This is the translation of Joaquín José Martínez website, where he
talks about himself, his experiences, the case he’s sadly known
from.
Reading it, I think it’s a perfect role for Enrique to play. In the
hope this project become a movie and Enrique plays the main role,
this is the story of Joaquín José Martínez.
Let’s go...
The beginning
I was born on december 2, 1971, in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador,
son of Joaquín Martínez Sánchez and Sara Pérez Escobar. I left
Ecuador with my parents at the age of 5, to Spain, to start a new
life. I met there my grandparents, Juan and Luisa and all my
father’s family.
We left soon back to America, this time to New York. In those times,
my parents work hard to give me the best possible education. My
father got to work in the Atlantic Bank in Wall Street and after
some years, my parents opened an imitation jewelry store that helped
us to improve our lives.
I lived like a normal kid that never missed the kindness and
attention from his family, and continued when my parents decided to
close the story and leave New York to Florida, in 1989 to live
closer to my mother’s family.
In Miami I continued my studies and sports, starting to work as
well. I realized how different was working with other people and not
my parents, how different was living alone and not with my parents.
Life wasn’t so easy like I had thought.
I got married at 19 and we had my older daughter Jordyn Ashley soon.
We moved in to Tampa to start a new period, trying to start a
business with my brother Ronnie. Things were working out very well
but suddenly I got one of those blows of the life, when my parents,
my wife and I suffered a traffic accident sending all of us to the
hospital. My 8 months pregnant wife was in comma for several hours.
Thanks God, everything went well and the next month my second
daughter, Katherine Monique was born. I’d like to say the same about
the other driver but he died at the moment of the accident and that
fact hit me for a long time.
Next sad matter was when I got divorced and my daughters left to
live with her. Living separate lives but keeping contact with my
daughters, I started a new relationship I kept until the day I got
into prison, a January 27, 1996.
Until the moment, things in my life had gone right and wrong, but
nothing you could compare with what I should live from then on.
The detention
January, 28 1996: One of the days that marked the rest of my life.
That day I went to my ex-wife home to visit my daughters. After
that, I got into my car and turning the home, four police car
blocked my driving, two in front of me, two behind me.
The helicopters rounding from the air and dozen police pointed me
with their guns. I was dragged from the car and I was arrested under
the accusation of the killing of a couple that had been killed three
months before and had produced a big commotion in Brandon.
They were a young man and young woman and reading the documents from
the court, the guy, son of the sheriff of that city, sold drugs and
the young woman was his girlfriend working as a stripper in one of
the most famous places in the city.
They started to interviewed me, to tell me that they had everything
recorded, and I was accused of those murders.
They got my car to look for proof and I was left in a cell with no
explanation, just that I was going to be processed by those murders.
When I arrived at the prison, I called my parents and they
tranquilized me a little, telling me that everything would be
clarified quickly.
I felt confident but I couldn’t help but being worried because of
the importance of the accusation.
I thought that everything would be solved soon, a matter of hours,
but it wasn’t and as days were passing, weeks and months, the
worrying increased.
DNA tests were done to me to compare with the ones they found in the
crime but being the result negative, I continued in prison and
waiting for being judged.
They said they had some records where I supposedly had confessed the
crime, but the sound wasn’t clear. So the tapes were sent to the FBI
department to improve the quality but the result was also negative.
The Office of the Public Prosecutor decided to prepare a
transcription from the tapes where my ex wife, the police and public
prosecutor wrote their interpretation of what was said in those
tapes.
With that transcription, the statement of the police, my ex wife and
my ex girlfriend that changed her statement 24 hours before the
trial and some convicted people from the prison that declared that I
had confessed the crime, and a defense that rather than taking care
of my interest, took care of themselves, we started a trial full of
mistakes.
It’s important to remind that in the crime scenario, they found
digital prints and DNA that didn’t match with the victims or me.
They didn’t found any proof in my car, in my clothes and they had
arrested several people before to be interrogated. Any friend or
sibling of them had met me before. It’s true that two years before I
had worked in the same firm with that guy, but there was no proof we
were friends or had kept any contact since he had left the firm.
There wasn’t any reason for me to commit a crime.
In spite of the irregularities I got guilty and was sentenced to
died because of one of the victims and life imprisonment because of
the other one, in the name of what they named premeditated murder
and burglary.
The day of the trail I remember the agony taking me, but the worst
thing was to see my daughters after more than a year without seeing
them, with orange clothes on my way to the death row.
I said my goodbyes to them and also my parents which words would
give me the courage to keep strong until the end... “we’ll fight
until you’re free”.
The death row
In the death row, things were going to be worse, feeling completely
alone and isolated from the rest of the world since the first
moment.
The first day is always the worst one because you don’t know what to
expect from a place like this and just simply do whatever the rest
of prisoners do.
I spent 30 days without living the cell, we only were allowed to get
out twice in a week to shower of 7 minutes and shaving without a
single facial hair, because it would get a beat or one month in the
‘hole’, the punishment cell.
I wasn’t allowed to receive visits or mail... the idea was to
prepare myself to the life in the death row.
There were two matters, my psychological state and my physical
state. I couldn’t believe the conditions you must to live there. The
cells were of 1,80 x 2,90 meters.
The meal, if you could name them like that, were served three times
at day. The breakfast at 5, lunch from 10 to 10:30, the dinner from
4 to 4:30. Nothing was well cooked: burned or raw. There wasn’t
options in the death row.
Summer was terrible. The heat was unbearable, the humidity was so
hard that walls and floor sweated and the air became unbreathable,
even thought the worst period was the winter, always wearing the
orange clothes that didn’t protect from the cold and without doors
to keep away the coldness... it was like sleeping in the middle of a
mountain in January.
One month passed and I was allowed to get out to the patio twice a
week and start to receive visits from my siblings on Saturdays.
Every time we left the cell, we wore chains and handcuffs tied to
the hands and feet, and around the waist that at the entrance of the
patio and the place where the siblings waited were removed. Before
leaving the cell we had to get undressed and the guards did their
checking. Something that would become routine with time passing.
During the first meeting with my parents I tried hard to keep strong
and not burst into tears but there were moments when I wasn’t able
to and started to cry.
Living in the death row, you must to delete all trace of feeling to
avoid problems with the guards, you must to repress tears, smiles,
etc. and during the visits I had to do the same. I tried transmit
courage to my parents during the visits. We talked about everything
less the death row and what I was living there, so I felt free even
thought it was just for some hours.
Three long years passed watching how some of the convicted were
executed and watching like the ones staying there were tortured all
the possible ways. The death row was worse than a nightmare that you
try to forget just waking up, but all my effort is in vain trying to
delete those images from my head.
The fight
The first months in the death row was the worst I lived ever and I
felt terribly alone. But everything changed after that first month,
I felt better when I started to receive news from Spain. My parents
had talked to lot of people that were willing to help to get a new
trial and get out free of that hell.
I started to receive letters from Organizations, politicians, media,
spanish people from all the country. At first, they were just a few
letters but it became 400 letters a week showing solidarity and
support. Sometimes I received postcards from Spain taking me out
from those walls for an instant and I shared the pictures with other
prisoners in the death row.
During their visits, my parents talked to me about the movements in
Spain and how it was getting stronger and stronger. The Miami
Consulate called me every week to keep me posted about the news and
every single step taken from Spain. They could get I received
spanish newspapers and I could stay informed and strong.
Few months later I started to admit interviews to newspapers,
magazines and tv. I received the visit of senators from Spain
accompanied by the ambassador. It was then when I could know who the
true friends were and get their support filled me in optimism.
You can say that all spanish people got involved in my case and I
went from feeling alone to feeling protected by my country.
The support went far from Spain, getting support from the European
Union, starting by its Parliament, then the italian Senate and Pope
John Paul II.
My parents had transmitted a help message through the media to all
the world asking for support and help to my issue, and they started
to receive the unanimous support from everybody. They joined this
fight and with effort they could get the needed money to take a good
lawyer.
That lawyer was Peter Raben, that presented an appeal for
celebrating a new trial, which was conceded by unanimity by the
Supreme Court of Florida.
During this new trial, we had two lawyers, Peter and David Parry,
some experts and lots of media support.
The day the consul Javier Vallaure told me that I had been conceded
a new trial, I started crying like a child as my hopes increased. I
can say that it was the night I slept the best in the death row.
The trial
My second trial has no comparison with the first one, being
expensive and completely different.
To start, the statement done by my ex wife and the other prisoners
that had talked against me were refused. More, some of those
prisoners had sent letters to the Supreme Court confessing that they
had lied during the first trial because they had been promised a
reduction of their condemns.
The tape and transcription were refused by the same judge that had
accepted them in first instance. I think it’s important to say that
the transcription had been prepared from the first moment by the
father of the victim, who was the proofs’ chief from the sheriff’s
office, and by his niece that also worked at the police department
as stenographer.
One months before the trial, my lawyer got the statement from this
man, that confessed that he had prepared the transcription, so my
lawyer put him in evidence showing him the original transcription
with his signature.
In spite of this fact demonstrated the manipulation from the
sheriff’s department, it was impossible to show, since the official
passed out some weeks later this statement and short before the new
trial.
With the help of expert our lawyer contracted, they could know the
tapes were inaudible in respect with what they had thought in the
first moment. So, the interpretation of that wasn’t totally exact.
They also knew that it was impossible that the police were able to
hear the conversation in my ex wife’s home, since the distance from
them and the trees around didn’t let to hear clearly the
conversation. However, the same detective had said during the first
trial that they had listened to that conversation and my confession.
Just the new trial started, and to our general surprise, we were
told that the State wouldn’t ask for the death penalty anymore and
in the worst of the case I would be condemned to perpetuity in
prison. Charge or burglary was removed by the Supreme Court, because
to them, it hadn’t happened a burglary, there was nothing to miss
from the home since they found money, jewelry and drugs at sight.
The introduction and exposition by my lawyers was exceptional and I
don’t think they did any mistake. There was no room for it that day.
The seats in the room were taken by my siblings and friends, the
journalist waited out, transmitting everything was happening step by
step not avoiding any detail.
After some days listening to the statements, the verdict came, and
the fast it came surprised all of us.
As I’m writing this lines, I remember what it was being there, and
the things passed through my mind when the verdict of not guilty was
said. Images of the suffering my parents and I had gone through, the
months in that cell, the Christmas and birthday I had missed during
those 5 years and a half I had been deprived from my freedom.
Finally, the moment I would feel myself as a person again and I
would delete or try to do it, the nightmare I had lived had come.
Coming out of prison
After I was declared not guilty, I had to spent one more day in
prison, because the paperwork delayed, even though to me one more
day wasn’t very different.
When I came back to prison, my cellmates cried with me in happiness
and I guess that the guards looked happy as well.
That night I was very nervous, I could barely sleep by the emotion
and expectation before what I could expect out of there. Hugging my
parents, seeing my daughters dressed in normal clothes as a person
and not with those orange clothes. Stopping being a number that I
still remember and coming to be Joaquín José.
I had all my personal effects in box at my bed and when I closed my
eyes, I opened them again the check if the boxes still stay there
and it hadn’t been a dream but a reality. We had got it!.
Next morning, the consul visited me, he told me that I’ll be free in
some minutes and transmitted the first congratulations from the King
and Queen of Spain.
He tried that I kept quiet but it was impossible. It had passed five
years and a half, quickly said, but an eternity to me.
I remember that I was taken to a place where I would see my parents
and siblings. And finally, going through that main exit that opening
the doors I got stunned, speechless.
Beside the born of my daughters, it was the happiest day in my life.
I felt like a child that wants to discover everything around, I saw
the sun, the sky, all the journalists that had supported me bravely.
My eyes got blind before so much light after the dark cave.
The most moving moment was when I could hug my daughters without
glasses between us and orange clothes. That moment will be present
in my mind forever.
I spent my first night once I got out of prison in the consul’s home
and I remember that dinner with them and my parents. I had spent so
long eating alone and with a simple plastic spoon, that when the
consul and wife asked me what I wanted to eat, I didn’t know what to
say, everything had changed to me and now I did have options.
I spent the next night at my parent’s home and from there, once I
got a passport, we left back to Spain.
Arriving
Being in prison, I figured out my returning to the country that was
supporting me so much, being able to meet and greet all the people
that had written me and encouraged me with their words. All what I
had figured out was real and when I arrived at the airport I felt
mumbled, realizing that all those supporting words had face and
cried for me... I didn’t know if yell, jump or cry, I only know the
emotion got me.
I remember to say thanks through the media, and leaving to a rest
home to wait for the first interview in Spain. I was in the
mountains with trees, in contact with nature. They were very kind
with me and I never missed anything but to me, the most important
was being with my parents and feeling free again. It was an
excellent moment of reflection.
I went to a TV program and I was received with lot of respect and
kindness, and all the programs I attend from then transmitted the
same feeling.
I could see, hear and read the news and the mediatic effect created
in Spain. Several times, my parents had told me what it was being
done in Spain but I never thought it had been so big.
Following weeks and months, my parents and I had the chance to greet
everybody what they had done for us. We talked to some media and
went to some events gratefully.
There weren’t people, media, politic parties doing more than other.
To us, EVERYBODY had got I was free and we did our best to make our
grateful to reach everybody because we felt like that.
Being in prison, my cellmates asked me where my home would be after
all of this, and I never found the right answer. I didn’t know if it
would be in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, the islands or any other
city or country. I only knew that it couldn’t be USA.
Just I arrived to Spain I found out the answer. To me, home is not a
known place, not a city or country. To me, home is where I feel
loved and I can give love. Every single day, since I left that hell,
I feel like being at HOME.