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Michael Kiefer

Objections raised to Juan Martinez’s conduct in Jodi Arias trial (Part 3/4)

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Here’s part 3 of Michael Kiefer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

As I said yesterday — Kudos to Michael Keifer for his highlighting of this issue too. He’s already taking flak on his Twitter account from delusional pedo-huggers & people with a necrophilia fetish… and long may it continue. After all, everyone else’s fuck-ups get highlighted. Why should prosecutors fuck-ups be treated any different?

You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.

Today, the well documented prosecutorial misconduct, lies & deception of Juan Martinez is highlighted in great detail.

Here’s the latest installment:

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Objections raised to Juan Martinez’s conduct in Jodi Arias trial (Part 3/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

“Juan Martinez was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 1999, more than a decade before he became a media darling with his performance in the Jodi Arias murder trial.

This year, Martinez convinced a jury to find Arias guilty of first-degree murder, but the jurors could not reach consensus on whether to sentence her to death or life, and Arias likely faces a new trial to make that decision.

Martinez helped send seven other killers to death row since he was hired at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in 1988.

He was accused by defense attorneys of prosecutorial misconduct in all but one of those cases; the Arizona Supreme Court characterized his actions as constituting misconduct in one of them, and cited numerous instances of “improper” behavior in another, but neither rose to the level where the justices felt they needed to overturn the cases. Allegations of misconduct by Martinez in the second case and at least two others are pending in state and federal courts.

It is not uncommon for defense attorneys to allege misconduct against prosecutors. A study by The Arizona Republic determined that it was alleged in about half of all death-penalty cases since 2002, and validated in nearly one-quarter of them.

But it is rare for Supreme Court justices to call out a prosecutor’s conduct in open court.

One day in mid-2010, the Arizona Supreme Court was on the bench as lawyers presented arguments during the direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for a man named Mike Gallardo, who killed a teenager during a Phoenix burglary in 2005.

Transcripts show Justice Andrew Hurwitz turned to the attorney representing the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the prosecutorial agency that handles death-penalty appeals.

“Can I ask you a question about something that nobody’s discussed so far?” he asked. “The conduct of the trial prosecutor. It seems to me that at least on several occasions, and by and large the objections were sustained, that the trial prosecutor either ignored rulings by the trial judge or asked questions that the trial judges once ruled improper and then rephrased the question in another improper way. … Short of reversing a conviction, how is it that we can… stop inappropriate conduct?”

The assistant attorney general struggled to answer.

Justice Michael Ryan then stepped into the discussion.

“Well, this prosecutor I recollect from several cases,” Ryan said. “This same prosecutor has been accused of fairly serious misconduct, but ultimately we decided it did not rise to the level of requiring a reversal,” Ryan said. “There’s something about this prosecutor, Mr. Martinez.”

There had been multiple allegations of prosecutorial misconduct against Martinez in Gallardo’s appeal. Ultimately, in its written opinion, the court determined that Martinez had repeatedly made improper statements about the defendant. During the oral argument before the Supreme Court, the justices fixed on a question that Martinez asked three times, even though the trial judge in the case had sustained a defense attorney’s objections to the question.

But in the end, the justices ruled that Martinez’s behavior still did not “suggest pervasive prosecutorial misconduct that deprived (the defendant) of a fair trial.”

And, as the justices noted, it was not the first time that Martinez had walked away unscathed…….”

“Arias admitted that she killed Alexander and claimed that she shot him after he attacked her. For four years, police and prosecution maintained that Arias first shot Alexander and then stabbed him and slit his throat. But days before jury selection, Martinez changed the facts of the case, saying that Arias had shot Alexander last instead of first; Arias’ attorneys, Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott, protested that the rationale for seeking the death penalty had been based on the first theory.

They filed a motion for mistrial alleging prosecutorial misconduct when Martinez appeared on television, signing autographs and posing for photos with fans.

Martinez verbally attacked Arias and her witnessess. He painted Arias as a sexual predator. He asked compound questions and then accused witnesses of being non-responsive when they would not answer yes or no.

“I would not have let the cross-examinations go on for that long,” said Fields, the retired judge. “It was just badgering and bullying the witnesses in an attempt to ruin their credibility. It crossed the line.”

As video and transcripts later showed, many of the trial’s most contentious moments took place in the judge’s chambers or at the bench, out of earshot of the rest of the courtroom and the cameras. Etiquette is a given during court proceedings. Martinez was frequently insulting.

The first question he posed to Arias during cross-examination set the tone, when he displayed a photograph to the courtroom and described it to her as a “picture of you and your dumb sister.”

One day at the bench, as the attorneys debated whether to admit a statement about whether Alexander wanted to kill himself, transcripts show Martinez said, “But the thing is that if Ms. Willmott and I were married, I certainly would say, ‘I fucking want to kill myself.’”

Willmott objected, and two days later at another bench conference, Martinez said to Willmott, “Well, then, maybe you ought to go back to law school.”

Nurmi asked Judge Sherry Stephens to step in, but she did not.

“In my view, that would have been a fine,” Fields said. “I probably would have reported him to the Bar. It shows his bias. It’s just inappropriate.”

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Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

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Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)

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Here’s part 2 of Michael Keifer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

Kudos to Michael Keifer for his highlighting of this issue too. He’s already taking flak on his Twitter account from delusional pedo-huggers & people with a necrophilia fetish… and long may it continue. After all, everyone else’s fuck-ups get highlighted. Why should prosecutors fuck-ups be treated any different?

You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.

Kermit’s antics will be featured in Part 3, tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Here’s the latest installment:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

[hdplay id=247 width=500 height=300]

“Richard Wintory was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 2007. Wintory had spent 20 years as an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma, another seven in the Pima County Attorney’s Office, and by 2010 had moved on to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, where he continued to try criminal cases, especially death-penalty cases.

Now he is chief deputy in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office.

He is also the focus of an investigation by the State Bar of Arizona because a Pima County Superior Court judge referred him to the State Bar of Arizona for improper contact with a member of a murder suspect’s defense team.

Prosecutors are frequently accused of misconduct during criminal cases, and even if a trial judge or a court of appeals agrees that they acted badly, it rarely affects the conviction or sentence of the trial defendants.

Wintory calls himself an “impassioned” attorney; others might say he pushes the envelope.

“In the 30 years I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve had many people file complaints and lawsuits against me, but I’ve never been disciplined,” he said.

In Arizona, prosecutor misconduct is alleged in half of all capital cases that end in death sentences.

Half the time, the Arizona Supreme Court agrees that misconduct occurred in those instances, but it rarely throws out a conviction or sentence because of it.

The Arizona Republic reviewed all of the Arizona Supreme Court opinions on death sentences going back to 2002.

Of 82 cases statewide, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged on appeal by defense attorneys in 42 and the court found improprieties or outright misconduct in 18 instances. But only two of those death sentences were reversed because of the improprieties, and only two prosecutors were disciplined.

The offenses varied in seriousness from excessive sarcasm and vouching for the sincerity of witnesses to introducing false testimony and failing to disclose evidence that might have helped the defendant.

But overwhelmingly, even when misconduct was found, the high court determined that it was “harmless error.”

The most serious examples did not appear in those cases because the misconduct caused a mistrial or the prosecution offered a favorable plea agreement to avoid mistrial, as in Wintory’s case.

It is rare for prosecutors to be referred to the Bar for misconduct, let alone be disciplined by the Bar or sanctioned by trial judges. And whether Wintory will be disciplined remains to be seen…….”

>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<

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Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious!

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Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases (Part 1/4)

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As we all know, we witnessed enough prosecutorial misconduct during Jodi’s trial to sink several ships.

Following on from that, check out part 1 of 4 in Michael Kiefer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.

Sound familiar?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases (Part 1/4)
by Michael Kiefer:

[hdplay id=247 width=500 height=300]

“Noel Levy was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 1990 when he convinced a jury to convict Debra Milke of first-degree murder for allegedly helping to plan the murder of her 4-year-old son.

A year later, he convinced a judge to send her to death row.

It was a scandalous case: Prosecutors charged that in December 1989, Milke asked her roommate and erstwhile suitor to kill the child.

The roommate and a friend told the boy he was going to the mall to see Santa Claus. Instead, they took him to the desert in northwest Phoenix and shot him in the head.

But neither man would agree to testify against Milke, and the state’s case depended on a supposed confession Milke made to a Phoenix police detective.

Milke denied confessing.

The detective had not recorded the interview, and there were no witnesses to the confession.

When Milke’s defense attorneys tried to obtain the detective’s personnel record to show that he was an unreliable witness with what a federal court called a “history of misconduct, court orders and disciplinary action,” the state got the judge to quash the subpoena.

“I really thought the detective was a straight shooter, and I had no idea about all the stuff that allegedly came out,” Levy recently told The Arizona Republic.

But in March of this year, after Milke, now 49, had spent nearly 24 years in custody, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out her conviction and sentence because of the state’s failure to turn over the detective’s personnel record so that Milke’s defense team could challenge the questionable confession.

The 9th Circuit put the onus on the prosecution.

“(T)he Constitution requires a fair trial,” the ruling said, “and one essential element of fairness is the prosecution’s obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence.”

The 9th Circuit judges ordered that Milke be retried within 90 days or be released.

The chief circuit judge referred the case to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to investigate civil-rights infringements. Under the 9th Circuit order, prosecutors must allow the detective’s personnel record into evidence if they use the contested confession.

Prosecutors are responsible for the testimony of the law-enforcement officers investigating their cases. Cops and prosecutors are the good guys. They put criminals in prison, sometimes on death row. Juries tend to believe them when they say someone is guilty. They don’t expect them to exaggerate or withhold evidence. They don’t expect their witnesses to present false testimony.

Yet The Arizona Republic found that, when the stakes are highest — when a trial involves a possible death sentence — that’s exactly what can happen.

In half of all capital cases in Arizona since 2002, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged by appellate attorneys. Those allegations ranged in seriousness from being over emotional to encouraging perjury.

Nearly half those allegations were validated by the Arizona Supreme Court.

Only two death sentences were thrown out — one for a prosecutor’s tactics that were considered overreaching but not actual misconduct because a judge had allowed him to do it.

Two prosecutors were punished, one with disbarment, the other with a short suspension…….”

>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Remember…

WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!

Leave your thoughts & comments below.

SJ
Team Jodi

If you would like to help Jodi by way of a financial donation to the official JAA APPELLATE FUND, click the Team Jodi link below for further details. All donations go directly to the fund for assisting with the legal fees associated with appealing Jodi’s wrongful conviction. Thank you for your support!

We Are Team Jodi ---- And We Will Be Victorious! .