After nearly 28 years of incarceration, Stephen Martinez's sentence was overturned Tuesday morning in a Denver district courtroom. Martinez was serving a life sentence for the murder of 4-month-old Heather Mares after a jury found him guilty in 2000 of shaking the infant and causing her death.
New evidence shows the baby died from a heart attack caused by pneumonia, lawyers for Martinez argued. The Korey Wise Innocence Project filed a petition April 17 to overturn the sentence, and the Denver District Attorney’s Office agreed.
Some members of Mares’ family asked the judge to keep Martinez in prison. Mares’ mother, Kim, broke down in tears as she spoke before the judge Tuesday.
“She could not stand up for herself, she could not do anything, I feel if you let him out, what's going to happen to other cases with this verdict? What's going to happen to other children?” she said.
Martinez, now 58, was left to watch the infant for 15 minutes on Oct. 17, 1998, according to a court filing. The baby went into respiratory distress while she was alone with Martinez, and he immediately called 911, according to his lawyers. Martinez was dating Heather’s mother; he was not the baby’s father.
Martinez confessed to shaking the baby, but Jeanne Segil, his attorney, argued it was a forced confession.
“He was told that if he said that he did that, he would be looking at anger management or probation, versus if he continued to deny it, then he was looking at (a charge of) murder,” Segil said. “Eventually he made those statements. We now know today that those statements were false and he had recanted it.”
Segil said it's now known pneumonia can cause brain swelling and bleeding behind the eyes, which are also symptoms of shaken baby syndrome. Shaken baby syndrome has come under more skepticism from medical experts in recent years.
Martinez will be released from a Department of Corrections facility on Tuesday. DA John Walsh agreed that Martinez’s lawyer had failed to retain medical experts and explore alternative explanations for Heather’s death.
“ … (G)iven the fact that the original medical examiner, the coroner who had done the autopsy, reviewed this material and recently conceded that a jury would have a reasonable doubt as to the cause of death in this case,” Walsh said, “we concluded that the fact that the defense had not raised those issues at trial and had not presented medical expert testimony at trial, challenging cause of death or raising pneumonia as an alternative cause of death, undermined the integrity of that conviction.”
Walsh filed a joint request with the Korey Wise Innocence Project to overturn the sentence. After the hearing on Tuesday, Walsh said the DA’s office sympathizes with the family.
“We do not do this lightly. It's our job in the DA's office to seek justice in every single case,” Walsh said. “And that means sometimes we have to do the right thing, even when it's painful, even when it's difficult to do.”
The family maintains that Martinez shook the baby and hit her head against her crib.
“What he did to little Heather continues to destroy our family every day,” Andre Mares, a relative, said during the hearing. “To shorten the sentence would tell our family that there is an expiration date on justice.”
Judge Andrew Luxen ruled that since pneumonia was not presented as an explanation during the original trial, there was significant evidence that was not available to jurors that could likely have changed the outcome of the trial.
“I want you to know that is not an easy decision and I want you to know that I feel for your family,” Luxen said to Heather’s mother, announcing that he was granting the motion to overturn the sentence.
Mares' family isn’t sure of its next steps, Andre Mares said.
“We're kind of at the mercy of what (information) the judicial system gives us or if we have to fight to get some more information. We just don't know,” Andre said. “Chris (the father of Heather) has even talked about possibly looking into civil action. We don't know. Right now it's so fresh.”
Martinez issued a written statement through his lawyers.
“It’s hard to find the right words on a day like this. After more than 27 years in prison for a crime I did not commit, I am finally free. I am looking forward to reuniting with my family and rebuilding my life,” he said.
“People often talk about light at the end of the tunnel, but for me, I didn’t even have a tunnel. I was serving life without parole. My appeals had all been denied. I was out of hope. And then I received a letter from the Korey Wise Innocence Project almost four years ago saying that they were going to review my case. And thanks to their efforts, my entire legal team, and the amazing experts on my case, I can finally return home, an innocent man, and rebuild my life.”
Martinez previously lived in west Denver, according to court records. He suffered an amputation and loss of vision in his right eye while incarcerated, according to his attorneys.
The Korey Wise Innocence Project is based at University of Colorado Boulder and provides free investigative and legal services to people believed to be wrongly imprisoned in Colorado.
