Alaska appeals court vacates max sentence after prosecutor broke plea deal

A Point Hope man will be resentenced before a different judge after the Alaska Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the State breached its own plea agreement when a substitute prosecutor argued for the maximum sentence at a remand hearing instead of supporting the agreed terms.

Nick A. Frankson had pleaded guilty to third-degree and fourth-degree assault under a deal calling for a composite 720-day sentence. The prosecutor who negotiated the deal did not appear at the remand hearing. The replacement argued there were no evidentiary problems and pushed for the maximum. Superior Court Judge Paul A. Roetman sentenced Frankson to 5 years on the third-degree assault conviction and 8 months consecutive on the fourth-degree assault conviction.

The appeals court drew a clear line: a plea agreement binds the State, not just the individual prosecutor who signed it. Chief Judge Tracey W. Allard wrote that "the State has not been deprived of the primary benefit of the plea agreement." Frankson had already entered his guilty pleas in reliance on the deal. The court distinguished the case from Ahvakana v. State, where unique circumstances permitted the State to argue against a plea agreement.

The court also found a separate procedural error. After Judge Roetman rejected the sentencing agreement as too lenient, the court never personally asked Frankson whether he wanted to maintain his guilty pleas or withdraw them. Frankson expressed confusion about whether the agreement still applied and later asked to withdraw his pleas without response. Under Alaska Criminal Rule 11(e)(3), a defendant must personally affirm the choice to persist in a plea after a rejection, as required under Kolkman v. State. This case returned on remand after Frankson I, in which the appeals court had already sent it back to explain those Rule 11 procedures.

Because the remand resolves the case for now, the appeals court declined to reach Frankson's other claims of error. The one exception was his Erlinger-based challenge: the court upheld the superior court's authority to rely on Frankson's multiple prior misdemeanor assault convictions to find the non-Blakely aggravating factor under AS 12.55.155(c)(8), concluding that doing so did not violate the Fifth or Sixth Amendments.

The case began in July 2018 when North Slope Borough Police responded to a Point Hope residence after a report that Frankson was intoxicated and armed. Grand jury testimony was contradictory on whether Frankson had fired first.

At resentencing, the prosecutor must support the agreed 720-day term. If the new judge rejects the agreement, the court must personally address Frankson and give him the choice to withdraw his pleas or maintain them and proceed to open sentencing. If he withdraws his pleas, the original charges from all three cases could be reinstated.