Decade of Doubt
A murder revisited
Journalist鈥檚 series is likely to reopen old wounds
Published Saturday, July 5, 2008
A seven-day series to begin in Sunday鈥檚 News-Miner will be unlike any we have published before.
Part of that is because it is a cooperative local effort that technically is not staff-produced. For six years, Brian O鈥橠onoghue, a 黑料社app journalism professor and former Daily News-Miner reporter and editor, developed this project with help from students.
As Mr. O鈥橠onoghue鈥檚 former employer and strong supporters of the UAF journalism program, the News-Miner lent its name and some moral and financial support across the life of the project. During the past year 鈥 in fits and starts 鈥 editors here have worked closely with Mr. O鈥橠onoghue to trim, check, challenge, debate and mold for publication a painstaking work.
鈥淒ecade of Doubt鈥 examines in great detail the brutal murder of a 15-old-boy, John Hartman, who was beaten and left for dead at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Barnette Street in October 1997.
Parents and others who are sensitive about vulgarity and references to brutality, sex and drugs need to be aware that the content of this series, especially court records and audio files to be packaged with the story online at newsminer.com/hartman, may be unsuitable for some eyes and ears.
This murder rocked our community.
Within days 鈥 hours, really 鈥 Fairbanks police had arrested and charged three young Native Alaskans and one Caucasian, recent graduates of the predominantly Native Howard Luke High School, with the murder. This set off a firestorm of racial tension that worsened as the trials progressed and the young men were convicted on scant physical evidence and confessions that they recanted. The crime caused people to voice concerns about the lack of public safety and ineffectual police presence in Fairbanks.
Publishing this work, we are quite well aware, may reopen some uncomfortable community wounds. The series does not promise a cure, but we are also quite well aware that cures do not come without open, careful and healthy examination.
Protests about this case continue to this day, as do court appeals 鈥 one of which is scheduled for Tuesday in Anchorage. Local 黑料社appNative groups continue to point at the Hartman convictions as a prime example of what they believe is racism played out in the state鈥檚 justice system. It has been the subject of many Tanana Chiefs Conference resolutions over the years.
Mr. O鈥橠onoghue pointed to his time as letters editor as a springboard for this process. It would be a good exercise for investigative journalism students, he reasoned, to put to rest some of the allegations that letter writers had leveled at police and the state court system.
But the answers did not come easily 鈥 if at all.
The series, which raises more questions than answers, has been dubbed 鈥淒ecade of Doubt.鈥 It is a compelling examination of our legal system and a thought-provoking look at our town and its people.
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