State of Ohio v. Roosevelt Martin
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
In October 2013,Mr. Gibbons represented Roosevelt Martin in a Jury Trial in the Common Pleas Court. This prosecution was the first of the so-called “cold cases” brought to trial in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. The Cleveland Police Department had amassed a huge backlog of untested rape kits and other physical items of evidence with DNA. The untested evidence had languished in the Police Department Property Room since 1993. The State of Ohio,Bureau of Criminal Investigation had recently began to test those rape kits in an attempt to extract DNA evidence from the physical items of evidence in order to compare those samples with the known DNA standards of incarcerated persons. This particular case involved the rape of a young woman by multiple persons at the Cleveland Job Corps Center in March1993. The testing of DNA was conducted in 2013 and a genetic match was found with Martin, then an inmate in an Illinois prison. The case presented complex legal and factual issues. The most important issue was the litigation of a Motion to Dismiss based upon unconstitutional pre–indictment delay based on the indictment which was returned seven days after the expiration of the newly expanded,twenty year statute of limitations. The prosecution and defense of the case were both hampered by a skimpy police investigation in 1993, hospital personnel who could not be located, a heavily intoxicated victim and witness, a Defendant with an admissible, homicide conviction which occurred years after the event, and destroyed Cleveland Job Corps investigative records. Gibbons defended the case to the Jury on the basis of consensual sexual conduct based upon the known facts and circumstances. The Defendant did not testify. In a prior trial, Attorney Gibbons had been able to convince a Jury of the merits of a consent defense without the testimony of the Defendant. That approach did not work this time as Martin was convicted of the offense of Rape, under the then existing 1993 statute. The defense case was damaged badly when a co-defendant decided to testify and denied the reliability of DNA evidence,denied knowing the victim, denied engaging in sexual conduct with the victim and denied that it was his DNA which was recovered. The case is now on Appeal to the Eighth District Court of Appeals and eventually to the Ohio Supreme Court on all of the disputed legal issues, to include an improper response by the Trial Judge to a Jury question seeking a legal definition of consent. As an aside, it is anticipated that as DNA testing by the State of Ohio progresses,thousands of other criminal prosecutions will be brought in the Common Pleas Court.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
In October 2013,Mr. Gibbons represented Roosevelt Martin in a Jury Trial in the Common Pleas Court. This prosecution was the first of the so-called “cold cases” brought to trial in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. The Cleveland Police Department had amassed a huge backlog of untested rape kits and other physical items of evidence with DNA. The untested evidence had languished in the Police Department Property Room since 1993. The State of Ohio,Bureau of Criminal Investigation had recently began to test those rape kits in an attempt to extract DNA evidence from the physical items of evidence in order to compare those samples with the known DNA standards of incarcerated persons. This particular case involved the rape of a young woman by multiple persons at the Cleveland Job Corps Center in March1993. The testing of DNA was conducted in 2013 and a genetic match was found with Martin, then an inmate in an Illinois prison. The case presented complex legal and factual issues. The most important issue was the litigation of a Motion to Dismiss based upon unconstitutional pre–indictment delay based on the indictment which was returned seven days after the expiration of the newly expanded,twenty year statute of limitations. The prosecution and defense of the case were both hampered by a skimpy police investigation in 1993, hospital personnel who could not be located, a heavily intoxicated victim and witness, a Defendant with an admissible, homicide conviction which occurred years after the event, and destroyed Cleveland Job Corps investigative records. Gibbons defended the case to the Jury on the basis of consensual sexual conduct based upon the known facts and circumstances. The Defendant did not testify. In a prior trial, Attorney Gibbons had been able to convince a Jury of the merits of a consent defense without the testimony of the Defendant. That approach did not work this time as Martin was convicted of the offense of Rape, under the then existing 1993 statute. The defense case was damaged badly when a co-defendant decided to testify and denied the reliability of DNA evidence,denied knowing the victim, denied engaging in sexual conduct with the victim and denied that it was his DNA which was recovered. The case is now on Appeal to the Eighth District Court of Appeals and eventually to the Ohio Supreme Court on all of the disputed legal issues, to include an improper response by the Trial Judge to a Jury question seeking a legal definition of consent. As an aside, it is anticipated that as DNA testing by the State of Ohio progresses,thousands of other criminal prosecutions will be brought in the Common Pleas Court.
