Jeffrey Martinson, the onetime Ahwatukee business consultant who remains charged with killing his 5-year-old son back in 2004, will face a retrial on murder and child abuse charges this July.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sally Duncan set the retrial date at a hearing in which she also denied a defense motion to set bail for Martinson, who has been incarcerated at the county jail since his arrest for the murder of little Josh--almost eight years ago.
Last month, Duncan ordered the retrial after a post-conviction hearing revealed that allegations of serious juror misconduct before and during deliberations were accurate.
Here is the cover story that we did on the whole crazy shebang, entitled "Eating Jeff," and the follow-up news item we published a few weeks ago on the judge's unique ruling.
Judge Duncan ordered the prosecution and defense teams to attend a "Settlement Conference" a week from today, April 27, before Judge Paul McMurdie. At such hearings, the judge tries (unsuccessfully more often than not) to get both sides to compromise.
Prosecutors still seemingly hellbent on trying to win a death-penalty conviction (even though only two of the two jurors in the first trial voted for death, and one of those had very strange reasoning behind her vote--see first story).
To us, this isn't close to a death-penalty case. Capital punishment is supposed to be reserved for the "worst of the worst," and the evidence against Martinson just isn't that strong, though odds of his conviction on something serious seem strong.
But we hardly can even picture the lead prosecutor in the case, Frankie Grimsman, telling Judge McMurdie at the "Settlement Conference" that her side will agree to life in prison without possibility of parole.
For the record, Martinson's defense team wouldn't go there in this lifetime or any other.
This has become the case that will never end.
We have another blog to write about the sub-angle to our earlier story, the money angle and how much money it has cost taxpayers just to pay for the indigent Martinson's defense lawyers. We will do that one this weekend or first thing Monday morning.
