Attorney Andrew I. Martinez Gets All Two-Word Verdicts in Jury Trial

Attorney Andrew I. Martinez Gets All Two-Word Verdicts in Jury Trial

Attorney Andrew I. Martinez’s client was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of incest. Client faced a mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison on each of the sexual-assault charges.

Client’s daughter was 11 years old when she made these allegations.

Initially, daughter’s forensic interview proved worrisome to Attorney Martinez. She presented as bright, funny, witty and bubbly in the video, until the interviewer asked her why she was there. The daughter responded, “Because of what my dad did.”

The video’s potential emotional impact was huge, and presented a significant problem for Attorney Martinez’s defense of the case.

The police arrested Client, and he immediately invoked his right to an attorney and did not make a statement. The offer was for a plea to a first-degree sexual-assault of a child without the mandatory minimum.  Under the offer, the parties would jointly request a pre-sentence investigation, and each side would be free to argue for any sentence.  Client continued to deny allegations, and rejected the states offer, maintaining his innocence and insisting that he would not admit to something he didn’t do.

Attorney Martinez’s opening featured the theme, “Words aren’t enough.” Attorney Martinez told the jury that they wouldn’t hear any objective evidence to support the daughter’s allegations, and that the evidence they would hear would contradict the daughter’s story in every important way.

Attorney Martinez struggled with how to advise Client as to whether he should testify.  On the one hand, Attorney Martinez was confident that the state had not proven its case, meaning that Client testifying might have presented an unnecessary risk.  On the other hand, Attorney Martinez knows that juries like to hear from defendants.  After consulting with the other attorneys of Martinez & Ruby, Attorney Martinez recommended that Client testify.  He did, and he presented extremely well.

In his closing, Attorney Martinez repeated his theme: “Words aren’t enough.” He took the jury through the testimony, asserting that every claim in the daughter’s story that could be verified was demonstrably false. She was wildly wrong about many details.

Attorney Martinez stated, “If I tell you that I just saw a flying, time-traveling DeLorean, and someone else tells you there’s no such thing, you’re going to want more evidence than my say-so.  And if every detail in my story that you can check up on is false, you shouldn’t believe I saw a flying car.” This was met with many nods from the jury.

The jury deliberated for about an hour and forty-five minutes before returning not-guilty verdicts on all counts.

The client in this case faced a potentially life-ruining situation.  Attorney Martinez and Martinez & Ruby, LLP, made sure his life was not ruined.

Congratulations to Attorney Andrew Martinez for securing this verdict.