More than a decade after juve­nile offend­er Martin Soto Fong and two oth­er men were tried and sen­tenced to death in Arizona, ques­tions about Fong’s guilt linger and are under­scored by the fact that he is the only one of the three men to remain con­vict­ed of the crime. The pros­e­cu­tor who won their con­vic­tions, Kenneth Peasley, was dis­barred last year for inten­tion­al­ly elic­it­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny to win cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tions in the re-tri­als of Soto’s co-defen­dants, Christopher McCrimmon and Andre Minnit. McCrimmon was aquit­ted in a retri­al and Minnit was released when the Arizona Supreme Court vacat­ed his con­vic­tion.

In order­ing Peasley’s dis­bar­ment, a rar­i­ty for some­one of his stature, the state Supreme Court stat­ed, ​“We can­not con­ceive of a more seri­ous injury, not just to the defen­dants but to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, than a pros­e­cu­tor’s pre­sen­ta­tion of false tes­ti­mo­ny in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es.” Though Fong was removed from death row after the Supreme Court out­lawed the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers ear­li­er this year, he remains in jail and those famil­iar with Peasley’s mis­con­duct believe Fong may be inno­cent. ​“I do not believe McCrimmon and Minnit did this. I have seri­ous­ly strong doubts about Fong,” notes Karen Clark, the State Bar of Arizona attor­ney who head­ed the effort to dis­bar Peasley. Clark states that among the prob­lems with Soto’s case are 2 police reports cov­er­ing the same anony­mous tip that name different suspects. 

(Associated Press, July 18, 2005). See Innocence.

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