Jodi Arias Trial
Prosecutor Juan Martinez during the Arias trial. Reuters

Defense attorneys are accusing Juan Martinez, the lead prosecutor in the Jodi Arias case, of misconduct during her trial and the trials of other death penalty defendants. It is not an uncommon trick for defense attorneys to accuse opposing council of some sort of misdeed in order to get their client's conviction overturned or at least to get a judge to review the case. Juan Martinez has sent seven people to death row and has been accused of prosecutorial misconduct in all but one of these cases.

During the Jodi Arias trial, the defense took issue with Martinez's growing fame. The entire country was watching the Jodi Arias trial unfold as if it were the latest episode of "Keeping up with the Kardashians." Like most national trials there were spectators on both sides of the argument. A lot of people, including the prosecution, were not buying Arias' tale of killing her one time boyfriend Travis Alexander in self-defense. Martinez went after Arias day after day, causing her to break down on the stand a few times.

As a result of people wanting to see Arias go to jail, Martinez started becoming more and more popular. People would wait outside the Arizona courthouse for Martinez to emerge in order to get autographs and photos taken with the lawyer. In 2010, the Arizona Supreme Court was hearing arguments appealing the first-degree murder conviction of a man named Mike Gallardo. The defendant in that case was convicted and sentenced to death for killing a teen during a 2005 robbery. While it may be part of the game for defense attorneys to question the conduct of the prosecution it is almost unheard of for a Supreme Court Justice to do so.

During the 2010 appeals hearing Justice Andrew Hurwitz questioned the lawyer representing the Arizona Attorney's General's Office, the office that handles Arizona capital punishment appeals, about Martinez conduct at trial. The Justice accused Martinez of ignoring the trial judge's decision to sustain several of the defense's objections. "The conduct of the trial prosecutor. It seems to me at least on several occasions, and by and large the objections were sustained, that the trial prosecutor either ignored rulings by the trial judge or asked questions that the trial judge once ruled improper and the rephrased the question in another way."

Hurwitz continued saying, "short of reversing a conviction, how is it that we can...stop inappropriate conduct?" Details of Hurwitz questioning of the Attorney General came from a transcript of the hearing obtained by a reporter at azcentral.com. According to the transcript, another Justice, Michael Ryan, joined the discussion saying he remembered Martinez from past cases. "This same prosecutor has been accused of fairly serious misconduct...There's something about this prosecutor, Mr. Martinez." Past opponents of Juan Martinez describe him as "Teflon" and say as soon as you come up against him you are going to war.

Martinez has been accused of misconduct during the Arias trial as well as two other trials he was prosecuting this year. The trial of Richard Chrisman ended with a hung jury for Juan Martinez. Defense in that case accused Martinez of withholding information about a possible witness in the case. The defense said Martinez would not allow the defense to interview the witness. In the end, a judge had to step in and order Martinez to disclose information regarding the witness. In a case similar to the Arias trial Martinez sent a woman who killed her husband to death row.

Wendi Andriano said her husband was abusive and she killed him in self-defense. The defense in the Andriano case said Martinez tainted the jury when he introduced "marginally relevant" information about Andriano being a partyer and a man-chaser. During the Andriano trial in 2005, the defense said Martinez introduced evidence of the defendant's past crimes despite the judge ruling they should be withheld from the case. Jodi Arias' fate is still up in the air. Martinez was able to get a first-degree murder conviction, but the jury was unable to make a death penalty decision. Arias sentencing trial has been rescheduled a number of times and there is talk of a deal to be struck in order to avoid the death sentence.

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