ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Anchorage Assembly will take up an assault definition in city law, which is being tweaked by Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan's legal team to help close a loophole in assault convictions.
Under Alaska state law, if you're convicted of certain types of assault, and then commit another assault as a repeat offender later on, your second charge is automatically upgraded to a felony charge.
But according to state records, a couple of weeks ago prosecutors charged a man with a prior assault conviction with another assault -- but it wasn't classified as a felony.
That's because a local judge ruled in that case that Anchorage's assault law doesn't match up with the state law closely enough, so the city introduced a change to fix the problem at Tuesday night's assembly meeting.
