackson to post an additional $2,500 cash performance bond on top of the already-posted bail. The court has since reduced that amount to $1,000.
Jackson filed a bail appeal, challenging the court's refusal to vacate his bail conditions, exonerate his previously posted bail, and order his unconditional release pending further litigation in his underlying case. Having reviewed the record, we conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in setting the release conditions that are currently in place to secure his performance. According to the APSIN information included in the charging document, Jackson has twenty-nine prior state and municipal convictions and a history of not complying with his bail conditions, including several prior convictions for violating conditions of release. Jackson is alleged to have repeatedly violated his bail conditions in this case, and he was separately charged with multiple counts of assault while this case was pending. The trial court did not err in declining to completely remove the conditions that are in place to reasonably ensure the safety of the community.
Although the appellate rules preclude the filing of a reply memorandum in a bail appeal absent a court order, Jackson filed a reply to the State's opposition to his bail appeal. See Alaska R. App. P. 207 & 503(d). The State did not oppose the filing. We accept Jackson's reply memorandum and consider it in ruling on this appeal.
Jackson also argues that he has reached his maximum sentence and that the court was therefore required to lift his bail conditions. But the trial court rejected Jackson's underlying legal claim, concluding that Jackson's two prior federal felony convictions qualified as prior convictions for presumptive sentence purposes - and that Jackson therefore faced a presumptive sentencing range of 3 to 5 years on his pending felony driving under the influence charge. Because the court found that Jackson had not yet reached the maximum permissible sentence for his pending charges, the court did not err in declining to vacate Jackson's bail conditions on this ground.
AS 12.55.145(a)(1).
AS 12.55.125(e)(3). In the alternative, the court held that, even if only one of Jackson's prior federal convictions qualified as a predicate felony, his prior state felony convictions would qualify as predicate convictions under the rationale set out in Gilley v. State, 955 P.2d 927 (Alaska App. 1998).
To the extent Jackson is attempting to challenge the underlying merits of the trial court's decision on the applicable presumptive range, we treat that issue as a petition for review. And having reviewed the record, we see no grounds for exercising our discretion to review that issue at this time.
Alaska R. App. P. 402(a) (authorizing a party to petition the appellate court to review a court order that is not a final judgment).
We AFFIRM the superior court's order denying Jackson's request for unconditional release and exoneration of all previously posted bail in this case.
Entered at the direction of the Court.