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  Ex-Episcopal Priest May Be Retried on Sex Charges
Federal Appeals Court Overturned Conviction

By Marie Rohde mrohde@journalsentinel.com
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [WI]
September 17, 2005

A former Episcopal priest who has already served a four-year sentence and parole term for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy may be retried on the same charges after a federal appeals court essentially overturned the original conviction, according to Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision found that the priest, Russell Martin, had inadequate legal representation at trial.

"The effect is that he's no longer considered a convicted sex offender," Bucher said. "Of course we want to retry him, but it's a question of whether we can try him. The question is whether the evidence is still available. In this case, it's the victim."

The conviction was part of a notorious case involving Nashotah House, an Episcopal seminary in Delafield, that got national attention.

Russell Martin was one of five men charged in 1994 after a Texas man accused them of abusing him at Nashotah House in the late 1980s when he was 13. Two of the five pleaded no contest to the assault charges. Two other seminarians were acquitted by juries

Martin always maintained his innocence, and at his trial his wife and eight character witnesses testified on his behalf. In her closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury that they should not be swayed by character witnesses because even Jeffrey Dahmer and Theodore Oswald had character witnesses. In a Sept. 15 opinion, the 7th Circuit court noted that Martin's attorney, Eugene Pigatti, did not object or ask for a mistrial based on the prosecutor's "inflammatory and improper" reference to Dahmer.

"The reference to Dahmer was particularly troubling considering the trial took place in Wisconsin in 1995, when the memory of Dahmer's sexual exploitation and gruesome murders of young men was still fresh in the minds of area residents," according to the court's ruling.

Bucher called the opinion "another example of an activist federal court sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong. This case was upheld in Wisconsin by numerous courts of appeal. Even the federal district court upheld the conviction."

The decision also said that the trial judge, J. Mac Davis, inappropriately allowed the testimony of two witnesses.

One witness, a former Florida prosecutor who worked with Martin in Jacksonville on a sexual misconduct policy, said Martin disagreed with the policy she developed.

The other witness was a police officer who said Martin did not answer questions, based on his attorney's advice, but "raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips."

 
 

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