More than a decade after juvenile offender Martin Soto Fong and two other men were tried and sentenced to death in Arizona, questions about Fong’s guilt linger and are underscored by the fact that he is the only one of the three men to remain convicted of the crime. The prosecutor who won their convictions, Kenneth Peasley, was disbarred last year for intentionally eliciting false testimony to win capital murder convictions in the re-trials of Soto’s co-defendants, Christopher McCrimmon and Andre Minnit. McCrimmon was aquitted in a retrial and Minnit was released when the Arizona Supreme Court vacated his conviction.

In ordering Peasley’s disbarment, a rarity for someone of his stature, the state Supreme Court stated, “We cannot conceive of a more serious injury, not just to the defendants but to the criminal justice system, than a prosecutor’s presentation of false testimony in capital murder cases.” Though Fong was removed from death row after the Supreme Court outlawed the execution of juvenile offenders earlier this year, he remains in jail and those familiar with Peasley’s misconduct believe Fong may be innocent. “I do not believe McCrimmon and Minnit did this. I have seriously strong doubts about Fong,” notes Karen Clark, the State Bar of Arizona attorney who headed the effort to disbar Peasley. Clark states that among the problems with Soto’s case are 2 police reports covering the same anonymous tip that name different suspects.

(Associated Press, July 18, 2005). See Innocence.