July 28
TEXAS----execution
Inmate executed for slaying of Minnesota student
Court documents illustrate a grim environment for David Martinez as he
grew up.
His mother may have abused and neglected him. Their house was filled with
bird feces. His father was living elsewhere in an openly gay relationship
and involved in the manufacture of sadomasochistic sex toys. He may have
been abused there as well.
What the courts were asked, however, as the condemned killer faced
execution Thursday evening, was whether those factors should have been
explored more thoroughly so jurors could have better considered whether
Martinez deserved life in prison rather than the death penalty.
Martinez, 29, was executed tonight for the 1997 rape-slaying of a
24-year-old art student from Minnesota at a park in Austin.
"The state violated his due process because the same district attorney's
office that was prosecuting David was also charged with the responsibility
of investigating and prosecuting those persons who abused him, and they
didn't do so," Martinez's appeals lawyer, Gary Taylor, said. "Therefore,
they denied us that evidence."
The appeal was dismissed Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Taylor said he was prepared to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier
this year refused to review Martinez's capital murder conviction for the
death of Kiersa Paul.
"A lot of that came out during trial," Darla Davis, one of the
prosecutors, said Wednesday.
Authorities never had credible evidence Martinez was sexually assaulted,
and if such evidence existed, Martinez "was sitting in jail and had every
opportunity and motivation to let us know," Bryan Case, appellate division
director in the Travis County District Attorney's office, said in the
Austin American-Statesman.
Martinez, from death row, refused to speak with reporters in the weeks
preceding his scheduled punishment.
Eight years ago last week, Paul told her sister she was heading out on her
bicycle to a popular Austin park along the Barton Creek greenbelt to meet
a guy she felt sorry for and knew only as "Wolf," which was Martinez's
nickname. The pair apparently had met through mutual friends.
The next morning, Paul's body was found by a jogger. She'd been raped,
strangled, her throat cut at least eight times and an "X" etched into her
chest.
Martinez was arrested days later. At his trial in 1998, a Travis County
jury deliberated only 15 minutes before convicting him of capital murder.
Two weeks later, they decided he should be put to death.
Paul, whose family lived in Bloomington, Minn., was a sophomore at the
University of Minnesota and came to Austin to visit a sister. She decided
to stay, finding work as a cashier at a bakery.
Martinez was on probation for a 1995 conviction for possession of an
explosive device, a homemade hand grenade police found in his car during a
traffic stop.
"This was a young man who had a very difficult life," recalled Bill White,
one of Martinez's trial lawyers. "He couldn't stay with his mother, he
couldn't stay with his father, and he found people who would take him in."
At times, he lived on the streets.
When Martinez was arrested, he had Paul's bicycle, her backpack and a book
bag. A roommate who saw Martinez's new bicycle had called police.
DNA tests tied him to the crime scene and the victim.
Martinez becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas, and the 346th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982.
At least 8 other Texas death row inmates have execution dates, 2 in each
of the next 4 months. After Martinez, next on the schedule is Gary
Sterling, set to die Aug. 10 for the 1988 robbery and slaying of a Navarro
County man.
Martinez becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 976th overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)
