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Thread: Ernesto Salgado Martinez - Arizona Death Row

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    Ernesto Salgado Martinez - Arizona Death Row






    Facts of the Crime:

    In July 1995, Martinez stole a blue Monte Carlo in California and a license plate from another California car. Two days before the murder, he showed a friend in Globe his revolver with black electrical tape wrapped around the handle. Martinez had prior convictions for violent crimes, was in violation of his probation, and did not want to go back to prison. On August 15, 1995, several drivers noticed Martinez because of his excessive speed on Arizona 87. One couple passed him just after Officer Robert Martin pulled him over and was approaching the stolen Monte Carlo.

    Martinez shot Officer Martin four times and took his service revolver. Due to Martinez's reckless, high-speed driving while fleeing the scene, several other drivers took down the Monte Carlo's license plate number. Martinez fled to California, where the police arrested him a day later and recovered the murder weapon and Officer Martin's service revolver. After his arrest, Martinez was overheard during a telephone call bragging to a friend and laughing that he had killed a cop. Tests revealed that at least one of the bullets that struck Officer Martin was fired from Martinez's tape-wrapped revolver.

    Martinez was sentenced to death on August 18, 1998.

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    July 10, 2010

    Extradition hearing delayed for death-row inmate

    An extradition hearing has been delayed for an Arizona death-row prisoner charged with the 1995 murder of a Blythe store clerk.

    The Thursday hearing for Ernesto Salgado Martinez, 34, formerly of Indio, was continued in Pinal County Superior Court until July 27, a clerk said by phone Friday.

    Martinez was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for the Aug. 15, 1995 roadside murder of an Arizona police officer who had stopped him.

    Hours later on the same day, Martinez drove across the California border at Blythe and killed a convenience store clerk during a robbery, a complaint charges. Martinez was arrested the next day in Indio, and later returned to Arizona.

    Martinez was first charged with the Blythe murder in 1999, but court records show no other action taken by the Riverside County District Attorney's office until 2009.

    (Source: The Press-Enterprise)

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    August 5, 2010

    Death-row inmate to face Inland murder case

    An Arizona court has ordered the extradition of a death-row inmate to Riverside County to be tried for the murder of a Blythe store clerk 15 years ago.

    Ernesto Salgado Martinez, 34, formerly of Indio, is sentenced to die for the Aug. 15, 1995 murder of Arizona Department of Public Safety Officer Robert Martin, 57, who had pulled Martinez over for a traffic stop near Phoenix.

    Later that same day, authorities said, Martinez crossed into California and killed Randip Singh, 43, in Blythe during a convenience store robbery.

    Martinez was arrested a day later in Indio. Both the .38-caliber pistol used to kill Martin and the officer's service handgun, used to kill the clerk, were recovered.

    Martinez was extradited to Arizona.

    His 1998 conviction and sentence have been upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court and a federal judge. His case is now before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Riverside County authorities filed a complaint against Martinez in 1999, but court records indicate nothing more was done until late 2009, when the district attorney's office filed an amended complaint and sought extradition.

    The complaint alleges special circumstances of murder during a robbery, meaning the death penalty can be sought for Martinez in the Blythe case.

    The Pinal County court ruled July 27 that California authorities have until Aug. 10 to transport Martinez to Riverside County. Riverside County court records for Martinez indicated no action as of Wednesday.

    http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/s...5.1816dd7.html

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    On May 29, 2008, Martinez filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/08-99009/

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    Man may face second death penalty in Blythe clerk's murder

    A man sentenced to die in Arizona for murdering a police officer should face the death penalty in California for the killing of a store clerk in Blythe 16 years ago, Riverside County prosecutors said today.

    Ernesto Salgado Martinez, 36, is defending himself against a charge of fatally shooting the store clerk on the same day he murdered a peace officer in Arizona. He has already been sentenced to death in Arizona for the Aug. 15, 1995, killing of Department of Public Safety Officer Robert Martin.

    At a discovery hearing at the Larson Justice Center today, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Victoria Weiss told Superior Court Judge William S. Lebov that prosecutors intend to seek capital punishment for Martinez in the Blythe case, according to court records.

    In August 1995, Martinez shot Martin four times during a traffic stop near Phoenix and took the 57-year-old officer's weapon before speeding off. He was brought to Riverside County last August to face a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting 43-year-old Randip Singh, a convenience store clerk in Blythe, several hours after Martin was killed.

    Martinez -- who was convicted of Martin's murder in 1998 -- has exhausted all of his appeals at the state level. One federal appeal remains before his Arizona death sentence can be carried out, Deputy District Attorney Pete Nolan said in May.

    Arizona authorities had asked Riverside County prosecutors to hold off seeking the death penalty in California until the state-level appeals process was completed in Arizona, said John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

    Martinez is currently jailed without bail in Indio. He opted in March to represent himself in the Blythe case and is due back in court Aug. 25 for a felony settlement conference, which was rescheduled from today.

    According to investigators, ballistics testing matched a shell casing found at the Blythe store to the bullets in Martin's service weapon. When Martinez was arrested in Indio, both the .38-caliber pistol used to kill Martin and Martin's gun were recovered, authorities said.

    http://www.mydesert.com/article/2011...xt|Frontpage|s

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    Sentenced to death | 'Living the dream'

    ERNESTO SALGADO MARTINEZ IS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS PRISONERS IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY AND HE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HERE

    By Bret Kellman
    The Desert Sun

    A trial delayed

    Twenty years ago, 40 police officers surrounded a trailer in Indio with their guns drawn. They had chased a cop killer for 300 miles, and now — after tracking his bloody trail through two states — they finally had him cornered.

    "I'm not coming out," shouted Ernesto Salgado Martinez. He was only 19, but already a hardened criminal, prepared to die. "You will have to come in and shoot me."

    It was Aug. 16, 1995. Over the prior 48 hours, Martinez had gunned down a policeman in Arizona and killed a storekeeper in Blythe, police said. Martinez had then fled to Indio, where an officer chased him into a mobile home with a barred door and barricaded windows. Police swarmed the scene, rushing in from beyond the state line to help end the manhunt.

    Four hours crept by. The summer sun set, blanketing the standoff in darkness. Eventually, police decided it was time to break the stalemate. Officers prepared to launch tear gas into the house, then storm through the doors and windows. A negotiator blasted a bullhorn, offering one last chance for surrender.

    At that last moment, Martinez gave up. He crawled out of a window, shirtless, with his hands in the air. Police surrounded him in a tight circle, demanding that he lie on his stomach. Martinez dropped to the dirt, scowling as policemen forced him into handcuffs and hauled him off to jail.

    Today, nearly 20 years later, Martinez is one of the most dangerous prisoners in Riverside County. He is a convicted killer with known ties to an Arizona prison gang. He has a long history of jailhouse attacks that date back to age 15, when he put a juvenile hall employee in the hospital.

    Martinez is also doomed to die. He was sentenced to death in Arizona, where he has awaited execution for the past 17 years. In fact, the only reason Martinez is in Riverside County — draining county funds and endangering prison guards — is because local prosecutors want to sentence him to death a second time, in California.


    The Robert Presley Detention Center is photographed in downtown Riverside. Convicted killer Ernesto Martinez is housed in this building, kept in isolation, separate from all other prisoners.


    "I'm housed here in Riverside," Martinez told a judge on April 17, during his most recent court hearing. "All is well. Living the dream."

    Martinez, now 39, has spent more than half of his life behind bars, most of those years in isolation. He is vicious, reckless and impulsive -- easily mistaken for just another caged gang banger.

    But that would be wrong.

    Martinez scored 120 on an IQ test, a score higher than 90 percent of the population, according to court documents. In another psychological test, Martinez was shown to have elite "non-verbal, problem-solving skills" which make him craftier than almost everyone.

    In recent years, Martinez has effectively served as his own lawyer, meticulously planning his defense. He is as formidable with a fountain pen as he is with a prison shank.

    "He is incredibly dangerous because he is so bright," Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said. "I would like to get him out of our system and out of our jail. And one of the ways to do that is to get this case to trial as quickly as possible."

    Two decades have passed since Martinez was arrested in Indio, but he has not yet gone to trial in the shooting of Randip Singh, the Blythe storekeeper.

    For any normal inmate, it would be an injustice to sit in jail this long without a trial, but Martinez is far from normal. Martinez has no motivation to go to trial in Riverside County because — regardless of whether he is convicted or acquitted in California — when the trial is over, he will be sent back to death row in Arizona.

    Martinez was sentenced to death in Arizona in 1998 for the murder of Bob Martin, a veteran officer of the highway patrol. Twelve years later, in 2010, local prosecutors extradited Martinez back to Riverside County, pulling him off death row so he could be tried for the shooting in Blythe.

    At the time, desert prosecutors underestimated Martinez, expecting that he would be quickly convicted in the local courts, then sent back to Arizona for execution. Instead, Martinez fired his public defender and became his own attorney. He has mounted a thorough defense, challenging prosecutors at every turn, despite having no formal legal training.

    Today — four-and-a-half years after Martinez was extradited — the inmate is still prepping his courtroom arguments. No trial date has been set.

    Riverside County has spent more than $230,000 to jail Martinez since he was extradited in 2010. In addition, Martinez's court case has demanded countless hours from prosecutors. In 2011, more county money was needlessly diverted to the case when Martinez tricked an Indio judge into appointing his mistress as his government-funded paralegal.

    Extradition also brought Martinez's violence back to Riverside County.

    In 2011, about a year after Martinez returned to California, the notoriously dangerous inmate attacked his cellmate, stabbing him 50 times with a shiv, according to court documents. A similar attack would not have happened in Arizona, where death row inmates have no contact with each other.

    Since the stabbing, Martinez is confined to an isolated cell. Martinez has pleaded not guilty to the stabbing and is awaiting trial on these charges, too.

    The decision to extradite Martinez has had at least one other unforeseeable consequence. As Martinez has prepared to defend himself in California, he has used his jailhouse legal resources to bolster his appeal in Arizona. Martinez was able to successfully argue his case to a federal court last year, ultimately lengthening his appeal process and delaying his death for at least several more years.

    During a recent interview with The Desert Sun, Hestrin said he would prioritize the Martinez case in an effort to get the dangerous inmate out of local jails.

    Hestrin said he will meet with his prosecution team in the coming weeks to develop a strategy for the Martinez case. The DA's office may abandon its pursuit of the death penalty to speed up proceedings, Hestrin said.

    Hestrin said he wants the case to go to trial this year, but admitted it may not be feasible because of Martinez's surprising talent for legal arguments.

    "Mr. Martinez represents himself, and he's become very skilled at writing his own motions, and — of course — he has quite a bit of time to write his motions. And so the case has dragged on," Hestrin said.

    Trial is not the only option, however.

    The quickest way for Riverside County to end the Martinez case would be for prosecutors to simply drop the charges from the Blythe shooting. If this was done, Singh's murder would remain technically unsolved, but Martinez would immediately return to Arizona's death row, where he would await execution without draining Riverside County funds.

    Hestrin said he is "reluctant" to drop the charges. Although this would bring a speedy end to Martinez's quagmire case, prosecutors would be shirking their "obligation to seek justice."

    "Mr. Martinez killed a store clerk with an Arizona police officer's firearm. We are prosecutors. It is difficult to walk away from that," Hestrin said. "Although I understand the practicalities, it's not as simple as we just walk away."

    Hestrin took office in January, inheriting the Martinez case from his predecessors. The decision to extradite Martinez was ultimately approved by former District Attorney Rod Pacheco. Pacheco said he did not remember the details of the case, and could not be reached for additional comment. The case made minimal progress under former District Attorney Paul Zellerbach.

    Martinez refused to be interviewed for this story.

    During a brief meeting at the jail in Riverside, the convicted killer declined all comment.

    "I'm sorry you wasted your time coming out here," Martinez told a Desert Sun reporter, speaking through the jailhouse glass. "But I'm not going to do any talking."

    Federal Public Defender Tim Gabrielsen, who represents Martinez in Arizona, also declined to comment.

    Two states, two shootings


    In the summer of 1995, Ernesto Salgado Martinez, then 19, drove a stolen sedan into Arizona. The car was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo with shiny blue paint and a white vinyl top. This was the kind of long, heavy classic cruiser that catches the eye and guzzles gas.

    If not for those two traits, Martinez may never have been caught.

    In Arizona, Martinez drove to Globe, a small mining town in Gila County, where he caught up with a childhood friend, Oscar Fryer. As the two men talked, Martinez admitted he was in trouble with the police. Already a convicted felon, Martinez said he was now a fugitive, wanted for violating probation.

    Fryer asked what Martinez would do if he was spotted by the cops. Martinez drew a .38-caliber revolver with black tape on the handle.

    "I'm not going back to jail," he said, according to Arizona court transcripts.

    A few days later, about noon on Aug. 15, Martinez was zooming along State Route 87, cutting through the Arizona desert, heading back to his home in Indio. Martinez was behind the wheel of the stolen Monte Carlo, and he was speeding.

    The flashing lights of a patrol car appeared in his rear-view mirror.

    Martinez pulled to the side of the highway. Martin, a longtime patrolman, pulled up behind him, expecting a routine traffic stop. Both men stepped out of their cars. As Martin approached the Monte Carlo, Martinez shot him four times with the revolver, including once in the temple. Martin died on the spot.

    Martinez grabbed the dead officer's gun, jumped back into the Monte Carlo and punched the gas. The car swerved back onto the highway, racing away from the shooting scene at more than 100 mph. Several motorists called the police to report the Monte Carlo for reckless driving. The officers who responded to the calls found Martin's body, and the manhunt began.

    Martin, 57, was a 28-year veteran of the Arizona Highway Patrol with three grown children and three younger stepchildren. Martin had spent most of his life in Chandler, Arizona, and most of his days patrolling State Route 87, also known as the Beeline Highway, which runs from Mesa to Payson, cutting through the Tonto National Forest.

    Martin loved being a highway patrol officer, said his widow, Sandi. He believed in writing tickets with a smile, and jumped at the chance to rescue stranded motorists. He always kept panty hose in his patrol car, ready to replace broken fan belts in a pinch.

    "He was just truly happy when he was helping people," Sandi Martin said. "I always heard that people would thank him when he issued a speeding ticket. He was that kind of guy. You couldn't not like him."

    Several hours after Martin was shot, Martinez arrived in Blythe.

    He was still driving the Monte Carlo, but after racing out of Arizona, he was low on gas and out of money. Desperate to keep moving, Martinez went to the Day and Nite Mini Mart, a family-owned convenience store on Hobsonway, according to California court documents.

    Minutes later, Blythe police got a report of gunshots at the mini mart.

    Sgt. Rocky Milano rushed to the store, but found it quiet and empty. He stepped through the door, cautious.

    "Is anyone there?" Milano shouted.

    A moan came from somewhere behind the counter. The voice weak and in pain.

    Milano ran around the counter, spotting a man on the ground. Singh, the storekeeper, was lying on his back, with a chair toppled onto him. Someone had shot him in the chest, grabbed a handful of money from the cash register and fled. Blood was oozing through Singh's shirt, pooling on the floor of the mini-mart.

    "He was in quite a bit of pain," Milano later told a grand jury, according to county court documents. "He was largely incoherent, but I did ask him if he knew if the suspect was Mexican, black or white. And at one point he said 'Mexican' … 'youth.'"

    Singh died several hours later at a nearby hospital. Police were unable to interview him.

    Singh, an immigrant from India, worked long shifts at the mini-mart, saving money to bring his wife and daughter to the United States. The store was owned by Singh's cousin, but Singh managed it carefully, guarding it as if it was his own.

    Sometimes, when no one was looking, he would sneak ice cream to the local children.

    "He was such a gentle, gentle man, always with a smile on his face," said Carmen Han, a Blythe resident. "He was doing his very best to support his family, which is why it was such a terrible thing, to cut that life short."

    Han, 75, knew Singh through her small accounting firm, which sits not far from the mini-mart, which is now abandoned. Decades ago, Singh would walk down to Han's office once a week, carrying ledgers from the mini-mart. Singh always arrived after dark, and his knock was so soft that it was barely audible, Han said.

    During an interview with The Desert Sun, Han said she assumed Singh's killer was convicted long ago. She was unaware Martinez is still awaiting trial.

    "I will always remember (Singh)," Han said. "But I never knew justice was not done for him."

    As Singh was dying in Blythe, Martinez kept driving. Authorities say Martinez returned to Indio, barricading himself in the trailer where he would eventually be captured.

    Today, the pending case against Martinez appears unquestionably strong. According to grand jury transcripts, witnesses have placed Martinez and the stolen Monte Carlo on State Route 87, near the scene of Martin's death. Other witnesses spotted the same car leaving the mini-mart in Blythe. Police recovered the .38-caliber revolver during the Indio standoff, and later found Martin's 9-mm pistol hidden in the barricaded trailer. A bullet casing that matches Martin's pistol was found at the mini-mart in Blythe, suggesting that Martinez shot the store keeper with the officer's gun. Finally, Martinez's fingerprints were found on both his revolver and the Monte Carlo.

    In addition to the physical evidence, one of Martinez's friends told police the suspect had confessed. Shortly after the standoff in Indio, Eric Moreno said Martinez called him from jail, bragging and laughing about shooting Martin and Singh.

    Moreno has since stopped cooperating with prosecutors, insisting he has no memory of that incriminating phone call.

    In Arizona, Martinez's attorneys have argued that Martinez suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the traffic stop on State Route 87 triggered a "dissociative state" and instinctual survival response. Martinez claimed he developed PTSD because of his abusive father, who beat him frequently when he was a young boy.

    Arizona courts rejected the PTSD argument, sentencing Martinez to death.

    Martinez appealed his case to the Arizona Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court of Arizona, but his conviction and sentence were upheld in both courts. Martinez then re-appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of

    Appeals in 2008. The circuit court sent the case back to the district court in 2014, ordering a federal judge to reconsider a few of Martinez's arguments.

    At least one of those arguments was born in a Riverside County jail cell.

    To prepare for his local trial, Martinez has reviewed thousands of pages of discovery documents, including hundreds of photographs. Buried in those documents, Martinez found a photograph of the Monte Carlo's ignition switch, taken by police after Martinez was arrested in 1995. The ignition switch photograph is important because Arizona police testified that the ignition switch was missing, leaving only a "hollow cavity." During the original trial in Arizona, prosecutors never disclosed the discrepancy.

    "The photograph clearly shows a shiny chrome bezel covering the ignition in its appropriate place in the Monte Carlo's steering column, rather than a hollow cavity," Martinez argued in court documents.

    Martinez has also argued that his prior attorneys provided an ineffective defense, and therefore he deserves a new trial.

    That Arizona District Court appeal continues today. Proceedings will likely extend through the end of the year. Regardless of who wins the case in the district court, the decision will likely be appealed at least one more time, further delaying Martinez's execution, possibly for several more years.

    The prolonged case has been "very frustrating" for Martin's colleagues, many of whom want to see Martinez executed, said Sgt. Jimmy Chavez, president of the Arizona Highway Patrol Association.

    During an interview with The Desert Sun, Chavez said he felt Martinez had abused the legal system by dragging his court cases into "endless continuation." Chavez was particularly critical of the California court case, and questioned the wisdom of prosecuting a man who was already sentenced to death.

    The Highway Patrol Association had reservations about extraditing Martinez to California in the first place, Chavez said.

    "Way back before Mr. Martinez was extradited, I remember one of the questions was 'Why not convince California to simply drop the charges?" Chavez said. "Because, ultimately, he is going to pay the price for what he did anyway."

    Courthouse trickster, jailhouse menace

    Martinez will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars, but that doesn't mean he is not still dangerous. Since Martinez was extradited back to Riverside County, he has exploited security weaknesses that did not exist on death row in Arizona.


    Ernesto Salgado Martinez is arrested in Indio on August 16, 1995, nearly 20 years ago. Martinez was a suspect in two murders, who barricaded himself in a trailer before finally surrendering to an army of police officers.


    For example, while defending himself in court, Martinez has used county resources to maintain secret communication with the outside world.

    In April 2011, shortly after becoming his own attorney, Martinez duped a local judge into appointing his mistress as his county-funded paralegal. As a paralegal, the woman could make confidential phone calls to the jail, passing messages between Martinez and his old gang, the New Mexican Mafia.

    Before Martinez's mistress was appointed as paralegal, the inmate and the woman shared hundreds of jailhouse phone calls, many of which were romantic or sexually explicit, according to court records. These calls were recorded as part of the jail record, however, once the mistress became paralegal, Martinez could hide their conversations behind the guise of attorney-client privilege.

    Court records show the county paid the woman at least $1,000, in advance, for paralegal work. The ruse continued for three months before the deception was discovered by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

    The mistress was immediately removed as a paralegal.

    Later that same year, Martinez surprised the county again, this time using his brawn instead of his brains.

    On Dec. 13, 2011, about 16 months after he was extradited to Riverside County, Martinez attacked his cellmate, Leroy Gutierrez, with a shank. Gutierrez survived.

    According to court documents, Martinez leaped at Gutierrez, stabbing him in the head, neck and chest. Guards fired pepper spray and pepper balls through the food slot on the cell door, but Martinez kept stabbing.

    "This ... maggot got me good," Gutierrez later wrote, describing the stabbing in a jailhouse letter, according to court documents. "Got me while I was doing pushups. And by the time I was able to fight my way up I was slippin all over my blood."

    The assault continued until guards opened the cell door and rushed inside. Martinez stepped away from Gutierrez, then casually slid his shank across the cell floor, surrendering. As guards led him out, other inmates began to cheer.

    Martinez smiled and gave them a "thumbs up," court documents state.

    The attack was not out of character. In 1996, he was convicted for attacking two Arizona prison guards with a metal shank. Martinez committed a dozen infractions while on death row, including violations for assault and possessing contraband weapons.

    The sheriff's department would not say if Martinez had injured any other inmates or guards since the shank attack in 2011. Riverside County Chief Deputy Geoff Raya confirmed that Martinez was kept separate from other inmates due to his "assaultive nature," but said information about any other attacks were "classified."

    The one person not surprised by the 2011 prison stabbing is Sandi Martin, the widow of Martinez's first victim.


    Sandi Martin, left, and Bob Martin, right, pose with their grandson in this undated family photo. Martin was killed by Ernesto Martinez on August 15, 1995.


    During an interview with The Desert Sun in April, Martin said she was never informed that her husband's killer had been extradited to California. Although Martinez was transferred here in 2010, Martin did not find out until earlier this year, when she was tipped off by a friend in Arizona law enforcement.

    The officer's widow was struck by two things: She worried that Martinez would manipulate California courts to prolong his life and she feared he would strike again.

    "He is out of death row, which is a very different institution than a county jail. I'm nervous about that," Martin said. "I understand trying to get justice for the Singhs, but I don't understand how he can be in California for five years and no court date has been set."

    Martin — who comes from a family of officers, prosecutors and judges — said Martinez's never-ending court case has tested her deep-seated faith in the criminal justice system.

    Today, two decades after her husband was gunned down, Martin's anger has faded. Her once-potent desire for vengeance has eroded into little more than an exhausted longing for closure.

    Martin says she still believes Martinez should be executed, but if it ever actually happens, she will not attend.

    "A court of his peers judged him guilty and gave him the death penalty," Martin said. "In the very beginning, I think I could have choked him with my own hands. … But that has changed. I've made my peace with it. I just want it over with."

    http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/...ence/70942770/
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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    DA: Ernesto Martinez will still face death penalty

    By Brett Kelman
    The Desert Sun

    Riverside County prosecutors have decided they will continue to seek the death penalty for Ernesto Salgado Martinez, an Indio man who has already been sentenced to execution for killing a policeman in Arizona.

    District Attorney Mike Hestrin held a meeting with his top prosecutors on Monday to strategize about how to best prosecute Martinez, but ultimately decided to stay the course in the killer's stagnating court case.

    "During the discussion of the factual and procedural history of this case, several questions arose that I believe need to be answered before I can come to a final decision," Hestrin said in an emailed statement to The Desert Sun on Tuesday. "The nature of the information I needed to make my decision was such that I directed my staff to take more time to research and gather the requested information. We plan to reconvene the staffing in the near future but, at this point, I have not changed our current position that we are seeking the death penalty for Mr. Martinez."

    Martinez, 39, is in jail in Riverside awaiting trial in the death of Blythe storekeeper Randip Singh nearly 20 years ago, on Aug. 15, 1996. Martinez is simultaneously on Death Row in Arizona, where he has been previously convicted of murdering Arizona Highway Patrolman Bob Martin, about eight hours before Singh was shot. Martinez shot Martin on the edge of State Road 87, then drove across the state line into Blythe, where police say he killed Singh in a robbery after running out of gas.

    Martinez was extradited to California in 2010, and has since defended himself in county court, delaying his trial in the Blythe shooting. Today, Martinez, who has spent more than half of his life behind bars, is one of the most dangerous inmates in Riverside County.

    Currently, Martinez has a pending appeal in federal court in Arizona, so the pending California trial is not delaying his execution. However, the local case is keeping Martinez in Riverside County, where he is absorbing tax dollars and endangering other inmates and jail staff.

    Riverside County has spent more than $230,000 to jail Martinez since he was extradited in 2010. In addition, Martinez's court case has demanded countless hours from prosecutors and court employees. Martinez has also tricked an Indio judge into appointing his mistress as his government-funded paralegal, and allegedly stabbed one of his cell mates more than 50 times in 2011.

    The complexities of Martinez's unusual court case were recently explored in an in-depth Desert Sun investigation, published earlier this month. During an interview for that investigation, Hestrin said he would consider abandoning the pursuit of the death penalty in this case, which would allow the case to proceed quicker, and for Martinez to return to Arizona sooner.

    "He is incredibly dangerous because he is so bright," Hestrin said. "I would like to get him out of our system and out of our jail. And one of the ways to do that is to get this case to trial as quickly as possible."

    Statements like that one led Sandi Martin, the window of Arizona Officer Bob Martin, to expect local prosecutors would change course in the Martinez case. On Monday, Martin said she was "surprised" when prosecutors confirmed they would continue to pursue death.

    "It sounded crazy to me," Martin said, adding later, "I thought they would settle for life … but I think they are erring on the side of caution. They said they want to make sure they want a death penalty hanging over his head."

    Martin said she was comforted by the fact that local prosecutors have assured her they will not allow Martinez's local trial to delay his execution. Prosecutors promised that, if Martinez's Arizona appeal is resolved before his California trial is finished, he will be immediately sent back to Arizona for execution regardless, Martin said.

    Still, Martin said she was concerned that Martinez would remain in Riverside.

    "He's dangerous no matter where he is at, but he's much more secure over here (in Arizona) because he's on death row and not in a county jail," she said. "That bothers me."

    The quickest way for Riverside County to end the Martinez case would be for prosecutors to simply drop the charges from the Blythe shooting. If this was done, Singh's murder would remain technically unsolved, but Martinez would immediately return to Arizona's death row, where he would await execution without draining Riverside County funds.

    Hestrin said earlier this month that, although dropping the charges would bring a speedy end to Martinez's quagmire case, prosecutors would be shirking their "obligation to seek justice."

    Martinez has declined to be interviewed by The Desert Sun. During his latest court hearing, on April 17, Martinez told a judge that he would like his case to be transferred to the courthouse in Indio, but he does not mind being jailed in Riverside.

    "I'm housed here in Riverside," Martinez said. "All is well. Living the dream."

    http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/...y-da/27597499/

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    Deadly inmate who has stabbed prison guards and his cell mate caught with a shank – again

    By Brett Kelman
    The Desert Sun

    One of Riverside County’s most dangerous jail inmates – a convicted cop killer who previously stabbed two prison guards and nearly killed his cell mate – was recently caught with a shank inside an isolated cell at the Riverside jail.

    Ernesto Salgado Martinez, 41, of Indio, was caught with the shank on Jan. 19, according to county court records that became public earlier this month. Officials are still investigating how Martinez obtained the shank, but Assistant Sheriff Jerry Gutierrez, the chief of county corrections, suggested the inmate could have smuggled it into his cell when returning from a court appearance.

    The shank was found hidden in Martinez's "shower area" during a routine cell search, Gutierrez said.

    "In jail systems, you are constantly looking for stuff like this," Gutierrez said. "That's the key to managing jails – safety and security."

    Makeshift weapons are a frequent problem in jails and prisons, but this shank is particularly alarming for at least three reasons: Martinez is held under the most secure circumstances of all Riverside County inmates; he has lashed out with weapons like these before; and he is likely to be unshackled while defending himself during a lengthy trial later this fall.

    Martinez has spent more than half of his life in the criminal justice system, and his history of jailhouse attacks dates back to age 15, when he put a juvenile hall employee in the hospital. Martinez has been convicted of murdering Bob Martin, an Arizona highway patrol officer, and is currently facing trial for the slaying of Randip Singh, a Blythe shopkeeper. Both killings occurred during a deadly road trip in 1995, when Martinez shot Martin during a traffic stop in Arizona, then fled across the state line into Blythe, where he allegedly shot Singh during a robbery. Martinez was captured during a four-hour standoff with police in Indio on Aug. 16, 1995, and he has been behind bars ever since.

    A jailhouse menace

    But bars have not stopped Martinez’s violence.

    In 1996, while awaiting trial in Arizona, Martinez stabbed two corrections officers with a shiv. He was later sentenced to death for killing Martin, but then committed a dozen infractions while on Arizona Death Row – including violations for assault and contraband weapons.

    In 2010, Martinez was pulled off of Arizona Death Row and transferred to Riverside County so he could face charges for Singh’s shooting. Martinez was originally housed with other inmates, but in 2011 he allegedly stabbed his cell mate 50 times with a shiv.

    According to court documents, Martinez attacked the cell mate while he was doing pushups, stabbing him in the head, neck and chest. Jail guards tried to subdue Martinez by firing pepper spray through the food slot in the cell door, but the assault continued until the guards opened the door and rushed inside. Martinez stepped away from his victim, then casually slid his shiv across the cell floor.

    As the guards took Martinez away, other inmates began to cheer. Martinez smiled and gave them a "thumbs up," court documents state.

    Prepping for trial

    Currently, Martinez is preparing to defend himself in his upcoming trial for Singh’s death, which is finally expected to go to trial 22 years after the shooting. The trial could last as long as six months.

    Martinez will be unshackled during this trial, according to a prior court order. Prosecutors have now asked a county judge to reconsider this order because of the prison shank found in Martinez's cell.

    A court hearing on the issue is set for April 21.

    John Hall, a spokesman for the DA's Office, said prosecutors will not be filing new charges against Martinez for the jailhouse shank. However, if Martinez is convicted, the DA's Office will recommend the shank be considered in the sentencing phase.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, even though Martinez has already been sentenced to die in Arizona. If Martinez is sentenced to death in California, Arizona will still get to kill him first.

    http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/...hank/99422908/

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    The case of Ernesto Martinez, who may get the death penalty twice, is finally in the hands of a jury

    By Brett Kelman
    The Desert Sun

    Deputy District Attorney Chris Cook stepped up to the courtroom podium and flipped on a projector. A faded photo of a smiling man, standing behind the counter of a mini-mart, flashed before the jury.

    Cook urged them to look. In a case with so much evidence, so much argument and so many years passed, it would be easy to forget the victim, a shopkeeper in a far-flung small town.

    “If you blink, you are going to miss this man,” Cook said. “But this is where this case begins and ends. The last thing he did was stand up to the defendant. The last thing he did was say ‘no’ and fight back. And he paid for it with his life.”

    This was the beginning of the end of the trial of Ernesto Salgado Martinez, believed to be one of the smartest and most dangerous inmates in Riverside County, who has also had one of the longest and most convoluted prosecutions in the county’s modern history. Twenty-two years ago, Martinez shot a highway patrol officer in Arizona, then fled across the state line into California, where his car ran out of gas and allegedly shot the shopkeeper, Randip Singh, while robbing the Day & Nite Mini-Mart in Blythe.

    Martinez, 42, has already been sentenced to death in Arizona for the murder of the highway patrol officer, Bob Martin, but Riverside County prosecutors are seeking another death sentence for Singh’s death. Closing arguments in his six-week trial were heard Tuesday but regardless of the verdict, Martinez will return to Arizona Death Row when the case is over. Even if Martinez gets the death penalty in California, Arizona still gets to kill him first.

    During his two hours of closing arguments, Martinez, who defended himself with the swagger of a trained attorney, attempted to poke holes in prosecution’s evidence and spotlight discrepancies in testimony. He accused witnesses of changing their stories to support police and prosecutors because they “wanted to help”, and he also flattered the jury – he told them that they “weren’t picked to be gullible" and the prosecution's evidence had "insulted their intelligence."

    Most of all, however, Martinez urged the jury to differentiate between the Arizona murder, for which he has already been convicted, and the Blythe shooting, for which he is now on trial. Evidence from the Blythe shooting was flimsy, Martinez claimed, so prosecutors had tried to bolster their case by re-arguing the Arizona shooting.

    “Mr. Cook told you this case was about Randip – Mr. Singh,” Martinez said. “But the evidence didn’t show that, did it? Ninety percent of the evidence you heard is about Arizona.”

    “That evidence was already heard and decided by a jury. That’s not your job to decide Arizona. … We aren’t in Arizona. We are in California talking about Randip Singh in Blythe. But, if we did just that, this trial would have been a lot shorter.”

    In the prosecution's closing statement, Cook had said the shootings were intertwined by both evidence and motive. After killing a cop, Martinez "blew into Blythe as a desperate man" with an empty gas tank, the prosecutor said. And a bullet casing found at the mini-mart matched the kind of ammo in the patrol officer’s pistol, suggesting that Martinez used the dead cop’s gun to shoot Singh.

    “The thing standing between him and getting home to Indio – a place of safety, family and familiarity – was Randip,” Cook said. “He was out of options and out of gas. He had just killed a police officer, he had to get home.”

    “And he had a gun.”

    Martinez, then only 19, allegedly committed both murders during a deadly road trip in a blue-and-white Monte Carlo in 1995. After both shootings, he returned to Indio and barricaded himself in a trailer, but was eventually captured after a four-hour standoff with police.

    Martinez was prosecuted first in Arizona, where he was convicted of murdering Martin and sentenced to death in 1998. Twelve years later, in 2010, local prosecutors had Martinez pulled off of Arizona Death Row and brought to Riverside County to be tried for Singh’s death. Now back in California, Martinez fired his public defender and became his own attorney. The case languished for years, in part due to Martinez’s talent for pre-trial motions and argument.

    Maritnez is also defending himself against attempted murder charges in the same trial for a separate attack in 2011. About one year after he was transferred from Arizona Death Row to the Riverside jail, Martinez allegedly stabbed his cellmate 50 times with a shiv.

    At trial, Martinez argued the stabbing was self-defense, insisting that he was protecting himself from his cellmate, convicted murderer Leroy Gutierrez, a gang shot-caller. In a strange twist, Martinez called Gutierrez as one of his defense witnesses, then Gutierrez supported his defense argument, saying he attacked Martinez first.

    “You heard him when I asked him – what would you do if you had taken that knife away?” Martinez told the jury. “He said he would kill me, because that’s the kind of guy he was.”

    Cook encouraged the jury to disbelieve Gutierrez. Witness testimony and other evidence showed that Martinez had leapt on his victim while he was doing push-ups, jabbing him in the neck.

    “They stopped counting at 50 (stabs,)” Cook said. “He was going for the jugular – literally.”

    http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/...ury/902840001/

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    After 22 years, Ernesto Martinez convicted of Blythe murder during deadly road trip

    By Brett Kelman
    The Desert Sun

    Twenty two years ago, a desperate man stepped into the Day & Nite Mini Mart in Blythe, pulled a gun, demanded money and shot the clerk behind the counter. Then he grabbed the cash and fled.

    That killer, a jury said, was Ernesto Salgado Martinez.

    Martinez, 42, was convicted Monday of murdering Randip Singh, a shopkeeper who was gunned down during a deadly road trip to Arizona and back in 1995. The verdict, which took three-and-a-half days to reach, brings closure to one of the longest and most convoluted prosecutions in the recent history of Riverside County. Martinez's verdict was confirmed by John Hall, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office.

    Martinez, who was only 19 at the time, drove from Indio to Arizona to visit his family members, then was pulled over by a highway patrol officer along the Beeline Highway. Martinez shot that officer, Bob Martin, then fled back to California, where he crossed the state line and ran out of gas in Blythe. Prosecutors say Martinez then robbed the mini-mart, shooting Singh when he refused to empty the register.

    During closing arguments last week, Deputy District Attorney Chris Cook said there was “overwhelming” evidence that Martinez was fleeing from one murder and killed again to keep running.

    “The thing standing between him and getting home to Indio – a place of safety, family and familiarity – was Randip,” Cook said. “He was out of options and out of gas. He had just killed a police officer, he had to get home.”

    “And he had a gun.”

    Martinez, who taught himself law during two decades behind bars, acted as his own attorney during a six-week trial. In his own closing arguments, he accused witnesses of changing their stories and implied that a key piece of the evidence – a bullet casing – had been planted. He told jurors the prosecution's case had "insulted their intelligence."

    “They are not asking you to decide this case based on the evidence. They are asking you to decide this case based on prejudice,” Martinez said.

    Martinez was also on trial for attempted murder, accused of stabbing his cell mate, Leroy Gutierrez, 50 times in 2011. Martinez argued that the stabbing was self defense, and jury acquitted him of the attempted murder charge on Monday.

    The murder case will now proceed to the sentencing phase, at which prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty. However, regardless of how Martinez is sentenced, once the decision is made he will be returned to Arizona, where he has already received the death penalty for killing Martin, the highway patrol officer. Even if Martinez is sentenced to death in California, Arizona will still get to kill him first.

    After the Blythe shooting, police captured Martinez during a standoff in Indio. Martinez was prosecuted in Arizona first, where he was convicted of killing Martin in 1998. Twelve years later, in 2010, local prosecutors had Martinez pulled off of Arizona Death Row and brought to Riverside County to be tried for Singh’s death. Now back in California, Martinez fired his public defender and became his own attorney. His case then took seven years to get to trial, in part because of Martinez’s talent for filing and arguing pre-trial motions.

    "He is incredibly dangerous because he is so bright," District Attorney Mike Hestrin said of Martinez in 2015. "I would like to get him out of our system and out of our jail. And one of the ways to do that is to get this case to trial as quickly as possible."

    http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/...rip/921140001/

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