Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12752 No. 6748
12-19-2018
ASHLEY DAWN STALLINGS, Appellant, v. MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE, Appellee.
Appearances: Matthew A. Michalski, Attorney at Law, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Sarah E. Stanley, Assistant Municipal Prosecutor, and William D. Falsey, Municipal Attorney, Anchorage, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3AN-16-3897 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Jo-Ann Chung, Judge. Appearances: Matthew A. Michalski, Attorney at Law, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Sarah E. Stanley, Assistant Municipal Prosecutor, and William D. Falsey, Municipal Attorney, Anchorage, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, and Allard and Wollenberg, Judges. PER CURIAM.
Following a jury trial, Ashley Dawn Stallings was convicted of misdemeanor assault under Anchorage Municipal Code (AMC) 08.10.010(B)(1) for recklessly injuring her boyfriend by throwing a small glass object at his head.
At trial, Stallings's attorney asked the court to instruct the jury on the crime of disorderly conduct as a potential lesser included offense of assault. Under AMC 08.30.120(A)(6), a person commits disorderly conduct if the person "knowingly challenge[s] another to fight, or engage[s] in fighting other than in self-defense." The defense attorney argued that the jury might reasonably conclude that Stallings's conduct fit within this provision of the disorderly conduct ordinance.
The trial judge declined to give the requested instruction. Relying on this Court's decision in Dawson v. State, where we construed an essentially identical clause of the state disorderly conduct statute, AS 11.61.110(a)(5), the judge concluded that disorderly conduct was not a lesser included offense under the facts of Stallings's case because there was no evidence that Stallings and her boyfriend shared a mutual purpose to engage in fighting.
Dawson v. State, 264 P.3d 851, 854 (Alaska App. 2011) (construing the "engages in fighting" provision of AS 11.61.110(a)(5) to require proof that "the participants share[d] a mutual purpose or understanding that they [would] trade blows or attempt to trade blows").
On appeal, Stallings argues that the evidence showed the required mutuality of purpose to engage in fighting, and thus the trial judge erred by failing to give the requested instruction on disorderly conduct. We have carefully reviewed the record, and we disagree with Stallings's assertion that the evidence reasonably supported the proposed jury instruction. Instead, we conclude that the trial court properly declined to instruct the jury on disorderly conduct.
Stallings's attorney also poses four questions to this Court related to our decision in Dawson, suggesting that Dawson may have been wrongly decided. But Stallings's attorney does not provide any proposed answers to these questions, nor any analysis of the issues raised by those questions. To the extent Stallings is claiming that Dawson should be overruled or modified, or that Dawson invariably (and improperly) precludes disorderly conduct for "fighting other than in self-defense" from qualifying as a lesser included offense of assault, that claim is waived because it is inadequately briefed.
Petersen v. Mut. Life Ins. Co. of N.Y., 803 P.2d 406, 410 (Alaska 1990) ("Where a point is not given more than a cursory statement in the argument portion of a brief, the point will not be considered on appeal."). --------
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.