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  1. #1
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    George Martin - Alabama


    Hammoleketh Martin




    Summary of Offense:

    Martin was a state trooper who was near bankruptcy. In 1995, he took out $377,000 in life insurance policies on his wife, Hammoleketh Martin, and then burned her to death in her car. He was sentenced to death in 2000 but the sentence was overturned on appeal. He was then re-sentenced to death in 2005.

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    Former state trooper seeks new trial

    A former Alabama State Trooper convicted of murder wants a new trial.

    George Martin received the death penalty for killing his wife 17 years ago.

    Fox 10 News was surprised to see George Martin booked into Metro Jail Friday. That's because Martin has been on death row since 2000.

    Martin's trip to Mobile was also news to the attorney general's office which prosecuted the former Alabama State Trooper.

    The AG's office discovered the trip was the result of a clerical error which mistakenly indicated Martin had a hearing scheduled for Monday.

    Martin was in the Metro Jail for only a few hours before he was sent back to Atmore.

    But, he'll be back in town in about two weeks. That's when his hearing is set to request a new trial.

    Martin was convicted in the 1995 arson murder of his wife Hammoleketh. Her body was burned beyond recognition in her car on an isolated road in Theodore.

    Martin was a suspect very early in the investigation, but wasn't charged until four years later.

    Vinie Crowell is a family friend. She said the day of the murder is still fresh in her mind.

    "That was the worse day that I had had in a long time. I have been through a lot in my life, but that really got the best of me," Crowell said.

    Crowell said the first trial and the appeal was hard on the family. She worries a new trial will only add to their pain.

    "That lady has been through so much, and I don't know what and who is behind all this stuff that keep doing this to them," she said.

    According to the attorney general’s office, defense lawyers are asking for the new trial claiming the state failed to turn over certain evidence to the defense.

    They also claim Martin's first lawyers didn't do an adequate job.

    He'll have a new day in court to make that argument next month.

    Martin's hearing is set for April 2.

    http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/loca...eks-new-trial-
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    Death row inmate fights for new trial

    MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - A former Alabama State Trooper convicted of killing his wife is expected in a Mobile court on Monday.

    George Martin was sentenced to death in 2000 for the arson murder.

    Defense lawyers now claim prosecutors failed to provide certain evidence during the trial. They also say Martin's first lawyers didn't do an adequate job.

    The attorneys said the state withheld vital evidence during the murder trial, including documents showing one prosecution witness who saw a trooper vehicle in the area of the crime scene in 1995 could not identify George Martin.

    The defense says the witness, who was shown a pictures of 13 troopers, picked another person as the man he thought he saw driving the trooper vehicle.

    The defense also says evidence concerning a gas can in the victim's car was suppressed. During the trial the lawyer said prosecutors insisted there was no gas can found in the vehicle.

    The defense also claims a statement from the victim's sister stating she saw a gas can in the back of the victim's car was withheld.

    Hammoleketh Martin's body was burned beyond recognition. She was found in her burning vehicle on a isolated road in Theodore in 1995.

    Martin was a prime suspect at the start of the investigation, but he wasn't arrested until four years later.

    http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/loca...uled-for-today
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    Capital Murder Conviction Overturned

    A judge Wednesday ordered a new trial for a former state trooper convicted of capital murder 13 years ago in his wife’s fiery death.

    Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert Smith ruled that prosecutors failed to give defense lawyers key evidence bolstering George Martin’s claims that he did not kill his wife on Oct. 8, 1995.

    “When considered collectively, the evidence favorable to the defense that was withheld by the State, had it been disclosed to Martin’s trial counsel, could reasonably have put the case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the guilty verdict reached by the jury,” Smith wrote.

    Dennis Knizley, an attorney who represented Martin at trial in 2000, said he would relish a second opportunity to clear his name.

    “I certainly feel (the judge) made the right decision,” he said. “I’m very happy for George Martin and his family and hope he gets a new trial.”

    Knizley added the word “hope” because Smith’s decision still must hold up on appeal. Claire Haynes, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, indicated the state would fight the ruling.

    “We disagree with Judge Smith’s ruling, and we will file a notice of appeal,” she wrote in a response to questions about the decision. “We hope the Court of Criminal Appeals will reverse the ruling.”

    Thousands of pages withheld

    Martin, now 55, was a state trooper assigned to the Mobile post in 1995 when his wife, Hammoleketh Martin, burned to death inside her Ford Escort on the side of Willis Road in Tillman’s Corner.

    The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office looked at the case but decided not to prosecute. So the Attorney General’s Office took it over, got an indictment and then won a conviction in May 2000. In July of that year, then-Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae overrode the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Martin to death.

    Appellate courts affirmed the decision, leaving Martin only one shot a new trial – a last-ditch, post-appeal challenge limited only to matters of new evidence or substandard performance of his lawyers.

    Smith’s 119-page ruling comes more than a year after 28 witnesses testified over several days. The judge also examined 104 exhibits.

    The ruling is the second capital murder case in less than a year to be overturned after the defendant had exhausted all of his normal appeals. Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart ordered a new trial for William Ziegler after determining that authorities had withheld key evidence in his case. The Attorney General’s Office has appealed that ruling.

    In the Martin case, Smith ruled that authorities improperly failed to turn over important evidence. The judge noted that Martin’s lawyers received 2,336 pages of evidence. But Mobile police had nearly 14,000 pages of documents.

    “Accordingly, what was provided to (the defense) by the State appears to be only a small percentage of the material that was in the State’s possession,” Smith wrote.

    Witness pointed to different trooper

    A man named James Taylor was one of the most important prosecution witnesses at the trial, because he was only person close to an eyewitness in the largely circumstantial case. But Smith wrote that Taylor may have been an important defense witness had Martin’s lawyers had access to all of the evidence they should have.

    Taylor testified that he saw a black man wearing a state trooper uniform, in a patrol car, on U.S. 90 and LaRue Steiber Roadm near the time of the victim’s death.

    Handwritten notes of an investigating officer indicate that Taylor described the man as a “large black man.” Another officer’s notes indicate that Taylor said that the trooper was “a big man that filled up the car.”

    Martin is only 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

    Those details did not make it into the typed reports given to the defense, Smith wrote. A police form contained a handwritten note labeling the summary a May 8, 1997, interview with Taylor as “work product” that the lawyers were not entitled to. “Disclosure would allow a defendant to tailor his testimony to fit the evidence in this case,” he notation read.

    Investigators showed Taylor a photo array of all 13 black troopers assigned to the Mobile post at the time. According to Smith’s ruling, Taylor drew an arrow to a different trooper. Whether the defense ever saw that array is a matter of dispute. The states contended that the lawyers did receive it, but the attorneys said they did not.

    Smith wrote that it is more credible that the lawyers did not see the photo array. That is bolstered by the fact that Knizley never asked Taylor about the photo spread during cross-examination, the judge wrote.

    “The Court finds that, while this evidence may have been used to convince a jury that the man Taylor saw the night of Hammoleketh Martin’s death was a different Trooper, more importantly, it could have been used by Martin’s defense to successfully convince the jury that the man Taylor saw – was not George Martin,” he wrote.

    Smith wrote that it does not matter whether the prosecutors even knew about the exculpatory evidence. Failure to disclose it improperly harmed Martin’s defense, whether intentional or not.

    Smith also pointed to testimony of defense lawyer Ken Nixon, who said he interviewed the trooper indicated by the Taylor’s arrow. Nixon said the trooper told him that he was not on duty on the night of Hammoleketh Martin’s death and unfamiliar with the area. The judge wrote that records withheld from the defense indicate that the other trooper was, in fact, on duty.

    Other suspects

    Smith wrote that Martin’s lawyers failed to receive information, including internal law enforcement memos, pointing to the possibility of other suspects.

    The judge cited an anonymous call to Mobile police on Nov. 28, 1995. The caller said that there were other people involved in Hammoleketh Martin’s death than police knew. The caller referenced two white state troopers from Baldwin County who supposedly were spending time with her.

    Norma Broach, a nursing student, testified as last year’s hearing that she saw a black car with a white camper parked along U.S. 90 on the night of the victim’s death. She testified that she saw a white man get out of the camper, fill up gas cans at a Texaco station and then put it inside the car.

    After seeing a TV news report the next day about Hammoleketh Martin’s death, Broach said, she called CrimeStoppers to report what she had seen. She testified that after getting no response, she called a second time and made several other attempts over the years to share her observations with law enforcement officials.

    “Broach’s testimony is compelling evidence that Martin’s counsel could have used to argue to the jury that the man Broach saw – a man other than Martin – was responsible for Hammoleketh Martin’s death,” Smith wrote.

    During closing arguments at the murder trial, prosecutors hammered away at a theory offered by the defense that the victim’s habit of driving around with a gas can in her car could have caused the fatal fire. Prosecutors argued that none of the victim’s friends corroborated that.

    But Smith pointed to a statement by the victim’s own sister, Terri Jean Jackson, who told investigators that Hammoleketh Martin carried a gas can. Prosecutors never provided that May 1997 statement to the defense.

    Knizley testified at the 2012 hearing that it would have been crucial. “It’s a pretty biting piece right there,” he said.

    Lawyers for Martin argued that four different law enforcement officers and the Mobile Police Department’s public information officer at the time of the burning saw officers removing what appeared to be charred remnants of a plastic gas can from the wreckage. Smith noted conflicts between the testimony of the officers and other sworn statements they have made.

    “This Court is most dismayed over the testimony that was produced in this part of the hearing,” Smith wrote. “Never has the Court seen such casual treatment of the oath used in affidavits allegedly setting forth certain facts only to see these affidavits and facts recanted at the ... hearing,” he wrote.

    The same judge who presides over a trial is the one who considers post-appeal challenges to a conviction, and those judges almost always reject those bids. In both the Martin and Ziegler cases, though, new judges have replaced the one who presided over the original trials.

    “Maybe it does need a fresh set of eyes each time,” Knizley said.

    If Smith’s ruling stands up on appeal, Martin will get a new trial. Martin originally hired his own lawyers for the first trial but almost certainly would be forced to accept taxpayer-funded representation after more than a decade in prison. Knizley said he would willing to be appointed to the defense team for a second trial.

    “I would look forward to the opportunity to win this straight up,” he said.

    http://blog.al.com/live/2013/09/judg...ar-old_ca.html
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    Appeals court upholds Mobile judge's decision to overturn trooper's capital murder conviction

    An Alabama appeals court Friday upheld a Mobile County judge's decision to overturn the capital murder conviction of a former state trooper accused of killing his wife almost two decades ago.

    Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert Smith last year ruled that prosecutors failed to give defense lawyers key evidence bolstering defendant George Martin's claims that he did not kill his wife on Oct. 8, 1995.

    The Alabama Attorney General's Office appealed Smith's ruling to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which affirmed it Friday.

    "I'm happy for George, happy for his family," said attorney Dennis Knizley, who represented him at the trial in 2000.

    A representative from the Attorney General's Office could not immediately say whether the state would appeal. The Attorney General's Office now could ask the five-member appeals court to reconsider its ruling. It also has the option of asking the state Supreme Court to review the case.

    Martin was a state trooper assigned to the Mobile post in 1995 when his wife, Hammoleketh Martin, burned to death inside her Ford Escort on the side of Willis Road in Tillman's Corner.

    The Mobile County District Attorney's Office looked at the case but decided not to prosecute. So the Attorney General's Office took it over, got an indictment and then won a conviction in May 2000. In July of that year, then-Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae overrode the jury's recommendation and sentenced Martin to death.

    In his ruling last year, Smith determined that the state failed to disclose key evidence to the defense that might have exonerated Martin, including the fact that prosecution witness James Taylor initially pointed to someone else in a photo array.

    Taylor told investigators that he saw a "large black man" wearing a trooper uniform in a patrol car on U.S. 90 and LaRue Steiber Road near the time of the victim's death. One officer's notes indicated that Taylor told investigators that the man he saw "filled up the car."

    Martin, though, is only 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

    Smith also ruled that the state never told the defense that Taylor, after investigators showed him photographs of all 13 black troopers assigned to the Mobile post at the time, drew an arrow to a different officer.

    Knizley said Friday that he has not been contacted about representing Martin at another trial but added that he would love to do so.

    "There was ... evidence in that case that just was not turned over," he said. "The potential for an acquittal (at a retrial) is considerably better, or more likely."

    Martin was the second death row inmate from Mobile County to win a new trial. The previous year, a different judge overturned the capital murder conviction of William John Ziegler in the 2000 death of Russell Allen Baker Jr. Prosecutors have indicated that they intend to retry that case.

    http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index...._mobile_j.html
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  6. #6
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    Judge dismisses capital murder indictment for former Alabama trooper accused of killing wife

    By Jared Boyd
    AL.com

    Circuit Judge Robert Smith dismissed a capital murder indictment for a former Alabama State Trooper who served nearly 15 years after being convicted for burning alive his wife, Hammoleketh Martin, in her car in 1995.

    Smith's basis for the dismissal of the case stems from evidence he says the prosecution willingly withheld from the defense during the original 2000 case that sent former trooper, George Martin, to death row for killing his wife.

    In 2014, an appeals court overturned Martin's death row sentence. In 2015, the judge granted Martin bail and allowed him to work and live within Mobile County while awaiting further action in his trial. While on bail, he was ordered to wear an ankle monitor.

    A major piece of evidence that changed in Martin's favor was an apparent false identification by the prosecution's star witness, James Taylor. Taylor reported that he saw a black male in an Alabama State Trooper's uniform in the area where Hammoleketh Martin's body was found in her car.

    However, when shown a photo lineup of all the black male state troopers in Mobile, Taylor identified someone who was not Martin.

    According to court documents, this information was buried by the prosecution and not presented to the defense.

    "If the Martin case is not one which is appropriate for dismissal, there may never be one," Smith wrote in a document signed on March 11.

    Similarly, the prosecution omitted the admission by the victim's sister that Hammoleketh Martin kept a can of gas in her car.

    "Experienced trial lawyers, including these prosecutors, know that they must be prepared to address the weaknesses of their case," Smith wrote. "The affirmative use by the prosecutors of partial truths and untruths with knowledge satisfy the element of the prosecution's willful misconduct in this case."

    Smith's order of dismissal was filed "with prejudice" which means that Martin cannot be tried for this specific charge again. Future litigation in the trial has thus been canceled and Martin is no longer responsible for wearing an ankle monitor. He is still considered on bond.

    http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index....rt_river_index
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    January 4, 2018

    Alabama Court Upholds Dismissal of Capital Murder Charges Due to Prosecutorial Misconduct

    eji.org

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed the Mobile County Circuit Court's decision to dismiss all charges against George Martin, a former Alabama State Trooper who spent 15 years on death row after being wrongly convicted of killing his wife, because prosecutors knowingly suppressed exculpatory evidence.

    Hammoleketh Martin died in a car fire under suspicious circumstances in Mobile County on October 8, 1995. Evidence did not support an allegation that her husband, George Martin, was responsible for her death and the district attorney's office did not file charges. Four years later, after Mr. Martin sued law enforcement authorities for defamation, the attorney general's office charged Mr. Martin with capital murder, alleging he killed his wife to collect insurance money.

    The prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence to obtain a conviction on May 10, 2000. Mr. Martin was tried during an election year in front of Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Ferrill McRae, who ran a TV ad in support of his re-election campaign listing the names of convicted murderers whom McRae had sentenced to death, including “State Trooper Martin, Murdered and Burned Wife.” When the ad ran, the jury had convicted Mr. Martin but voted to spare his life. Judge McRae had not yet rendered his decision, but the ad announced that he would give Mr. Martin death. He then overrode the jury's sentence and imposed the death penalty on July 25, 2000.

    After Alabama's appellate courts denied relief on appeal, new attorneys challenged George Martin's conviction and presented evidence from 28 witnesses and 104 exhibits during an evidentiary hearing in 2012 before a new judge. Based on the evidence presented, the court concluded that the State violated the law when it failed to disclose to Mr. Martin's trial counsel multiple pieces of evidence that were exculpatory and favorable to the defense.

    The State's only evidence placing Mr. Martin in the vicinity where the car fire occurred on the night of Mrs. Martin's death was a single witness's testimony that he saw a black man in an Alabama State Trooper car in the area earlier that evening, but the State suppressed evidence that the witness could not identify Mr. Martin as the trooper he saw that night and actually identified another state trooper in a photo array that was not disclosed to the defense.

    The defense argued at trial that Mrs. Martin carried a gas can in her car and the fire was the result of an accident. The prosecutor told the jury at trial that there was no gas can found in the car and that none of Mrs. Martin's friends or family had seen her carry a gas can in her car, but notes that were not given to the defense showed that Mrs. Martin's own sister told police she saw a gas can in her sister's car.

    The State also illegally suppressed evidence that pointed to other suspects in Mrs. Martin's death, the court found.

    In 2013, the court concluded that "[t]his accumulation of errors caused 'a breakdown in the adversarial process that our system counts on to produce just results,'" and ordered a new trial.

    After the appeals court upheld that ruling, Mr. Martin moved to dismiss the indictment against him, arguing that the State's misconduct could not be cured by a new trial more than 16 years after the original trial and more than 20 years after Mrs. Martin's death.

    The trial court held an evidentiary hearing and ordered both parties to submit proposed orders, and on March 11, 2016, it dismissed the indictment because "the State's willful, wrongful conduct, combined with the passage of time, had resulted in the death or lack of memory of several key witnesses who had testified at Martin's original trial as well as Martin's inability to thoroughly investigate the exculpatory evidence that was disclosed after his trial had occurred."

    The State appealed, and on December 15, 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, explaining that the prosecution's willful misconduct can result in dismissal of the charges where the prosecutor intentionally withholds exculpatory evidence or exhibits a pattern of discovery violations.

    In this case, the appeals court found both that "there was evidence indicating that the State knowingly suppressed exculpatory evidence" and that Assistant Attorneys General Donald Valeska and William Dill, who were prosecutors in Martin's case, had been found to have committed discovery violations in another capital case.

    Further, the appeals court affirmed the conclusion that a new trial could not cure the prejudice against Mr. Martin because too much time had passed for him to investigate the exculpatory evidence the State had withheld and the State's most important witnesses no longer remembered the statements they made to law enforcement and therefore could not be cross-examined at a new trial.

    Accordingly, the court upheld the "extreme sanction" of dismissing with prejudice the indictment against Mr. Martin.

    https://eji.org/news/alabama-court-u...-george-martin

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    New trial ordered for former Alabama trooper convicted, then freed, in wife's 1995 burning death

    By Carol Robinson
    al.com

    A former Alabama State Trooper who spent 15 years in prison for the burning death of his wife before a judge set him free two years ago will have to go to trial again in connection to the 1995 death.

    The Alabama Supreme Court's ruling ordering a new trial is the latest in the ongoing saga of George Martin who, in a span of 18 years, has been convicted, sentenced to death, and then freed.

    Martin, now 60, was convicted of capital murder in 2000, five years after his wife's death. Hammoleketh Martin's badly-burned body was found inside her Ford Escort on the side of Willis Road in Tillman's Corner in Mobile on Oct. 8, 1995. A forensics investigator determined that she had been burned alive.

    Suspicion fell on her husband - Trooper George Martin - who had been experiencing financial problems and who progressively had been increasing his wife's life insurance policy. By the time of her death, that policy was worth $380,000.

    The jury found that Martin killed his wife to collect the proceeds from those policies and, in an 8 -4 vote, recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The trial judge, however, overrode the jury's recommendation and sentenced Martin to death.

    In 2014, an appeals court overturned Martin's death row sentence. In 2015, the judge granted Martin bail and allowed him to work and live within Mobile County while awaiting further action in his trial. While on bail, he was ordered to wear an ankle monitor.

    In 2016, Mobile Circuit Judge Robert Smith dismissed the capital murder indictment against Martin. A major piece of evidence that changed in Martin's favor was an apparent false identification by the prosecution's star witness, James Taylor. Taylor reported that he saw a black male in an Alabama State Trooper's uniform in the area where Hammoleketh Martin's body was found in her car. However, when shown a photo lineup of all the black male state troopers in Mobile, Taylor identified someone who was not Martin.

    According to court documents, that information was buried by the prosecution and not presented to the defense. Also, according to records, the prosecution omitted the admission by the victim's sister that Hammoleketh Martin kept a can of gas in her car.

    "If the Martin case is not one which is appropriate for dismissal, there may never be one," Smith wrote upon his decision in 2016. Smith's order of dismissal was filed "with prejudice" which meant that Martin could not be tried for that specific charge again. Future litigation in the trial was canceled and Martin was released from the ankle monitor.

    The Alabama Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted the case against Martin, appealed Smith's dismissal of the indictment but the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Smith's decision. The case was then sent to the Alabama Supreme Court which issued its ruling on Friday.

    "We hold that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in affirming the trial court's order imposing the extreme sanction of dismissing the indictment,'' the ruling states.

    The Supreme Court ordered a new trial be set for Martin and stated a new indictment is not necessary.

    Martin last year filed a federal civil suit against the state, the city of Mobile, Mobile County and a handful of law enforcement officers he claims are responsible for his wrongful conviction. In the suit, he argues that his conviction was the result of "multiple instances of intentional and willful misconduct" by the defendants, who include former investigators with the Mobile Police Department and prosecutors in the state's Attorney General's office.

    The defendants have asked that the suit be dismissed. The case is still pending.

    https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/i..._former_t.html
    Last edited by aljazres; 09-01-2018 at 10:07 AM.

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    Former Alabama state trooper convicted - again - in the brutal 1995 killing of his wife

    By Carol Robinson
    AL.com

    An Alabama State Trooper who spent 15 years in prison for the burning death of his wife before a judge set him free two years ago has again been convicted for the 1995 crime.

    Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that former Alabama state trooper George Martin was found guilty of capital murder by a Mobile jury Friday in the slaying of wife, Hammoleketh Martin, in Mobile County. He was sentenced to life without parole.

    “Today, a jury of his peers found George Martin guilty of taking the life of his wife by setting her on fire and leaving her to die in order to collect insurance money,” Marshall said. “Mr. Martin, a former state trooper entrusted with protecting others, not only murdered his wife but has repeatedly avoided justice for nearly 24 years. The jury’s guilty verdict and Martin’s sentence of life without parole ensure that he will pay for his crime and justice will be served.”

    Martin, now 60, was convicted of capital murder in 2000, five years after his wife's death. Hammoleketh Martin's badly-burned body was found inside her Ford Escort on the side of Willis Road in Tillman's Corner in Mobile on Oct. 8, 1995. A forensics investigator determined that she had been burned alive.

    Suspicion fell on her husband - Trooper George Martin - who had been experiencing financial problems and who progressively had been increasing his wife's life insurance policy. By the time of her death, that policy was worth $380,000.

    The jury found that Martin killed his wife to collect the proceeds from those policies and, in an 8 -4 vote, recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Martin was previously convicted in Mobile County Circuit Court in 2000 and served 15 years on Death Row for killing his wife. In 2015, his conviction was overturned, and a new trial was ordered.

    Rather than proceeding with a retrial, the lower court dismissed the indictment and Martin was freed. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision in 2016. The Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division argued that the indictment was improperly dismissed, and that Martin should be required to stand trial again. On August 31, 2018, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed and reversed the lower courts’ decisions and ordered Martin be retried for capital murder.

    In its August 2018 order, the Alabama Supreme Court restated the facts of the case as follows: “In 1995, the charred remains of Martin’s wife, Hammoleketh, were found inside a burned vehicle that had collided with a tree. Although it appeared to be an accident, evidence indicated that the vehicle fire was intentionally set and that the victim was alive when the fire started. Further evidence indicated that Martin made inconsistent statements to law enforcement concerning the time he discovered his wife missing, whether his wife carried a gasoline can in her vehicle and whether his wife had used a BIC brand lighter found at the scene as a flashlight because the dome light in her vehicle did not work.”

    Although Martin acknowledged the existence of a $200,000 life insurance policy, he denied there was any other. In fact, there was another policy for $150,000 that was collectible only if his wife died in a passenger vehicle. A trooper report prepared by Martin the year before involved an accident with similar circumstances.

    Marshall commended Assistant Attorneys General Andrew Arrington, Tina Hammonds, Polly Kenny, Audrey Jordan and Jon Hayden for their skilled and thorough preparation of the case. Marshall also gave special thanks to District Attorney Ashley Rich and Jo Beth Murphree of the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office for their invaluable assistance in the successful prosecution of this case.

    https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2019/...-his-wife.html

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