Death warrant signed for Martin, but execution is unlikely
The state Department of Corrections took an administrative step this week to issue a notice of execution for Jeffrey Martin, but Gov. Tom Wolf’s moratorium on the death penalty means the child murderer will not be put to death on the scheduled March 16 date.
DOC Secretary John Wetzel signed notices of execution for Martin and two other inmates Wednesday, which is required under state law when the governor declines to approve a death warrant. The law gives the secretary 30 days to take the action, DOC spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said.
Martin, 58, of New Geneva, was convicted of raping and strangling 12-year-old Gabrielle Bechen June 13, 2006, after she left her home on an all-terrain vehicle to visit the nearby Dunkard Township farm where Martin worked as a farmhand. A Greene County jury found Martin guilty on all counts, including first-degree murder, rape and aggravated indecent assault, following a six-day trial in May 2008. He was sentenced to death the following day.
Martin, who is being held in SCI-Graterford, is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 16, although he is still undergoing appeals at the state and federal levels.
Martin filed a writ of habeas corpus Dec. 8 in federal court in Pittsburgh asking it to review his conviction, but that court pushed his appeal back to Greene County Court. U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab ordered Martin to file his motion pursuing post-conviction relief in the county court by Dec. 24, but he did not do so until Jan. 19. That delay prompted Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman to issue his own order Jan. 12 rejecting Martin’s post-conviction relief motion.
However, Schwab’s order also asked Martin to respond to the federal court if he does not have an attorney for his appeal by Feb. 8. Toothman has yet to respond to the Martin’s tardy motion filed Jan. 19 requesting the post-conviction relief.
He does not currently have an attorney listed and that legal limbo makes it unclear where exactly the appeal stands.
Harry Cancelmi, the Greene County public defender who represented Martin during his criminal trial, said he was unaware of the death warrant until being contacted by a reporter Thursday morning.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Cancelmi said.
Even if Martin’s appeals had been exhausted, Wolf’s temporary moratorium on the death penalty he announced last February would block any execution, his press secretary said. The governor has not signed any death warrants since taking office a year ago, although 17 notices of execution have been approved by the DOC secretary over the past year, according to the department’s website.
“He would issue a temporary reprieve in the instance (the execution) is imminent,” Wolf spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan said Thursday. “If he has continued appeals, then we would let that process play out.”
Sheridan said the moratorium is only temporary and the governor is awaiting a report from the state Senate commission reviewing the death penalty in Pennsylvania.
“The governor’s position to this has nothing to do with sympathy to the individuals on death row,” Sheridan said. “All of this sympathy goes to the families of the victims. For (those on death row), their sentences do not change. But this has proven to be a flawed system.”
There are 181 inmates currently on death row, with the overwhelming majority of them being held at SCI-Greene.
No inmate has been executed in Pennsylvania since July 6, 1999, when Gary Heidnik was put to death for murdering two women in his home. Just three people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.