The lawyer representing multiple police officers who are defendants in Fairbanks Four member Marvin Roberts’ wrongful conviction lawsuit has requested that he bow out of the case.
But Roberts’ attorneys are pushing back, saying the move could lead to an unnecessary delay in litigation that’s been ongoing for eight years.
Thursday’s motion from defense attorney Joseph Evans says he can no longer represent former Fairbanks Police Department Officers James Geier, Clifford Aaron Ring, Chris Nolan and Dave Kendrick due to a conflict of interest. It does not describe what interests are conflicting, citing a professional rule that obligates Evans to avoid disclosing client secrets.
The filing refers to additional professional rules outlining situations that could constitute a conflict of interest, including when “the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client.”
A supplemental motion published Friday further states that Evans was advised to withdraw by an ethics attorney. And other filings indicate the legal team for the City of Fairbanks’ – which is separate from the officers’ – does not oppose his withdrawal.
Evans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Roberts’ lawsuit against the officers and the City of Fairbanks is the final legal battle remaining from the decades-old Fairbanks Four case, in which he and three other Indigenous men were convicted for murdering Fairbanks teenager John Hartman in 1997.
After spending at least 15 years in prison each, their conviction was vacated through a 2015 agreement after a man named William Holmes confessed in evidentiary hearings that he and four others had murdered Hartman. Court documents suggest that witnesses corroborated those claims, and one witness said officers had coerced him to give a false statement against the Fairbanks Four.
The formerly imprisoned men then filed to sue the city and officers two years later in Alaska District Court. In 2023, three of the four settled for $1.6 million apiece with the city’s insurer, the Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association. Roberts did not accept the settlement’s terms, keeping his portion of the suit open.
Evans has been representing the former Fairbanks police officers since 2018, according to court records. His motion asks that proceedings pause for 30-45 days while each of the defendants finds a new attorney to represent them individually. It also states that new counsel will need time to review recordings as well as hundreds of thousands of pages of transcripts, police reports and other records.
Mike Kramer, one of Roberts’ lawyers, wrote in a response motion that the defense’s request was “extraordinary.”
“Lawyers don’t generally find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to get out,” he said in a Monday phone interview. “That’s a rare circumstance because, especially lawyers … representing multiple people or parties, they have to do a pretty close analysis before they get in that there’s not going to be a conflict of interest.”
The response motion presumes that Evans’ request stems from some of the police officers’ depositions from Feb. 3-6, saying that “the Defendants made numerous admissions of misconduct on key issues that were inconsistent with each other and with Defendant Ring, who was previously deposed in August 2024.”
On Monday, Kramer told KUAC he’s concerned about how much Evans' withdrawal could further draw out the yearslong case.
“The individual officers are entitled to some representation, and until that’s sorted out, we really can’t do anything,” he said.
Kramer said a couple depositions scheduled for this week have already needed rescheduling as a result of the motion filed Thursday.
“It took awhile to set up these depositions. They’re actually of who we believe are the real murderers, and it took a long time to set that up because some of them are in prison and others were very hard to get a hold of,” he said.
The court has not yet ruled on Evans’ request. The parties are set to discuss the matter in a telephonic conference scheduled for March 7.
This article has been updated to accurately characterize the term Fairbanks Four members spent in prison.