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739 P.2d 188

Constantine v. State

Court of Appeals of Alaska

Decided July 2, 1987

Court of Appeals of Alaska · decided 1987-07-02

Relies on Beran v. State · Reynolds v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1987-07-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently February 2002

6 state decisions

30198719902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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BRYNER, Chief Judge,

¶1concurring.

¶2In order to avoid the possibility that the dissent might engender some degree of confusion, I think it appropriate to summarize my understanding of the limited scope and effect of our decision in Beran v. State, 705 P.2d 1280 (Alaska App.1985), and in the present case.

¶3*191In Beran, we held that, absent express legislative authorization, the Board of Fisheries was not empowered to create a strict liability offense punishable by criminal sanctions. We nonetheless concluded that the regulation challenged in that case could be enforced as a strict liability offense but only if punished exclusively by noncriminal penalties. We expressly left open the question of what penalties might be considered permissible. Beran, 705 P.2d at 1283-84 and n. 4.

¶4Our decision today provides a partial answer to the question we left open in Beran: we hold only that, in the absence of more specific legislation, the challenged regulation, when enforced as a strict liability offense, is punishable under the provisions applicable to noncriminal violations under AS 12.55.035(b)(5).

¶5We do not purport to restrict the legislature from adopting other, more stringent noncriminal penalty provisions. Nor do we restrict the state from invoking the full force of the sanctions already provided for under Title 16, by prosecuting violators for negligent, rather than innocent, acts. See Reynolds v. State, 655 P.2d 1313 (Alaska App.1982).

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