Summary
The Alaska Supreme Court held that negotiating a check, without more, did not constitute prohibited contact with the protected person under a no-contact order. The court reversed the probation-violation finding and further held that the defendant lacked sufficient notice that negotiating the check would be treated as prohibited contact.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether negotiating a check written by the protected person constituted prohibited direct or indirect contact under the no-contact condition.
- Whether Pastos had sufficient notice that negotiating the check could be treated as prohibited contact and a criminal violation of a release condition.
Holdings
- The mere act of negotiating a single check, without more, did not constitute prohibited contact with the protected person because the standardized and impersonal banking transaction was not communication.
- Pastos lacked sufficient notice that negotiating the check would be considered prohibited contact under the no-contact order.
Key quotations
“We reverse because the mere act of negotiating a single check, without more, does not constitute "contact" proscribed by a no-contact order.” (194 P.3d at 387)
“Non-physical "contacting" thus has two elements: first, some communication must occur, and second, the alleged violator must know of a substantial probability that communication will occur as a result of a given act.” (194 P.3d at 391-92)
“We conclude that Pastos's act of cashing the check was not "communication" and thus not "contact" with K.Y. as a matter of law.” (194 P.3d at 392)
Factual background
Pastos possessed a $2,000 check that K.Y. had written to him more than three years earlier for work he performed or as a possible gift. After pleading no contest to protective-order violations, Pastos was subject to a no-contact condition while awaiting incarceration and during probation. On the day he was sentenced, he deposited the check, causing K.Y.'s bank account to be overdrawn. The district court treated the transaction as indirect contact and revoked part of Pastos's suspended sentence.
Procedural history
Pastos pleaded no contest to four counts of unlawful contact in the first degree and received consecutive sentences with substantial suspended time and a ten-year no-contact probation condition. After he negotiated a check written by the protected person, the district court found a no-contact violation, revoked part of his suspended sentence, and ordered restitution of the check amount and an overdraft fee. The court of appeals affirmed, and the supreme court reversed both lower-court decisions.