Gov. Bill Walker has named a local attorney to replace Judge Keith Levy on the Juneau District Court bench. Kirsten Swanson was named Tuesday in a decision announced by email.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleased to appoint Kirsten Swanson to the Juneau District Court,\u201d Walker said in a prepared statement. \u201cServing in Alaska\u2019s judicial branch requires deep knowledge of the law and respect for the many different cultures and backgrounds in our state. Kirsten\u2019s vast experience as both a public and private attorney gives her a perspective that will serve Southeast Alaska well, and make her an excellent addition to our court system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Alaska Judicial Council had suggested magistrate judge Michael Franciosi and Juneau attorney Julie Willoughby as additional options, but Walker selected Swanson instead.<\/p>\n
According to a survey of Alaska Bar Association members conducted by the Judicial Council, Swanson had the highest overall rating (4.4 on a 5.0 scale) among the 10 people who initially applied for the post.<\/p>\n
Juneau city attorney Amy Mead, not recommended by the Judicial Council, scored a 3.7, Willoughby had a 4.0, Franciosi was rated a 4.3, and Juneau defense attorney Kevin Higgins received a 4.0.<\/p>\n
Swanson, who has a small office in a house on Harris Street where she defends Alaskans in criminal cases, received her law degree from Gonzaga in 1995. She previously served in the U.S. Army as a Judge Advocate General and in the Alaska Public Defender\u2019s Office in Juneau.<\/p>\n
In a statement provided to the Judicial Council, Swanson said she has traveled extensively overseas and enjoys \u201ccamping in remote locations and meeting new people. I especially enjoy travel to Africa, New Zealand and Iceland where the people are fascinating and the landscape is rugged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Levy announced his retirement in April, effective Oct. 31.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Correction:<\/strong> The initial version of this story gave the incorrect rating for Michael Franciosi. It is 4.3 out of a 5-point scale, not 3.7.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gov. Bill Walker has named a local attorney to replace Judge Keith Levy on the Juneau District Court bench. Kirsten Swanson was named Tuesday in a decision announced by email. \u201cI am pleased to appoint Kirsten Swanson to the Juneau District Court,\u201d Walker said in a prepared statement. \u201cServing in Alaska\u2019s judicial branch requires deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":11224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11223"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}