State stacks complaints against Goodman juror
Appeal continues over trial ‘antics’
The battle over former juror Dennis DeMartin’s criminal contempt charges continued this week, as attorneys for the state argued he should finish his jail sentence for misconduct in the John Goodman DUI manslaughter, failure to render aid case.
DeMartin, 71, last year appealed the misdemeanor convictions that landed the ailing retiree from Delray Beach in Palm Beach County Jail for 36 nights until the 4th District Court of Appeal ordered his release on $7,500 bail.
Chief Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath had ruled DeMartin’s “antics” made him solely responsible for wrecking a fair trial for the Welling-
ton polo executive in 2012. With DeMartin’s appeal pending, he still has nearly five months remaining on his punishment — one of the extremely rare cases where a juror’s actions resulted in jail time.
In a 35-page pleading to the appeals court Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Richard Valuntas wrote the convictions and sentence should be affirmed because DeMartin’s “transgressions as a juror in the Goodman case wreaked havoc upon the Palm Beach County justice system.”
After his October retrial, Goodman, 51, was found guilty in the Feb. 12, 2010, death of Scott Patrick Wilson, 23, and sentenced to 16 years in state prison, the same as the first time. Denied bond while he appeals the conviction, Goodman is an inmate at Madison Correctional Institution, east of Tallahassee, records show.
The high-profile retrial reportedly cost taxpayers more than $127,291in overtime paid out by the Palm Beach County sheriff ’s and court clerk’s offices, and the price of sequestering and paying jurors from Tampa to sit in judgment of Goodman.
While sentencing DeMartin in January 2014, Colbath declared he wished to “send a message” to other jurors not to take jury service lightly.
But Assistant Public Defender Paul Petillo, in a 44-page pleading filed in November, argued the judge’s statement is reason alone for DeMartin’s penalty to be reduced to time served, or to be resentenced by a different judge.
He wrote, “It is improper to single out a defendant for especially harsh treatment — to give the defendant more punishment than he or she deserves — in order to serve the utilitarian purpose of ‘sending a message.’”
Moreover, DeMartin should not be jailed again because of his heart condition, dementia, poor finances, and the days he already spent locked up, Petillo argued.
Valuntas’ response for the state contends the appellate court can’t consider the argument against Colbath’s remark because DeMartin’s attorneys didn’t object to it at the time of the sentencing.
However, there was nothing improper about the trial judge wanting DeMartin’s sentence to serve as “general deterrence” against misconduct by people called for jury duty in the future, Valuntas wrote.
On the first criminal contempt charge, Colbath ruled DeMartin was “willfully deceitful” during Goodman’s first jury selection when he was asked questions but didn’t disclose an ex-wife’s DUI arrest.
On the second charge, the judge said DeMartin violated court rules when he conducted a secret a vodka-drinking experiment at home before deliberating the Goodman verdict with five other jurors.
DeMartin, a retired accountant, wrote about both matters in self-published paperback books, which Goodman’s thenattorneys brought to the court’s attention.
According to Amazon.com, DeMartin’s latest literary effort was published in March 2014. The 60-page “Travels of a Senior Citizen Without a Car” came out eight days after DeMartin was released from jail.
Only a small number of copies of the titles have been sold. Out of money, DeMartin lost his Delray Beach condo last year and temporarily went to live with his son in Fort Lauderdale, said his former defense attorney, Robert Gershman.
In DeMartin’s appeal, attorney Petillo pointed out that during Goodman’s jury selection, DeMartin and the other prospective jurors were asked: “Has anyone in the panel themselves, close friend or family member or someone that affects you, ever been arrested, charged or convicted or accused of a crime?”
Based on the wording, DeMartin “was not in contempt of court for failing to divulge that his first exwife was arrested for DUI six years after they separated and two years after their divorce,” Petillo wrote. DeMartin had said his memory was affected because of strokes he suffered in 1975 and 1988.
But Valuntas responded that DeMartin’s answers during jury selection were not honest and candid, and DeMartin continued to have a friendly relationship with his ex-wife. So she fell into the definition of someone who “affects” him, and he was obligated to inform the lawyers about her arrest.
Regarding the second contempt charge, Colbath instructed the jurors not to conduct outside research or consider facts not in evidence during deliberations. But this instruction “did not precisely and unambiguously forbid” DeMartin from his conducting a secret alcohol-drinking test, Petillo wrote.
But the attorney for the state responded, “Such an argument is without merit because the trial court specifically prohibited the jurors from ‘trying to educate yourself on this case’ or from doing any research about the case.”
In another argument that DeMartin was unfairly sentenced, Petillo cited a 1991 case decided by the Indiana Supreme Court that criticized a trial judge’s decision to make an example of a drug dealer as a deterrent to others contemplating crimes.
“We do not believe … a trial judge should be allowed to use the sentencing process as a method of sending a personal philosophical or political message,” the Indiana court stated.
Petillo also noted that DeMartin was punished worse than other violators in society.
“Far worse offenders have received much lighter sentences,” he wrote.
But Valuntas found fault with that argument as well.
“None of the defendants in the cases cited by appellant caused such a significant financial cost to the administration of justice, nor did they force the parents of a young victim to endure the horror of sitting through a second criminal trial regarding their son’s death,” he wrote.
DeMartin’s attorney is now due to file a reply before the appellate court considers the arguments.
“It is improper to single out a defendant for especially harsh treatment” to send a message.
Assistant Public Defender Paul Petillo