A jury of ten men and two women returned with guilty verdicts in the trial of John N. Marvin, Jr.
A note from jury said they had reached guilty verdicts at about noon Saturday on two charges of murder in the first degree. That was for the deaths of Sgt. Anthony Wallace and Officer Matthew Tokuoka in Hoonah on August 28, 2010.
Later, Superior Court Judge David George read the verdicts as Wallace’s mother Debbie Greene and Tokuoka’s widow Haley Tokuoka cried and embraced each other.
Sentencing is scheduled for February 1, 2013. Marvin will be sentenced to a prison term of 20- to 99-years for the murder of Tokuoka and 99-years for the murder of Wallace who was in uniform and on-duty as a Hoonah police officer at the time of the shooting. Jurors had struggled with the question of whether Tokuoka was a clearly identifiable police officer. He may have been known to Marvin as a police officer, but jurors were required to follow the law and make a factual finding as to whether Tokuoka could objectively be identified as an officer based on such factors as, for example, a verbal identification, wearing a uniform, or sitting in a marked patrol vehicle.
Public defender Eric Hedland uses a picture of seized evidence as part of his closing arguments to the jury on Thursday. Photo by Matt Miller/KTOO News
The defense rested its case and closing arguments were held Thursday, the tenth day of a trial in which prosecutors have alleged that John Marvin Jr. killed two police officers.
Also on Thursday, jurors were provided instructions that would allow them to return a verdict for first degree murder for each of the two officers killed. If they could not be unanimous, then they were instructed to consider a verdict for second degree murder, or a verdict for a lesser charge of manslaughter.
Marvin is accused of shooting Sargent Anthony Wallace and Officer Matthew Tokuoka – who was off-duty — on the evening of August 28, 2010. Both men chatted with family on Front Street in Hoonah when they were both shot twice: Wallace in the back and thigh, and then Tokuoka in the chest when he went to his colleague’s aid. Neither man apparently knew that they were being targeted. Wallace’s mother as well as Tokuoka‘s wife Haley and their children all witnessed the shooting of Wallace. Wallace’s mother Debbie Greene also witnessed the shooting of Matthew Tokuoka.
The theme that emerged from the prosecution was that 2010 shooting may have been retaliation for an August 2009 arrest, while the defense believed that Hoonah officers had already assumed that Marvin was the shooter in August 2010 because of the 2009 incident. Marvin allegedly got into a scuffle with both officers who were responding to a trespass complaint. They had used a taser in an attempt to subdue him.
During the defense’s presentation of witnesses, Marvin’s aunt Harlena Warford testified to his previous neatness and cousin Veronica Dalton testified boarding up the house following the shooting. Former Hoonah Chief of Police Jeff Hankla also gave his version of the August 2009 arrest which he only partially witnessed. Defense attorney Eric Hedland used his testimony to introduce photos showing Marvin’s injuries allegedly sustained at the hands of Tokuoka and Wallace.
Out of the panel of eleven men and two women, one man was excused as an alternate juror following closing arguments.
Ten men and two women will return to the Dimond Courthouse on Friday morning to start deliberations.
It’s always unknown how long a jury takes to deliberate, but they will have to weigh roughly two-hundred pieces of evidence and the testimony of well over a dozen witnesses. It’s unclear at this point if the jury will decide to deliberate over the weekend.
A tsunami warning was posted Saturday evening for the outer coast of Southeast Alaska from Cape Decision to to the tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Two earthquakes, magnitude 7.7 and 5.8, were reported near the Queen Charlotte Islands at about 7:04 and 7:14 Alaska time Saturday night. Several additional afterschocks were also reported Saturday evening and Sunday.
There were various reports by Juneau residents through social media that they felt the main quake with some shaking and swinging of hanging light fixtures, but no damage was initially reported.
Wave heights were reported at about four inches in Craig and Port Protection, about nine inches in Winter Harbour, B.C., and two waves of about eight inches were detected at Langara Point.
Although Sitka was outside of the warning area, officials asked everyone to briefly leave the harbor area as a precaution. Juneau and other communities located within the inside waters of Southeast Alaska were not expected to see any significant change in water levels.
The tsunami warning for Alaska was eventually downgraded to an advisory and then cancelled late Saturday night. However, a tsunami warning was later posted for the Hawaiian Islands as propagation and travel maps indicated possible arrival of a wave there. A tsunami advisory for that area has since been cancelled after a five-foot wave was reported at Maui.
Authorities shot and killed a brown bear cub Monday on Chichagof Island. It’s believed to be one of three responsible for the fatal mauling of a Sitka man over the weekend.
Sitka Police Lt. Barry Allen says a team performed a necropsy on the cub, but that the results are pending. A Sitka detective and two Alaska Wildlife Troopers spent Monday and today (Tuesday) on Chichagof, looking for the sow and two cubs spotted in Poison Cove. That’s about 30 miles north of Sitka.
The bears behaved aggressively on Sunday toward some boaters who came ashore to investigate an abandoned skiff on the beach. The partially consumed remains of 54-year-old Tomas Puerta were found nearby.
Allen says once a bear kills and consumes a human, it could become habituated to the behavior.
A civilian contractor was injured Wednesday at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka when a biomass boiler exploded in the station’s main hangar. This incident happened about 12:30 p.m. The injured man was transported by local EMS to the hospital.
Commanding officer Ward Sandlin said Air Station Sitka personnel and local authorities are working with investigators to determine the cause of the explosion. The station’s other two biomass boilers have been shut down pending the results of the investigation.
Air Station Sitka is the first base in the Coast Guard to convert to the biomass system, which burns wood pellets instead of fuel oil.
Wednesday’s incident comes less than a week after U.S. Senator Mark Begich toured the boiler and praised the project. Air Station Sitka was testing the new wood pellet system, and hoped to have it fully operational by November 1st.
The hot potato that is the 2014 community priority request list will go back to the executive committee for review. The Ketchikan City Council again rejected the list during Thursday night’s regular session.
The City Council had rejected the list when they last met – Sept. 6 – and sent it back to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly for reconsideration. Committee chairman and Borough Mayor Dave Kiffer declined to reconvene the committee. Earlier this week, the Assembly voted unanimously to maintain the list.
