| 08/03/2007 |
| Murderer of Manchester grandmother denied new trial: Judge says Lapointe's lawyers failed to provide evidence to support claims |
| By: Lee Sawyer , Journal Inquirer |
|
In a sharply worded decision, a judge has rejected
rape-murder convict Richard A. Lapointe's bid for a new
trial, condemning it as a waste of the court's time.
The 16-page decision released Thursday by Vernon Superior Court
Judge Stanley T. Fuger enraged supporters of Lapointe, who
believe he is innocent of the 1987 rape and murder of his wife's
grandmother, Bernice Martin, 88, in Manchester. Lapointe's current lawyers have vowed to appeal Fuger's ruling, and one of them, Paul Casteleiro, denounced the decision, saying it "reflects a lack of knowledge of the facts and record in the case." "Judge Fuger announced at the beginning that he knew nothing about the case, despite the submission of an 83-page petition and pretrial briefs," Casteleiro said Thursday. Casteleiro also accused Fuger of having "displayed a hostility to the petitioner's case - a hostility he could not contain in his opinion. It's shocking in terms of its lack of insight. I think it's a real black eye on the judicial system of Connecticut" Fuger handed down his decision about two weeks after the weeklong trial in mid-July in Lapointe's bid for a new trial. After rejecting the fundamental tenets of Lapointe's petition for a new trial as unproven, Fuger went on to attack Lapointe's lawyers. Fuger warned them that their continued efforts on Lapointe's behalf amounted to an abuse of the legal system. "It is an abuse of the writ to waste the court's time and resources with a habeas petition such as the petitioner's, that is, one that alleges serious constitutional violations yet lacks even rudimentary evidentiary support," Fuger wrote. He continued that any further petitions maintaining that Lapointe's prior lawyers were ineffective should be automatically dismissed. "A constant re-litigation of issues, in addition to squandering precious judicial resources, undermines the entire criminal justice system," Fuger wrote. "There are no issues remaining to be litigated in connection with the quality of the representation received by the petitioner in his ... conviction." In the decision, Fuger wrote that any new evidence supporting Lapointe's innocence, such as DNA evidence, could form the basis for a new petition by his lawyers, if such evidence is discovered. So far, the limited amount of DNA found at the crime scene neither implicates nor exonerates Lapointe. His lawyers, however, have pledged to continue to have items of evidence tested. For The Friends of Richard Lapointe, a group of dozens of supporters that was founded by writer Robert Perske after Lapointe's 1992 conviction, Fuger's ruling was seen as a major setback. Perske, who befriended Lapointe after becoming convinced he was being railroaded in the court system, said Wednesday Fuger's decision meant an innocent man will remain in prison. "The truth has not been served in this case," Perske said. "The truth is this soft little man wouldn't hurt a flea." He accused Fuger of not familiarizing himself with the case and passing up an opportunity to correct an injustice. Kate Germond, a lawyer with Centurian Ministries, an organization specializing in overturning wrongful convictions that is working on Lapointe's behalf, agreed. "The reality is there's a man sitting in prison for a crime he didn't commit," Germond said. Supporters vow to press on She said her organization isn't giving up. "We are black and blue, but we're still standing," she said. "There's an man in Connecticut who needs us to keep fighting, so we will continue to fight. We're not going to give up until he walks out of prison." Lapointe, 61, suffers from a brain disorder that results in physical and mental impairment. His supporters, many of whom are advocates for people with disabilities, believe he was manipulated into giving a false confession to Manchester police. They maintain Lapointe's then-wife's account to police that he was with her during the time the crime occurred provides an alibi supporting his innocence. But prosecutors maintain Lapointe left the Manchester home he shared with his then-wife on the day of the crime, went to Martin's apartment at an elderly housing complex in Manchester and beat, choked, raped, and stabbed her, and then set fires in her apartment. This was Lapointe's second attempt at seeking a new trial. The first came in 2000. In the first attempt, Lapointe's then-lawyer, Henry T. Vogt, sought to prove that Lapointe's public defenders failed to adequately represent him during the 1992 criminal trial. A judge rejected that claim. In Lapointe's second bid for a new trial, his current lawyers, Casteleiro and James Cousins, argued Vogt botched Lapointe's first bid for a new trial. They asked Fuger to look anew at evidence and arguments that Lapointe was the victim of sub-par representation at both the criminal trial and his first habeas corpus petition for a new trial. They argued he should be given a new trial with new lawyers that would present a jury with evidence of his innocence. Among the evidence the 1992 jury never saw, they argued, was a notation in a detective's logbook suggesting a timetable for the duration of the fires set in Bernice Martin's apartment, and the testimony of Lapointe's then-wife, Karen Martin. Karen Martin provided what appeared to be a strong alibi when she repeatedly told a police detective while under intense questioning that Lapointe was with her on the night of the murder. The note on the duration of the fires, coupled with Martin's account to police, made it impossible for Lapointe to have been the attacker, his lawyers argued. Judge rejects alibi But Karen Martin was never called to testify at the 1992 criminal trial because Lapointe's public defenders, Christopher Cosgrove and Patrick Culligan, were afraid her story had changed, according to Culligan's testimony before Fuger in July. They believed Martin had become hostile to Lapointe after he was arrested and the two divorced. They were further concerned by testimony given by Martin at a pretrial hearing in the criminal case suggesting there was a period of time she could not account for Lapointe's whereabouts. But when Martin testified before Fuger in July - after listening to an audio tape of her interview with the police detective that was played in court- she reaffirmed her original account of what happened on the night of her grandmother's murder - that she and Lapointe were together all day, except for a few minutes when Lapointe took the dog for a walk. Lapointe's lawyers argued that had a jury heard her testimony at the 1992 trial, they might have acquitted Lapointe. Fuger, in his decision, rejected the claim that Martin would have presented a solid alibi for Lapointe. In fact, Fuger suggested her testimony could have harmed Lapointe's case. At the beginning of her recent testimony before Fuger, Martin again began to recount a period of time on the night of the murder when she was getting their young son ready for bed and Lapointe was out of her view - only this time, she testified that during that period, "Richard was not in the house." However, after hearing her own interview with the detective on tape, she testified she had told the truth when she said he was with her throughout the day. He did leave the house, she testified, to check on her grandmother after a relative called, concerned she could not reach Bernice Martin by phone. It was Lapointe himself who called 911 to report smoke coming from Bernice Martin's apartment. However, the ambiguity of Karen Martin's account was enough to convince Fuger that her testimony was unlikely to have swayed a jury in Lapointe's favor. Fuger also rejected claims about the duration of the fires and testimony from the defense team's medical expert regarding Bernice Martin's time of death as inconsequential to Lapointe's guilt or innocence. Fuger also stated that Lapointe's lawyers failed to show that Vogt was ineffective in Lapointe's first bid for a new trial. Fuger pointed out that they failed to press Vogt on why he made certain key decisions in the case. Vogt was queried as to whether he had investigated certain evidence, such as a police detective's note about the duration of the fire or considered calling expert witnesses. Vogt was also asked whether he had sought to impeach the testimony of a police detective, but he answered in each case that he could not recall. |