Clinton Ray Lageson v. State of Alaska

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).
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
CLINTON RAY LAGESON,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF ALASKA,
Appellee.
Court of Appeals No. A-14449
Trial Court No. 3KN-22-00372 CR
SUMMARY DISPOSITION
No. 0491 — July 29, 2026
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Kenai,
Lance Joanis, Judge.
Appearances: Elizabeth D. Friedman, Law Office of Elizabeth
D. Friedman, Prineville, Oregon, under contract with the
Office of Public Advocacy, Anchorage, for the Appellant.
Kayla 	H. 	Doyle, 	Assistant 	Attorney 	General, 	Office 	of
Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Cori M. Mills, Acting
Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Beach,
Judges.
Clinton Ray Lageson was convicted, following a jury trial, of one count
of first-degree burglary and one count of violating a protective order. 1
On appeal, the parties filed a joint motion for limited summary disposition
under Alaska Appellate Rule 214. In the joint motion, the State concedes that Lageson’s
1 	AS 11.46.300(a)(1) and AS 11.56.740(a)(1), respectively.

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burglary conviction must be reversed because the State’s closing argument allowed the
jury to decide the case on an impermissible legal theory. We have reviewed the record,
and we conclude that the State’s concession is well-founded.2
To 	establish 	that 	Lageson 	committed 	first-degree 	burglary 	under
AS 11.46.300(a)(1), the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
Lageson entered or remained unlawfully in a dwelling with the intent to commit a crime
in the dwelling. Under Alaska law, the intended crime element cannot be based on the
same conduct that makes the initial entry unlawful.3
But in Lageson’s case, the prosecutor told the jury in closing argument
that each of these elements could be satisfied by Lageson’s violation of the same
provision of the protective order, without clarifying that the jury could not find that
violation of this provision satisfied both elements simultaneously.4 We agree that this
argument was error and that it permitted the jury to convict Lageson of burglary under
an impermissible legal theory. We also agree with the parties that the error was not
harmless and that it requires reversal of Lageson’s burglary conviction.
The State has separately agreed not to retry Lageson for the burglary
charge and indicated its intent to dismiss this charge with prejudice under Alaska
2 	See Marks v. State, 496 P.2d 66, 67-68 (Alaska 1972) (holding that an appellate
court must independently assess whether the State’s concession of error in a criminal case
is well-founded).
3 	See Pushruk v. State, 780 P.2d 1044, 1048 (Alaska App. 1989) (recognizing that to
prove a defendant guilty of burglary, the State “must show the defendant had the intent to
commit an additional crime at the time his presence on the premises first became unlawful,
i.e., at the time that he first trespassed, entered or remained unlawfully on the premises”
(emphasis added)).
4 	Cf. Lane v. State, 2019 WL 4673556, at *2-3 (Alaska App. Sep. 25, 2019)
(unpublished) (holding that violating a domestic violence protective order can meet the
required elements of a burglary conviction so long as the intended crime is violating a
different provision of the protective order than the provision that makes the entry into the
dwelling unlawful).

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Criminal Rule 43(a). Based on this agreement, the parties further agree that Lageson’s
remaining issues on appeal are moot and need not be addressed by this Court.
Accordingly, because the State’s concession of error is well-founded, we
REVERSE Lageson’s conviction for first-degree burglary, and we REMAND this case
to the superior court for resentencing on the remaining conviction for violating a
protective order.