State's attorney candidate Todd Martin: ‘I believe I can help repair the damage that’s been done’

Six killers went away for a combined 190 years while he was in charge of the felony division. A seventh, Keith Mackowiak, is serving life behind bars.

But don’t ask Todd Martin to name any of the incarcerated. He didn’t become a prosecutor to be a trophy hunter — “You remember your losses a lot more than your victories” — and he’s not running for state’s attorney because he misses the grisly crime scenes.

Martin is seeking the Democratic nomination for La Salle County state’s attorney because he’s still a regular at the courthouse and he doesn’t much care for the reports coming from the prosecutor’s office these days.

“The atmosphere there, in my opinion, is not good,” Martin said. “The relationship that the state’s attorney’s office has with law enforcement is not good. I know there needs to be a change and I believe I’m the individual that can help repair some of the damage that has been done.”

Martin, 54, is a lifelong Mendota resident who spent many years in the felony division of the La Salle County State’s Attorney’s Office and several more in which he represented the county in civil matters, even when he was in private practice. By Martin’s estimate, about 30% of a state’s attorney’s work is civil and the job demands a lawyer with experience in civil and criminal venues, which he has.

“I have more experience than my primary opponent and a broader base of experience than my primary opponent,” Martin said. “I think I have a better working relationship with law enforcement and on the civil side, working with county board members, than my opponent.”

If elected, the father of two pledges to mend fences with the police departments and to negotiate the return of drug interdiction in La Salle County. While the disputed SAFE Team was disbanded and will remain so, Martin pledges to work more closely with the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Narcotics Team and invite the unit across the La Salle-Bureau county line, which agents currently won’t cross.

While he blames the current administration for that tattered relationship, “Part of that rift between TRI-DENT and the state’s attorney’s office was caused by my (primary) opponent.”

His campaign slogan is “Experience matters,” and Martin thinks he’s uniquely situated to mend fences with police departments, as he and his two brothers all went into law enforcement. His younger siblings both became police officers — Mendota officer Brad Martin and La Salle County Sgt. Jason Martin — while he’s prosecuted or defended criminal suspects off and on for the past 26 years.

That the Martin brothers all became crime fighters was a coincidence, he said. Thomas and Bonnie Martin never pushed their boys into any particular line of work and didn’t push hard for higher education, which was fortunate because 18-year-old Todd Martin had about had it with the classroom.

Martin had been a well-liked student at Mendota High School but freely admits he was no candidate for homecoming king or valedictorian. He enrolled at Illinois Valley Community College in no small part because his parents were willing to pick up the tab.

While at IVCC, however, he stumbled into a political science class taught by the late Joe Mikyska and “it just clicked.” He finished a political science degree at Southern Illinois University and then earned a law degree in 1994 from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich., acquitting himself well in criminal procedure and in wills and estates.

Unlike most of his Cooley classmates, Martin had a job waiting for him at graduation. Joe Navarro was then La Salle County state’s attorney and was willing to take a flyer on a homegrown attorney interested in settling in La Salle County.

Martin was tabbed for the traffic division but he didn’t stay there long, even though Martin’s first trial experience was a near catastrophe. A bench trial was thrust upon Martin and caught him so doe-eyed that an experienced second chair had step in.

“They threw me up there without a net and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do,” he recalled. “I never wanted that lost feeling again.”

True to his word, Martin elevated his game and was entrusted with more complicated felonies and drew enough high marks to be retained when Navarro lost a reelection bid to Republican Mike James.

Martin did eventually leave for private practice, joining the La Salle firm Herbolsheimer Lannon Henson Duncan & Reagan. Herbolsheimer represented the county on insurance issues which enabled Martin to remain an advocate for the county, even in private practice.

He would eventually return to the state’s attorney’s office, as Navarro hadn’t been the only one who noticed Martin’s resolve and diligence.

Brian Towne, another former Navarro assistant, became state’s attorney in 2006 and decided he needed not one first assistant but two. Heroin had rocketed the felony caseload past 700 and Towne decided the office’s felony and drug divisions each needed a second in command.

Towne talked Martin, then 41, into leaving private practice to become chief deputy for felonies and was quickly vindicated. Eight months into his tenure, Towne had three pending murder cases — Streator killers James Alvarado and Randall Jennings, plus Mackowiak — and needed all hands on deck.

Martin spent six years heading the felony division before becoming county attorney in 2012, when predecessor Troy Holland was elected circuit judge. He held that post until shortly after Towne lost a reelection bid in 2016.

Martin pointed out he’s been a Democratic stalwart, having voted in every Democratic primary for the past 20 years.

Tom Collins can be reached at (815) 220-6930 or TCollins@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_Court.