ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Supreme Court has unanimously selected Dana Fabe as its next chief justice, replacing Chief Justice Walter Carpeneti.
Chief justices serve for three-year-terms, and Fabe’s term will begin on July 1, a day after Carpeneti’s expires June 30. A justice may serve as a chief justice during multiple terms, but those terms may not be consecutive.
Fabe, the first woman to serve on the five-member high court, was appointed in 1996 by then-Gov. Tony Knowles. She has twice served as chief justice, from July 2000 through June 2003 and July 2006 through June 2009.
A last-minute 2010 effort by the group Alaska Family Action aimed to unseat Fabe when she came up for a statewide judicial retention vote, claiming her judicial record was opposed to a majority of Alaskans. The Alaska Judicial Council didn’t recommend her dismissal, however, and she was retained with 53.33 percent of the statewide vote.
