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Gottschalk v. State11/23/2001
No. 1774
This appeal presents two issues, one involving Alaska's speedy trial rule (Criminal Rule 45) and the other involving the propriety of a peremptory challenge exercised by the prosecutor.
Clayton W. Gottschalk was charged with felony driving while intoxicated, felony breath test refusal, driving with a suspended license, and leaving the scene of an accident. His trial was scheduled for October 27, 1998, with trial call scheduled for the day before (October 26th).
The first issue on appeal arose because Gottschalk failed to appear at the trial call. With Gottschalk's whereabouts unknown, the superior court issued a warrant for his arrest. Gottschalk was located and arrested four and a half months later, on March 11, 1999. He was re-arraigned the following day, March 12th.
The question is this: Because of Gottschalk's flight and lengthy absence, should his speedy trial calculation under Alaska Criminal Rule 45 have been reset to Day 1 when he was again apprehended? For the reasons explained here, we conclude that it should.
The second issue on appeal arose during jury selection at Gottschalk's trial. Gottschalk is an Alaska Native. Early on, Gottschalk announced that he believed the courts of Alaska had no jurisdiction over him because the United States government had never signed a treaty with his tribe. As the jury was being picked, most prospective jurors were asked their opinion regarding Native sovereignty.
The prosecutor's first peremptory challenge was exercised against a Native American woman (a member of a tribe from the Lower 48). Gottschalk's attorney asked the superior court to invalidate this peremptory challenge, claiming that the prosecutor exercised the challenge solely because of the juror's race - conduct declared to be unconstitutional in Batson v. Kentucky. The prosecutor responded that he was concerned by the juror's answers regarding Native sovereignty. The trial judge concluded that this was a well-founded explanation of the prosecutor's peremptory challenge, so he denied Gottschalk's Batson motion to set aside the challenge.
On appeal, Gottschalk argues that the juror's answers gave no indication that the juror supported the Native sovereignty movement, and thus the record fails to support the prosecutor's offered explanation for the peremptory challenge. We agree. However, under Batson, the question is not whether the record supports the prosecutor's reasons for distrusting the juror's ability to be fair. Rather, the question is whether the prosecutor honestly believed, based on something other than the juror's race, that the juror would not be a good juror. The superior court found that the prosecutor acted in good faith, and not from racial bias or stereotyping. Because this finding is not clearly erroneous, we affirm the superior court's denial of Gottschalk's Batson motion.
The Rule 45 Issue
Gottschalk was initially served with the charging documents on May 25, 1998. This event started the running of the Rule 45 "clock". But, as explained above, Gottschalk failed to appear at his trial call on October 26, 1998. He was arrested on a bench warrant and re-arraigned on March 12, 1999.
This court addressed a similar situation in Russell v. Anchorage, 626 P.2d 586 (Alaska App. 1981). The defendant in Russell failed to appear for trial and was not arrested until several months later. This court held that the Rule 45 clock should be reset, making the day of Russell's re-arrest a new Day 1, because of the following three factors:
(1) the defendant intentionally fail to appear for court; (2) his disappearance followed by a sub
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