HCR 28: Relating to requesting the Governor to direct the Attorney General to undertake all available means to have the partial settlements agreed to by the state in Cleary v. Smith and the court orders issued in that case that impose required conditions of confinement and continued monitoring and oversight of the correctional system by the courts dissolved or modified.
00HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 28 01 Relating to requesting the Governor to direct the Attorney General to undertake 02 all available means to have the partial settlements agreed to by the state in 03 Cleary v. Smith and the court orders issued in that case that impose required 04 conditions of confinement and continued monitoring and oversight of the 05 correctional system by the courts dissolved or modified. 06 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA: 07 WHEREAS, in the early 1980s, the state was sued by various inmates of state 08 correctional institutions who alleged in a case, known as Cleary v. Smith (Cleary), that some, 09 if not all, of the conditions of their confinement were unconstitutional; and 10 WHEREAS, in Cleary, the state entered into partial settlement agreements to resolve 11 some of the issues of the litigation in the superior court, and the superior court made various 12 findings of fact and conclusions of law and issued orders and decisions based upon the partial 13 settlement agreements and the findings of fact and conclusions of law; and 14 WHEREAS the superior court, in Cleary, did not find in all cases that the conditions
01 of confinement were at that time unconstitutional; it only found that in some circumstances 02 the conditions of confinement may become unconstitutional at some future unspecified date; 03 and 04 WHEREAS, despite this failure to find present unconstitutional conditions of 05 confinement, the superior court decided, and in at least some situations the state agreed to 06 allow the court, to dictate conditions of confinement for the correctional system of the state, 07 either through the settlement agreements or the court's orders and decisions, and the superior 08 court continues to oversee the correctional system to ensure that the state complies with all 09 of its orders and decisions; and 10 WHEREAS the settlement agreements and orders and decisions of the superior court 11 in many situations impose burdens on the state that extend beyond the levels that are required 12 by the state constitution for conditions of confinement as decided by courts both before and 13 after Cleary; and 14 WHEREAS any unconstitutional conditions of confinement found by the superior 15 court have long ago been satisfied by the state, and continued court intervention in the day-to-day affairs of the 16 correctional system is no longer necessary; and 17 WHEREAS the Cleary case has helped to make this state's correctional system one 18 of the most, if not the most, expensive correctional system in the United States, if not the 19 world, based upon per prisoner costs of incarceration, by its mandating of conditions beyond 20 those necessary to comply with the constitution; and 21 WHEREAS continued oversight of the correctional system by the superior court, even 22 when no constitutional violations existed or continue to exist, directly impinges on authority 23 of the legislature to enact laws relating to the corrections system and the authority of the 24 executive branch to implement and enforce those laws and constitutes a fiscal burden that the 25 state cannot afford in these times of declining prices for and production of oil; and 26 WHEREAS Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) allows a court to relieve a party 27 from the burden of a judgment, order, or other proceeding; and 28 WHEREAS, in Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail (Rufo), the United States 29 Supreme Court considered the reach of federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), upon which 30 Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is based, in the context of a motion to relieve the 31 Commonwealth of Massachusetts and a Massachusetts county from a consent decree that was
01 entered into to resolve jail litigation on the ground that changed circumstances made it no 02 longer equitable that the decree be enforced, the changed circumstances being fiscal 03 constraints (declining state revenues) and a purported change in the law; and 04 WHEREAS, in Rufo, the United States Supreme Court said that modification under 05 federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) may be warranted when changed factual conditions 06 make compliance with the court order substantially more onerous or when statutory or 07 decisional law has changed to make legal that which the order was designed to prevent and 08 that a court, in considering whether to grant a modification, should consider the public 09 interest; in this regard the United States Supreme Court said: "To refuse modification of a 10 decree is to bind all future officers of the State, regardless of their view of the necessity of 11 relief from one or more provisions of a decree that might not have been entered had the matter 12 been litigated to its conclusion . . . Financial constraints may not be used to justify the 13 creation or perpetuation of constitutional violations, but they are a legitimate concern of 14 government defendants in institutional reform litigation and therefore are appropriately 15 considered in tailoring a consent decree modification"; and 16 WHEREAS this reasoning of the United States Supreme Court, though not binding 17 on Alaska courts in the interpretation of Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), is certainly 18 instructive as to how Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) should be applied and that, due 19 to declining revenue, the current and future legislatures and state officials should not be held 20 to the settlement agreements, orders, and decisions in the Cleary case; 21 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully requests the 22 Governor to direct the Attorney General to undertake all available means to dissolve or modify 23 the partial settlement agreements, orders, and decisions in Cleary v. Smith. 24 COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Bruce Botelho, Attorney 25 General; and the Honorable Frank Prewitt, Commissioner of Corrections.