By Richard K. De Atley
The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Riverside County district attorney’s office has been working since December to extradite a convicted police killer from Arizona’s death row so he can be tried for the murder of a Blythe convenience store clerk 15 years ago.
Court documents here and in Arizona show Riverside County wants to retrieve Ernesto Salgado Martinez, 34, formerly of Indio. He is at the Arizona State Prison Complex - Eyman, in Florence.
The Riverside County complaint against Martinez includes special circumstances, meaning prosecutors could seek the death penalty. Martinez is fighting the extradition. His next date in Pinal County Superior Court is July 8.
Randip Singh, 43, was killed Aug. 15, 1995, during a store robbery in Blythe. Earlier that same day, Arizona Public Safety Officer Robert Martin, 57, was fatally shot with his service weapon on a roadside near Phoenix. Ballistic tests showed Singh was killed with the same weapon, investigators said.
Witnesses described the same car and license plate in both slayings. The license plate had been stolen in Indio, and police there arrested Martinez one day after the murders. Riverside County did not oppose extradition to Arizona.
In 1998, Martinez was convicted and sentenced to death for Martin’s murder.
Riverside County filed a complaint in the Singh case in 1999, but court records show there was no further action for a decade.
“It was an oversight by this office not to more expeditiously try this case back then,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney Bill Mitchell.
“Once it was discovered this case had been filed and not pursued, we took the steps necessary to bring him over.”
The Arizona Supreme Court and a federal judge upheld Martinez’ conviction and sentence. His case is now with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Duncan Case
In a higher-profile case, Joseph Duncan III was extradited in 2009 from a federal prison in Terra Haute, Ind., to Riverside County to face a death-penalty trial for the 1997 kidnap and murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, of Beaumont. The Duncan case has raised questions about the expense and resources used to put a convicted killer on trial who is already sentenced to death.
He currently is in pretrial proceedings.
Duncan arrived already sentenced to death three times, along with six life sentences, from his 2008 federal court trial in Idaho for the murders of two children and two adults in a 2005 attack on a family there.
Trying Duncan here in light of his multiple death sentences in Idaho has raised questions about the cost.
As of April, the Duncan case had cost the county more than $167,000, a sum that could balloon into millions by the time it concludes. The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice made a “very conservative” estimate in 2008 that seeking the death penalty adds $500,000 to the cost of a murder trial in California.
District Attorney Rod Pacheco has defended the Duncan extradition. “Justice is more important than money,” he said in a recent interview.
But the money comes from taxpayers, said Riverside defense attorney Paul Grech.
“It just raises the question about whether California taxpayer resources are being used responsibly,” he said of the Martinez case. “They spare no expense to prosecute, but from a practical standpoint it does not seem any additional public good will be done.”
“There is a point” to extraditing and trying Martinez, Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said. “Every life is valuable, so I totally understand prosecutors saying if they have a viable case, they want that victim’s family to have their day in court.
“And given death penalty jurisprudence, this is a backup, a safety net in case there is a reversal of the case at a higher level of appeal. They want to make sure this guy faces justice,” she said.
Mitchell cited reversals of Riverside County death penalty cases by the 9th Circuit, which now has Martinez’s appeal, as well as Duncan’s.
Mitchell recently completed the capital penalty retrial of Jackson Chambers Daniels Jr. for the 1982 murders of two Riverside police officers. That case was reversed by the 9th Circuit.
“The cost to taxpayers for prosecuting Mr. Martinez for the murder of Mr. Singh is warranted,” Mitchell said.
Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach, elected to replace Pacheco as district attorney next January, has said he cannot comment on active cases while serving as a judge.
Martinez Case
Extradition papers were signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer this spring.
Martinez’s Arizona lawyer, Creighton W. Cornell, claimed the application for extradition by Riverside County Chief Deputy District Attorney Linda C. Dunn contained a factual error by claiming Martinez “fled from the justice of this State,” meaning California.
Cornell noted in court papers that his client was in Riverside County’s custody after his arrest in Indio.
“That California actually once possessed … Mr. Martinez and that he did not avoid arrest and prosecution there may have undercut the decision of the Arizona governor to agree to Mr. Martinez’s return to California to stand trial,” Cornell wrote in opposition to the Riverside County request.
“He was not, after all, a fugitive who has only been recently apprehended in Arizona. His custody in Arizona is understood by all involved … to be of nearly 15 years duration. California could have immediately tried him after his arrest in August 1995.”
“Without looking at the documents, I can’t say what errors might be in them and what it might take to correct them,” Mitchell said.
Cornell, who also is involved with Martinez’ federal appeal, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
“The reasons for the delay and the impact of that delay on the ability to present a defense will be an issue in the event that Mr. Martinez is returned to California,” said Riverside County Assistant Public Defender Robert Willey. “The reasons for the delay …create serious questions.”
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