Cindy Lee Galvan v. The Alaska Department of Corrections

This habeas corpus appeal turns on exhaustion.

Facts

We take the facts from the Alaska Court of Appeals memorandum opinion and judgment affirming on direct appeal.

In 1989, Galvan and her boyfriend, Anthony Garcia, killed a man in Colorado and fled to Alaska. A week after arriving in Juneau, they robbed and murdered another man. This case arises out of that Juneau murder.

Galvan’s sentence was harsher than the Alaska “benchmark” for second degree murder because the judge considered her unusually dangerous and because her crime “approached the blameworthiness” of first degree murder. The dangerousness had to do with Galvan’s history as well as the crime for which she was being sentenced. According to charges pending in Colorado, Galvan had brought another woman, helpless from intoxication, home from a bar, where she beat her with brass knuckles, pounded her head on the floor, and stole her money. Then, with the aid of a juvenile, Galvan took off the victim’s clothes, cut off her hair, poured salt into her wounds, and threw her naked into the February night.

A few months later, still in Colorado, Galvan and her boyfriend reacted to what they felt to be disrespect by murdering a…