ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A California prisoner’s so-called confession in a Fairbanks teenager’s beating death years ago is simply “hearsay,” and a state prosecutor adds that her review of the decades-old case fails to show there were any flaws in the prosecution of four other men.
Deputy District Attorney Adrienne Bachman submitted her paperwork Thursday in response to a filing from the Alaska Innocence Project. That group had filed a petition in September to exonerate the “Fairbanks Four” - George Frese, Marvin Roberts, Kevin Pease and Eugene Vent.
The four were convicted in the killing of 15-year-old John Hartman and are serving lengthy prison sentences. The teenager was beaten on a Fairbanks street corner and later died at a hospital in 1997.
The petition names five alternative suspects in Hartman’s killing. It also includes a handwritten confession by a former Fairbanks man serving a double life sentence in California for another murder. The inmate claims he and others were involved in Hartman’s death.
The project also had filed other paperwork saying the California inmate and another person claim they heard another man - who wasn’t charged - claim he took part in the killing of Hartman.
“(T)he bottom line is that the state must oppose the petitions,” Bachman wrote. “The law guides this decision, and it is the law, not public sentiment or unsupported, hearsay allegations, which must guide the court’s consideration of these petitions.”
She also wrote in her 23-page filing that the court can consider only admissible evidence, and hearsay is not admissible evidence.
Bachman said the Alaska Innocence Project must prove serious flaws in the case before a judge can consider claims that the four men convicted are innocent.
“Plainly stated, there are no constitutional flaws in the underlying trials, much less flaws of a caliber that the verdicts may not stand,” Bachman wrote.
The prosecutor also noted that Hartman’s older brother received a jailhouse apology from Vent while the brother was jailed in a separate matter.
“John Hartman’s brother recalls that heartfelt apology, with an emotional authenticity that makes his recollection credible,” Bachman wrote. “That brother wants the right people held accountable for John’s senseless death and these defendants freed if they did not kill John.
“However, Eugene Vent’s words still echo in his mind: ’I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to kill him.’”
Even though Bachman defends the original prosecutor’s handling of the case, she wrote that she is not opposed to a new evidentiary hearing.
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Information from: KTUU-TV, https://www.ktuu.com
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