{"id":12812,"date":"2016-10-23T08:03:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T15:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/mayor-says-fairbanks-four-deserve-compensation\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T08:03:29","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T15:03:29","slug":"mayor-says-fairbanks-four-deserve-compensation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/mayor-says-fairbanks-four-deserve-compensation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor says Fairbanks Four deserve compensation"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS<\/strong> \u2014 The mayor of Fairbanks says the city and state should consider compensating the four indigenous men who spent nearly two decades in prison before their convictions in a teenager\u2019s beating death were overturned.<\/p>\n

Mayor John Eberhart spoke at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention about ways the city can work to repair its relationship with Alaska Natives, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cA major issue that caused a rift for many years in our community was the Fairbanks Four,\u201d Eberhart said Thursday. \u201cThere are serious questions about the case and the truth, and I urge the state and city to consider an ex gratia \u2014 or voluntary payment \u2014 to the Fairbanks Four.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three Alaska Native men and an American Indian \u2014 George Frese, Eugene Vent, Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease \u2014 were convicted of second-degree murder but maintained their innocence in the 1997 killing of John Hartman, 15.<\/p>\n

In December, the four finalized a settlement with the state that tossed their convictions. They agreed not to sue government entities.<\/p>\n

The deal came after defense attorneys argued new evidence proved the men were innocent and that their arrests and convictions were racially motivated.<\/p>\n

State lawmakers considered a bill this year that would have allowed Alaskans whose felony convictions are overturned and charges dismissed to apply for Permanent Fund Dividend checks foregone while incarcerated. The measure, inspired by the Fairbanks Four case, ultimately was rejected.<\/p>\n

At the time, officials said the four men would have been eligible for about $27,000 each for the 18 years they spent behind bars.<\/p>\n

Will Mayo, a former president of Tanana Chiefs Conference, also brought up the payment issue at Thursday\u2019s convention.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustice will not be served until there is just compensation,\u201d he said. \u201cThey signed an agreement not to pursue it, but I didn\u2019t sign it. I think that fairness and justice will come the day that they are compensated for those 18 years of incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alaska Innocence Project director and attorney Bill Oberly was presented with an award during the convention for his work on the Fairbanks case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group of Native Alaskans roared, and justice was done,\u201d Oberly said. \u201cI learned from this that when you come together in a common cause \u2014 be it a wrongful conviction, wrongs that are done to the community \u2014 you can get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014 The mayor of Fairbanks says the city and state should consider compensating the four indigenous men who spent nearly two decades in prison before their convictions in a teenager\u2019s beating death were overturned. Mayor John Eberhart spoke at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention about ways the city can work to repair its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12812"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}