Arizona Bar appeals ethics order exonerating Jodi Arias prosecutor

The State Bar of Arizona has filed an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn the dismissal of an ethics complaint against deputy Maricopa County Attorney Juan Martinez.

Martinez, the flamboyant prosecutor who rose to national stardom during the Jodi Arias murder trials in 2013 and 2015, appeared in September before Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O'Neil.

He had been charged with five ethical violations, but after a one-sided hearing tantamount to a trial, O'Neil summarily dismissed the case.

On Dec. 7, in a one-sentence document, State Bar counsel Craig Henley noted his appeal, which O'Neil's office has passed on to the Supreme Court.

It was the fifth Bar complaint dismissed against Martinez since the Arias trials ended with Arias receiving a life sentence for the 2008 murder of her lover, Travis Alexander.

The Bar is still investigating yet another ethical complaint alleging that, among other things, Martinez fed information about the Arias trial and a holdout juror to a blogger with whom he was rumored to have a romantic relationship.

PREVIOUSLY:Defense attorneys file complaints against prosecutor Juan Martinez

The complaint that was appealed this month focused on five murder cases Martinez tried over ten years of his nearly three decades as a prosecutor:

• Cicero Beemon, in which Martinez compared the actions of Beemon’s Jewish defense attorney to those of Adolf Hitler.
• Cory Morris, a serial killer who murdered five prostitutes, in which Martinez asked jurors how they would like to be strangled by the defendant.
• Michael Gallardo, in which Martinez was told not to repeat that the father of the victim could never again call his son, but did so anyway; it famously prompted discussion in the Arizona Supreme Court of “the conduct of the prosecutor.”
• Shawn Lynch, in which Martinez again asked jurors to imagine themselves being murdered by the defendant, specifically having their throats slit. Lynch’s death sentence was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016.
• Jodi Arias, for telling defense attorney Jennifer Willmott during a sidebar at the judge’s bench that if he were married to Willmott he would “F--king want to kill myself.” He later told Willmott she should go back to law school.

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