XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: kyle@coonshock.com   
      
   The case was so cold, justice couldn’t be served.   
      
   A Manhattan judge on Thursday dismissed a 1986 murder charge   
   because authorities waited too long to make an arrest, violating   
   the accused killer’s constitutional rights.   
      
   Justo Santos, teary-eyed and surrounded by emotional relatives,   
   walked out of Manhattan Supreme Court a free man after Justice   
   Robert Stolz declared authorities let too much time pass   
   following the senseless shooting of 44-year-old restaurant owner   
   Jose Martinez in Inwood.   
      
   “There is no dispute that the police did absolutely nothing   
   between March 1988, when the case was closed, and February,   
   2013, when the case was reopened,” Stolz wrote in a scathing   
   ruling. “Once the police made the decision to close the case,   
   the prosecution’s efforts were not ‘reasonably diligent’; they   
   were nonexistent.”   
      
   The decision came as a brutal disappointment to Joselyn   
   Martinez, the daughter of the victim. For years, she waged a   
   lonely quest to bring Santos to justice. The stunning 37-year-   
   old actress said it took her eight years — and $280 in   
   background checks purchased online — to crack the case.   
      
   She pointed authorities toward the suspect, who was living in   
   Miami after hightailing it to the Dominican Republic after the   
   shooting.   
      
   Joselyn Martinez sought to stay positive outside of the   
   courtroom after watching Santos — walking without handcuffs for   
   the first time in over a year — leave the courthouse with his   
   arm around his 13-year-old son.   
      
   “We have focused a lot on being at peace right now. We’re taking   
   it one day at a time,” Joselyn said.   
      
   “What I do know is that he’s a murderer and he worked the system   
   to get away with murder. Apparently for the time being, it seems   
   like it worked for him,” she added in frustration.   
      
   Santos, busted last year, said he would begin rebuilding his   
   life after 17 months in jail. He said he’d lost his car and his   
   house. His family is living in a Bronx homeless shelter.   
      
   “I wish them well,” he said of the Martinez family. “Nobody   
   wants to kill anybody, but it was self-defense.”   
      
   Barring a successful appeal — which prosecutors are considering   
   — a jury will never decide whether Santos was telling the truth.   
      
   The 27 years between the killing and the arrest infringed on   
   Santos’ right to a speedy trial because too much time passed for   
   him to prepare a proper defense, his attorney, Lawrence   
   Herrmann, successfully argued.   
      
   “The people have not met their burden to justify the   
   ‘extraordinary’ delay in this case,” Stolz wrote in his ruling.   
      
   It was Nov. 22, 1986, when Santos, then 16, and two fellow   
   troublemakers walked into Dominican Express in Inwood — Jose   
   Martinez’s restaurant, known for its tasty carne frita. Joselyn   
   Martinez said the trio harassed her mother, and her dad kicked   
   the punks out. Joselyn was 9 at the time.   
      
   Witnesses told cops Santos pulled out a pistol and blasted Jose   
   in front his wife. Santos said he fired because Jose choked him.   
      
   Cops quickly established Santos as the suspect, and papered the   
   neighborhood with wanted posters bearing his smiling face. But   
   he escaped to the Dominican Republic and lived there using a   
   fake name.   
      
   Prosecutors insisted the trail went cold — despite what the   
   judge said was ample evidence of the suspect’s whereabouts.   
      
   Santos served one year in prison in the Dominican Republic for   
   the crime — a short sentence that Stolz ruled was irrelevant to   
   the new proceeding.   
      
   Santos became a U.S. citizen after applying in 2007.   
      
   “(Santos) underwent background checks for his job, which   
   included work for a law enforcement agency, he married, he   
   obtained a driver’s license, and applied for a gun permit —   
   again, using his real name, date of birth, and Social Security   
   number,” Stolz wrote.   
      
   When Joselyn finally discovered Santos and brought his   
   whereabouts to the NYPD’s attention he was working as a janitor   
   — at Metro-Dade Police headquarters.   
      
   sjacobs@nydailynews.com   
      
        
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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