Corbett trial lawyers don’t want children’s interviews used

PROSECUTORS in North Carolina have moved to prevent interviews given to social workers by Jason Corbett’s two children being referred to in the trial over his killing.

The father of two was found bludgeoned to death in the home he shared with wife Molly Martens and his two children in Winston Salem, North Carolina, on August 2, 2015.

Ms Martens, 33, and her father-inlaw Tom Martens, 66, were charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in January 2016. They will go on trial in the States on July 17.

In a motion filed in North Carolina yesterday, the state has deemed that interviews with Jack and Sarah Corbett, carried out in August 2015 by various social workers, ‘constitute inadmissible hearsay’.

Prosecutors have applied for a court order barring reference to any such interviews or recordings ‘unless and until the court conducts a hearing outside the presence of the jury and deems the evidence admissible’.

In a further motion, the state has requested that the court orders that no request is made for the jury to ‘put themselves in the place of the defendant’. The motion states: ‘The state has concerns that the defence may ask jurors to put themselves in the position of the defendant in this matter in which the defence alleges ‘self-defence.’