Katherine Blanche Noatak v. State of Alaska

Opinion

2026 WL 2333177

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NOTICE: UNPUBLISHED OPINION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.

KATHERINE BLANCHE NOATAK, Appellant,

v.

STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.

Court of Appeals No. A-14513

August 12, 2026

Trial Court No. 4BE-16-00640 CR

SUMMARY DISPOSITION

Appeal from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, Bethel, Nathaniel Peters, Judge.

Attorneys and Law Firms

Appearances: Anna Jay, Attorney at Law, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Terrence Haas, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Jessica R. Haines, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions, Anchorage, and Stephen J. Cox, Acting Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.

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

Opinion

Star page 1*1 In 2016, Katherine Blanche Noatak was charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence after she drove her four-wheeler while intoxicated and struck and killed a seventy-six-year-old woman.¹ Noatak entered into a plea agreement with the State in which she pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and the remaining charges were dismissed.² Noatak stipulated to an aggravating factor — that, under AS 12.55.155(c)(10), her conduct was among the most serious within the definition of the offense. The superior court imposed a sentence of 10 years with all but 15 months suspended. Pursuant to the agreement, the court imposed a 5-year term of probation and several probation conditions, including a condition prohibiting Noatak from consuming alcohol.

In the years since Noatak was released to probation, she repeatedly violated the conditions of her probation, resulting in seven petitions to revoke her probation. With respect to each of these petitions, the court found, inter alia, that Noatak violated her probation by consuming alcohol. Each time, the court imposed a sanction, from a requirement to reside at a community residential center while completing treatment to periods of incarceration ranging from 45 days to 230 days.

In the latest petition to revoke probation — Noatak's seventh — the State alleged that Noatak violated her probation conditions by consuming alcohol and by committing the offense of disorderly conduct. Noatak admitted that she had violated the terms of her probation by consuming alcohol, and the State withdrew the remaining allegation. Sentencing was left open to the court.

At disposition, the State asked the court to impose all of Noatak's remaining time, arguing that, while Noatak had at times participated in treatment, she had not meaningfully engaged in or committed to rehabilitation and did not appear willing or able to stop drinking. The probation officer stated that a long period of incarceration was necessary to protect the public, and that she hoped Noatak would complete treatment and achieve sobriety while in custody before continuing on supervision through parole. Defense counsel asked the court to impose 1 year of suspended time and extend probation by 1 year, and to set a deadline for Noatak to complete treatment and aftercare.

The court found that rehabilitation was no longer the primary sentencing goal for Noatak and that its focus had shifted to isolation, followed by deterrence and community condemnation. The court noted that Noatak had repeatedly returned to drinking, despite completing or being in treatment, and found that “at this point in time her actions speak louder than her words.” In particular, the court found that Noatak would continue to drink and that, even if the court followed defense counsel's recommendation, Noatak would soon be facing a new violation. Given Noatak's repeated drinking and her failed attempts at treatment, the court imposed the remainder of Noatak's suspended time, approximately 5 years and 7 months.

Star page 2*2 Noatak now appeals, arguing that her sentence is excessive.

Noatak first argues that that court erred in imposing a maximum term of imprisonment for her underlying offense — 10 years — without making the requisite “worst offender” finding and that a “worst offender” finding is unsupported by the record.³ A worst offender finding may be based on the defendant's history, the criminal offense itself, or both.⁴

Although the court did not expressly find Noatak to be a worst offender, that finding is implicit in the court's comments. The court relied heavily on Noatak's history of repeated probation violations and continued drinking. The court recognized that “if Ms. Noatak's not drinking, she will be a benefit to society,” but found that Noatak had engaged in treatment multiple times and had not been successful. The court expressly found that Noatak's words — stating that she would refrain from alcohol use — “ring hollow for the court and don't really carry any weight.” In short, the court found that, at this point, Noatak had shown no promise of rehabilitation with respect to the root cause of the underlying criminal conduct in this case.

Moreover, we have previously recognized that “[w]here the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser offense and a review of the facts establishes that [the defendant], in fact, committed a greater offense, the court may legitimately find that [the defendant] is a worst offender for purposes of sentencing [the defendant] for the lesser offense.”⁵ As part of her underlying plea agreement, Noatak stipulated that her conduct was among the most serious included within the definition of criminally negligent homicide because, according to the plea agreement, “it approximate[d] the higher level of manslaughter.”

For these reasons, we reject Noatak's claim that the court's implicit worst offender finding is unsupported.

Second, Noatak challenges the court's prioritization of the Chaney criteria.⁶ In particular, Noatak argues that the court erred in finding that rehabilitation was no longer a relevant sentencing factor and that the court gave undue weight to deterrence and isolation.

Star page 3*3 But a sentencing judge has substantial discretion when evaluating the priority and weight to afford the different Chaney criteria under the facts of a particular case.⁷ Here, the court's focus reasonably shifted from rehabilitation to other criteria in light of Noatak's habitual and uncontrolled alcohol use.

At the original sentencing hearing on Noatak's underlying offense, the court expressed concern that Noatak had not internalized the serious impacts of her drinking. The court's sentence at the time focused on rehabilitation, but the court noted that if Noatak did not internalize the real risks of her drinking, she would “just come back, and ... chip away at ... the suspended time.” The court's prediction proved correct. At the disposition hearing on Noatak's fifth petition to revoke probation, the court warned Noatak that its focus on rehabilitation was nearing its end and that future violations might result in the imposition of her remaining suspended time. The court nonetheless did not impose the remainder of Noatak's suspended time upon disposition of the next petition to revoke probation and waited until the seventh petition before imposing Noatak's remaining suspended time.

Having reviewed the record, we conclude that the court could reasonably find at this point that rehabilitation was entitled to significantly less weight than at the time of sentencing on the underlying offense and that increased emphasis on isolation and deterrence called for a lengthy period of incarceration and period of sobriety before Noatak was released on parole. We therefore conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in weighing the Chaney criteria. And having independently reviewed the record, we conclude that the sentence imposed is not clearly mistaken.⁸

Accordingly, the judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.

Footnotes

1

AS 11.41.120(a)(1) and AS 28.35.030(a)(1)-(2), respectively.

2

AS 11.41.130.

3

AS 11.41.130(b) (providing that criminally negligent homicide is a class B felony); AS 12.55.125(d) (setting a 10-year maximum term of imprisonment for a class B felony); see Foley v. State, 9 P.3d 1038, 1041 (Alaska App. 2000) (“Under Alaska law, a sentencing judge must find that a defendant is a ‘worst offender’ before the judge is authorized to sentence the defendant to the maximum term of imprisonment.”).

4

Foley, 9 P.3d at 1041; see also Hintz v. State, 627 P.2d 207, 210 (Alaska 1981) (stating that a “worst offender” is “the worst type of offender ‘within the group of persons committing the offense in question’ ” and that a court evaluating whether a defendant is a worst offender should consider “the manner in which the crime was committed, as well as the character and background of the defendant” (quoting Wilson v. State, 582 P.2d 154, 157 n.3 (Alaska 1978))).

5

Fee v. State, 656 P.2d 1202, 1204 (Alaska App. 1982).

6

State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441, 444 (Alaska 1970); AS 12.55.005 (codifying the goals of sentencing).

7

Evan v. State, 899 P.2d 926, 931 (Alaska App. 1995).

8

See McClain v. State, 519 P.2d 811, 813-14 (Alaska 1974); see also Erickson v. State, 950 P.2d 580, 586 (Alaska App. 1997) (recognizing that the “clearly mistaken” standard of review contemplates that different judges, confronted with identical facts, will differ on what constitutes an appropriate sentence, and that a reviewing court will not modify a sentence that falls within a “permissible range of reasonable sentences” (quoting State v. Wentz, 805 P.2d 962, 965 (Alaska 1991))).

End of Document