Alaska Comm. R. Evid. 1005
Rule 1005 follows the Federal Rule in establishing a treatment of public records different from the treatment of other documents. As the Advisory Committee notes, public records call for different treatment, since requiring removal of the original record whenever the contents of that record are in question would be attended by serious inconvenience to the public and to the custodian. Judicial decisions and statutes often hold that no explanation need be given for failure to produce the original of a public record. McCormick (2d ed.) § 240. See, e.g. Alaska R. Civ. P. 44(b) (superseded by these Rules) and AS 40.21.150 and AS 40.15.040, providing for the use of copies of public records as evidence. While the original document need not be produced, Rule 1005 protects against the indiscriminate introduction of all sorts of secondary evidence by establishing a preference for certified or compared and verified copies. Usually such copies of public records are readily available, so it will seldom be necessary to produce any other sort of secondary evidence.
This rule supersedes Rule 1003 with respect to public documents. Rule 1007 provides an alternative way of satisfying best evidence concerns.
Alaska Comm. R. Evid. 1005