www.courant.com/news/crime/hc-lapointeloses-story,0,3063364.story
By ERIC RICH
The Hartford Courant
September 7, 2000
One of the state's most controversial murder convictions will stand, a judge
ruled Wednesday.
Eight years to the day after Richard Lapointe was sentenced to life in prison
after being convicted of raping and killing his wife's 88-year-old grandmother,
Judge Samuel Freed in Hartford Superior Court rejected the Manchester man's bid
for a new trial through a civil petition.
The judge dismissed the petition, filed in 1997 in Hartford Superior Court, in
which Lapointe's lawyer argued that new evidence proved he could not have
committed the crimes. He also argued that prosecutorial misconduct and
ineffective legal representation rendered the conviction flawed.
After hearing testimony earlier this year from 23 witnesses, Freed found that
Lapointe's lawyer failed to present new scientific evidence showing his client's
brain malformation rendered him unable to commit and conceal the crime. "We
certainly are pleased that the court decided in our favor," said Assistant
State's Attorney JoAnne Sulik. "At this point, we need to review the decision
before saying anything more."
Lapointe, now 54, learned of the ruling Wednesday evening from a friend, Robert
Perske, an author from Darien. "He took it hard," said Perske, who reached
Lapointe by telephone at MacDougall Correctional Institution in Suffield. "He
really thought he would get out."
Lapointe, a former dishwasher whose case was once featured on the television
show "60 Minutes," exhausted his criminal appeals long ago. The state Supreme
Court upheld his conviction in July 1996, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to
review it later that year.
But on Wednesday, Lapointe's supporters pledged a renewed effort to win his
freedom. They criticized Lapointe's lawyer, and said they will appeal Freed's
decision. Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that has freed 20
people wrongfully sentenced to death row or life in prison, is bankrolling a new
defense team and has committed itself to the case.
"We believe there's an innocent man in prison," said Kate Germond, an
investigator from the New Jersey-based organization. "We're sticking with
Richard Lapointe until he walks out of jail, however long it takes."
A jury in 1992 deliberated for less than two hours before finding Lapointe
guilty of raping and murdering Bernice Martin in 1987, and then setting her
Manchester apartment on fire to conceal the crime. Among the evidence was a
semen stain found at Martin's apartment. Tests showed that it contained no
sperm, and had come from a person with Type A blood, both of which pointed to
Lapointe, who has Type A blood and had had a vasectomy.
But central to the conviction were three statements Lapointe gave to
investigators during a 9 1/2-hour interrogation on July 4, 1989. The session
ended with what police said was a confession, and what the defense contended was
a coerced statement extracted from Lapointe without a defense lawyer present, or
a recorder to document it.
The defense contended that police took advantage of Lapointe's vulnerabilities
as a small, awkward, mentally handicapped man. Lapointe has a rare congenital
brain malformation called Dandy Walker Syndrome, and is missing part of his
brain.
In the first statement he signed that night, Lapointe says he was responsible
for the killing, that it was an accident and that his mind went blank. In the
next, he says if the evidence shows that he was there, and that he killed
Martin, "then I killed her, but I don't remember being there." Police then
pushed for and got a more detailed statement, in which Lapointe says he sexually
assaulted Martin, then stabbed her and strangled her.
During the civil proceeding, Simsbury attorney Henry "Ted" Vogt argued that
scientific advances in the study of Lapointe's brain malformation show that he
lacked the physical and intellectual ability to carry out and conceal the crime.
Although Vogt called medical experts at the hearing, Freed found that he failed
to directly ask the experts whether Lapointe had the capacity to commit the
crimes. Lapointe's supporters, who split with Vogt early in the hearing, said
the failure to ask that critical question underscored what they say was poor
representation by Vogt.
Vogt, who has never before represented a petitioner in such a proceeding, said
he stood by his performance, and was disappointed by the ruling.