Earlier this month, John Novak wrote a letter to the editor in which he identified himself as a former career prosecutor, and in the process of denigrating the Alaska Public Defender Agency wrote: “No prosecution office, under any circumstance, would refuse to pursue serious felony cases because of their nature or complexity.”
Let’s go back to January 2020 for a moment. At that time, Mr. Novak was an active prosecutor with the Anchorage district attorney’s office. In an article in this newspaper, he explained why his office did not file charges in a particular case: If there’s doubt that a jury could be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt “that someone did a crime, we have no business filing charges,” Novak said.
In that same article, Novak told this newspaper: “I am very confident and comfortable with my determination and I’ll take credit for it.” He added, “It was my decision. Charges were not warranted.”
Finally, the article also quoted from a letter that Novak sent to the Office of Victims’ Rights, in which he explained the decision of his prosecution office to refuse to pursue charges in a felony case because of their nature: “It is this office’s evaluation that it cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the assaultive conduct in Mr. Mosley engaged (sic) was not justified under the applicable law of self-defense.”
How soon Mr. Novak forgets.
— Gavin Kentch
Anchorage
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