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.
For more details, go to KTOO’s blog on ongoing trial coverage. You can also go to KTOO’s Special Projects page that has been devoted to complete coverage about the case.
Matt Miller is a reporter at KTOO in Juneau.
