December 29, 2017 at 4:12 p.m.
Martinson files appeal challenging sentence
Convicted murderer seeks reconsideration of 23-year prison term
Martinson files appeal challenging sentence
Mark A. Schoenfeldt, an attorney for Ashlee A. Martinson, filed a 30-page brief with the appeals court Dec. 22 challenging the 23-year prison sentence handed down by Oneida County circuit judge Michael Bloom in June 2016.
The brief argues Bloom "erroneously abused his discretion" when he remarked in his sentencing statement that Martinson "had a choice" when she shot her stepfather Thomas Ayers with a shotgun and stabbed her mother Jennifer Ayers on March 7, 2015 in their town of Piehl home.
The only choice Martinson believed that she had, at the crucial moment, was whether to kill herself or stepfather, Schoenfeldt argues in the brief.
Crucial to the defense argument is the 26-page "Appendix A" document that was entered into the court record at Martinson's March 11, 2016 plea hearing. It was during that hearing that Martinson pled guilty to two counts of second-degree intentional homicide.
The document, to which district attorney Michael Schiek did not object, outlined the cycle of sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse Martinson suffered through for most of her life at the hands of various men in her mother's life.
At sentencing, Martinson's trial attorneys Thomas Wilmouth and Amy Lynn Ferguson attempted to paint a picture of Thomas Ayers as an abusive man with a history of criminal behavior to bolster this claim. They also introduced reports from mental health experts Brad E.R. Smith and Sheryl Dolezal who both diagnosed Martinson as suffering from major depressive disorder as well as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Based on independent examinations of Martinson performed while she was pursuing a not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect defense, they both concluded she had likely been suffering some level of depression symptoms off and on since about age 8. The symptoms became noticeably more intense at around age 15 when her mother moved in with Thomas Ayers, they said.
While he conceded at sentencing that the facts laid out in "Appendix A" would cause any individual to feel sympathy for Martinson, Bloom said the abuse did not excuse the fact that two people died at her hands in a brutal manner. "The most important point that needs to be made by way of this proceeding is that yes, the defendant had a choice," he said.
It was that statement that formed the basis for a post-conviction relief motion filed on Martinson's behalf July 26. Bloom denied the motion Sept. 13, rejecting Schoenfeldt's argument that the facts laid out in "Appendix A" show the teen had "adequate provocation" or provocation that causes a reasonable person to lose normal self-control.
Bloom ruled the applicable statutes do not provide "as a matter of law" that a person found guilty of second-degree intentional homicide on the basis of adequate provocation "is absolved of volitional responsibility for their actions."
"I further conclude that the applicable statutes do not forego, as a matter of law, a court from considering at sentencing that a person found guilty of second-degree intentional homicide on the basis of adequate provocation had a choice," Bloom ruled. "And as such, I conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion by doing so and the motion that I did so is denied."
In the appeal brief, Schoenfeldt reprises many of the same arguments made in the post-conviction brief.
"In the first instance, the court was, of course, aware of the defendant's horrendous history of a lifetime of exposure to sexual, physical, mental and emotional abuse at the hands of virtually every adult that she had more than incidental contact with. It is the defendant's contention that the court erred in improperly assigning to her the duty to act in the same fashion and with the same knowledge of options that a 17-year-old who had not been abused and isolated for her entire life would have had," Schoenfeldt wrote in the brief. "The defendant was not a 'normal' 17-year-old. The defendant was, as a result, incapable of assessing the situation in the same way that a 'normal' 17-year-old would have done. The actual choice that the defendant believed that she had, at the moment of this incident, was whether to kill herself as she had initially planned or whether to kill Thomas Ayers."
Schoenfeldt also argued that Bloom's review of the legislative history of the statute governing second-degree intentional homicide to determine legislative intent was inappropriate. In the brief, he cited a 1999 decision in State v. Curiel.
"The purpose of legislative interpretation is to discern the intent of the legislature, first considering the language of the statute. If the statute clearly and unambiguously sets forth the legislative intent, the court does not look beyond the statute to find the statute's meaning. In construing a statute, all words and phrases should be construed according to common and approved usage unless a different definition is designated by statute. Resort to a dictionary may be made to ascertain the common and ordinary usage of an undefined term. Resort to a dictionary does not render a term ambiguous," Schoenfeldt wrote.
To bolster his case, Schoenfeldt also cited State v. Derenne and Jones v. State which state that when a statute is written in objective terms not susceptible to more than one reading, the subjective intent of the lawmakers is not a controlling factor when sentencing someone who violated that statute. In fact, under the ruling of the second case, doing so is "impermissible" when "the legislation is clear on its face," he wrote.
He goes on to argue that the language in the statutes covering first-degree intentional homicide is clear and that it also clearly includes several mitigating circumstances which constitute affirmative defenses to the charge. One of those affirmative defenses is adequate provocation which is also defined in a separate statute.
"It is, therefore, clear that the quantum of ambiguity needed to trigger a review of the legislative history of the meaning of the term 'adequate provocation' simply does not exist. The court, therefore, erroneously exercised its discretion by engaging in a review of the legislative history," he wrote.
Schoenfeldt also asserts that when Bloom accepted Martinson's guilty pleas he was conceding that adequate provocation applied in this case.
"By definition, someone who has completely lost self-control has also lost the ability to rationally consider his or her options. Has lost the ability to make choices," Schoenfeldt wrote. "The defendant concedes that the court, at sentencing, is not foreclosed from considering that the defendant acted intentionally. That she acted with a purpose. However, the defendant contends that the court is not thereby allowed to treat the state of mind inherently present in cases of adequate provocation as nothing more than a legal device that operates only to mitigate the charge, but that then need not be considered as part of the sum and substance of the case at sentencing."
He went on to say that all parties concede that Martinson was, at the time of the killings, suffering from a complete loss of self-control and that any person placed in the same situation would have suffered the same "complete and utter loss of self-control."
"The existence of that state of mind - the fact that not only the defendant but any person placed in her situation would have been absolutely unable to exert any control over her actions - cannot be ignored at the time of sentencing. Objectively, the defendant had the choice not to pull the trigger. But, the defendant asserts, the operation of the element of adequate provocation means that she was, as a matter of law, unable to exercise that choice, even if she had perceived it. (Which according to the Agreed Statement of Facts, she did not.)"
In sum, Bloom erred when he "erroneously placed on the defendant the obligation to perceive and make rational choices at a time when, as a matter of law, she was incapable of perceiving and making rational choices," he wrote, adding the the error entitles Martinson to a modification of sentence.
The state Department of Justice, which has taken over the case from the district attorney's office, has until Jan. 22 to reply to the brief, according to online court records.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
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