The Alaska Supreme Court, in a 3-2 split decision, on Friday ruled that a woman who moved to a rural Alaska village to pursue a subsistence lifestyle must continue to pay child support at the same rate as when she was employed in Anchorage by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
The case may have significant implications for the way state law addresses Native culture and religion.
According to case documents, Jolene Sharpe moved to the village of Stebbins in Western Alaska after separating from Jyzyk Sharpe, who retained custody of their child. When a child support order was issued by a state court, Jolene was employed by Alyeska and earning about $120,000 per year. In light of that salary, the court set child support at $1,500 per month.
After her move to Stebbins, Jolene began pursuing a subsistence lifestyle and asked the court to reduce her child support payments to $50 per month, the legal minimum.
Jolene told the court that she moved to Stebbins to reconnect with Native culture, religion and spirituality. She said life in Stebbins, a dry community, helped her cope with alcohol abuse issues. In addition to working with Native groups, she said she spent time at home, raising a child from her partnership with another person.
Considering the case, an Alaska superior court judge characterized Jolene’s decision as “essentially taking a retreat from reality” and likened it to a parent who left his or her child to “join an ashram in India because it reawakened them spiritually and reconnected them.”
Justices Dana Fabe, Joel Bolger and Peter Maassen ruled in the majority, upholding the superior court decision. Chief justice Craig Stowers dissented, as did justice Daniel Winfree, who offered an impassioned argument.
“Contrary to the superior court’s analogy,” Winfree wrote, “Alaska Natives’ cultural, religious, and spiritual connection to their tribes, their lands, and their subsistence activities are a normal way of life, not an escape from normal life.”
Instead of asking whether the move to Stebbins was simply a child support dodge, Winfree wrote, the superior court found that a move to reconnect with cultural roots was an unacceptable reason for reducing child support.
“Today’s decision … suggests that when setting a child support obligation neither a Native Alaskan’s return to her village nor a traditional Native Alaska subsistence lifestyle has a valid role,” Winfree wrote.
Later, he added: “Today’s decision has enormous negative implications. It trivializes and devalues Alaska Natives’ cultural, spiritual, and religious connections to their villages and their subsistence lifestyle.”
