Lawyer: Jury should have been told of PTSD

Lawyer: Jury should have been told of PTSD
By Shannon McCaffrey - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday May 21, 2008 5:56:09 EDT

ATLANTA — The jury that convicted an Iraq war veteran of murder in the stabbing death of a fellow infantryman, whose charred body was later found in the woods, should have learned that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in combat, his lawyer told the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Attorney David West said that Alberto Martinez had no memory of stabbing fellow solider Richard Davis 33 times after a night of drunken partying along with three other soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division, just days after they returned to Fort Benning in western Georgia after a six-month tour in Iraq.

Martinez, 27, is serving life in prison after being convicted in 2006 in the murder, the details of which inspired the movie “In the Valley of Elah.”

West told the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday that Martinez’s trial counsel erred in not putting forward his PTSD symptoms as part of his defense. He is seeking a new trial.

Stacey Jackson, assistant district attorney with the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit, said Martinez offered another perfectly valid defense at trial: that one of the other three soldiers did it.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_martinez_052008/