The Alaska Department of Law has a new online portal for residents wanting to submit concerns over public welfare and institutions to an investigative grand jury. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor talked through the program at a town hall meeting Monday in Soldotna. The event was a forum for attendees to air grievances and provide information about Alaska’s investigative grand jury process amid some persistent concerns from residents about the integrity of that process.
By design, Alaska grand jury proceedings are confidential. But Taylor says the department’s new portal brings much of the process out of the shadows.
“It is a more transparent plan, because a lot of it occurs outside of a grand jury,” he said.
The department formally debuted the new reporting platform last month. It functions like an online survey, asking the user to summarize why they think an investigation is warranted, to identify the employees or agencies involved and to attach evidence supporting their concerns.
Once a request is submitted, it will be referred to a panel of attorneys for review and potential referral to a grand jury. The department will publish information about the request, including a redacted summary of the allegations and referral status. If the request leads to a grand jury report, that report will be published, too.
At Monday’s town hall in Soldotna, Taylor touted the program as one he hopes will help restore trust in Alaska’s justice system, while nodding to the public concerns that helped facilitate its launch.
“This is an issue that's been festering for quite a while,” he said. “And hopefully, hopefully we can have a great discussion today, put to sleep some of the things that – some of the misinformation out there on the subject, and then come to sort of maybe a better understanding of the process and why it is the way that it is.”
In all, more than 100 people attended the town hall in person and remotely, mostly from the central Kenai Peninsula, but some from as far away as Wasilla and Haines.
Sterling resident David Haeg was one of those attendees. Haeg says the Alaska Department of Law and the Alaska Supreme Court are violating the state constitution by prohibiting residents from taking issues directly to grand jurors. He’s spent years organizing protests and demonstrations for his cause. Speaking after the meeting, he said he’s long wanted to speak with Taylor directly.
“We've been asking for a meeting with the governor and attorney general for months and months and months,” Haeg said.
Haeg’s interest in Alaska grand juries stems from a 2004 criminal case against him, in which he was convicted of unlawful hunting. He’s long maintained Department of Law staff conspired against him in the case. An appeals court upheld his conviction in 2021.
On Monday, Haeg said the new system still falls short. He told Taylor during the meeting that any middleman between the person alleging misconduct and the grand jurors themselves is unconstitutional – including the new supreme court rules.
“We are not going to be kept away from the grand jury,” he said. “No one is going to be the gatekeeper. I'm sorry to say, you seem like a nice guy. You are not going to be the gatekeeper, period. Not on my watch.”
And even if a case does go before grand jurors, Haeg says the department is unable to find a truly independent prosecutor to take the case on. Taylor says the department is open to bringing in prosecutors from outside of Alaska to ensure independence.
Article I, Section 8 of the Alaska Constitution says, “The power of grand juries to investigate and make recommendations concerning the public welfare or safety shall never be suspended.”
Although Haeg wasn’t involved with setting up Monday’s town hall, he was given more time than other attendees to address Taylor.
“I would like Attorney General Taylor to explain and resolve these conflicts and tell us why and how the Alaska Supreme Court and Department of Law are not violating constitutional rights,” he said.
Multiple other people supported Haeg during their own comments at Monday’s meeting. At times, the debate became heated, with some attendees standing, pointing and, in one case, walking out in protest.
In 2022, the Alaska Supreme Court published new rules outlining what cases can and cannot be considered by investigative grand jurors. And on Monday, Taylor debuted the department’s new process for reporting alleged misconduct by state agencies for reference to Alaska grand jurors.
The same year, a grand jury charged retired Homer judge Margaret Murphy with perjury. Murphy presided over Haeg’s criminal trial and was accused by Haeg of conspiring against him, and the grand jury indictment showed Haeg had been called as a witness. The perjury charge was later dismissed by an Anchorage judge.
Department staff stayed over an hour longer than initially scheduled. Midway through the meeting, staff pushed their flight to Anchorage back to accommodate more questions from the group. After almost two hours, Taylor told the group that bringing more transparency to the state’s grand jury process is a priority.
“I'm confident that 99.9% of the time we get it right, but I'm also cognizant that there's 1% of that that we probably don't get right,” he said. “And so, you know, the reason I'm down here is I want to be a part of the solution. I want you to understand what our thoughts are, what our thinking is on the process, and just make you aware of where I'm at with the process and possible solutions for that process.”
Since the new portal went live last month, a department of law spokesperson says they’ve already received one request for a grand jury investigation. The department says that request has been forwarded to independent counsel.
