Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

In an unprecedented move, Alaska voters have ousted a judge who signed off on a controversial plea deal that let a man serve only one year of home confinement for choking and masturbating on an Alaska Native woman.

Voters on Tuesday opted to not retain Superior Court Judge Michael Corey, who oversaw the assault sentencing of 34-year-old Justin Schneider.

Schneider in September pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison. With credit for time served in home confinement, he walked out of the plea hearing a free man.

Police say in August 2017, Schneider, an air traffic controller and a married father of two, offered a ride home to a female hitchhiker at a gas station in Anchorage.

He told her his name was 'Dan' and agreed to drive her to the town of Muldoon. They had never met before, she told police.

She got into the car and they drove off but stopped at a construction site nearby instead of the town where he had promised to take her.

He asked her to get out of the car then, and 'full on tackled' her, according to charging documents.

As he choked her, Schneider told the victim that he was going to kill her. She lost consciousness thinking that she was about to die, the documents say.

When she woke up, he was zipping up his pants. He had masturbated on her and offered her a tissue to clean it up with.

'The man told her that he wasn't really going to kill her, that he needed her to believe she was going to die so that he could be sexually fulfilled,' his arrest affidavit states.

She saved the tissue and gave it to police afterwards. She also told them his license plate number.

Schneider initially faced up to 99 years behind bars, but prosecutors said they could not prove kidnapping because the victim got into the man's car willingly and that the plea deal followed the law.

In court in September, prosecutor Andrew Grannik said: 'I would like the gentleman to be on notice that that is his one pass - it's not really a pass - but given the conduct, one might consider that it is.'

Because Schneider had no past criminal record, sentencing guidelines for a felony B assault are between zero and two years.

Judge Corey acknowledged the sentence was light but deferred to prosecutors on what could be proven.

Part of his reasoning was that Schneider 'would not be in jail for the rest of his life even if he had been convicted on all counts' despite the 99-year maximum sentence that applies to kidnapping.

The shockingly lenient sentence prompted sexual assault survivor Elizabeth Williams to launch a grassroots campaign called No More Free Passes, asking voters to oust Judge Corey from the bench.

'Alaskans deserve more than the status quo. Alaskans deserve better than sloppy plea deals and "free passes" for violence,' a post on the campaign's Facebook page read on Tuesday morning.

Three Alaska gubernatorial candidates expressed disgust with Schneider's sentence ahead of the midterm elections.

Incumbent Governor Bill Walker called the crime and sentence 'terrible,' and blamed the outcome of the case on a 'loophole' in the state's sex offense laws.

As KTVA first reported, Corey defended himself in a video message shared on Facebook before the election, saying his hands were tied.

Corey was elected to the bench in 2014 and the Alaska Judicial Council recommended him, along with every other judge, on the ballot for retention.

'We judges must follow the law, even when that produces a result that we strongly dislike,' he said.

Since the Council began evaluating judges for retention in 1976, voters have never before rejected a judge recommended for retention.

In the wake of Tuesday's vote, Williams thanked voters for making history by unseating Corey 'by a popular consensus.'

Her Facebook message then took a conciliatory tone, stating that going forward, she and her supporters will no longer be discussing Corey.

'I believe his family and friends when they tell me he is a great man, husband, and father,' she wrote. 'He deserves privacy and peace during this time. We wish him nothing but the best in his future.

'From here on out, we will be focused on legislative advocacy and holding the department of law accountable for their handling of sex crimes. Voting out a judge was the easy part-now the hard work begins to make lasting change.'

Under state law, Corey is prohibited from seeking a judgeship for four years. The Alaska Judicial Council will be in charge of finding a replacement for him - a process that could take up to eight months.

Governor-elect Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, will be tasked with appointing one of the nominees presented to him by the Council after public hearings, background checks and interviews.