By Phaedra Haywood
phaywood@sfnewmexican.com
Jun 15, 2026
A Santa Fe man's murder conviction was overturned on appeal in December due to a prosecutor's improper line of questioning and comments.
Still, 88-year-old Ben Noverto Martinez, in declining health, remains in the state prison in Los Lunas, where he had been serving out a seven-year sentence in the 2018 shooting death of his daughter's fiancé.
He is asking to be released from the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility as he awaits a new trial. He appeared in the state District Court in Santa Fe for a status hearing in his case Monday using a wheelchair; previously, he had attended court hearings using a cane.
"He is elderly, infirm, and his physical and mental condition have deteriorated substantially during incarceration," defense attorney Stephen Aarons wrote in a March motion seeking pretrial release of Martinez on electronic monitoring and house arrest.
"Defendant has longstanding ties to Santa Fe and New Mexico, including residence, family, and community connections. He is not a realistic flight risk. At his age and condition, with this case already publicly litigated for years, the notion that he is going to make a run for it is fantasy, not law," Aarons wrote.
The First Judicial District Attorney's Office had not responded to Aarons' motion, however, prompting state District Judge T. Glenn Ellington on Monday to order the agency to file a response by June 26. He also set a hearing on the matter July 1.
A Santa Fe County jury had convicted Martinez in 2023 of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence in connection with the fatal shooting of 57-year-old Thomas Trujillo on a night when the two men had been drinking at Martinez's home. Martinez said he had no recollection of the incident. He was sentenced in early 2024.
Trujillo's body had been found on the floor of Martinez’s home on the city's southwest side, shot once in the chest and twice in the back; Martinez’s gun was sitting next to his body, according to reports from the time.
When investigators arrived at Martinez’s home, he told them the gun was his and that he kept it in his bedroom.
Later, after he was detained, he requested an attorney and invoked his right to remain silent.
His attorney argued in an appeal of his conviction a former prosecutor with the First Judicial District Attorney's Office had made statements during the trial that unfairly called into question Martinez's decision to exercise his right to remain silent. The New Mexico Court of Appeals agreed, reversing his conviction.
Catherine Lynch, a spokesperson for the District Attorney's Office, did not respond to an email Monday asking whether the agency had decided to retry Martinez and inquiring about its position on his potential release.
Aarons had suggested at Martinez's trial Trujillo was killed by a third man who had attacked Trujillo and Martinez's daughter about 18 months before Trujillo's death. The man might have stolen Martinez’s gun and used it to shoot Trujillo in Martinez’s home that night, the defense attorney said.
Prosecutor Johanna Cox — who is no longer with the District Attorney's Office — had then cross-examined Martinez, eliciting his testimony that he had not told police after the shooting that his gun had been stolen.
She said in her closing argument Martinez “never told law enforcement the gun was stolen.”
Aarons had objected to Cox's line of questioning, but Ellington overruled his objections, the Court of Appeals noted in its ruling.
“The State’s questions and comments impermissibly invited and encouraged the jury to infer guilt based on Defendant’s pretrial silence concerning any theft of the gun,” Court of Appeals Judge Gerald E. Baca wrote in the opinion, noting the ruling would “reverse Defendant’s convictions and remand for a new trial.”
Aarons told the District Court on Monday that he is expecting to see new evidence in the case, in the form of a "dump" from a cellphone not previously examined by police. The defense attorney told the court he could be prepared for a new trial "by the end of the year."
Marsha Chavez, a woman who identified herself as a longtime friend of Martinez, attended Monday's hearing in support of him and said after the hearing the man she knows is not capable of killing anyone.
"He doesn't have it in his nature," Chavez said.
"I adore him, he's an honorable man," she said, adding that for years she enlisted Martinez as a companion for her own ailing father while she went to the grocery store or ran other errands.
"He didn't have dementia then," Chavez said.
She added, "I can't imagine them wasting public money on another trial for an elderly man who has dementia and is in poor health."
Originally published by The Santa Fe New Mexican.
Copyright 2026 The New Mexican. Reprinted with permission.