News Brief — Arizona Disbars Former Maricopa County Homicide Prosecutor Juan Martinez

NEWS (7/​17/​20) — Arizona: Former Maricopa County homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor Juan Martinez, who has repeat­ed­ly been cit­ed for mis­con­duct in death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions, has been dis­barred. Martinez con­sent­ed to the action by the State Bar of Arizona, avoid­ing a pub­lic hear­ing on mul­ti­ple charges of sex­u­al­ly harass­ing female co-work­ers in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The dis­bar­ment tri­al was also expect­ed to include evi­dence that, dur­ing the high-pro­file cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al of Jodi Arias, Martinez leaked infor­ma­tion to a blog­ger with whom he was hav­ing a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship and then lied to inves­ti­ga­tors about their relationship. 

Martinez’s dis­bar­ment comes less than three months after the Arizona Supreme Court had rep­ri­mand­ed him on find­ings of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct in five dif­fer­ent cap­i­tal cas­es. Martinez is one of at least six pros­e­cu­tors who have been named pros­e­cu­tor of the year by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys Advisory Committee whom appel­late courts have lat­er found to have com­mit­ted pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct or oth­er inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior dur­ing capital prosecutions.