In Swartz v. Municipality of Anchorage,[1] the court of appeals held that the district court erred in imposing jail time for an offender’s uncompleted hours of community work service. Swartz pled guilty to driving with her license suspended or revoked. Her sentence included eighty hours of mandatory community work service to be completed within six months. Her plea agreement stipulated that the uncompleted portion of community work service would convert to jail time if not completed by the deadline. There was no conversion rate for uncompleted community service work hours to jail time provided in the plea agreement. Swartz completed only eight hours of the eighty sentenced. The Municipality petitioned the court to revoke probation and convert the remaining hours into jail time. The district court imposed nine days of jail time for the uncompleted community work service. Swartz appealed, arguing the jail time was imposed unlawfully due to the Alaska legislature having amended state law to prevent such conversions. The court of appeals held that the district court erred in converting the uncompleted community work service hours into jail time because the plea agreement did not define what conversion rate should apply for the unserved hours. The court found it unnecessary to determine whether the amended state statute applied retroactively to Swartz’s sentence because the plea deal lacked a material term. The conversion provision was therefore struck as unenforceable. The court of appeals vacated the district court’s imposition of jail time for an offender’s uncompleted hours of community work service.
[1] 436 P.3d 1104 (Alaska Ct. App. 2019).
