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11/7/2009 3:32 AM

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WAYNESBURG - Convicted killer Jeffrey Martin lost the first step in his appeal when Greene County Court denied his post-sentence motions this week.

However, the appeal process is far from over since the state Supreme Court will review the case, as it does for all death penalty cases. Martin, 52, of New Geneva, was convicted last year of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl from Greensboro. A jury determined that he should be condemned to death for his crimes.

Martin raped and strangled Gabrielle Miranda Bechen on June 13, 2006, when she left her house to visit a nearby horse farm where Martin worked as a farmhand. He then buried her body and hid her all-terrain vehicle from the hundreds of searchers who combed the woods of Dunkard Township for five days, looking for the girl.

Senior Judge H. Terry Grimes denied Martin's post-sentence motion Thursday. Martin has 30 days to file an appeal to the Supreme Court, but that higher court will review the case anyway because it involves the death penalty.

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First Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers, the lead prosecutor in the case, said she was pleased with Grimes' decision, but complained that the defense counsel has delayed the process by not filing a memorandum to support the post-sentence appeal. The motion was filed last September but an accompanying memorandum was never submitted to the court, Chambers said.

Chambers filed the commonwealth response earlier this week.

"The procedure of having the commonwealth file their memorandum before the defense is not addressed by the rules of court. However, something had to be done to move this case to the Supreme Court for its review," Chambers said in a statement. "It is not fair to the parents of the victim or to the defendant, for that matter, to allow the case to linger indefinitely."

Martin's attorney, Public Defender Harry Cancelmi, was at a conference Friday and could not be reached for comment.

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