The city of Fairbanks has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing the Fairbanks Four to sue the city for wrongful imprisonment.
The decision was announced Friday afternoon in a statement issued by city spokeswoman Teal Soden.
“The petition was filed because the decision of the 9th Circuit was a significant departure from the well-established law set out by the Supreme Court in the case of Heck v. Humphrey. A decision from the Supreme Court on whether to grant the petition is expected in January,” the statement reads. “As this case is currently being litigated, the City of Fairbanks will have no further comments at this time.”
The men known as the Fairbanks Four — Marvin Roberts, Kevin Pease, Eugene Vent and George Frese — were teenagers when they were arrested for the October 1997 beating death of 15-year-old John Hartman. Despite evidence to the contrary and allegations that Fairbanks police coerced three of them into confessing, the four were tried, convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Various appeals and requests for new trials were denied, and the men languished in prison for years.
In 2013, the Alaska Innocence Project filed a petition for post-conviction relief, based in part on a sworn affidavit from convicted murderer William Holmes. In the affidavit, Holmes stated that he, fellow former Fairbanks resident and convicted murderer Jason Wallace, and three other men were responsible for killing Hartman.
Marvin Roberts was granted parole in June 2015 and Frese, Pease and Vent were released from prison in December 2015 after all four convictions were vacated in an agreement with the state in which they agreed not to sue the city or state for their treatment by the Fairbanks Police Department and the Fairbanks District Attorney’s office.
In 2017, the Fairbanks Four sued the city and several Fairbanks police officers, claiming they’d been wrongfully imprisoned and their civil rights had been violated.
A U.S. District Court judge in Anchorage dismissed the lawsuit in October 2018 but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling in January of this year. The city asked the court of appeals to reconsider, and the court reaffirmed its ruling in July.
Contact staff writer Dorothy Chomicz at 459-7582. Follow her on Twitter: @FDNMcrime.
