Judge suppresses evidence that defendant’s mother deleted texts, citing prejudice and weak link to defendant

The court in Poplar County granted a defense motion to suppress evidence that the defendant’s mother deleted text messages on the night of Dec. 5, 2024, ruling the probative value was outweighed by unfair prejudice and that the state had not shown a sufficient link between the defendant and the deletions.

At a pretrial hearing on the motion, defense counsel Mabel Robinson argued the deletion was the mother’s unilateral act and therefore irrelevant to whether the defendant, Joe Martorell, committed the charged conduct. The state said the deletions and later statements were admissible under ER 404(b) to show consciousness of guilt and cited case law such as State v. Kosanke and related authorities in urging admissibility.

Judge Colleen Meli ruled for the defense, saying the record did not show by a sufficient preponderance that the defendant had knowledge of or participated in the deletion and that admitting the evidence risked juror confusion and unfair prejudice. “I’m going to grant the motion to suppress,” the court stated when issuing the ruling.

The contested material concerns messages sent to the defendant at roughly 10:02, 10:04 and 10:05 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2024. Marty Martorell, the defendant’s mother, testified that she took her daughter’s phone at the scene, deleted messages in a panicked state, and later told police she had deleted them. Exhibit 3 — a copy of the three texts — was admitted for the record but will not be usable by the state to prove the defendant’s consciousness of guilt on that point.

Prosecutors had argued that the timing and the mother’s later conduct could be circumstantial evidence that the defendant knew about or consented to suppression of the messages. The defense countered that the mother acted independently and that any inference tying the defendant to that conduct would be speculative.

The court’s ruling narrows the state’s evidence about post‑incident conduct; prosecutors signaled they will proceed with testimony and expert reconstruction evidence on the core factual dispute about whether the defendant’s driving was reckless. The trial continued with witness testimony and later moved to closing arguments.