Federal judge recommends denying Breakiron’s petition to dismiss homicide case
A federal magistrate judge is recommending that a former Fayette County man’s bid to have a 27-year-old homicide case against him dropped should be denied, and that the matter should be closed for appeal.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert C. Mitchell filed a report and recommendation on Tuesday urging presiding U.S. Judge Nora Barry Fischer to dismiss Mark Breakiron’s claim that retrying him for the 1987 killing of Saundra Marie Martin would violate the Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause.
Breakiron was convicted of first-degree murder for the March 1987 killing and sentenced to death after the jury found that he hit Martin on the head with an ashtray and later killed her at another location, according to court documents. The prosecution argued that Breakiron robbed the bar where Martin worked, and the commission of a felony in the course of the homicide elevated the crime to the capital level.
After years of appeals, a federal judge overturned the homicide conviction on the basis that prosecutors withheld information about the credibility of its key witness, Ellis Price. Breakiron was awarded a retrial in Fayette County, which is on hold until the current federal matter is resolved.
According to Mitchell, the court that overturned the conviction specifically pointed out that “three essential factors remain central and cannot be marginalized: a woman named Saundra Marie Martin is dead; money was stolen from the owner of Shenanigan’s; and Mark Breakiron must respond for the horrible sequence of events that occurred there.”
Mitchell’s report indicates that Breakiron never denied killing Martin or committing theft by stealing money from the bar. Instead, Mitchell wrote, Breakiron sought a third-degree murder conviction on the basis that he did not have the specific intent to kill Martin that night.
Breakiron’s attorneys, Stuart Lev and Claudia Van Wyk of the Federal Community Defender Office, have argued that Price is the only witness the prosecution offered who testified as to Breakiron’s specific intent to kill, and that jurors should have been made aware of a prior crime of dishonesty in Price’s history, which could have affected his credibility. The defense has also argued that Price was offered leniency in other serious cases in exchange for his testimony, and that the prosecution was deceptive to the jury about the offer.
Should Fischer adopt Mitchell’s recommendation and deny Breakiron relief at the federal level, the stay will be lifted in Fayette County and he will be tried on the homicide charge, without Price’s testimony.