Republican lawmakers abruptly cancel hearing on Alaska prison deaths over legal concerns

Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau, Alaska in June 2023. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
The coffee was hot. The slide deck was cued up. And Jacqueline Shepherd, a prison investigator and intake attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, was ready to tell lawmakers some grim news.
“When planning for today, I expected to talk to you about three unreported deaths that I uncovered in 2023,” she told Alaska Public Media. “But in the past few weeks, I’ve uncovere