Angelo Joseph v. State of Alaska

• Court: Court of Appeals of Alaska
• Decided: June 10, 2026
• Docket: A-14573
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

2026 WL 1678584

Only the Westlaw citation is currently available.

NOTICE: UNPUBLISHED OPINION

NOTICE This is a summary disposition issued under Alaska Appellate Rule 214(a). Summary dispositions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d).

Court of Appeals of Alaska.

ANGELO JOSEPH, Appellant,

v.

STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.

Court of Appeals No. A-14573

June 10, 2026

Trial Court No. 3AN-18-09153 CI

Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Peter R. Ramgren, Judge.

Attorneys and Law Firms

Appearances: Marilyn J. Kamm, Attorney at Law, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Eric A. Ringsmuth, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Stephen J. Cox, Acting Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Terrell and Beach, Judges.

SUMMARY DISPOSITION

*1 Angelo Joseph appeals the superior court's dismissal of his amended second post-conviction relief application.¹ In this second post-conviction relief application, Joseph claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel from both his trial attorney and his first post-conviction relief attorney.² Specifically, Joseph alleged that his first post-conviction relief attorney, who was appointed from the Alaska Public Defender Agency, had a conflict of interest because Joseph's trial attorney had previously been employed by the Public Defender Agency.

The superior court granted the State's motion to dismiss Joseph's second post-conviction relief application for failure to state a prima facie claim after concluding that his first post-conviction relief attorney did not have a per se conflict of interest under Nelson v. State.³ The court found that the pleadings established that by the time the first post-conviction relief attorney entered an appearance in Joseph's case, Joseph's trial attorney was no longer employed by the Public Defender Agency.⁴ The court further found that Joseph failed to allege any facts establishing that there was a conflict of interest or that, if such conflict existed, it actually affected his first post-conviction relief attorney's representation.⁵

*2 On appeal, Joseph argues that he alleged a prima facie claim that his first post-conviction relief attorney had a conflict of interest.⁶ Joseph contends that the gap between his trial attorney leaving the agency and the entry of appearance of his first post-conviction relief attorney should not be dispositive of the conflict-of-interest issue. He urges this Court to extend Nelson's per se conflict-of-interest rule to include situations where two attorneys were at any time concurrently employed by the Public Defender Agency.⁷

But we have previously declined to extend Nelson beyond its limited scope, and we decline to do so again here.⁸ Joseph otherwise failed to plead a prima facie claim that his first post-conviction relief attorney had a conflict of interest.

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.

Footnotes

1

This Court previously addressed Joseph's claims on direct appeal and affirmed the superior court's denial of his first post-conviction relief application. See Joseph v. State, 293 P.3d 488, 493 (Alaska App. 2012) (remanding for the superior court to amend its judgment to reflect that Joseph's two counts of second-degree sexual assault merged into a conviction for first-degree sexual assault, but otherwise affirming the superior court's judgment); Joseph v. State, 2020 WL 9175675, at *1-2 (Alaska App. Nov. 25, 2020) (unpublished summary disposition).

2

See Grinols v. State, 10 P.3d 600, 620 (Alaska App. 2000) (holding that a criminal defendant may file a second post-conviction relief application challenging the effectiveness of their attorney in their first post-conviction relief proceeding).

3

Nelson v. State, 440 P.3d 240, 246 (Alaska 2019) (holding that a public defender has a per se conflict of interest when the petitioner raises a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel against another public defender working in the same office).

4

See LaBrake v. State, 152 P.3d 474, 480 (Alaska App. 2007) (explaining that, in considering a motion to dismiss, the superior court must treat all of the well-pleaded assertions of fact in the petition as true, and then decide whether these assertions of fact, if ultimately proved, would entitle the petitioner to post-conviction relief).

5

See State v. Carlson, 440 P.3d 364, 383-85 (Alaska App. 2019) (providing that prejudice is presumed when raising a conflict-of-interest claim only if the defendant demonstrates that the attorney had an “actual conflict” and that, because of this conflict, the attorney acted against the defendant's interests).

6

Joseph does not challenge the superior court's dismissal of his application on any alternative ground, so he has waived any such claims on appeal. See, e.g., Petersen v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 803 P.2d 406, 411 (Alaska 1990) (issues not briefed are waived).

7

Applying the per se rule in Joseph's case would also require us to extend the rule to cases in which two assistant public defenders do not work in the same geographic location. See Nelson, 440 P.3d at 246 n.23 (“We do not preclude the possibility that a public defender may have a conflict of interest based on the representation by a public defender in a different geographic location. On the case before us, however, we are not prepared to apply the per se rule to the Public Defender Agency statewide.”).

8

See Blair v. State, 2023 WL 234326, at *8-11 (Alaska App. Jan. 18, 2023) (unpublished) (concluding the per se rule from Nelson did not apply where the court reappointed Blair's former public defender to represent him after Blair decided mid-trial to represent himself but then changed his mind); Jenkins v. State, 2025 WL 3537555, at *1 (Alaska App. Dec. 10, 2025) (unpublished summary disposition) (rejecting Jenkin's claim that there was per se conflict of interest under Nelson where any potential conflict was resolved by the time his attorney was assigned).

End of Document