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COLUMBUS -- The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday delayed the execution of a convicted Trumbull County killer whose case federal public defenders said slipped through the cracks of the legal system.
Death row inmate David Martin of Warren, 36, had been scheduled to die May 26. Martin went without a lawyer for more than a year after the Ohio high court upheld his sentence in 2018 and missed a chance to make a customary appeal to the federal courts.
Justices announced this week they have stayed Martin's execution until all his legal options are exhausted.
Martin was sentenced to die after he was found guilty by jury on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping on Sept. 11, 2014.
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 30-year-old Melissa Putnam, who recovered from her head wounds. Later, Martin was charged with being one of three Trumbull County jail inmates responsible for taking a corrections officer hostage in April 2014 while he was awaiting trial.
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.
In Martin's case, though, no attorney initially took over his case, the request wasn't made and his chance for appeals appeared lost. Questions prompted by Martin's call to journalists in January put his case on the public defenders' radar.
Shortly after that, federal public defenders in Columbus asked a judge to appoint them to represent Martin.
"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," federal public defender David Stebbins said. "I thought we had better safeguards in place."
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. A state public defender spokesman, however, told the AP they didn't receive that letter.
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. 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.
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