Recent Robert Marshall News

Here's the link to the article
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/5877779p-5892545c.html

N.J. seeks appeal of Marshall ruling
By BERNARD VAUGHANStaff Writer, (609) 978-2012
Published: Thursday, February 2, 2006
Updated: Thursday, February 2, 2006

The state attorney general's office has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lower court's ruling for a retrial in the death-penalty phase of Robert O. Marshall's case.

The once-prominent Ocean County insurance salesman was sent to death row in 1986 for orchestrating the murder of his wife, Maria. But in April 2004, a U.S. District judge decided that Marshall's lawyer, Glenn Zeitz, was ineffective during the penalty phase, and Marshall was taken off death row. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in November.

The attorney general's office filed the writ of certiorari, or request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear its appeal, on Tuesday, the last day it was able to file the petition, said John Hagerty, spokesman for the Division of Criminal Justice.

Had the state not filed the petition, Marshall, 65, could have gotten out of prison in 10 years, because a life sentence at the time of his conviction meant an inmate had to serve 30 years before parole eligibility. Today, a life sentence is 63¾ years without parole.

The best-selling book “Blind Faith” and a made-for-TV movie were based on the sensational case in which Marshall, who had accrued substantial gambling debts, was allegedly having an affair with another woman and had his wife murdered to collect insurance money. The case received so much attention that it was heard in Atlantic County instead of Ocean County so that the defendant could get a fair trial.

Maria Marshall, 42, was shot to death Sept. 7, 1984, at a Lacey Township rest stop on the Garden State Parkway.

Robert Marshall was sentenced to death, and his co-conspirator, Robert Cumber, who let a man use his phone to set up the killing, got a 30-year life sentence. Cumber, now 68 and nearly blind, was released recently after former Gov. Richard J. Codey granted him clemency in the final days of his stay in office.

The alleged triggerman, Larry Thompson, was acquitted, but Billy Wayne McKinnon, another conspirator, also served time in prison.

Links to more articles:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/NEWS02/602030407/1070
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/13780685.htm
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1138949863153880.xml&coll=1