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WARREN – David Martin was sentenced Wednesday to die by lethal injection after a jury earlier found him guilty of killing a Warren man, shooting his female friend, and robbing them.
Sometimes staring at the floor, other times at the courtroom ceiling, or sometimes yawning, the 30-year-old Martin said nothing on the advice of his attorneys as Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Andrew Logan affirmed the death penalty a jury recommendation last week.
It was only the second death penalty verdict in the state of Ohio this year. It has been 11 years since the last time a Trumbull County defendant was sentenced to death row.
Martin’s attorney, Greg Meyers, told the judge to simply consider the apology and remarks the defendant made last week in his unsworn statement to the jury.
But assistant county prosecutor Chris Becker challenged Martin, after pointing out to Logan that Martin was ”mouthing” obscene remarks and making rude gestures with his middle finger toward Becker and assistant prosecutor Gabe Wildman moments earlier.
”Do you have something to say? Now’s the time to say it,” Becker said in a loud voice, calling attention to Martin’s decision to decline any allocution before sentencing.
”He’s never manned up at any point in his life. For all I care, he can forgo his appeals and volunteer to be executed,” Becker said later.
Logan meanwhile read a lengthy sentencing memorandum that rehashed evidence in the case and pointed out that aggravated circumstances had outweighed mitigating circumstances, including the poor upbringing Martin was faced with in a rough ghetto of Cleveland.
Logan even adjorned court briefly to consider the lack of an allocution before completing the sentencing proceeding.
”The sentence of death is appropriate,” Logan said, tacking on an additional 61 years for an attempted murder and accompanying felony charges, all with firearm specifications.
Martin killed Jeremy Cole, 21, and wounded Melissa Putnam, 30, on Sept. 27, 2012. Cole was shot in the head and Putnam was shot in the hand. The bullet traveled through her hand, which she raised before the shot, and into her head at the base of her neck. She spent four days in the hospital.
She served as the state’s key witness since she survived the attack at her Oak Circle S.W. home, where she lived with her daughter.
Cole and Putnam were tied up and placed in different rooms at the home during the episode. Martin, who knew them both, made Putnam tie up Cole at gunpoint, then Martin tied up Putnam. She said her face was covered with a towel after they were robbed of cell phones, cash and some marijuana.
”David has tried every angle and told every lie he could to try to escape his fate, but today it all ends,” said Putnam’s mother, Tarena Putnam, who read the victim’s statement since Melissa Putnam was in Florida and didn’t attend the sentencing.
”I’ll forgive him,” said Amy Biles, Cole’s sister. ”I’m happy with the sentence. Maybe it will make us stronger. My brother is rejoicing in heaven.”
When U.S. Marshals arrested Martin in Tallmadge 19 days after the murder, he blurted out an admission to the shootings to them, and then confessed to Warren police Detective Wayne Mackey, who captured more admissions on videotape. With the overwhelming evidence, the defense conceded Martin’s guilt in the murder during the actual trial.
What jurors didn’t know during the trial was that Martin has remained in Mahoning County Jail since Trumbull Sheriff’s Office officials named him as one of three inmates responsible for taking a corrections officer hostage April 23.
Martin also, throughout the proceedings, wore an electrically-charged vest under his civilian clothing that deputies could detonate to subdue him if he became disruptive in the courtroom. Wednesday, though, Martin was in his striped orange jumpsuit from Mahoning County Jail.
Martin was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison last October after he was convicted on a weapons charge that linked him to the drug trade between Detroit and Warren.
After an extensive juvenile criminal record that was brought out in the mitigation phase of his trial, Martin did a six-year prison stint out of Cleveland in 2001 for aggravated robbery with a firearm.
After he was released in 2006 he was arrested in 2007 and later that year was sentenced to five more years behind bars for robbery, drugs and weapons violations.
Martin was released again in 2012, six months before he murdered Cole.