CASE SUMMARIE: Soto-Fong, Martin Paul (AKA Fong) - Chinese/Latino male; age 17 at crime (DOB: 10-6-74); robbery
and murder of 3 Asian males, ages 32, 45, and 77, in Pima County (Tucson) on 6-24-92; sentenced on 2-3-94.

A judge yesterday ordered that an FBI interview of a Tucson police detective be shared with defense attorneys accusing him of perjury in a high-profile murder case.

Homicide Detective Joseph Godoy's attorney needs to turn over a transcript of the interview stemming from a federal investigation into testimony in the El Grande Market triple-murder trials, said Judge
Richard Nichols of Pima County Superior Court.

Defense attorneys alleged in a recent court motion that Godoy and thecounty's chief criminal prosecutor, Ken Peasley, conspired to commit perjury to secure convictions in the death penalty cases.

Godoy admitted giving inaccurate answers under oath in 1 trial and Peasley said he "screwed up" by allowing it, court records show.  But Peasley has argued there was "no bad faith," while Godoy said he had to give such answers to avoid a mistrial.

Now attorney Eric Larsen wants Nichols to dismiss all charges against Andre Minnitt, 1 of the suspects in the El Grande slayings.  He argues that Minnitt would have been acquitted in a previous trial without the allegedly false testimony.

Michael Piccarreta, Godoy's attorney, said yesterday that the detective was interviewed months ago as the FBI investigated if there were problems with his testimony.

"We cooperated fully with the FBI," Piccarreta said.  "Detective Godoy has nothing to hide.  He didn't even have to cooperate."

Piccarreta said he hasn't officially heard the status of the federal investigation of Godoy.

James Stuehringer, Peasley's attorney, said the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to criminally prosecute the chief criminal deputy Pima County attorney.

The State Bar of Arizona, the organization that licenses and disciplines attorneys, also is investigating a misconduct complaint against Peasley stemming from the disputed testimony.

Minnitt's trial was set for this month, but Nichols ordered yesterday that a hearing be held July 21 to discuss Larsen's motion.

Prosecutor Rick Unklesbay, who represented the state yesterday, argued a July trial date wasn't feasible because of Larsen's voluminous motion and the defense attorney's accusations of misconduct made through the media.

"At this point, Mr. Larsen has put the state in the position that we aren't going to receive a fair trial," Unklesbay said.

Minnitt sat on death row for 3 years after his 1993 conviction on 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the 1992 El Grande robbery.  The state Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1996, ruling that the judge should have declared a mistrial after a juror seemed unsure about the verdict.

Minnitt was retried last year, but the jury could not reach a verdict.

The state Supreme Court also overturned the conviction of Christopher McCrimmon, who had a joint trial with Minnitt.  He was acquitted in a  etrial last year.  The 3rd defendant in the El Grande slayings, Martin Soto Fong, was convicted in 1993 in a separate trial and remains on
death row.

(source:  Arizona Daily Star)

The lawyer defending Pima County prosecutor Ken Peasley against a State Bar ethics complaint is now in his own ethics controversy.

The bar's staff counsel wants a hearing officer to decide whether defense attorney James W. Stuehringer has a conflict of interest in representing Peasley.

In 1993, the prosecutor and the defense attorney were on opposite sides in the courtroom: one arguing to send Martin Soto-Fong to death row for murdering 3 people at the El Grande Market, the other calling him innocent.

Peasley, who was twice named Arizona's Prosecutor of the Year, is fighting a complaint by the State Bar that he elicited false testimony from a police detective in 4 trials of 2 of Soto Fong's co-defendants.

Now Karen Clark, the staff attorney for the bar who is pressing the ethics complaint against Peasley, plans to call Stuehringer to testify about Peasley's conduct in the Soto-Fong trial, according to records
released yesterday.

Stuehringer also faces being called as a witness to testify this fall about Peasley's conduct by Soto-Fong's current attorney, David Lipartito. The goal is to win Soto-Fong a new trial by showing that Stuehringer provided ineffective assistance in 1993 - a standard strategy in fighting death sentences.

Lipartito filed an ethics complaint against Stuehringer June 26, asking the State Bar to investigate his "divided loyalty."

Arizona rules of professional conduct bar an attorney from taking on a new client if that will be adverse to a former one in a related matter.

Some defense attorneys have questioned for two years how Stuehringer can carry out his ethical obligation to his former client while defending the man who put him on death row.

That potential conflict became an actual one when Lipartito recently interviewed Stuehringer about his conduct in the Soto-Fong case, Lipartito wrote in his complaint.

"I specifically questioned him regarding information that he may have learned in the course of representing Mr. Peasley that would be helpful to his former client," Lipartito wrote. "He refused to answer those questions, citing attorney-client privilege."

Stuehringer yesterday declined to discuss the complaint. Complaints to the State Bar are kept secret unless the bar investigates and decides to issue its own complaint against the attorney.

"It's improper of me to comment on something that you shouldn't even have and I don't yet have," he told a reporter.

Richard Lougee, the defense attorney who first complained to the bar about Peasley for eliciting false testimony from a police detective, also told the Bar in 1998 that he was troubled that Peasley hired Stuehringer.

Stuehringer responded that he decided to represent Peasley after prudently assessing whether there was a conflict and finding none.

The allegations against Peasley did not involve the 1993 trial in which Soto-Fong was his client, Stuehringer wrote to the State Bar attorney. He wrote that they only involved the 1997 retrials of Andre Minnitt and Christopher McCrimmon, the other 2 men accused in the robbery and murders.

He said he 1st discussed it with his 2 law partners, Peter Economidis and Cary Sandman, who also saw no conflict.

"I did nothing adverse to Mr. (Soto) Fong. I never would. I believe strongly in Mr. (Soto) Fong's cause," Stuehringer said in an interview last year.

Lougee and Lipartito also told the Bar about another alliance between Stuehringer and Peasley: While Stuehringer defended Peasley, the prosecutor helped Stuehringer persuade a judge not to send his son to prison.

Craig Stuehringer, then 18, faced a mandatory 3-year prison term on charges of carrying a hidden gun in his car while dealing drugs in early 1998, Ohio records show.

Peasley wrote a two-page personal letter to the Ohio judge that contrasts with his image as a relentless, hard-nosed prosecutor intent on imprisoning criminals.

"Although I have been a prosecutor for 20 years, I have never written this type of letter before," Peasley wrote in pleading for leniency.

The judge, who also received letters on the teen's behalf from other Tucson lawyers, dropped the weapon charge, which carried the additional and mandatory prison penalty, and sentenced the teen to 5 years
probation on marijuana charges.

In defending Peasley against the State Bar's ethics complaint, Stuehringer responded that the "scurrilous" references to his son wereirrelevant to the bar investigation.

Stuehringer claimed Lougee brought it up only to harm and embarrass him in the hope he would stop representing Peasley.

Lougee, however, said his letters to the bar were motivated only by a desire to see Peasley held accountable for his disdain for the law profession's rules of conduct.

A grand jury last summer declined to indict Peasley and Detective Joe Godoy on charges related to perjury.

(source: Arizona Daily Star) 

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