The state council that vets Alaska judges is recommending against retaining two judges in the November election.
It’s the first time in 12 years that the Alaska Judicial Council has recommended Alaskans vote “no” on retaining a judge.
The council announced Wednesday its recommendation against retaining Superior Court Judge Kelly Lawson and District Court Judge Martin Fallon, both assigned to the Kenai court. It also took the unprecedented step of not making a recommendation on the retention of Juneau Superior Court Judge Marianna Carpeneti.
Since the Legislature enacted a statute in the 1970s directing the council to give recommendations on judge retention, it has only recommended against retaining nine other judges.
The council was established by the Alaska Constitution and is made up of three attorney members appointed by the state Bar Association, three members of the public appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, with the chief justice of the state Supreme Court acting as a tiebreaker.
According to the council’s performance evaluation of Lawson, posted on its website, the Kenai judge did not meet standards for judicial temperament.
“The Alaska Judicial Council concludes that, while performing acceptably on the bench, Judge Lawson has lacked patience, dignity, and courtesy in her communications with court employees, creating friction between Judge Lawson, court staff, and other judges to a degree that has impeded the efficient administration of justice,” the performance evaluation says.
That conclusion was based on information court employees provided, as well as court records and an interview with Lawson herself, the performance evaluation says. It does not include details of specific incidents.
Court system administrators and staff had tried to work with Lawson to improve the situation, “but those efforts had been largely unsuccessful at the time of the council's evaluation,” the evaluation says.
In Fallon’s case, according to his performance evaluation, the judge had trouble resolving cases in a timely manner. Fallon allowed a case before him, which was considered ready for a decision, to sit for eight months. That was until another judge put a sticky note on the case file to alert Fallon that the case was overdue for a decision and had been erroneously closed in the court system’s case-tracking system, according to the evaluation.
Under Alaska law, judges are not supposed to receive a paycheck if any of their cases that are considered “ripe” for a decision have sat for six months or more.
Despite having missed that deadline, Fallon signed affidavits allowing him to be paid that said, to the best of his knowledge, there were no cases assigned to him that had been ready for a decision for six months or more, according to the evaluation.
“In a second case, Judge Fallon requested additional information from the parties six months to the day after the matter was ripe for decision,” the evaluation says.
That extended the due date for a decision in the case, which Fallon did not issue for another four months, according to the evaluation.
The council announced its recommendations publicly in a press release Wednesday, on schedule in the runup to the November general election, but the issues with Fallon are not new: The Alaska Supreme Court issued a public reprimand in 2024 over the same conduct.
Susanne DiPietro, executive director of the Alaska Judicial Council, said it is unusual for the council to recommend against retaining judges. The last time it happened was 2014, she said.
“So it's a very rare event, which is not surprising given the rigor with which people are screened to be judges,” she said. “But it does occasionally happen, when the council feels that the judge is not being successful, they will let the public know.”
As for Carpeneti, the only marks against the Juneau Superior Court judge in the judicial council’s evaluation appear to come from a survey of peace officers and probation officers, who rated her judicial temperament as “below acceptable.”
Three council members voted to recommend not retaining Carpeneti, two voted in favor of her retention and two abstained from voting. Rules around conflicts of interest direct council members to abstain from voting for multiple reasons, including if they are friends or close family members of the judge or, in the case of the attorney members, if they have a case before the judge or about to go before the judge.
The judicial council’s official position on Carpeneti was to not make a recommendation either way.
DiPietro said she was unaware of another instance in which the council did not issue a recommendation on a judge.
