Rape victim’s family decries judge’s ruling
Speakers at hearing express disappointment with court
SANTA FE — The family of a young woman raped by 17-year-old Jacob Martinez voiced its frustration with the New Mexico judicial system at Martinez’s sentencing hearing in state District Court here Thursday.
Martinez, convicted of rape and conspiracy to commit the crime in August for violently raping the woman in April 2014 while she was a senior at Pojoaque Valley High School, was ruled to be “amenable to treatment” by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer on Monday and will be released when he’s 21, instead of being sentenced as an adult.
Deputy District Attorney Susan Stinson said Thursday that prosecutors will appeal the amenability ruling.
The victim’s grandmother was the first to speak on her behalf and said she was disappointed with the recent ruling against an adult sentence for Martinez, who was 15 when the rape took place.
“I am here to say that I am very sad at the outcome of this court,” the grandmother said. “There’s no justice. (The victim) is going to have to live with this forever. To the justice system, I am very disappointed.”
The victim, now 20, suffered a life-threatening internal cut by what emergency room doctors said must have been a sharp object when she was raped at a prom-night house party in Española on April 27, 2014. She underwent two emergency surgeries and a blood transfusion at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center and was on life support at one time. Doctors said at trial that she could have bled to death within hours.
“When this happened to my niece, it was horrific,” the woman’s aunt said in court Thursday. “Thank God she survived. I am very disappointed in the justice system and how (the case) was handled.”
Martinez will receive sex offender treatment at the Camino Nuevo Youth Center in Albuquerque, and he told the court Thurs-
day that he plans to make the most of that opportunity. Martinez received 16 disciplinary reports while he was held at the Santa Fe County youth detention center, but he has been on the honor phase at the facility for the last five months, and his probation officer said at his amenabil- ity hearing that he began mentoring younger inmates.
“Thank you for giving me a chance,” Martinez said. “I want to complete my education and do the best I can. I hope (the victim) and her family can forgive me. I have matured a lot, and I’m not the same person I used to be. I messed up, and I’m glad I’m going to get help.”
Marlowe Sommer wrote in her amenability ruling that Martinez’s mother is a heroin addict and may have been using drugs while he was in utero, and she wrote that Martinez was smoking heroin on a regular basis at the time of his arrest.
Irin Martinez, 18, no relation to Jacob, was originally charged as a co-conspirator in the crime, but he was acquitted of rape charges and found guilty of tampering with evidence after a November trial.
Irin, who was 16 at the time of the rape, was sentenced to two years at the Youth Diagnostic Development Center and could not be sentenced as an adult.