Spring 2005 Edition

Letter From Marilyn Flax In 1989, Irving Flax of Lucena Drive in Fair Lawn was kidnapped and murdered.  After reading two recent Fair Lawn articles (The Killing of Irving Flax  and Murderer on Death Row) -- Irving Flax's widow, Marilyn Flax, called and wrote Fair Lawn News.  She thanked us for keeping her story alive.   Ms. Flax also sent us a copy of this letter she recently sent to Governor Codey. --------   Dear Governor Codey:   My name is Marilyn Flax. Sixteen years ago my husband, Irving Flax, was kidnapped and murdered by John Martini. He shot him three times in the back of his head after I attempted to save my husband’s life by delivering the ransom money that was demanded. Martini threatened not only to take my husband’s life, but mine as well, if I dared to contact the police.    John Martini is a cold-blooded, serial murderer. This is not my opinion. This is fact. John Martini was convicted by a jury of my husband’s murder and given the death penalty. That jury didn’t know that Martini was on the run from two other murders he committed in Arizona . After the New Jersey jury determined that he should die, he was returned to Arizona to stand trial for those murders and pled guilty. Since then, he was taken to Philadelphia where he stood trial and was convicted of the murder of a woman that he committed back in 1978. This makes it all the more difficult for me to understand why John Martini should not be executed when all of his appeals have been exhausted. As a victim of violent crime, I have certainly been educated about the rights of the accused. I have learned that, in New Jersey , defendants have more avenues of appeal than any other state. I have watched as Martini actually extended the time for his own appeals by claiming to waive any further legal challenges to his execution. When the New Jersey Supreme Court turned down a final appeal by the Public Defender in 1999, the Court was satisfied that every aspect of this prosecution had been examined, and that Martini’s rights had been scrupulously protected. Only then, when an actual execution date was set, did Martini decide that he wanted to go ahead with his federal appeals.   In December, the United States Supreme Court denied his final federal appeal. I was informed that, simultaneously, his public defender has filed yet a third state appeal in an effort to postpone his execution. I have patiently, and at times, not so patiently waited for the system to work, but it would seem that both the New Jersey Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have found no impediment to this execution.   Now it seems that the efforts of death penalty opponents may frustrate the law and the process in which I have placed my faith for the past fifteen years. I want to know if anyone who opposes the death penalty has spoken to people like me….people whose family has been taken from them, suddenly and violently, by a man who had killed before. I sat in court when John Martini calmly and coldly told the judge that he killed my husband because he could identify him.     There is no question about his guilt. There is no question that he is a serial killer. He is not a member of a minority group who did not have a good lawyer. At any given time during the trial and the appeals, he had three or more lawyers at a time, the finest in the state, including Alan Zegas.   I need you, Governor Codey, to ensure that New Jersey isn’t a state where the rights of victims are paid mere lip service. I was informed that New Jersey had a constitutional amendment guaranteeing victims certain rights, and the right to be heard about the need for a moratorium on the death penalty must be one of them. I’m sure that I am not alone in my feelings and my frustrations, but it is my husband’s case that is bringing the issue to the forefront at this time.   I will never forget my husband, Irv - not his life, and certainly not his death. I live with this reality every day. It is nothing that I can ever explain to anyone who has not been a victim of a vicious murderer, but it has given me the motivation to fight for my husband’s memory. When I became a part of the system at the time of the trail, I knew that the death penalty process would be long, but I was sure that someday my patience would be rewarded. If the process were to be derailed now by a moratorium, without some input from victims like myself, I would feel that the system was cheating the innocent and the victimized, the very people that the system is supposed to protect.    After seeing you on television, I knew that you were a compassionate man when I saw the love in your eyes for your wife as she discussed her awful bout of depression. How lucky you both are that finally the right combination of medicine put an end to your pain and suffering. Sadly for me, there is no medication to undo the pain and frustration the courts have put me through for sixteen years. I am reaching out to you, Governor Codey, to make a difference in my life.   Please allow me the opportunity to meet with you so that I might express, on behalf of victims everywhere, what the legal process has done to us. We are able to endure all that the system puts us through because there is a promise of justice at the end. Please assure me that justice delayed is not justice denied.   Sincerely,   Marilyn Flax