Attorney: Arson charges against teens in fatal Gatlinburg wildfire dropped

Prosecutors have dropped charges against two Anderson County teenagers they labeled as responsible for the state’s deadliest wildfire in a century. 

Defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs said the state can’t prove that the horseplay of the boys, ages 17 and 15, sparked a fire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that caused the deadly wildfires in Gatlinburg five days later.

"My client and the other juvenile, based on the proof and the evidence, did not cause the death and devastation in Gatlinburg," Isaacs said during an afternoon news conference inside his in downtown Knoxville law office.

In a written statement, 4th Judicial District Attorney General Jimmy Dunn agreed he could not prove his case against the boys. He cited the "unprecedented, unexpected and unforeseeable wind event" that occurred five days after the Chimney Tops fire. Those winds spread deadly embers into Gatlinburg and the surrounding region.

He did not respond to a request for comment, including why he charged the boys with directly causing the Gatlinburg wildfires when he knew before those charges were filed about the winds and the fact that the National Park Service chose to allow the Chimney Tops fire to burn.

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Dunn's prosecution of the boys has been used by local and state agencies to shield release of public records about the fire and the emergency response.

Dunn also did not mention in his statement that he didn't have the power to prosecute the boys at all. The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee has obtained records showing state authorities have had no legal authority to prosecute crimes in the park since 1997.

Those records show the park was left out of a 1997 agreement giving both state and federal agencies authority to prosecute crimes committed on federal lands.

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The U.S. Attorney's Office in Knoxville issued a statement Friday saying federal prosecutors were consulting with Dunn's office and have made no decision about filing federal charges. Federal law frowns on federal prosecution of juveniles and permission to do so must come from the U.S. Attorney General's Office in Washington, D.C.

Federal prosecutors would have the same problem that Dunn's office did - drawing a straight legal line between the boys' horseplay and the deadly fires five days later.

The boys were hiking on the Chimney Tops trail in the park on Nov. 23 and tossing lit matches onto the ground around the trail. Brush caught fire. The boys continued hiking down the trail. A fellow hiker with a Go-Pro happened to catch footage of them with smoke in the background. He didn’t know it was important.

Park officials decided to let the fire burn. Five days later, winds of nearly 90 mph inexplicably whipped up, spreading deadly flames into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The emergency response was fretted with flaws, including the failure to warn residents and delayed evacuations. The fire would eventually encompass more than 17,000 acres, kill 14 people, hurt nearly 200 more and burn more than 2,400 buildings - at the height of Sevier County’s winter tourism season.

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"Our firm’s independent investigation corroborated the prosecution's finding (what happened on the Chimney Tops trail) did not cause the Gatlinburg fires beyond a reasonable doubt," Isaacs said.

"We want everyone to know that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the Gatlinburg fire."

Even though these charges were dismissed, Isaacs said the identity and location of the juveniles will remain confidential.

Isaac called his client, who he referred to as John Doe No. 2, a fine boy from a fine family.

"A very nice, well-mannered young man, very well-spoken," he said of the teen. "And his mother is very grateful and very tearful."

"It's time to move on in this chapter of the Gatlinburg fires," Isaac said at the conclusion of Friday's news conference.

Dunn and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn announced the arrest of the boys in December on charges of aggravated arson, accusing them of setting the fatal wildfire.

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee revealed in an exclusive story published days after the charges were filed that the hiker with the Go-Pro realized in the days after the deadly fires that he may have captured images of the beginning of the Chimney Tops blaze. He alerted authorities. At least one of the boys was wearing an Anderson County High School shirt, the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee reported.

But Dunn’s office couldn’t connect the evidentiary dots between the boys’ setting of the Chimney Tops fire and the deadly fires five days later, Isaacs said.

If park officials had ordered the Chimney Tops flames doused, there would have been no fire to spread. Even if they hadn’t, no one, including the boys, could be expected to predict rogue, freakishly furious winds five days later. It’s known as “intervening causes” under the law and makes it all but impossible to prove the boys intended or even knew death would result from their match flicking.

The only thing the boys could be prosecuted for was setting a fire in the park.

Dunn and Gwyn apparently didn’t know it, but they had no jurisdiction over crimes committed in the park, according to an examination of records by USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee.

The federal government owns national parks, and only federal officials have authority to prosecute crimes committed on federal land. In 1997, the director of the National Park Service and then-Gov. Don Sundquist reached an agreement giving local and state authorities the legal right to also prosecute cases within federal lands in Tennessee.

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee has obtained documents showing the 1997 agreement left out the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Five years later, someone took that agreement, added the park and filed it with the Secretary of State. But whoever made that change did not get approval or otherwise notify the National Park Service or the Tennessee governor’s office. Without that approval and new signatures, the agreement adding the park and filed in 2002 is not legally valid.

That means only the U.S. Attorney’s Office could prosecute the boys in the Chimney Tops fire. It also raises questions about the validity of any cases involving crimes committed in the park prosecuted by state authorities since 1997.

"The U.S. Attorney’s Office is in communication with the District Attorney General’s Office," a spokeswoman for the Knoxville federal prosecutor's office said in a statement. "A review of the evidence in this case will have to take place in order to determine whether it is appropriate to seek approval from the attorney general to prosecute juvenile offenders in federal court."

Natalie Alund contributed to this report.