Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-9519.
May 9, 2007.
Appeal from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Charles R. Pengilly, Judge, Trial Court No. 4FA-04-4133 Cr.
Michael A. MacDonald, MacDonald Levengood, Fairbanks, for the Appellant. Douglas H. Kossler, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Stewart, Judges.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Matthew C. McNeil was subjected to electronic monitoring as a condition of his pre-trial release in this case. Relying on this Court's decision in Nygren v. State, 658 P.2d 141 (Alaska App. 1983), McNeil asked the superior court to give him credit against his jail sentence for the days he spent on electronic monitoring. The superior court denied this request, and McNeil now appeals the superior court's decision.
McNeil argues that he is entitled to Nygren credit — i.e., a credit against his sentence — because the conditions of his bail release under electronic monitoring were essentially equivalent to the restrictions placed on prisoners who are released from prison under the Department of Corrections' electronic monitoring program. We recently rejected this argument in Matthew v. State, 152 P.3d 469 (Alaska App. 2007).
In Matthew, we held that a defendant is entitled to Nygren credit only if the restrictions imposed by the defendant's bail conditions are the equivalent of incarceration — and we further held that defendants who are released on electronic monitoring, but who continue to live at home and pursue their normal employment, do not suffer restrictions equivalent to incarceration. Matthew, 152 P.3d at 472-73.
Our decision in Matthew was issued after McNeil filed his opening brief. In McNeil's reply brief, he offers thoughtful arguments as to why Matthew was wrongly decided. However, after considering those arguments, we continue to believe that Matthew was correctly decided.
Accordingly, our decision in Matthew governs McNeil's case, and the judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED.