Banished Teens Face Interference Court Punishment Could End With A Return To Washington

A court-appointed child welfare specialist for two Tlingit teenagers says unauthorized visits, media coverage and interference by Klawock residents and family members are jeopardizing their banishment.

Diana Wynne James told a judge in Washington state on Tuesday that a tribal court will meet after the fishing season to consider the situation and explore several options.

That includes the early return of one or both teens to the jurisdiction of a Snohomish County, Wash., court, she said in her report.

Adrian Guthrie and Simon Roberts were convicted in Washington of robbing a pizza delivery man and brutally attacking him with a baseball bat in August 1993.

Judge James Allendoerfer agreed to turn the pair over to a tribal court in Klawock last summer for sentencing. The tribal court ordered the pair to live for at least a year on separate, remote islands in Southeast Alaska.

But they remain subject to the jurisdiction of the Snohomish court, and still could serve some prison time. They were scheduled to face Allendoerfer again in March 1996.

Wynne James most recently vis ited Guthrie and Roberts at their banishment sites in June.

Roberts is at his second banishment site, and Guthrie is at his third.

The report refers to the current sites as “close to Klawock.” Both of the teens were relocated earlier this year when their sites were discovered by U.S. Forest Service staff and disclosed in the media. The boys were threatened at those sites, Wynne James wrote.

Klawock members of the combined tribal court selected and relocated the teens to the current sites. Both were doing well and making rapid progress early in the banishment - or before interference, wrote Wynne James.

“It appears that the Klawock community has injected itself into the banishment process, contrary to the intent of the Tribal Court, that this has been to the detriment of the youth,” Wynne James said.

Guthrie appears to have remained confident, expresses remorse and looks to right his wrongs, while Roberts’ progress has deteriorated dramatically, she wrote.

Wynne James found Roberts’ site a mess in June and found him to be poorly groomed, “angry, hostile, evasive, confused and untrusting.” His diet had deteriorated to candy bars and pop, she said, and he was doing little cooking.

Wynne James said she became alarmed as Roberts talked about his anger and accused her of abandoning him. Wynne James wrote that Roberts also reported visits by various family members and plans by family and Klawock residents to cash in on the banishment story.

Roberts did say he felt bad about the beating victim, Tim Whittlesey of Everett, she wrote.

Guthrie’s site was clean and orderly. He complained about the lack of subsistence resources and about having to rely on people to bring food and water. He requested relocation to a more remote site.

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