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Thread: Jeffrey Robert Martin - Pennsylvania Death Row

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    Jeffrey Robert Martin - Pennsylvania Death Row








    Facts of the Crime:

    Martin was sentenced to death in Greene County on September 17, 2008 for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Gabrielle Bechen on June 13, 2006.

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    September 17, 2008

    WAYNESBURG (KDKA/AP) ― A farmhand has now been formally sentenced to the death penalty today for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl on a southwestern Pennsylvania horse farm.

    A Greene County jury found 51-year-old Jeffrey Martin guilty in May and found he deserved execution for killing Gabrielle Bechen on June 13, 2006.

    In Pennsylvania, a death sentence must be formally imposed by a judge.

    KDKA's Harold Hayes reports that the judge in the case has declared Martin a sexually violent predator. Martin's daughter testified at the hearing that she was molested by her father at the age of six.

    Martin testified as well.

    In 2006, Bechen disappeared while riding her all-terrain vehicle at a Greensboro horse farm where Martin worked.

    Her body was found buried on the farm five days later.

    Martin denies killing Bechen.

    He says a man came to the farm with a body and the ATV and offered him $100 to help bury the vehicle.

    http://kdka.com/local/death.sentence....2.819412.html

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    November 6, 2009

    Man facing death penalty loses appeal for killing 12-year-old girl

    A farmhand facing the death penalty for killing a 12-year-old Greene County girl lost an appeal for a new trial after his public defender failed to file a memorandum supporting his claims.

    Jeffrey Martin's post-sentence motions regarding his first-degree murder conviction in the death of Gabrielle Bechen were denied yesterday in an order by Greene County Senior Judge H. Terry Grimes.

    First Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers said prosecutors waited for more than a year for Martin's attorney, Harry Cancelmi, to file the memorandum supporting his Sept. 29, 2008, motions for a retrial.

    Among Cancelmi's contentions were that Grimes, the trial judge, made several erroneous decisions, Chambers said.

    At one point in June, Grimes suggested in an order that Cancelmi could face a $100-a-day sanction because of his delay in filing, but the penalty never was imposed, according to court records.

    Cancelmi was not available for comment Friday because he was at a conference, according to the Greene County public defender's office.

    With the judge's ruling, Cancelmi now will have a month to appeal Martin's case to the state Supreme Court, Chambers said. In Pennsylvania, defendants given the death penalty get an automatic appeal to the state's highest appellate court to review whether the evidence is sufficient to support the guilty verdict and sentence.

    Chambers opposed Martin's motions in a brief filed Monday.

    "The procedure of having the commonwealth file their memorandum before the defense is not addressed by the rules of court," Chambers said in a statement. "However, something had to be done to move this case to the Supreme Court for its review. It is not fair to the parents of the victim or to the defendant, for that matter, to allow the case to linger indefinitely."

    Jurors convicted Martin, 52, of New Geneva, Fayette County, in May 2008 of the June 2006 rape and murder of the girl on a Dunkard Township farm.

    Martin confessed to raping Gabrielle and burying her in a shallow grave, but the defense claimed that his statements were coerced by police. He told investigators he killed the girl after she threatened to tell her parents about the sexual assault.

    On the witness stand, Martin claimed Gabrielle was murdered by an unidentified person who drove a white pickup truck and offered him $100 to help dispose of the all-terrain vehicle she was riding by burying it, too.

    Besides the death penalty, Grimes sentenced Martin to another 23 to 46 years for other crimes, including rape, involved in the case.

    (Source: The Tribune-Review)

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    tiffybug92
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    i will be happy when his day comes gabby i love u and miss sissy

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    Farmhand's death sentence upheld in girl's slaying

    WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty and conviction of a farmhand in the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl on a southwestern Pennsylvania horse farm in 2006.

    Fifty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Martin, of New Geneva, had argued there wasn't sufficient evidence to support his conviction on first-degree murder and other crimes for killing Gabrielle Bechen (BEE'-chen) on June 13, 2006. The same Greene County jury took about an hour to decide Martin deserved to be executed.

    Police say Martin confessed, but he took the stand at trial to recant and blamed the killing on another man. He has also argued that there wasn't enough evidence to prove the killing occurred as part of the sexual assault, which was one of the aggravating circumstances prosecutors cited in seeking the death penalty.

    http://www.abc27.com/story/26626306/...-girls-slaying

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    Title:
    Jeffrey Robert Martin, Petitioner
    v.
    Pennsylvania
    Docketed: July 14, 2015
    Linked with 14A969
    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District
    Case Nos.: (603 CAP)
    Decision Date: September 24, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: December 18, 2014

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Mar 12 2015 Application (14A969) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from March 18, 2015 to May 17, 2015, submitted to Justice Alito.
    Mar 17 2015 Application (14A969) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until April 17, 2015.
    Apr 17 2015 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due August 13, 2015)
    Aug 10 2015 Brief of respondent Pennsylvania in opposition filed.
    Aug 27 2015 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 28, 2015.
    Oct 5 2015 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/15-5185.htm

    On December 8, 2015, Martin filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/pe...cv01607/227498

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    Execution notices signed for three convicted murderers in Pennsylvania

    HARRISBURG, Pa. – Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel on Wednesday signed Notices of Execution for the following inmates:

    Inmate Name Date of Execution County of Conviction

    Thomas Meadows - March 15, 2016 - Montgomery

    Jeffrey Martin - March 16, 2016 - Greene

    Christopher Johnson - March 18, 2016 - Adams

    The law provides that when the governor does not sign a warrant of execution within the specified time period, the secretary of corrections has 30 days within which to issue a notice of execution, according to a Department of Corrections news release.

    Johnson, 32, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death for the 2010 murder of Wildlife Conservation Officer David Grove.

    Johnson shot Grove while the wildlife officer was investigating a deer poaching incident in a rural area of Adams County.

    Grove was the first Pennsylvania game warden killed in the line of duty in 95 years, and more than 1,000 mourners attended his funeral.

    http://fox43.com/2016/01/27/executio...-pennsylvania/

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    Greene County judge orders stay on execution for convicted murderer

    A Greene County judge ordered a temporary stay on the execution of Jeffrey Robert Martin while the child murderer and rapist appeals his conviction and death sentence.

    Judge Louis Dayich ordered the stay Feb. 9, two weeks after the state Department of Corrections took the administrative step to issue a death warrant for Martin and scheduled his execution date for March 16.

    DOC Secretary John Wetzel signed the notice of execution for Martin as required by state law when the governor refuses. Even with the execution date set, there was little chance Martin would be put to death any time soon because he was still undergoing appeals and Gov. Tom Wolf issued a moratorium on all executions in Pennsylvania.

    Martin, 58, of New Geneva, was convicted of the June 13, 2006, raping and strangling 12-year-old Gabrielle Bechen after she left her home on an all-terrain vehicle to visit the nearby Dunkard Township farm where Martin worked as a farmhand. A Greene County jury found Martin guilty on all counts, including first-degree murder, rape and aggravated indecent assault, following a six-day trial in May 2008. He was sentenced to death the following day.

    Martin claims in the post-conviction relief appeal he filed Jan. 19 in Greene County Court that his court-appointed defense was ineffective, there was prosecutorial misconduct and evidence was withheld, among other issues. He did not elaborate and wrote he needs legal assistance from an attorney.

    Dayich earlier this month assigned Pittsburgh-based attorney Thomas Farrell to represent Martin through the post-conviction appeal phase.

    Farrell said he was still reviewing the case and could not comment on the appeal

    “It’s a death penalty case so obviously it will take some time to review,” Farrell said.

    Martin, who is being held at SCI-Graterford, wrote very little in his seven-page filing and said he needed legal assistance to answer several questions. He is requesting a new trial in his appeal.

    In his order, Dayich directed Farrell to review Martin’s appeal and modify it if necessary no later than mid-March.

    Martin filed a writ of habeas corpus Dec. 8 in federal court in Pittsburgh, asking it to review his conviction, but that court pushed his appeal back to Greene County Court. Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman originally rejected Martin’s post-conviction relief request since he filed it after the initial Dec. 24 deadline.

    Toothman then assigned the case to Dayich after Martin filed the proper paperwork Jan. 19.

    http://www.observer-reporter.com/201...icted_murderer
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    I think it's pretty brilliant that this vile wretch is being held at SCI Graterford even though he committed his crime in the same county as SCI Greene, which has the bigger of the two male Capital Case Units in the state. They're 300 miles away from each other.

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    Fayette County man appeals conviction in 2006 murder of Greensboro girl

    By Mike Jones
    The Observer-Reporter

    The Fayette County man sentenced to death for raping and murdering a 12-year-old Greensboro girl in June 2006 is asking a judge for a new trial or to be resentenced.

    Jeffrey Robert Martin appeared Thursday morning at the Greene County Courthouse for a hearing on his appeal nearly 17 years after he strangled Gabrielle Miranda Beche and buried her body on a horse farm in Dunkard Township where he worked.

    artin, who is originally from New Geneva and now 65 years old, has been on death row since being convicted in May 2008 on all charges, including first-degree murder, rape, aggravated indecent assault and numerous other counts, following a six-day jury trial. The Greene County jury sentenced him to death the following day.

    In his appeal through the state’s Post Conviction Relief Act, court-appointed attorney Thomas Farrell argued that Martin had ineffective counsel during the trial, penalty phase and subsequent appeals. The appeal also claims new DNA evidence techniques could prove Martin’s innocence, while also arguing that the death penalty is unconstitutional according to both federal and state laws.

    The two-hour hearing was held before Senior Judge Thomas Ling, who will decide later whether Martin should receive a new trial or sentence. It was not known when he would issue an order.

    Both Farrell and Deputy Attorney General Gregory Simatic, who represented the commonwealth during the hearing, declined to comment about the case.

    Martin strangled Gabrielle on June 13, 2006, after she left her home on an all-terrain vehicle to visit the nearby Dunkard Township horse farm where Martin worked as a farmhand. Five days after Gabrielle went missing, volunteers looking for her during a coordinated search discovered her ATV buried under manure on the farm. They found her body buried nearby, and Martin confessed to killing her and using a backhoe to dig the grave, but he later recanted and blamed another man for the killing.

    Martin is listed as a death row inmate at SCI-Phoenix state prison in Montgomery County, but he was being held at SCI-Greene near Waynesburg this week while appearing in court for his appeal Thursday.

    The state Department of Corrections took the administrative step in 2016 of issuing a notice of execution for Martin, although then governor Tom Wolf declined to sign the death warrant as part of his moratorium on the death penalty. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who took office last month, has also announced that he plans to continue a moratorium on executions.

    No inmate has been executed in Pennsylvania since July 6, 1999, when Gary Heidnik was put to death for murdering two women in his home. Just three people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

    https://observer-reporter.com/news/f...8ab5913e7.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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