A large grin was plastered on Marimar Martinez’s face Thursday as she thanked her attorneys exterior an Illinois courtroom and informed reporters, “I’m just blessed. I’m happy.”
“It’s been hard,” she stated. “I can’t sleep, but now I’m gonna go sleep.”
A choose – after an unprecedented request from federal prosecutors – had simply dismissed the fees towards Martinez, a United States citizen who was accused of ramming a Customs and Border Protection agent in Chicago earlier than he shot her a number of instances.
The ruling from US District Judge Georgia Alexakis got here after she had repeatedly raised considerations about the dealing with of the investigation, which noticed a revelation that a car that will have been crucial to the case was moved 1,000 miles away and textual content messages displaying the border patrol agent apparently bragging about the taking pictures.
Martinez had been accused of “aggressively and erratically” pursuing CBP agent Charles Exum and hitting his automobile on October 4 as protests towards the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown befell in the metropolis. The charging grievance says Exum then stepped out of his car and fired his weapon 5 instances at Martinez – pictures the Department of Homeland Security known as “defensive.” Martinez had pleaded not responsible to a federal cost of assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers.
Inside the courtroom, the choose famous the government’s case included omissions that caused her to tread carefully as Martinez’s defense lawyer alleged that it was truly the agent who sideswiped Martinez. Outside the courtroom, the high-profile case garnered public scrutiny.
“These agents were lying about what happened,” Martinez’s lawyer Christopher Parente stated Thursday. “Miss Martinez never rammed anybody.”
It was a placing reversal by the US authorities when prosecutors filed a movement to dismiss the fees Thursday.
The US Attorney’s Office is “constantly evaluating new facts and information relating to cases and investigations arising out of Operation Midway Blitz,” spokesperson Joseph Fitzpatrick stated.
Legal specialists informed NCS the unprecedented transfer was possible the consequence of a sequence of questionable claims from the federal authorities in court docket and a calculation over whether or not it may be confirmed at trial that the gunshots have been justified.
“There have been serious questions raised about the truthfulness of the statements made by the Border Patrol agent who shot Ms. Martinez and …about the extent to which she could get a fair trial when the Department of Homeland Security was using her case to make inflammatory public claims about the level of resistance to Operation Midway Blitz,” Northwestern regulation professor Paul Gowder informed NCS. “Dismissing the case was the right thing to do with that kind of cloud over it.”
Criminal defense lawyer and NCS authorized analyst Joey Jackson stated the prosecutors’ transfer to dismiss the case is “highly unusual.”
“Ultimately, there was a determination when everything was evaluated that there were serious questions about the officers’ narratives,” Jackson stated.
If the case had moved ahead, it possible would have been unsuccessful, he added.
Here’s what we find out about the investigation and the way specialists say the government’s case fell apart:
Text messages displayed in court docket earlier this month have been possible key in the prosecution’s determination to maneuver to dismiss fees, specialists stated.
Exum appeared to brag to fellow brokers about his marksmanship after he repeatedly shot Martinez following a collision between their automobiles, the textual content messages revealed.
Boasting about the pictures would look dangerous to a jury, Jackson stated. Had the case moved ahead, the authorities would have wanted to justify each shot he took and show that there was fast hazard and proportionate pressure.
Exum despatched an article from The Guardian on October 7 to a group of different brokers, which quoted Parente saying Martinez had “seven holes in her body from five shots from this agent.”
“Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes,” Exum stated in the subsequent textual content.
Parente pointed to the messages as a sign Exum understood the excessive public scrutiny of the case.
When Parente pressed him on what he meant, Exum responded he was a firearms teacher. He stated, “I take pride in my shooting skills.”
Another message to the group learn, “I have a MOF amendment to add to my story. I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
Exum defined to the choose MOF is a “Miserable Old F**ker” who’s at all times attempting to at least one up somebody wherever attainable.
It’s unclear what precisely he was responding to as a result of the textual content conversations have been redacted when offered to the court docket.
When requested to elucidate the textual content, Exum stated, “That means illegal actions have legal consequences.”
Exum defended his use of pressure towards Martinez, saying his life was in danger and “I did what I had to do.”
Referencing the messages, Parente on Thursday stated, “He’s going to pay for those shots, and he’s not going to be as proud and as arrogant as he was when he testified in this courthouse a few weeks ago.”
NCS senior authorized analyst Elie Honig stated the texts “reflect poorly on the agent,” who can be a key witness at trial. Prosecutors even have to think about the equities or the equity of the case.
“Here you have a woman who was shot multiple times, and there were serious questions of whether she had done anything wrong whatsoever,” he stated.
Hearings in the case included dialogue on what the authorities did with Exum’s automobile following the collision. The manner that piece of key proof was dealt with was one of the important issues with the government’s case, specialists stated.
Martinez’s defense lawyer sought to show his declare the government potentially destroyed evidence when it launched Exum’s broken car and allowed the agent to drive it greater than 1,000 miles to his dwelling state of Maine, the place the automobile could have had repairs.
“That means that the government did not properly handle and maintain evidence. That’s a major problem in the presentation of the case,” Honig stated. It wanted to be preserved in the very same situation that it was in after the collision, he defined.
Jackson stated it was a main misstep for the federal authorities that undermined their credibility. In each different case he’s seen the place a automobile was concerned in a taking pictures, the automobile is taken to be analyzed by regulation enforcement and specialists reconstruct the collision.
“Any evaluation of the trajectory of the damage would go to show what happened. Instead, you take the car away and destroy evidence,” Jackson stated.
Judge Alexakis expressed skepticism over why Martinez’s automobile had been saved in Chicago as proof whereas the Border Patrol agent’s automobile was launched and allowed to journey usually.
“What gives me great pause is the fact the cars have been treated differently,” Alexakis stated.
Government attorneys defended federal brokers’ choices, saying the FBI had preserved any proof they believed was related earlier than releasing the automobile again onto the road.
But Alexakis stated the authorities clearly believed the car might be exculpatory proof; in any other case, it will not have gone by means of the hassle to protect information on the automobile.
Alexakis ordered the authorities final month to return the SUV to Chicago.
Of greater than two dozen folks arrested for impeding or assaulting federal officers or different protest-related offenses amid demonstrations over the federal immigration crackdown in the Chicago space, none have gone to trial and fees have been dropped towards a minimum of 9 of them, the Associated Press reported. Judges have expressed skepticism over the energy of some circumstances.
In this occasion, the choose’s obvious skepticism might have had an affect on prosecutors’ determination to request a dismissal, specialists stated.
“Judges can absolutely signal to the government that they have questions and skepticism about a case, and prosecutors, if they pick up on that, that that could weigh in favor of dismissal,” Honig stated.
In court docket, Alexakis famous discrepancies in the government’s case have precipitated her “to question the narrative being put forward.”
She identified the Justice Department had beforehand stated in court docket the agent took the SUV again to Maine as a result of it was his “personal vehicle,” then said in a later court docket submitting the automobile is a component of an official Border Patrol fleet.
The choose additionally famous she had not beforehand been informed a mechanic had labored on the automobile, and in addition the authorities has given a minimum of two totally different accounts of who accepted the automobile’s elimination to Maine.
She acknowledged the authorities model of occasions could turn into true, “but I can’t accept that possibility at this juncture,” she stated.
When reached by NCS for touch upon the choose dismissing fees towards Martinez, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin on Thursday restated earlier claims that Martinez was one of the drivers who rammed brokers and referred questions on the fees to the Justice Department.
NCS has reached out to the DOJ for additional remark.
Jackson stated the inconsistencies in the government’s narrative have been a pivotal half of the dismissal. For their case to achieve success, they might have needed to set up that there’s possible trigger to consider that a crime was dedicated and that the defendant dedicated it.
“The narratives of the agents were falling apart,” Jackson stated.