Jerry Burns of Manchester, accused in a cold case murder, is led Feb. 24 into a Scott County courtroom during his first-degree murder trial. A jury found him guilty in the December 1979 stabbing death of Michelle Martinko in Cedar Rapids. It was the last local murder case to go to a jury before the pandemic struck Iowa and restrictions were enacted. (The Gazette)
The coronavirus has delayed so many things, from entertainment to traveling to see loved ones, but some things can’t easily be put on hold — like justice.
Yet in the face of a health pandemic, state and federal courts across the country last year had no choice but to cease in-person hearings, and instead allow those only by phone and video. Some states, including Iowa, closed courthouses to the public and suspended jury trials. Some criminal cases went unresolved longer in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.
The Iowa Supreme Court put all jury trials on hold at two different times — March 14 through Sept. 19 in 2020 and then again Nov. 10, 2020, through Feb. 1 — which is unprecedented.
The result is a huge backlog of cases from the last two years that local prosecutors say will take years to get through the court system, which has never been a fast process to begin with.
“Jury trials being suspended has been the most challenging issue all over the country,” Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden said. “It’s nobody’s fault. I’ve been here over 38 year and there’s never been a situation like this. It has put a strain on everyone.”
The delays seemed to have an especially big impact because there were more fatal incidents last year than in years past, Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said. Last year, Linn and Johnson counties had about 15.
A few months ago, The Gazette started tracking the backlog of murder trials, which included first- and second-degree murder, vehicular homicide and manslaughter cases, in Linn and Johnson counties — the biggest caseloads in the 6th Judicial District, which also includes Benton, Iowa, Jones and Tama counties.
At that time, there were about 26 such cases. As of November, 21 are still pending. The others have been resolved in plea agreements. In a few cases, there is more than one defendant charged, resulting in separate trials.
As of late Nov., Linn County still has 14 of the cases and Johnson County has seven. Two of those were from 2019.
Those numbers don’t include thousands of other felony and misdemeanor cases also backed up because of the pandemic. The lesser charges typically can be resolved in plea agreements. If the cases do go to trial, they typically have less evidence and fewer witnesses and therefore take less time — one to three days.
Murder cases take the longest to get trial because of the number of motions filed, waits for testing of evidence and taking depositions. Sometimes, law enforcement is asked to go back and review something. The trials themselves can take five to 10 days or longer.
Some examples of murder cases recently resolved:
- Jermaine Walker, charged in Linn County with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Wayne Jones in 2019, pleaded in October to voluntary manslaughter and other charges and faces up to 30 years.
- Milton McAbee, 21, pleaded to voluntary manslaughter and intimidation with a dangerous weapon in the Johnson County fatal shooting of Gregory Jackson on Christmas 2019. He was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
- Elijah McAbee, 20, pleaded to carrying weapons, assault while displaying a dangerous weapon and assault causing bodily injury in Jackson’s death. He caused injury to a man with Jackson that night. He was sentenced to up to two years.
- Christian Emedi, 18, originally charged with first-degree murder, pleaded a few weeks ago to second-degree murder in the Linn County fatal shooting of Malik Sheets, 20, during a party on June 18, 2020. Emedi, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to 50 years but according to a plea will serve only 15 years because of his age.
- Marshawn Jeffries, 18, originally charged with first-degree murder and obstruction of prosecution in Sheets’ death, also pleaded just last week to a new charge of intimidation with a weapon and the original obstruction charge.
First Assistant Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks said one positive aspect of a delay in a case where there are unresolved questions or where witnesses aren’t cooperative — as was true in the Sheets murder — is it sometimes helps if there’s more time to encourage someone to come forward with the truth. In situations like this, some may not because of fear or intimidation.
Initially, witnesses told investigators and prosecutors that Jeffries also shot Sheets but that turned out to be false, Maybanks said. Jeffries threatened to fire shots at the party but didn’t. Some of the witnesses and Jeffries were not being truthful during the investigation and just recently came forward with more information, he said.
Looking back on 2020, Maybanks said he was relieved to get the cold murder case against Jerry Burns to a courtroom before jury trials were suspended. Burns was convicted of killing 18-year-old Michelle Martinko, who was found stabbed to death in her parents’ Buick on Dec. 19, 1979, outside the Westdale Mall.
The trial was in February 2020, as the world was hearing about the novel coronavirus. In March 2020, when the disease was verified in Iowa, the courts, along with many businesses and schools, started having emergency health restrictions.
“Then we suspended trials in March,” Maybanks said. “That trial was the last without restrictions. The courtroom was packed with people and we didn’t even think about it.”
Lyness said everything with the case load changed after that, including resolving cases. There were probably more plea deals made last year than in previous years, at least in lesser felony cases, as a result of the pandemic. In Johnson County, defense attorneys and prosecutors worked to find common ground or compromise, if possible, she said.
Even with pleas, Vander Sanden said it seemed like a vicious cycle because some cases couldn’t move forward or jury trials were reset until after the holds were lifted.
When jury trials started again, it was a different environment. Instead of having two or more jury trials at once, they were limited to one misdemeanor and one felony trial per week to provide social distancing, said Kellee Cortez, 6th Judicial District Court administrator. In the past, it was not unusual to have two felony trials and a civil trial going on at once. That has slowly evolved, and now there can be more than one of each per week.
Earlier this year, the trials took longer because jury selection had to accommodate social distancing in the courtroom. Judges would bring in smaller groups at a time, instead of having the entire jury pool in the courtroom together to listen to attorney questions.
“It was a delicate balance to prioritize the cases that needed to be tried because of speedy trial rights, defendants in custody, or if a judge said a trial needed to be back on the schedule,” Cortez said. “We appreciate everyone’s patience.”
Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com
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Pandemic impact: 21 pending murder cases in Linn, Johnson counties - The Gazette
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