Alaska's attorney general looks for creative solutions to address crime amid budget cuts

The state recently welcomed a new attorney general at a time of steep budget cuts and looming changes in how Alaska will address crime and the state's relationship with Alaska Natives.

Jahna Lindemuth, 46, will be the state's second female attorney general. The first was Grace Schaible, appointed by Democratic Gov. Steve Cowper after his election in 1986.

Gov. Bill Walker announced the hiring of Lindemuth in June, to replace Craig Richards, who resigned for personal reasons.

Lindemuth's first day as Alaska attorney general — the job pays $138,000 a year — was Aug. 8. She only had to move down the hall from her old partner-in-charge office at Dorsey and Whitney to her new digs with the Alaska Department of Law on the sixth floor of the Brady Building in downtown Anchorage.

In addition to her private work, Lindemuth is known for providing free legal work to people who need help. She played a key role in the Fairbanks Four case that ended in December, helping to challenge the convictions of four men for a 1997 murder they said someone else committed.

Lindemuth will face a confirmation decision by the Legislature this spring.

Already as attorney general, she's been part of at least one big decision — involving a case brought by tribal authorities in Akiachak and other tribal governments against the federal government — that sets the stage for the federal government to take tribal lands into trust, increasing the oversight by Washington, D.C. Some Alaskans fear the change will allow tribes to take authority away from the state.

In an interview on Tuesday, Lindemuth talked with Alaska Dispatch News about that issue, her legal philosophy and other topics, including how the Department of Law plans to address crime at a time of record budget deficits for the state.

Here's an excerpt of the interview, edited for length and clarity:

ADN: You were a longtime partner at Dorsey and Whitney presumably making more than $138,000 a year. Why take this job?

Lindemuth: It is quite the paycut. I think overall I'm making about 40 percent of what I made before. On a big picture it really comes down to a matter of public service and giving back to the state. I was involved in the Fairbanks Four case, of course, and during that case the opportunity to serve on the Alaska Supreme Court came up … so I decided to throw in for that.

That experience really brought home the need for public service and the desire to give. And obviously I wasn't meant to be on the court this time, and when I wasn't named to the court I just had an epiphany that this means I was called to do something else. And little did I know only five weeks later the governor called and said would you be the attorney general.

ADN: What did the freeing of the Fairbanks Four teach you about the way state handles criminal justice?

Lindemuth: It really taught me the importance of justice. In the role of a criminal prosecutor and the role of our law enforcement, the ultimate goal has to be justice. It can't be a matter of getting convictions or winning cases. I have a great department, we have strong attorneys and I'm confident that is something they keep in mind. But it is something I'll be reinforcing as the leader of this organization. That kind of messaging starts from the top down.

ADN: How does that as a guiding principle translate into policy for the department?

Lindemuth: U.S. Supreme Court Justice (Sonia) Sotomayor recently visited Alaska, and knowing she was coming up I read her book. Her first five or six years were as a prosecutor in New York City and that was something she felt was extremely important, and in the day-to-day grind, prosecutors can lose sight of that and just be trying to win cases rather than trying to do justice. It's about keeping perspective that the person you are dealing with is a real person and actions you take will have real consequences in their life, sometimes forever.

ADN: Your predecessor, Craig Richards, has been hired in the governor's office as an oil-and-gas consultant. What kind of a role do you expect to play in oil-and-gas issues and will you make those decisions or will he?

Lindemuth: I'm the attorney general and I have to be responsible for any final decisions the state makes on legal issues. We have a variety of consultants we use as outside counsel on a bunch of different issues. I view him as the same as we do with other outside counsel. They can make recommendations and be involved but at the end of day if a big decision comes forward, I expect to weigh in.

ADN: And make the final call?

Lindemuth: That brings me back to how I see my role as attorney general, which is I'm not one to set policy. I'm the lawyer so I give legal advice to my clients, which could be the governor, different commissioners, the various state entities on any particular issue, and they get to set policy and make the final decision.

ADN: Why did you not recommend appealing the Akiachak land-in-trust case?

Lindemuth: We had lost that case on procedural grounds. The way that case came down, it was mooted out by federal regulation, so basically the legal issues didn't exist anymore. We weren't going to win that issue, so it's as if that case never existed. So it's kind of fortuitous that the timing of that happened as it did, because it gives us some breathing room to deal with this issue of switching from litigation to diplomatic efforts.

ADN: What is the next step?

Lindemuth: I'm going to meet with all the different people who have concerns about land into trust. And then I gather all those concerns and understand what all the issues are and see if as a state we can narrow down the issues and resolve the concerns that are left. I think this might be easier than we're all envisioning right now. The end result may be a set of federal regulations unique to Alaska. We could end up with a set of standards the Department of Law uses to evaluate trust applications, so we'd object to this particular instance, but not to that situation — here's our concerns and how we'll deal with them.

ADN: What kind of solutions do you hope come out of this 10 years down the road?

Lindemuth: I think empowering our local communities whether they're municipalities or tribes to really engage on criminal-law issues. Rural justice has been a challenge for this state for a long time, even when we had money. Now it's an even more difficult problem because we just can't have a police force and court in every jurisdiction out there. But we can work with tribes and tribal courts to empower them to help be part of a solution. That's something the administration and former attorney general was already working on, civil diversion agreements that would empower tribes to take on some types of misdemeanor level criminal issues. And that was an example of where the administration was already going before I arrived. I get to arrive and help deliver that baby.

ADN: So you're hoping to get the tribal court issue taken care of as quickly as possible?

Lindemuth: Two agreements are close to being finalized. One is with Tanana Chiefs Conference, and one is with Tlingit Haida. And those are form agreements we can then use with other tribes as they come on line and have tribal courts that are ready and able to handle issues. That is a pretrial diversion agreement. So if the tribe is interested and a tribal member is facing a misdemeanor charge or the like, it can be referred to the tribal court and stays outside the state court criminal system, and if tribal court has any issues and community can't resolve it, then that case could be referred back to the state and we could pick up the prosecution.

ADN: Would the tribes cover all the costs? Or are there some state contributions?

Lindemuth: The tribal courts are funded by the tribes, they may have federal funds they've gotten, and I think there's federal money for training and the like. That's one reason the state is interested in doing it, it can help save money. This is a way to help deal with misdemeanor level offenses that may not get the full attention of a prosecutor in of our offices, given the resources we have.

ADN: There appears to be a lot of crime in Anchorage recently and there have been several positions lost (in the Department of Law). So how do you balance future budget concerns while still combating crime?

Lindemuth: I'm really hopeful the state (Legislature) will address the budget and get us to a sustainable budget that we can have going forward. In the last three years, the overall budget of our department has shrunk about 15 percent, and unrestricted general funds have been reduced almost 27 percent, and the unrestricted general funds are the monies we can use for child protection and prosecuting crimes. In that same period of time, the child-in-need-of-aid cases where child protection is critical have gone up about 50 percent, and as you note crime has gone up, which I attribute to the drug epidemic the state is facing. The homicide rate is out of the roof. So crime is going up and CINA (children in need of assistance) cases are going up, and our resources to fight those things have gone down 27 percent and the amount of cases and the need has gone up considerably in both those areas. So we have a Department of Law that's drowning in cases. We're trying to meet all of those needs with fewer people doing more work. And it's not something that's sustainable. So we need a sustainable budget that can give us the money we need. Folks talk about cutting government but what they are really saying is cut government services. But if they really bear down on what government services mean, in this case it's protecting children and fighting crime. So this is not something we're going to cut our way out of. We need to have the Legislature address the budget on a broader scale.

ADN: So what if the Legislature doesn't provide the money or a sustainable budget? It sounds like a ticking time bomb.

Lindemuth: In one sense it is and we're going to keep cutting, and this is the biggest issue I face overall, is trying to provide good legal service with less. I'll try to think creatively and try to work with my management team to do the most we can do. For example, we have long-term leases both for this building and the Whale (Carr-Gottstein) building and given the cuts we've made we have extra space, but we have long-term leases. So if there are people out there who want office space, they can contact the Department of Law, we have space available. We're also working with the Department of Administration. If there are other state agencies that have a need for space, if they come to the end of their leases potentially, they could have this sixth floor space and I'd be happy to move downstairs to a smaller office. So we're trying to think creatively like that and address this by cutting what overhead we can so we can reserve those resources we really need, which is attorneys and staff to provide the legal services we need.

ADN: Do you have any ideas of things the state could do differently on a structural level to address those problems?

Lindemuth: SB 91 just passed so we're at the start of criminal justice reform that has worked in other states. We're still going after violent crime as strong as we ever have, and we're putting drug dealers and the like in prison, and we're treating those with substance abuse problems with treatment rather than criminalizing that behavior. So what we need to do is put money into substance abuse programs.

ADN: A goal of SB 91 is reducing some sentences to reduce prison overcrowding.

Lindemuth: This fits nicely with our efforts we're going to work with communities, including tribal courts. It's not that those lesser crimes go unpunished, it's just that they are being addressed with different tools. There may be consequences a tribal court can impose that don't involve prison time. We're looking at additional fines for certain types of crimes.

ADN: If Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, files a lawsuit against Gov. Walker's Permanent Fund veto, will you defend the veto? If so, what will be your legal arguments?

Lindemuth: I think that's a poor use of resources. Filing litigation over this is not the way to resolve this issue, but if a lawsuit is filed, we'll defend, that's what we have to do. And I'm confident in the legal advice the Department of Law gave to the governor, that the veto power is sound. There are political processes available if the Legislature wasn't happy with that decision.