By SUZANNE DOWNING
Feb. 7, 2026 – Alaska’s judicial selection process is underway again, with multiple attorney applicants seeking appointment to vacancies on the Alaska Court of Appeals and three trial court positions in Kotzebue and Anchorage.
The Alaska Judicial Council announced Friday that four attorneys have applied for a seat on the Alaska Court of Appeals, two attorneys have applied for the Kotzebue Superior Court, three attorneys have applied for the Anchorage Superior Court, and eleven attorneys have applied for an opening on the Anchorage District Court.
The vacancies are being created by the impending retirements of:
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Court of Appeals Judge Timothy W. Terrell
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Kotzebue Superior Court Judge Paul A. Roetman
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Anchorage Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby
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Anchorage District Court Judge David R. Wallace
The Council is expected to meet in May 2026 to interview applicants and hold public hearings as part of the evaluation process.
Unlike many states where judges run in contested elections, Alaska uses a merit-based appointment system designed to reduce political pressure and focus on professional qualifications.
Under Alaska’s Constitution, judicial vacancies are filled through a multi-step process:
1. Attorneys apply to the Alaska Judicial Council
Applicants submit materials and undergo a comprehensive review.
2. The Judicial Council evaluates candidates
The seven-member Council includes the chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, three attorney members, and three public members who are not lawyers.
According to Executive Director Susanne DiPietro, the Council’s evaluation includes background investigations, surveys of Alaska Bar members, and personal interviews.
3. Public hearings take place
Alaskans are encouraged to provide feedback on applicants during the evaluation phase.
4. The Council sends nominees to the governor
For each vacancy, the Council nominates two or more candidates.
5. The governor appoints a judge within 45 days
The governor must choose from the Council’s list. The governor has very little choice.
6. Judges later face retention elections
Once appointed, judges do not run against opponents, but they do appear on the ballot in periodic retention elections, where voters decide whether they should remain in office.
The applicants for the appellate vacancy include:
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Mark Clark, district attorney for the Department of Law in Bethel
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Patricia L. Haines, currently a superior court judge in Fairbanks
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Kelly Taylor, assistant public defender with the appellate unit in Anchorage
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Matt Widmer, Anchorage attorney in private practice
Applicants for Kotzebue Superior Court
Two attorneys have applied for the Kotzebue Superior Court opening:
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Daniel DalleMolle, supervising attorney for the Alaska Public Defender Agency in Kotzebue
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Nicholas Adam Defreitas, magistrate judge in Utqiagvik
Applicants for Anchorage Superior Court
Three applicants are seeking appointment to the Anchorage Superior Court:
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Loren Patrick Hildebrandt, magistrate judge in Anchorage
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Matt Widmer, private practice attorney in Anchorage
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David Wilkinson, senior assistant attorney general in Anchorage
Applicants for Anchorage District Court
Eleven attorneys have applied for the Anchorage District Court vacancy, including prosecutors, public advocates, legal services attorneys, and judges currently serving as magistrates.
Applicants include:
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Michael John Branson
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Ronald Dupuis
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Lindsay Ingaldson
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Eva Khadjinova
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Julia Metzger
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Ben Muse
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Eric Salinger
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Patrick Sherry
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Hannah Steketee
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Sam Vandergaw
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Matt Widmer
The Judicial Council emphasized that public input is an important part of the judicial vetting process.
Members of the public may submit comments or request additional information by contacting:
Susanne DiPietro, Executive Director
Alaska Judicial Council
510 L Street, Suite 450
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
(907) 279-2526
Interviews and hearings will take place in May 2026, after which the Council will forward nominees to the governor for appointment.
16 thoughts on “Alaska Judicial Council begins vetting applicants for four upcoming court vacancies”
For the record, who serves on the Judicial Council? And how are THEY selected?
Appointed or elected?
Ah, yes, the Judicial Council. The governor appoints three members and the Alaska Bar Association holds an internal election if it’s member attorneys for three positions on the Council. The chief of the Alaska Supreme Court is also a member of the Council and serves as a tie-breaker.
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Recently, the Bar Association and the extreme liberal Democrats who run the Bar have complained that one of Dunleavy’s appointees to the Council is an 80-year old retired attorney and is not eligible to on the Council.
@RonD.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work. However, Democrats change the rules according to their own agenda. Take for instance, ABA Judicial Council member Savannah Fletcher. Fletcher served on the Borough Assembly up in Fairbanks, but got caught up in ethics problems and lies which resulted in her official censure by the Borough Assembly. But her chums at the Bar Association rewarded her for her misconduct and “appointed” her to the Judicial Council without a vote by her attorney peers. To complicate the matter, Fletcher boasts on her bio page that she clerked for the chief of the Alaska Supreme Court, who sits as the head of the Alaska Judicial Council. Here, another example of Democrat corruption and cover-ups.
Hopefully, the Alaska Attorney General gives this a full investigation. The entire Alaska judicial system depends on appropriate action.
Why haven’t bar complaints been filed against this Savannah Fletcher? If she was a member of the body politic (Assembly) in Fairbanks and was censured by that body while she was an active lawyer, then the Bar Association would automatically discipline her? But instead rewards her with an appointment to the Judicial Council? And by the Alaska Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? This is corruption on a grand scale. Yes, investigate please.
Interesting read. Thank you for spotlighting the facts. I’m an attorney in the 3rd Judicial District and we hold elections for ABA positions on the Judicial Council. Apparently, the 4th District doesn’t hold elections but rather the Board of Governors appoints attorneys to the Council. Why they appointed a censured attorney, who held political office, to the Council is mystifying to me. I just can’t imagine Sue Carney being involved in this shenanigan.
What a corrupt and insane judicial appointment system the state of Alaska has!.
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This radical leftist gatekeeping approval process by the hopelessly corrupt and partisan Alaska Judicial Council needs to be ABOLISHED! How did such process ever even begin, and get enshrined into law?
The Judicial Council’s foundation is in Article IV, § 8 and 9 of the state constitution. If you were wanting to go deeper than that, in the 1952 elections, Republicans were able to make inroads on the territorial political scene for the first time in 20 years, riding on the coattails of Ike’s popularity in Alaska. In the following election, they were slaughtered, winning only one territory-wide office and three out of the 33 legislative contests. That left the party with seven seats out of 40 total in the 22nd Territorial Legislature. Furthermore, a lawsuit to prevent the legislators who authorized the constitutional convention from serving as delegates was unsuccessful. The setting of the convention was touted as helping to keep certain influences away, but of course there were other influences present. There are abundant resources you can access on convention proceedings, so I’ll let you figure out the rest.
Thatk you for that information, Sean.
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However, I miswrote something in my original comment — I meant to write “Alaska Bar Association? when I wrote “Alaska Judicial Council” instead. My compliant is with the inherently biased, and de facto partisan, involvement of the Alaska Bar Association in the judicial selection process, not with the existence of the Alaska Judicial Council itself.
It appears right now, people are obsessed with Savannah Felcher as a current member of AJC and aren’t looking at the big picture. The Bar Association and the path to a judgeship in general have been a slippery slope for quite a while. As I alluded to, the AJC website contains a 33-page PDF containing excerpts from the constitutional convention. I would start there. I dunno if posting the URL would cause my comment to enter moderation hell, but it’s not hard to find. Anyway, at the time, it was a recent trend for states to give the bar that power because of perceived problems with popularly elected judges. Even though Alaska in general was then in the middle of a 30-plus-year stretch of solid Democrat control, the same may not necessarily have been the case with the Bar. Since the legal profession is inherently about gaming the system, you can imagine the exponential growth of government would lead to the legal profession attracting people who are better at gaming the system than at honest work.
Sean,
the Bar Association and Democrat Party were howling about Dunleavy’s appointment of a retired attorney to the Alaska Judicial Council. So the Bar, in retaliation, unilaterally placed Fletcher on the Council without a usual vote by member attorneys. Obviously, the Bar Association knows that Fletcher is widely disliked by Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, pro-Israel, anti-DEI and non-woke voters. That’s probably about 2/3 of reasonable Alaskans.
This smells of corruption from the top AK Supreme Court right on down to the bottom feeders at the Bar Association. Who do we send bar complaints to? If the Bar is so intent on putting one of their severely unethical lawyers, Fletcher, on the Judicial Council, then you know what kind of judges are going to be picked for Alaska. CORRUPTION!!
Savannah Fletcher was censured by her own left-wing Democrat friends on the FNSB Assembly. It must have been an undeniably unethical deed by Fletcher to get her own kind to turn on her. So how did she ascend to the Judicial Council?
And why? This speaks so negatively of the Alaska Bar Association.
Savannah Fletcher is a scourge and a blight in Fairbanks politics. She opened a bookstore in town. Where are her legal clients? Did they disappear after she got censured by the Assembly? Now that her little secret is out about being picked to serve on the Judicial Council, the executive director, DiPietro should explain why Fletcher was hand picked, and not elected, to the Council. Fletcher brags about being a clerk to Sue Carney of the Supreme Court. I wonder how uncomfortable this would make a chief justice? Fletcher is nothing but trouble wherever she goes. Her censure was the smartest thing the Assembly ever did.
Alaska Judicial Council begins vetting applicants to make sure they are all leftists – There. Fixed it for ya.
I doubt Fletcher was even an applicant to the Judicial Council. They yanked her into the JC without an election among her peers, because she proved to be a calculating conniver on the Assembly and she would do the dirty work of putting more corrupt judges on the bench. Thank God Grier Hopkins beat her out of the mayor’s seat, and then Mike Cronk kicked her *as for a state Senate seat. She is a nasty, brainwashed, ultra liberal demon of the Democrat Party. Perfect for the Judicial Council.
Poor Savannah. I guess her only protectors now are the Bar, at least one Supreme, and George Soros $$$
Who paid for her little bookstore?