PHOENIX — Juan Martinez, the prosecutor in the high-profile Jodi Arias case, is no longer allowed to practice law in Arizona, a judge ruled Friday.
“His name is stricken from the roll of lawyers and he is no longer entitled to the rights and privileges of a lawyer but remains subject to the jurisdiction of the court,” the document signed by Judge William J. O’Neil read.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in April that Martinez had acted inappropriately during the murder trials and is accused of sexually harassing women in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Martinez reportedly consented to his disbarment.
“Juan Martinez consented to be disbarred, and I was like 'what?” said Beth Karas, a reporter who covered the trial that garnered nationwide attention.
Arias' murder conviction in the 2008 death of her ex-boyfriend was upheld after an appeal, but the bar roundly condemned the prosecutor's "egregious misconduct" in the sensational case.
The three-member Appeals Court panel unanimously concluded that "overwhelming evidence of (Arias') guilt" outweighed Martinez's shredding of professional ethics.
"It is clear that the prosecutor improperly engaged in self-promoting conduct. His efforts to gain personal notoriety were beneath the office he held as a representative of the State of Arizona... As a minister of justice, the prosecutor represented the government, not himself or his personal interests. This prosecutor lost sight of his role."
Martinez could conceivably look to be reinstated in the future, but Karas says that path is a rough road given the allegations against him.
“Another state is going to look and see what his history is," she said. "It’s kind of like losing your medical license in one state.”
Seven different complaints against former prosecutor Martinez were filed with the Arizona State Bar.
The bar investigated five different allegations of misconduct in murder trials. At first, a committee required Martinez to take part in a course about professional conduct and ethics. Martinez refused.
“Prosecutors are not supposed to cheat,” Arias’s ethics attorney Karen Clark said.
“We have both lawyers on both sides who have now been disbarred for their conduct in the Jodi Arias case. I think that’s probably unprecedented.”
Martinez’s lawyer Donald Wilson, Jr. says he will not be commenting at this time and noted that "this does not represent an admission of misconduct on his part nor can it be interpreted as an adverse judicial finding as to any of the allegations."
Read a statement from law office Adams & Clark regarding the disbarment below: