Cody Dylan Riggs v. State of Alaska

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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA

CODY DYLAN RIGGS,
Court of Appeals No. A-14069
Appellant, Trial Court No. 3AN-20-08967 CR

v.
OPINION
STATE OF ALASKA,

Appellee. No. 2816 — October 3, 2025

Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District,
Anchorage, Eric A. Aarseth, Judge.

Appearances: Quinlan Steiner, Attorney at Law, under contract
with the Public Defender Agency, and Terrence Haas, Public
Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. RuthAnne Beach,
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals,
Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for
the Appellee.

Before: Wollenberg, Harbison, and Terrell, Judges.

Judge WOLLENBERG.

In August 2021, Cody Dylan Riggs was on pretrial release, subject to
house arrest with GPS electronic monitoring by Alaska Defendant Monitoring (ADM),
a private monitoring company. Riggs was authorized to leave his residence under
certain circumstances, including for work, if he received verified work passes from
ADM.
Over the course of four days in August 2021, Riggs’s GPS ankle monitor
indicated that, on several occasions, he was in unauthorized locations. The State
charged Riggs with one count of third-degree escape for leaving his residence without
permission while on pretrial house arrest.1 Riggs claimed at his trial that he had received
prior authorization for his whereabouts on those days. A jury convicted him as charged.
Riggs appeals his conviction, raising two claims.
First, Riggs argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his
conviction because, while the court ordered him to house arrest, the court delegated the
approval of his specific address to ADM. Riggs notes that the third-degree escape
statute prohibits a person from leaving the residence “designated by a judicial officer”
as a condition of release, and he contends that he is not guilty of third-degree escape
because his specific address was not “designated” by a judicial officer.2
But having reviewed the legislative history of the third-degree escape
statute, we conclude that liability for third-degree escape under AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B)
for “leav[ing] one’s residence” does not turn on whether the court personally approved
the specific address at which the defendant would reside, but rather turns on whether
the court ordered the defendant to remain at a residence on house arrest.3 We therefore
reject Riggs’s claim.

1
AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B). A person commits third-degree escape under this provision
if the person, “while on release under AS 12.30, [and] without prior authorization, leaves
[their] residence or other place designated by a judicial officer as a condition of release.”
2
Id.
3
Although Riggs’s case was prosecuted under the portion of AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B)
precluding a person on release from “leav[ing] one’s residence” without prior
authorization, we note that this same statutory provision also applies to leaving another

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Second, Riggs argues that the superior court erred in refusing to instruct
the jury on his proposed lesser included offense, violating conditions of release.4 The
superior court denied this requested instruction, ruling that because there was no
element distinguishing the charged offense (third-degree escape) from the proposed
lesser included offense (violating conditions of release) under the facts of Riggs’s case,
there was no set of circumstances under which the jury could find Riggs guilty of
violating conditions of release without also finding him guilty of escape. We conclude
that the superior court did not err in so ruling.
Accordingly, we affirm Riggs’s conviction.

Underlying facts and procedural history
In November 2020, Cody Dylan Riggs was arrested and charged with
several criminal offenses. The court subsequently released Riggs on house arrest with
electronic monitoring and supervision by Alaska Defendant Monitoring (ADM).
In May 2021, Riggs filed a request for a subsequent bail review hearing,
requesting, inter alia, approval to leave his residence to go to work. The court approved
the request and set a specific schedule for when Riggs could leave his residence to go
to work. That month, Riggs began working at Eagle Automotive.
In June 2021, Riggs filed a request to modify his work schedule. Riggs
asked the court to release him from the work schedule previously approved by the court
and instead allow ADM to approve his requests to leave his residence “for verified
work,” as needed. The court approved Riggs’s request in July 2021. The court order
required that Riggs remain under house arrest “at a residence determined by ADM,”

“place designated by a judicial officer as a condition of release,” without prior
authorization.
4
AS 11.56.757(a).

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but granted him permission to leave the residence at the discretion of ADM for verified
work.
Riggs signed a contract with ADM outlining the terms of his monitoring.
Under this contract, Riggs was confined to his residence from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
with some exceptions, including court appearances, meetings with counsel, and
“[p]eriod[s] during which [he was] at a location ordered by the court for purposes of
employment.” Even if he left his residence for these permissible purposes, Riggs was
required to give at least twenty-four hours’ notice and obtain approval from ADM. After
8:00 p.m., Riggs was subject to a nighttime curfew, under which he was precluded from
departing his approved residence for any reason other than to receive emergency
medical care.
The contract provided that, if Riggs was employed, he would submit a
weekly work schedule to ADM in advance of the week. If he needed to work outside of
those pre-approved hours, Riggs would need to contact ADM for permission prior to
any departure from his residence. Riggs could do this by calling or texting ADM, even
after normal work hours. The contract stated that Riggs was required “to go directly to
the place(s) authorized and return directly to [his] approved residence.”
Riggs acknowledged, as part of the contract, that any unauthorized
departure from his residence or failure to return to his residence after an authorized
departure would be considered a violation and could result in termination of electronic
monitoring. The contract also informed Riggs that he could be charged with felony
escape if, while on house arrest, he was not in his residence or on an approved pass.
From February 2021 (when Riggs originally signed the ADM contract)
through most of August of that year, Riggs’s house arrest proceeded without incident.
Pursuant to court order and his monitoring contract with ADM, Riggs submitted a
weekly work schedule to ADM and received approval if he needed to work outside
those hours.

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The events at issue in this case took place over the course of several days,
from August 22 to August 25, 2021.
Late in the evening on August 22, Riggs’s GPS monitor indicated that he
stayed late at Eagle Automotive after his approved work hours. He then drove to a
different address, which was not an approved address or workplace.
The next day, August 23, Riggs returned to Eagle Automotive late in the
evening, after his authorized work hours.
On August 24, Glenn Hamby, the ADM employee supervising Riggs,
texted Riggs, asking him to come to the ADM office for an in-person meeting about his
presence at unapproved locations. Riggs did not appear for that meeting.
That same day, Riggs went to his mother’s house, where he was planning
to move (but which was not an approved address). That night, he again stayed late at
Eagle Automotive.
The next afternoon, August 25, Riggs drove from his residence to
McDonald’s and back home. He then drove to another address, which was not an
approved work address, but which Riggs claimed Eagle Automotive was moving to.
Later that night, after his approved work hours, Riggs went back to Eagle Automotive.
The next day, August 26, Hamby drove to Riggs’s residence to remand
him into custody because Riggs had not responded to his request to come into the office.
Hamby knew that Riggs was at home because his GPS monitor showed that he was
there. Riggs testified that, although he was home, he did not hear Hamby knocking.
Hamby sent Riggs a text message telling him that ADM was at his residence to remand
him into custody. About twenty or thirty minutes later, Riggs replied that he was
reporting to the ADM office. Riggs went to the ADM office and was remanded into
custody for violating his conditions of release.

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Riggs was indicted on one count of third-degree escape,5 which was added
to the other charges in his underlying criminal case.
The escape charge was severed from the other charges. Riggs first
proceeded to a jury trial on the earlier charges, and he was acquitted of those offenses.
Riggs then proceeded to trial on the escape charge.
At trial, the primary issue was whether Riggs had (or reasonably believed
that he had) permission for all of his deviations from his approved work schedule that
took place from August 22-25 or whether these were without prior authorization. The
State introduced the court’s bail order, Riggs’s electronic monitoring contact with
ADM, and a log of Riggs’s GPS locations over the relevant days. Hamby testified that
Riggs had not asked for or received permission to be at Eagle Automotive outside of
pre-approved work hours or to visit the other addresses outside home or work. He
testified that he could have arrested Riggs for a violation after the first time Riggs went
to an unapproved location, but he chose to summon Riggs for an in-person meeting to
give him an opportunity to explain his visits to other addresses; Riggs failed to appear
for that meeting.
Riggs, on the other hand, largely testified that he had received permission
to go everywhere that he went over those four days.6 Riggs acknowledged that Hamby
had asked him to report to the ADM office on August 24, but he did not show up to the
meeting.

5
AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B).
6
With respect to his late-night visit to Eagle Automotive on August 23, 2021, Riggs
testified that there had been a break-in at the shop and Anchorage Police Department
officers called him to that location. Riggs testified that he thought the officers had the
authority to summon him to Eagle Automotive outside of his regular work hours.
With respect to his visit to McDonald’s on August 25, Riggs did not offer an
explanation for this visit in his testimony.

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After the close of the defense case, the parties discussed jury instructions.
The superior court agreed to give a factual unanimity instruction to the jury. In the
instruction, the court noted that the State had presented evidence of more than one event
that could support the escape charge and directed the jurors that they had to be
unanimous as to the specific act or acts that the State had proven beyond a reasonable
doubt.
Riggs asked the court to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of
violating conditions of release.7 The superior court ruled that this offense was not a
lesser included offense of escape in Riggs’s case, and therefore declined to provide the
requested instruction.
In closing, the State argued that Riggs knew he was not at his residence at
the required times and that he recklessly disregarded the fact that he did not have prior
authorization to leave his residence. Defense counsel argued that Riggs believed he had
permission or authorization and, although he “made a detour on the way home” at one
point, he did not act recklessly with respect to the lack of prior authorization.
The jury convicted Riggs of one count of third-degree escape.

Why we reject Riggs’s sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim
Riggs was convicted under the subsection of the third-degree escape
statute that reads: “One commits the crime of escape in the third degree if one . . . while
on release under AS 12.30, [and] without prior authorization, leaves one’s residence or
other place designated by a judicial officer as a condition of release.”8 At issue on appeal
is the meaning of the phrase “residence . . . designated by a judicial officer,” as used in
the third-degree escape statute. Riggs contends that the statute requires a judicial officer

7
AS 11.56.757(a).
8
AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B).

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to designate the specific address at which the defendant will reside, and he notes that in
his case, the court delegated the approval of his specific residence to ADM. Riggs
argues that, because there was no evidence that his specific residence was designated
by a judicial officer, there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for third-
degree escape.9
Whether the State was required to prove that Riggs’s specific address was
designated by a judicial officer, or whether this language required only that the judicial
officer order Riggs to house arrest (with approval of the specific residence being
delegated to the monitoring agency), is a question of statutory interpretation.
When we engage in statutory interpretation, we examine the plain
language of the statute, the legislative history, and the legislative purpose of the

9
The State contends that Riggs invited any error because he asked the court to release
him to ADM supervision. But the State mischaracterizes Riggs’s argument. As Riggs notes
in his reply brief, he is not arguing that the court lacked the authority to delegate the
designation of his residence to ADM. Rather, his argument is that, because of this
delegation, his violations do not constitute felony escape but instead constitute only the
misdemeanor offense of violating conditions of release. The invited error doctrine therefore
does not apply to Riggs’s claim. See Frankson v. State, 282 P.3d 1271, 1273 (Alaska App.
2012) (explaining that an error of the trial court is invited if the error was made “at the
request of the party claiming error on appeal”).
We note, however, that although Riggs frames his claim as a challenge to the
sufficiency of the evidence based on the statutory phrase “designated by a judicial officer,”
this language was not included in such terms in the jury instruction defining the elements
of the escape offense. Consistent with the statutory language, Riggs originally proposed a
jury instruction requiring the jury to find, inter alia, that Riggs “knowingly left his
residence or other place designated by a judicial officer.” In contrast, the State proposed
an instruction that, as to this element, required the jury to find only that Riggs “knowingly
left his designated residence” — without any reference to the fact that this designation
needed to be “by a judicial officer.” The superior court ultimately accepted the State’s
version of this element, without objection. And Riggs never argued that the court’s order
to remain on house arrest at an address approved by ADM did not constitute a sufficient
“designation” for purposes of the statute. It is therefore not clear that, even if Riggs
prevailed on this claim, he would be entitled to a judgment of acquittal. See our discussion
of an analogous issue in Burton-Hill v. State, 569 P.3d 1, 12 (Alaska App. 2025).

–8– 2816
statute.10 Alaska has “rejected a mechanical application of the plain meaning rule in
favor of a sliding scale approach” to statutory interpretation. 11 Under this approach,
“[T]he plainer the language of the statute, the more convincing any contrary legislative
history must be.”12 Ultimately, however, our role is to “ascertain the legislature’s intent
and then to construe the statute so as to implement that intent.”13 We avoid construing
statutes in a manner that would lead to patently absurd results or undermine the
legislative purpose of the statute.14
Riggs relies on the plain language of the statute, which precludes a person
from leaving their residence or other place “designated by a judicial officer.” But this
language is ambiguous: must the court designate the specific address at which the
defendant will reside, or is it sufficient for the court to order the defendant to remain at
any residence (if approved by the monitoring agency)?
The statute’s legislative history does not directly address this question.
But the overall purpose of the statute and the practicalities of administering pretrial
release undermine Riggs’s claim.
The relevant provision of the third-degree escape statute — i.e., the
provision related to pretrial release — was enacted in 2019 as part of House Bill 49, an
omnibus crime bill.15 The full provision provides that a person commits third-degree

10
Green v. State, 541 P.3d 1137, 1143 (Alaska App. 2023) (citing Alaska Trustee,
LLC v. Bachmeier, 332 P.3d 1, 7 (Alaska 2014)).

11
Id. (quoting Peninsula Mktg. Ass’n v. State, 817 P.2d 917, 922 (Alaska 1991)).
12
Id. at 1143-44 (quoting Peninsula Mktg. Ass’n, 817 P.2d at 922).
13
Brown v. State, 404 P.3d 191, 193 (Alaska App. 2017) (quoting Williams v. State,
2015 WL 4599554, at *3 (Alaska App. July 29, 2015) (unpublished)).
14
Williams v. State, 853 P.2d 537, 538 (Alaska App. 1993).
15
FSSLA 2019, ch. 4, § 35. Other pre-existing provisions of the third-degree escape
statute preclude (1) a person from removing themselves from official detention during any

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escape if, while on release under AS 12.30, the person “removes, tampers with, or
disables the electronic monitoring equipment,” or (as relevant here), the person
“without prior authorization, leaves [their] residence or other place designated by a
judicial officer as a condition of release.”16 Before this provision was enacted, a person
on pretrial release who tampered with their electronic monitoring device or left their
residence without permission while on house arrest committed the crime of violating
conditions of release, a class B misdemeanor.17 As Riggs acknowledges, House Bill 49
elevated this conduct from the misdemeanor crime of violating conditions of release to
the new class C felony set out in the third-degree escape statute.18
An early sectional analysis of the bill explained that the new provision
would “make[] it a class C felony if the person is on conditions of release before trial
and ordered to electronic monitoring or house arrest by the court and the person
removes the electronic monitoring device or leaves one’s residence without
permission.”19 During the session, representatives of the Department of Law explained

lawful movement incident to confinement in a correctional facility for a misdemeanor, or
(2) committing unlawful evasion and leaving, or attempting to leave, the state.
AS 11.56.320(a)(1)-(2). In 2019, in House Bill 49, the legislature added the pretrial release
provision at issue in this case, along with a provision precluding a person “under official
detention for a misdemeanor” from (1) removing or tampering with electronic monitoring
equipment, or (2) leaving a residence or other place designated by the commissioner of
corrections or health and social services for service by electronic monitoring, without prior
authorization. AS 11.56.320(a)(3)-(4).
16
AS 11.56.320(a)(4).
17
See former AS 11.56.757 (pre-July 2019 version). House Bill 49 elevated the crime
of violating conditions of release to a class A misdemeanor if the person was on release for
a felony. FSSLA 2019, ch. 4, § 38 (adding AS 11.56.757(b)(1)). It remains a class B
misdemeanor for a person on release for a misdemeanor. AS 11.56.757(b)(2).
18
See AS 11.56.320(a)(4); Audio of House Judiciary Committee, H.B. 49, statement
of Deputy Attorney General Robert Henderson, at 1:50 p.m. - 1:52 p.m. (Mar. 25, 2019).
19
Sectional Analysis for H.B. 49, prepared for the House Judiciary Committee
(Feb. 20, 2019), at 1. A later bill summary more closely tracked the statutory language,

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to the legislature that the provision was intended to increase the use of electronic
monitoring, while ensuring that there was a substantial penalty, and thus a significant
deterrent, for abusing or tampering with the monitor.20
There is no indication in the legislative history that a specific address, as
opposed to house arrest in general, needs to be preapproved by the court. Nor is there
any indication that the legislature intended to elevate violations of house arrest from a
misdemeanor to a felony based on the technical line that Riggs’s interpretation draws.
Indeed, the legislative history of the bill as a whole — including the
original letter from the Governor transmitting the bill to the legislature and the
legislature’s statement of intent — highlights that one of the purposes of House Bill 49
was to find efficiencies in the criminal justice system.21 Riggs’s construction of the
statute would undermine this purpose by requiring a defendant to return to court every
time they sought to change addresses.

stating that the revised escape statute would make it a class C felony to “tamper or remove
an electronic monitoring device or leave one’s residence or other place designated by a
court as a condition of release before trial.” Bill Summary for C.S.H.B. 49, Version E,
prepared by the Department of Law for the House Finance Committee (May 2019), at 2.
The provision, as initially proposed by the Governor, remained unchanged through its final
enactment. Compare C.S.H.B. 49, 31st Legislature, 1st Session, Version E (as introduced
by the Senate Finance Committee, May 13, 2019), § 35, with AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B).
20
Audio of House Finance Committee, H.B. 49, statement of Criminal Division
Director John Skidmore, at 12:36 p.m. - 12:39 p.m. (May 4, 2019); see also Audio of House
Judiciary Committee, H.B. 49, statement of Deputy Attorney General Robert Henderson,
at 1:52 p.m. - 1:54 p.m. (Mar. 25, 2019).
The escape statute does not require that a defendant be on electronic monitoring in
order to violate the house arrest provision under AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B) — although, as a
practical matter, defendants often are.
21
Transmittal Letter from Governor Dunleavy regarding H.B. 49 (Jan. 22, 2019) (“[I]t
is critical that our criminal justice system is evaluated to improve processes and find
efficiencies.”); FSSLA 2019, ch. 4, § 1 (“It is the intent of the legislature that the Alaska
Court System, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Public Safety make
continued efforts to find efficiencies in the criminal justice system[.]”).

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Certainly, a court could elect to specify an address for house arrest. But it
is common for this responsibility to be delegated to a monitoring agency like ADM or
the Department of Corrections’s Pretrial Enforcement Division, which is able to visit
and evaluate the residence. Requiring a judicial officer to approve a specific address in
order for felony-level penalties to apply would therefore also undermine another focus
of the provision and the bill — community safety — since a judicial officer, unlike a
monitoring agency, cannot visit each proposed residence.
Riggs claims that the intent of the legislature was to “distinguish judicially
designated house arrest from violating conditions of release where a judicial officer sets
any other condition of release, including following the directions of a monitoring
entity.” But the legislative history shows that the intent was to increase the use of
electronic monitoring by increasing the deterrents for tampering with an ankle monitor
or leaving house arrest without permission. The distinction was between house arrest
and other types of release conditions — not between house arrest when the address is
set by the judge and house arrest when the address is set by the monitoring agency.
Ultimately, we are obliged to construe statutes in a manner that avoids
patently absurd results or that would defeat the obvious legislative purpose of a statute.22
Here, the key is not that the judicial officer has approved a specific address, but that the
judicial officer has designated that a person remain on house arrest at any residence
(subject to approval of the residence by the monitoring agency). There is nothing in the
legislative history to suggest that the legislature was trying to change the logistics or
practice with respect to electronic monitoring release or to limit felony escape to those
narrow circumstances in which the judge directly reviewed and approved a residential
address.
We therefore conclude that the evidence showing that the court ordered
Riggs to house arrest, while delegating the determination of Riggs’s specific address to

22
Williams v. State, 853 P.2d 537, 538 (Alaska App. 1993).

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ADM, constituted a sufficient judicial “designation” of the residence for purposes of
third-degree escape under AS 11.56.320(a)(4)(B). Accordingly, we reject Riggs’s claim
that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction.

Why we uphold the superior court’s rejection of Riggs’s request for a
lesser included offense instruction on violating conditions of release
Riggs’s second claim is that the superior court erred in refusing to instruct
the jury on his proposed lesser included offense of violating conditions of release.
After the close of evidence, Riggs asked the court to instruct the jury on
the offense of violating conditions of release.23 A person commits the crime of violating
conditions of release “if the person (1) has been charged with a crime or convicted of a
crime; (2) has been released under AS 12.30; and (3) violates a condition of release
imposed by a judicial officer under AS 12.30” (other than the requirement to appear).24
The court expressed concern about Riggs’s proposal. The court suggested
that, under the facts of this case, there was no way to distinguish the two offenses —
i.e., there were no grounds for the jury to acquit Riggs of escape but convict him of
violating conditions of release.25

23
AS 11.56.757.
24
AS 11.56.757(a).
25
The court also initially noted that, as compared to the escape statute, the offense of
violating conditions of release contained an additional element — that Riggs had been
charged with a crime — and the State had not introduced evidence that Riggs had been
charged with a crime. The court acknowledged that, as a practical matter, a defendant
would not be on bail release (an element of escape) without having been charged with a
crime. (There is an exception to this general rule: a material witness may be released or
detained under the provisions of AS 12.30.011. See AS 12.30.050.) Riggs offered to
stipulate to the element of violating conditions of release that he had been charged with a
crime, but the State opposed this proposal. The superior court ultimately moved on to
another issue and did not rest its denial of the violating conditions of release instruction on
the additional requirement that Riggs had been charged with a crime. We conclude that,

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The court asked Riggs’s attorney to explain the subset of facts that would
establish violating conditions of release without also establishing third-degree escape.
In response, defense counsel maintained that Riggs believed he had permission to be at
work at the times he was there (and thus, did not recklessly disregard his lack of prior
authorization); he therefore could not be found guilty of escape for those incidents. He
argued that, in other instances, where the State alleged that Riggs had made an
unauthorized stop on the way home from work, the jury could find that these incidents
were mere “deviations” that constituted violating conditions of release but did not
constitute third-degree escape for leaving one’s residence.
The superior court rejected these arguments and concluded that there was
no distinction between third-degree escape and violating conditions of release under the
facts in Riggs’s case. The court stated that the State’s theory of the case was an “all-or-
nothing argument” — any deviation from Riggs’s approved work schedule was an
escape because he was supposed to go directly to and from work and otherwise be at
his residence. The court therefore denied Riggs’s request for an instruction on the
offense of violating conditions of release.
Riggs now challenges the superior court’s denial of his requested
instruction.
Under Alaska’s cognate approach to lesser included offenses, a defendant
is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction when, based on the evidence presented
at trial, a conviction of the charged offense would be inconsistent with acquittal of a
lesser offense, and there is a disputed element that distinguishes the charged offense

under the facts of this case (where Riggs was clearly charged with a crime and released on
bail), this would not be a basis to distinguish the two offenses.

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from the lesser offense.26 The evidence must “support a reasonable conclusion that the
defendant is guilty of only the lesser offense and not the charged offense.”27
Under the facts of Riggs’s case, third-degree escape was an enhanced
version of violating conditions of release. A person commits the offense of violating
conditions of release when they violate any condition of their release (other than the
requirement to appear).28 In amending the third-degree escape statute in 2019, the
legislature chose to elevate the violation of particular conditions of release to a felony.
Because Riggs was only charged with violating one of these particular conditions of
release — i.e., leaving his residence without prior authorization while on pretrial house
arrest — there is no way that he could be found guilty of third-degree escape without
also being found guilty of violating conditions of release.
At the same time, however, under the evidence and theories presented,
there was no basis for a juror to find that Riggs was guilty of only the lesser offense and
not the charged offense. Indeed, the jury instruction on violating conditions of release
that Riggs proposed was not meaningfully different from the instruction on third-degree
escape given by the superior court.
The legislature is ultimately responsible for determining the classification
and penalties for a given offense. Unless Riggs disputed a fact that elevated violating

26
Moore v. State, 740 P.2d 472, 473-74 (Alaska App. 1987).
27
Geisinger v. State, 498 P.3d 92, 103 (Alaska App. 2021) (emphasis added); see also
Wilson v. State, 670 P.2d 1149, 1151 (Alaska App. 1983) (recognizing that, to be entitled
to a lesser included offense instruction, there must be “some evidence which could lead a
reasonable jury to find that the element which distinguishes the greater offense from the
lesser has not been proved”).
28
AS 11.56.757.

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conditions of release to escape (e.g., that the court ordered him to house arrest), there
was nothing to distinguish these offenses.29
On appeal, Riggs’s arguments in support of the instruction on violating
conditions of release are relatively conclusory. As best we can tell, he appears to be
renewing the arguments he raised in the superior court. That is, we interpret Riggs to
be arguing that (1) as to the incidents where he was alleged to have left directly from
his residence without permission, the jury could conclude that he was not reckless with
respect to his lack of prior authorization to do so, and (2) as to the incidents where he
was alleged to have deviated from his approved route between work and home without
permission, these incidents did not constitute “leaving one’s residence” but merely
constituted violating conditions of release.30
Riggs’s arguments implicate an underlying legal issue: whether the escape
statute includes mere “deviations” from the approved route to and from an authorized
workplace if the defendant otherwise had permission to leave their residence, or if the
statute is limited to those situations in which a defendant actually departs (i.e., “leaves”)
their residence without prior authorization. Any deviation from the approved route
would clearly violate Riggs’s signed contract with ADM, which provided that he would
go directly to and from his workplace. It would seemingly also violate the court’s bail

29
The third-degree escape statute is not the only instance in which the legislature has
chosen to elevate a particular form of a misdemeanor offense to a greater felony offense.
For example, the unsworn falsification statutes present an analogous situation. Second-
degree unsworn falsification is elevated from a misdemeanor to the class C felony of first-
degree unsworn falsification when the application on which a person submits a false written
or recorded statement is an application for a permanent fund dividend. Compare
AS 11.56.205 with AS 11.56.210.
30
Riggs also argues that the jury could find that he had “prior authorization under the
escape statute but violated his conditions of release by not adhering to ADM’s flexible
approval process.” It is not clear what Riggs means by this, or what incidents he is referring
to, and he did not raise this argument nor draw out these distinctions in his argument before
the superior court. To the extent Riggs is raising this as a separate argument, it is waived.

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order, which required Riggs to be on house arrest and authorized him to leave the
residence only for limited purposes, including work. But Riggs appears to argue that a
deviation from an approved route would not constitute “leav[ing] one’s residence”
within the meaning of the escape statute.
To the extent Riggs is raising this argument, we question it. While the
plain language of the escape statute suggests that it is limited to situations in which a
person exited their residence or “other place” (e.g., workplace) at a time when they had
no prior authorization to do so, this is an overly formalistic interpretation of the statute,
and we doubt it was the legislature’s intention for this provision to be read so narrowly.
As we have explained, the legislative intent in enacting the new third-degree escape
provision was to increase the use of electronic monitoring by elevating the penalty for
tampering with one’s electronic monitor and thus increase the community’s comfort
level with this form of release.31 This purpose would not be achieved if the imposition
of felony-level consequences turned on the somewhat arbitrary ground of whether a
person departed their residence at an unauthorized time or for an unauthorized purpose,
or whether the person was engaging in any unauthorized activity or visiting an
unapproved location outside of the home. In both cases, at that moment in time, the
person is away from the home without prior authorization.32
But in any event, we note that there were multiple incidents alleged by the
State which fell within the core meaning of “leaving” one’s residence and did not
constitute the type of mere “deviation” to which Riggs is referring (i.e., making an

31
See Audio of House Finance Committee, H.B. 49, statement of Criminal Division
Director John Skidmore, at 12:36 p.m. - 12:39 p.m. (May 4, 2019).
32
We note, too, that although the superior court deleted the statutory language, “or
other place designated by a judicial officer,” from the jury instruction in this case, the
statute itself is not limited to leaving one’s residence, but also includes leaving any other
judicially designated place without prior authorization.

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unauthorized deviation from a preapproved route).33 In light of these incidents, all
charged in a single count, there was little chance that the jury would convict Riggs of
violating conditions of release, but not escape.34
We therefore reject Riggs’s claim that the superior court erred in rejecting
his request for an instruction on violating conditions of release.

Conclusion
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.

33
For example, the State alleged that, on August 24, 2021, Riggs left his residence
without permission and went to an unauthorized location (his mother’s house); on
August 25, he left his residence without permission and went to another unauthorized
location (the address to which Eagle Automotive was planning to move) and then back
home; and that, again on August 25, he left his residence to go to Eagle Automotive outside
of his authorized hours. These movements are reflected in Exhibit 3, which was a log of
Riggs’s GPS locations over the relevant days in August 2021. Hamby testified that Riggs
did not have authorization for these visits.
Riggs’s visit to McDonald’s on August 25, for which he offered no explanation in
his testimony, also falls into this category. Although defense counsel indicated in her
argument to the superior court that Riggs stopped at McDonald’s on the way home from
work, Exhibit 3 contradicts this claim, reflecting that Riggs went from his home to
McDonald’s and back.
34
See Geisinger v. State, 498 P.3d 92, 103 (Alaska App. 2021) (recognizing that,
under Alaska law, a lesser offense is “included” in a greater offense, given the way the case
was charged and litigated, if, inter alia, “the evidence would support a reasonable
conclusion that the defendant is guilty of only the lesser offense and not the charged
offense”).

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