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Thread: David Royce Martin - Ohio Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Jury recommends death penalty for Martin

    WARREN, Ohio (WYTV) – Wednesday, a jury recommended the death penalty for David Martin, convicted in a capital murder case last week, at the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas.

    Judge Andrew Logan has the final say as to whether or not Martin will receive the death penalty. Logan is expected to make that decision Sept. 24.

    Martin had been standing trial for the death of Jeremy Cole and the wounding of a woman during what investigators say was an attempted robbery in the fall of 2012.

    Martin is currently serving 21 years in federal prison for illegally possessing a weapon.

    http://wytv.com/2014/09/17/jury-reco...ty-for-martin/

  2. #12
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    Man sentenced to death for Warren murder

    WARREN, Ohio - A Trumbull county judge has agreed with a jury's recommendation of the death penalty for convicted murderer David Martin.

    Prior to sentencing Martin, Judge Andrew Logan stated that the aggravated circumstances of the murder of Jeremy Cole in 2012 made death the appropriate penalty.

    A jury convicted 30-year-old Martin for the execution-style shooting of 21-year old Cole and the attempted murder of Melissa Putnam. Assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker described Martin as a cold-blooded killer and a life-long criminal.

    "He serves this punishment that the jury recommended and Judge Logan agreed to sentence him to,”, said Becker. “I can think of no more appropriate sentence for Mr. Martin for the crimes he's committed, he earned it," Becker added.

    Martin's other victim, Melissa Putnam was not in the courtroom, but in a statement read by her mother Putnam said, " I will never understand the decision David made that day to murder Jeremy and attempt to do the same to me."

    Martin declined to make any statement prior to sentencing and showed no emotion when Judge Logan announced the death penalty.

    http://www.wfmj.com/story/26616419/m...-warren-murder

  3. #13
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    Judge rules against murderer Martin

    WARREN — A Trumbull County judge Thursday denied convicted murderer David Martin’s appeal to vacate his 2014 conviction and death sentence in the 2012 shooting death of a Warren man.

    Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew D. Logan ruled Martin is not entitled to the relief on grounds of ineffective trial counsel during Martin’s 2014 trial and sentencing.

    “The burden of proof is on the defendant to substantiate this claim since a properly licensed attorney is presumed competent,” Logan wrote in his four-page decision. “Martin has not set forth evidence to demonstrate substantive grounds sufficient to grant a hearing on his post-conviction request for relief.”

    Logan came to this decision after reading memos submitted during an Oct. 18 hearing.

    Martin was convicted of killing Jeremy Cole, 21, and wounding Melissa Putnam, 30, on Sept. 27, 2012, at her Oak Circle SW home. Cole was shot in the head. Putnam was shot through the hand, with the bullet lodging at the base of her neck.

    Martin, 32, originally from Cleveland, was convicted of charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and tampering with evidence. He is on death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, however, he is not on the execution schedule set through 2020 by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

    The motion to vacate filed last spring by attorney John Juhasz noted errors made by the defense team in juror challenges, specifically one juror who revealed he had worked with Cole.

    “Jurors should have been questioned more extensively,” the motion states.

    Attempts to contact Juhasz were unsuccessful.

    http://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-...rderer-martin/

  4. #14
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    Today the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed Martin's death sentence and set an administrative execution date for May 26, 2021.

    https://supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/do...-ohio-7556.pdf
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #15
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    On February 24, 2020, Martin filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/oh...cv00421/263392

  6. #16
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Death row inmate slips through legal system

    By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
    The Associated Press

    David Martin was sentenced to die six years ago.

    But since late 2018, after the state Supreme Court upheld his sentence, the 35-year-old Ohio death row inmate has fallen through the cracks of the legal system. He hasn’t had a lawyer for more than a year and he missed his chance to make a customary appeal to the federal courts, The Associated Press has learned.

    Martin was sentenced to die in 2014 for fatally shooting 21-year-old Jeremy Cole during a robbery in northeastern Ohio two years earlier. Martin also shot Cole’s girlfriend in the head, severely wounding her.

    When the state Supreme Court upholds a death sentence, it automatically sets an execution date, which in Martin’s case is May 26, 2021. Normally, attorneys representing inmates in their appeals ask the court to delay those dates while cases enter the federal system, a request the court automatically grants. Appeals often last years afterward.

    In Martin’s case, however, no attorney took over his case, the request wasn’t made and his chance to appeal his death sentence was initially lost, said David Stebbins, a federal public defender in Columbus whose office is trying to represent him.

    In fact, Martin only got on that office’s radar after he reached out to the AP in late January with questions about his upcoming 2021 execution, which prompted questions to Stebbins.

    Shortly after that, federal public defenders in Columbus asked a judge last month to appoint them to represent Martin in hopes of saving his federal court appeals.

    “It’s shocking to me that this fell through the cracks, that this could go a whole year and nobody could notice this guy didn’t have a lawyer,” Stebbins said. “I thought we had better safeguards in place.”

    It’s unclear exactly how the system lost track of Martin. Attorney John Juhasz, who represented Martin in his appeal to the Supreme Court, said he sent a letter to the state public defender’s office in January 2019 letting them know his involvement had ended. The state public defender tracks death penalty cases even if it doesn’t represent all the inmates.

    Tim Young, the state public defender, doesn’t dispute the letter was sent, but says his office has no record of the correspondence arriving. “It doesn’t exist in any form that we would have had it,” Young said.

    Young’s office can’t represent Martin in the federal courts since state public defenders represented him at trial. But Young said he’ll do whatever is needed to help Martin get back on track because of the importance of the federal review process.

    Complicating Martin’s situation, he’s housed at the state supermax in Youngstown, away from other death row inmates who typically share information about legal developments, Stebbins said.

    Martin is housed at the supermax because he and two other prisoners took a guard hostage for five hours at Trumbull County Jail in April 2014, said prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith.

    The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office expressed little sympathy for Martin’s situation, noting that in addition to the hostage situation, he threatened the surviving victim at trial.

    “David Martin has forfeited his right to live and we shouldn’t be wasting time and resources on a guy this evil,” said Chris Becker, first assistant prosecutor and lead prosecutor on Martin’s case.

    The attorney general’s office, which typically challenges Ohio death row inmates’ claims in federal court, declined to comment.

    Stebbins, of the federal public defender’s office, said Martin’s case should give pause to anyone who claims Ohio’s death penalty system works because all cases are adequately reviewed. Taking away a federal review means “far less assurance to the citizens of Ohio that the system is working properly.”

    Regardless of what happens, Martin is likely years from execution. The death penalty is on hold in Ohio because the state can’t find a source of lethal drugs. Ohio’s last execution was carried out in July 2018.

    https://apnews.com/efe05e28c8104f892739e77b159d482f
    "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

  7. #17
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Court delays execution of inmate who slipped through cracks

    The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday delayed the execution of a convicted killer whose case federal public defenders said slipped through the cracks of the legal system.

    Death row inmate David Martin, 36, had been scheduled to die May 26. The Associated Press reported last year that he went without a lawyer for more than a year after the court upheld his sentence in 2018 and missed a chance to make a customary appeal to the federal courts.

    Justices have now stayed Martin’s execution until all his legal options are exhausted.

    Martin was sentenced to die in 2014 for fatally shooting 21-year-old Jeremy Cole during a robbery in northeastern Ohio two years earlier. Martin also shot Cole’s girlfriend in the head, severely wounding her.

    When the state Supreme Court upholds a death sentence, it automatically sets an execution date. Attorneys representing inmates in their appeals normally ask the court to delay those dates while cases enter the federal system, a request the court automatically grants. Appeals often last years afterward.

    In Martin’s case, though, no attorney initially took over his case, the request wasn’t made and his chance to appeal his death sentence appeared to be lost. Questions prompted by Martin’s outreach to the AP put his case on public defenders’ radar.

    The high court’s temporary reprieve for Martin comes amid an unofficial death penalty moratorium in the state prompted by legal setbacks and challenges obtaining lethal injection drugs.

    Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said last year that lethal injection is no longer an option, and he has asked state lawmakers to identify a different method. In the meantime, he has delayed a host of upcoming executions.

    The state’s last execution was in July 2018.

    (source: Associated Press)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - 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.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #18
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Inmate on death row wants his sentence vacated

    Attorneys for a Trumbull County convicted murderer — who had been scheduled to die in 2021 before Ohio’s highest court stayed his execution — have now asked the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to vacate his death sentence because the defendant claims he is intellectually disabled.

    David Martin, 37, through his public defenders Adam Rusnak, Bridget Kennedy and Deborah Williams, filed the motion on March 31 in a 412-page document.

    In 2021, the Ohio Supreme Court delayed Martin’s execution because federal public defenders had admitted his case had “slipped through the cracks of the legal system.” Martin had gone without a lawyer for more than a year, reports state, after the high court upheld his 2014 sentence. Martin subsequently missed deadlines to make appeals to federal courts.

    Gov. Mike DeWine ruled in 2021 that lethal injection is no longer an option, and he has asked state lawmakers to identify a different method for putting the condemned to death. In the meantime, DeWine put a moratorium on executions in 2021 and 2022. The state last put someone to death in July 2018.

    Martin, who is incarcerated at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, was sentenced to death by Judge Andrew D. Logan after a jury found him guilty in September 2014 on charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

    Martin was charged with the Sept. 27, 2012, execution-style murder of Jeremy Cole, 21, during an attempted robbery at an Oak Circle SW, Warren home. He also was charged with wounding then 30-year-old Melissa Putnam, who recovered from her head wounds.

    Later, Martin was charged with being 1 of 3 Trumbull County jail inmates responsible for taking a corrections officer hostage in April 2014 while he was awaiting trial.

    In his petition, Martin wants Logan to vacate his death sentence because of court errors in the trial and sentencing.

    Martin’s attorneys also claim at least 2 medical experts have determined the inmate is intellectually disabled.

    Logan has not scheduled any hearings on the defense motion, and the judge has given county Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Sanders until Sept. 30 to file a response to Martin’s motion.

    An earlier U.S. Supreme Court ruling has forbidden the state to execute inmates who are intellectually disabled.

    Fellow death row inmate Danny Lee Hill has staved off execution by using the same intellectually disabled argument.

    CRITERIA MET

    Martin’s petition states that psychologist Carol Armstrong, Ph.D, examined Martin in 2001 and determined his IQ to be 71 using the Welsher Adult Intelligence Scale. When adjusting that test norms become outdated, the attorneys argue that his IQ score should be 67, which is below the 70 line determining intellectual disability.

    Another expert, a psychiatrist, states that Martin displays adaptive deficits in conceptual, social and practical functions. The findings of Dr. Robin Belcher-Timme rely on input by Martin’s father, brother and a grade-school teacher, about the inmate’s slow academic progress and speech problems.

    While in elementary school, Martin had to repeat 4th grade and was placed in special education in 5th grade, the report states. During his teens, Martin maintained grades of D and F.

    “Based on the many-sided evaluation, Mr. Martin meets the diagnostic criteria for Mild Intellectual Disability,” Dr. Belcher-Timme’s quotes are repeated in the court petition.

    Also Armstrong noted in making her diagnosis for intellectual disability that Martin displayed “very significant neuropsychological impairment.”

    FAMILY BACKGROUND

    The defense motion uses more than a dozen pages to delve into Martin’s family background and early childhood.

    It notes that mother Hilda “Theresa” Martin of Cleveland was so addicted to crack and alcohol that she was unable to stay sober while pregnant with David, according to information supplied to attorneys by Martin’s relatives.

    When Martin was born on Sept. 14, 1984, trial excerpts state hospital professionals recognized that Martin’s mother had parenting problems because she discharged herself from the hospital early against medical advice. Social services became involved and a home visit was scheduled, but no follow ups were made, records show.

    Both parents came from troubled homes with substance abuse and mental illness prevalent.

    Martin’s father, Benjamin, was born into poverty in West Virginia with Martin’s grandfather, a violent alcoholic, being a coal miner and railroad worker, records show. All of Martin’s siblings experienced some kind of trauma, whether sexual, physical or emotional abuse, according to relatives.

    During his early life, Martin’s mother continued to use drugs in front of him, smoking crack while he was an infant. Records show the mother would abandon her children for days at a time and sell her children’s toys and other belongings to buy drugs.

    Records show the mother worked in the sex trade to support her drug habit, often bringing customers home when the children — including Martin — were there.

    In April 1989, when Martin was 4, his mother was murdered, and defense attorneys claim the act was witnessed by Martin. Police investigation records do not confirm whether Martin was with his mother at the time of her death.

    After the death, David and his brother moved in with their father, and life did not improve for the family, records show. He eventually succumbed to the negative influences in his Cleveland neighborhood and attorneys said he became an addict and “a follower.”

    The only bright spot was Martin’s experience with boxing, the record shows.

    (source: Tribune Chronicle)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - 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.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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