Wearing ankle and wrist chains and an orange jumpsuit, John Marvin, looking older after two years in jail, stood before Judge David George on Friday to receive his sentence for the killing of two Hoonah police officers.
Judge George handed down two consecutive 99-year sentences to Marvin, saying because Sgt Anthony Wallace was on duty at the time of the shooting, it made Marvin ineligible for parole. The terms are to run consecutively, meaning Marvin will never see another day outside of prison walls.
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It may never be known why Marvin opened fire on the two officers from his second-story window in Hoonah, but the defense for Marvin pointed out in his trial in November that Marvin had been arrested previously by the two officers that he later shot.
It was in 2009, that Marvin was arrested after a trespass call came in to the police department alleging that Marvin had trespassed into a house, walking into the residence and closing the door behind him. Marvin was asked to leave and he complied. By the time the officers, Sgt Anthony Wallace and officer Matthew Tokuoka made contact with Marvin, he had already returned to his home.
During the contact with the officers, a struggle ensued and Marvin was subsequently tasered. EMTs were called to remove the taser barbs.
EMT Karen Mills testified during Marvin’s trial that she and EMT Chief Chris Budke responded to the scene to remove the taser barbs, but because of the chaos at the scene, were able to only remove two of the three barbs embedded in Marvin’s body.
Buedke was later called to Marvin’s jail cell to remove the third barb from his body while both Wallace and Tokuoka subdued Marvin.
The tape playback of the jail incident was testified to. Mills overheard, as officers laughed at the taped recording, while Mills was at work as her other employment in the position a as dispatcher. In court, Mills said she had told the officers to knock it off, feeling that the behavior wa rude and belittling as the incident was audible in the cell Marvin was held in, according to Mill’s testomony. Besides being an EMT, Mills was also employed as the dispatcher for the police department.
She testified in court that she told the officers to “knock it off.” She was conserned because the goings-on could be heard from the cell Marvin was being held in.
Regardless of the incident one year prior, it did not condone the act carried out by Marvin a year later.
The Judge ordered the jury to disregard Marvin’s past arrests and to concentrate on the the charges and Marvin’s mental state at the time of the incdent.
Marvin’s defense also attempted to cast doubt on Marvin’s guilt by attempting to bring blame for the shooting on one of Marvin’s neighbors. Paystubs would vindicate that man however.
After Marvin’s conviction, his defense agrued that Marvin could not be charged with First Degree Murder of an Officer on Duty as they said, he was not on duty during the time of the shooting as he had stopped to talk to Tokuoka nearby Marvin’s house at a dumpster. It was reported that Tokuoka was at the dumpster to discard crab shells.
Wallace, who had his mother in the car at the time, had playfully hit his sirens and lights as he approached Tokuoka it was revealed in court.
The sentencing hearing at the Juneau courthouse took two hours.
Sgt Wallace’s mother said in a written statement in court during the hearing, “You can never understand the depth of my sorrow of not having my son with me He was everything to me, and you took that away from me and my family. What am I to do now Mr. Marvin? Live out my life with an empty hole in my heart?”
In giving identical sentences for both killings, Judge George stated, that Marvin knew both officers were active, he said at sentencing, “I think it would be a mistake for this court to say that once you’ve killed an officer, you can blow away a few more and your sentence won’t be as severe as for the second officer.”
Many times incoherent, Marvin protested his innocent while stating his elevations. saying, “Royalties are not understood in Alaska,” all the while proclaiming his innocence.
Marvin recieved a combined sentence of 198 years with no chance of parole.



