Arizona is moving to execute the man condemned for killing a Department of Public Safety trooper more than three decades ago, with state officials notifying the Arizona Supreme Court that they are requesting an execution warrant for Ernesto Martinez. Martinez could be put to death as early as January 2027 for the August 15, 1995 murder of Trooper Robert Martin during a traffic stop on State Route 87.
Attorney General Kris Mayes notified the state's high court of the request, according to FOX 10 Phoenix, which cited the Attorney General, the Arizona Supreme Court, and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry as sources for the case details. Martin, a 28-year veteran of the department, was conducting a traffic stop on State Route 87 when Martinez fired four shots at him, according to the outlet's reporting. Martin was 57 years old at the time, making him the longest-serving DPS officer ever killed in the line of duty, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
A Traffic Stop Turns Deadly on the Beeline Highway
Motorists driving along State Route 87 that day noticed Martinez driving at excessive speeds before the stop, according to the FOX 10 account, and Martin was violating his probation at the time of the encounter. Investigators later recovered both the murder weapon and Martin's stolen service revolver, and ballistics testing confirmed at least one bullet recovered from Martin's body came from the tape-wrapped revolver Martinez carried, per the same reporting.
Martinez fled to California following the shooting, and police arrested him there the following day, on August 16, 1995. Before his capture, authorities overheard Martinez laughing and bragging to a friend about killing a police officer, and he had reportedly shown a friend in Globe a revolver with black electrical tape wrapped around its handle, according to the station's report. Investigators also determined Martinez had stolen a blue Chevrolet Monte Carlo and a license plate from a second California vehicle during his flight, the outlet noted.
Conviction, Death Sentence, and a Second Murder in California
Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hotham presided over Martinez's trial beginning September 4, 1997, and prosecutors Robert Shuns and Juan Martinez secured a guilty verdict against him on September 26, 1997. Judge Christopher M. Skelly sentenced Martinez to death on August 18, 1998, with the sentence citing aggravating circumstances involving his history of serious offenses, including the murder of a peace officer in the line of duty, per the same account.
The case carries added weight for regional law enforcement because Martinez did not stop at one killing. After fleeing to California with Martin's stolen 9mm service weapon, he murdered mini-mart clerk Randip Singh in Blythe, using the same firearm, according to KESQ. A California judge sentenced Martinez in April 2018 to life in prison without parole for that killing before he was returned to Arizona to continue serving his death sentence. Martinez has since exhausted all of his appeals and has previous violent crime convictions on his record, according to the FOX 10 report.
Defense Attorneys Push Back on the Timeline
The Attorney General's September 2026 motion seeking a briefing schedule has drawn objections from Martinez's defense attorneys, who accuse Mayes of rushing the execution process ahead of a proposed formal warrant filing planned for November 2026, according to 12News. Under Arizona Supreme Court procedural rules, once the state requests a briefing schedule, justices set deadlines for defense and prosecution filings before deciding whether to issue a final execution warrant, according to reporting from the Arizona Capitol Times.
That procedural friction sits atop a broader, ongoing debate in Arizona over how quickly the state should be moving to carry out death sentences. Arizona resumed requesting execution warrants in November 2024 after Governor Katie Hobbs ended a nearly two-year administrative pause on capital punishment and dismissed the head of an independent death penalty review panel, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Hobbs disbanded that review after its lead reviewer recommended considering alternative execution methods such as firing squads, leaving state prison officials to handle protocol revisions internally, according to Prison Legal News.
Part of a Wider Push to Clear Arizona's Death Row
The state has continued to act on that restart. In October 2025, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry executed death row inmate Richard Djerf by lethal injection for a 1993 mass murder, marking the state's second execution of 2025. As of May 2026, Arizona held 108 prisoners on death row and had carried out 97 executions since statehood in 1912, according to Wikipedia.
Hoodline previously reported in May 2026 that the Arizona high court upheld another death sentence while corrections officials scheduled upcoming execution dates, part of what appears to be an ongoing judicial effort to move long-pending capital cases forward. A permanent roadside memorial for Trooper Martin still stands along State Route 87 at milepost 195 near Fountain Hills, where local volunteer crews and trooper associations conduct periodic cleanups in his honor, according to the Arizona State Troopers Association.
