Alaska Legislature: Senate Judiciary — April 29, 2026 1:30pm

Let's call this meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee to order. It is 1:30 PM on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026. Before we begin, I want to thank Juliana Singh, the Senate Judiciary Secretary, who makes sure we have a transcript our meetings, and Doug Bridges from the Juneau LIO who makes sure we have sound. At this time, I want to remind committee members and those in the room to please silence your cell phones. Present today we have Senator Tilton, Senator Stevens, and myself, Senator Clayman.

We have a quorum to conduct business. Our first and only item on our agenda is House Bill 239, criminally negligent homicide, sponsored by Representative Kopp. This is the 7th hearing of the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is my intention to look to the will of the committee to move on House Bill 239. Before we do that, I would like first to look to the will of the committee to adopt work draft version H as our working document.

Senator Stevens, may I have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I move that we adopt the Senate CS for CS for House Bill 239 Judiciary work draft 34-LS1102/H as our working document. I'll object for purposes of discussion. Here to explain the summary of changes is our Senate Judiciary Committee aide, Brianna Kakarek. Ms. Kakarek, if you please come forward, put yourself on the record, and you may begin your summary.

Thank you. For the record, this is Brianna Kakarek, staff to Senator Matt Clayman. So my overview of changes from version G to version H of House Bill 239 start— I'm going to be starting with changes to the underlying, underlying provisions related to House Bill 101. We had cleanup language suggested by the Department of Law because previous language legalized conduct that is presently illegal. So we made corrections to these errors, and these show up on section— in Section 12, which captures AS 1141-452, enticement of a minor, Sections 25 and 26, which is AS 1161-124, solicitation or production of an indecent picture of a minor, Section 30, AS 1161-128, distribution of indecent material to minors.

And I just briefly note that Senator Tobin joined us at 1:33. Please proceed. Um, our next batch of changes, um, for the record, this is Brianna Clark, um, changes, um, to the Senate Bill 100 provisions of this legislation. As we mentioned in previous committee hearings, that we only intended to keep, um, changes to AS 1146-140 subsection A, establishing mail theft. So We deleted previous Section 19 and 20 from House Bill 239, Version G. In the next change occurs in Section 30, we amend AS 1161-128, subsection A, found on page 19, lines 8 through 9.

We insert— inserted new paragraph G, contact with semen. In Sections 35 through 37, we added cruelty to animals to criminalize possessing images of sexual conduct with animals. These changes occur on page 19, lines 12 through 31, pages 20, lines 1, 2, 5, 16, and we amend AS 1161.140 subsection A to add a handful of new language.

Moving on to section 38, we amend AS 1166.100 subsection C by adding new paragraph A found on page Page 20, line 31, we added paragraph A, was at the time of the offense 17 years of age or older. Section— in Section 47, we update the felony sentencing statute in 3 different places. Sections 48 and 64, we made corrections to the criminally negligent homicide and failure to assist provisions that were previously discussed with the committee. Um, the next major change happens in Section 66. We added new bill section by adding, um, AS— by amending AS 30.

We added a new Section 3330.068, Medical Releases for Services of Sentenced by Electronic Monitoring.

And then, um, finally, we updated effective dates. So any previous immediate effective date have been replaced with July 1st, 2026. That concludes my overview summary of changes. And I just, just make a small note on the Section 38 change. It's the language has changed to be 17 years of age or younger rather than older.

Thank you.

Any questions for Ms. Kekarik from members of the committee? Next, I'd like to ask Casey Schroeder from the Department of Law to come forward. The Department of Law wanted to provide some specific comments with regard to Section 24 and Sections 62 through 64 of the bill, primarily for clarification more than anything else. Ms. Schroeder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the record, Casey Schroeder, Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Law. Uh, the first section I would like to mention is Section 24, which relates to the enactment of generated sexual— child sexual abuse material. And I— the committee didn't get into the weeds too much about this topic, so I wanted to just provide a brief overview and give the committee an idea of how we would implement these sections. Specifically as they relate to possession of child sexual abuse material. So in general, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition said that child sexual abuse material involving the use of real children is not protected by the First Amendment categorically.

Cannot have it, can't do anything with it, not protected. However, that case said that virtual images may be protected unless they're obscene and if they satisfy the obscenity test that's found in Miller. Um, and just for the record, Miller— it's Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 1973. And Ashcroft was decided in 2002, and that citation is 122 Supreme Court 1389. So what's going on in the bill is that the Miller test, the obscenity test which is in the bill, is the Miller test.

And so if the material satisfies that test, there is case law that says that that is not protected by the First Amendment. However, there is a small little caveat in relation to possession of obscene material, and that is if the possession occurs in— originates and occurs entirely within someone's home. The Supreme Court has said that that is protected. So, but it is a very, very narrow holding. These are images that don't involve real people.

These are just obscene material. It's a very narrow holding that has been reinforced by subsequent cases. And the court has declined to expand that protection in any way. As soon as that material has contact with the outside world, whether it be showing it to somebody would be distribution, that's not protected.

Using software to create the image. And if that software requires a signal to leave the home, that wouldn't be protected. Transporting it to your home for the purpose of private possession, also not protected. And there's case law directly on point. There was a case where somebody tried to import obscene material into the United States for the purposes of private possession, and the Supreme Court was like, no, we're not going to extend that protection to that type of behavior.

And that case was U.S. v. 1,200-Foot Reels of Super 8mm Film. And that's at 93 Supreme Court 2665, 1972. So I did want to just kind of put the lay of the land there and the case law that supports it. That is how we would implement the possession of generated child sex abuse material. Again, that's a very narrow holding.

And the court has recognized that it may be an impossibility. But they are— they have declined repeatedly to extend that outside the home. And I would also note that there is other cases.

The US Court of Appeals for Armed Forces has also said that if you're sharing barracks, even though that's your home, you can't have obscene material. It's outside the home enough that they would not extend that First Amendment protection.

Senator Stevens. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I'm a little confused here. So could you tell us what this change does? What, what, what changes from the old laws we had to this new one we're contemplating? Through the chair to Senator Stevens, under current law, it's illegal to have child sexual abuse material involving the use of real children, and that is an element of the offense.

We have to prove that a real child was involved. We have been able to extend that to what we call morphed child sexual abuse material. So if somebody, for example, takes the child's head and superimposes it on an adult body doing— engaging in sexual conduct, trial courts in our state have said that that's also not protected by the First Amendment. What this bill does, the generated child sexually abused material provisions say that virtual child sexual abuse material, because And Ashcroft actually— the concurring opinions actually signaled to this that technology may advance so much that it will become difficult for the state to prove whether an actual child was used or not. And I would submit to this committee that we are there.

That the images are becoming so good and they're entirely generated by a computer. It's not using a real child that it's difficult for us to prove whether a child is whether a real child is involved or not. And if a real child is not involved, it is protected by the First Amendment unless it's obscene. And the obscenity test is in this bill. So if a real child is used, we already have statutes on the books that is criminal.

It's categorically not protected by the First Amendment. If we can't prove whether a real child was used or a real child was not used and it's a virtual image of child sexual abuse material, This provides a tool for us to use, and then we would prove that it was also obscene, and it provides us a tool to get at that conduct. Thank you.

I don't see any other questions about the Section 24. Do you want to address the— your notes with regard to Section 62 to 64? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Section 62 through 64 are the failure to render aid statute, and we did talk about this in committee a little bit.

This is the hit-and-run statute where somebody's in an accident and they leave the scene. That's a criminal act. This— the provisions in the CS have an elevated penalty when somebody leaves the scene and somebody has died. And I— we just wanted to make clear that the case law and the, the law that we have on the books now that currently applies to current law is also extended to this, this new provision, in that specifically there is no mental state that's required for the death. All that is required is that the person know that they were in an accident or that they should know that they were in an accident such that somebody would be injured and then somebody dies.

They don't need to know that somebody's died but that they were in an accident, that somebody may have been hurt. That's all. Um, they don't have to cause the accident. They don't have to intend for the accident to happen. That is a very limited scope for this particular provision.

Senator Stevens, and does that answer the family we had testifying right at the very first day about their child that was killed? Does that answer their concerns or not? Through the chair, Senator Stevens, I don't know if it fully addresses— I mean, I would let them speak for themselves, but I do know that one of their complaints was that the sentence that the person received was low. And the enhanced penalty here would at a minimum elevate the presumptive range for that conduct. Thank you.

I don't see any other questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And seeing no other questions with regard to the committee substitute, I'm going to remove my objection. Are there any other objections to the committee substitute?

Hearing— seeing none, House Bill 239 version H is now adopted as our working document. This committee substitute has been the product of collaboration collaboration between the sponsor's office, committee members, my office, and the executive branch. We are pleased with the outcome and look forward to seeing House Bill 239 move out of this committee and go on to the Finance Committee. Representative Kopp is here, so I will go directly to Representative Kopp. Did you want to make any closing comments before we look to the will of the committee?

Thank you. Chair Clayman and members of the Judiciary Committee, thank you for your work on this, for assembling this package, for the result of closing known loopholes in the law that it will bring and addressing the tools that are currently missing for prosecutions specifically of very addictive behavior. Some of it which is uncomfortable to discuss in committee hearings, but we know that it is driving a lot of our behavioral and mental issues. And I think that some of the tools that prosecution can now use to intervene in that behavior will probably ultimately not only take bad actors off the street, but it will also get people into help. And I appreciate the work of the committee.

Look forward to it. A full review of it in the next committee and continuing the work. Thank you very much. I see no questions from committee members.

Any further questions or comments from members of the committee? Hearing and seeing none, Senator Tobin, may I have a motion? Yes, Mr. Chairman. I move the.

Senate CS for CS for House Bill 239 Judiciary, work order draft 34-LS-1102/h, as in Huna, with individual recommendations and attached and forthcoming fiscal notes. Legislative Legal may make any technical or conforming changes. Hearing and seeing no objections, House Bill 39 has moved from committee. Please stay behind after we adjourn to fill out the paperwork. We will now adjourn for the day.

Our next meeting will be on Friday, May 1st at 1:30 PM. We will be holding confirmation— our confirmation hearing for the Attorney General Stephen Cox and will be looking to the will of the committee to move Senate Bill 207, Property Possession and Property Crimes, sponsored by Senator Bjorkman. With that, we stand adjourned. The time is now 2:46 PM.