Alaska Lawmaker Calls for Hiring More Prosecutors, Public Defenders to Reduce Extreme Delay in Criminal Cases

A top Alaska lawmaker said the state needs to hire twice as many prosecutors and public defenders if it wants to end the kind of extreme courtroom delays that the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica exposed over the past year. Rep. Andrew Gray, chair of a legislative committee that holds jurisdiction over the Alaska court system, prosecutors and public defenders, said the news organizations’ stories of criminal cases delayed for years “stab my heart.” The time it takes to resolve Alaska’s most serious felony cases is three years, or more than twice as long as in 2015.

“I hate how slow this system is. It kills me,” Gray said. The blame, he said, should not fall on the front-line attorneys but on the state of Alaska for failing to hire enough prosecutors and public defenders.

Gray is the lat