The Connecticut Appellate Court ordered a new trial for Richard Lapointe. From the Hartford Courant: “In a stunning decision, the state Appellate Court Monday ordered a new trial for Richard Lapointe, a mentally disabled dishwasher convicted of a murder a quarter century ago, concluding that state prosecutors wrongly withheld a police report that tends to support […]
Lapointe
Lapointe: DNA does not match
Who left his DNA behind: Richard A. Lapointe or Frederick Rodney Merrill? We have new developments that could shed a light on the case of Bernice Martin and could once and for all clear up who left his DNA. We already know it wasn’t Lapointe. The Connecticut State Board of Pardons and Paroles decided last week to grant […]
Connecticut Appellate Court to review 1987 Bernice Martin murder
“The Appellate Court is scheduled to hear arguments Friday [today] in the appeal of 66-year-old Richard Lapointe, who was convicted of murdering Bernice Martin and sentenced to life in prison. Lapointe insists that DNA evidence shows he’s innocent and that his former lawyers were ineffective.” On March 8, 1987, fire fighters were called to the […]
Sum it up #37
A short “Sum it up” just alerting you to some interesting things I found in the mailbox: Starting this Friday, March 9, 2012 on Investigation Discovery the movie “An Appointment With Death” will show you interviews with five death row inmates in Florida and Texas awaiting their execution. It is a four-part miniseries. More information […]
Update Richard Lapointe: Habeas denied
Richard Lapointe: his Habeas Petition was denied as reported by the Hartford Courant. “Superior Court Judge John J. Nazzaro, in a 51-page ruling issued late Friday, turned back arguments that prosecutors had withheld material evidence, that Lapointe’s trial and appellate lawyers were incompetent, and that new evidence proved Lapointe was innocent. The decision is another defeat in what […]
Lapointe hearings resume Aug 2010
Questions about how long a fire burned at Mrs. Martin’s apartment and possibly tainted DNA evidence on a pair of gloves found at the crime scene were brought up last Thursday during a hearing for Richard Lapointe. Mrs. Bernice Martin was raped, stabbed and strangled in her apartment in Manchester on March 8, 1987. Lapointe was convicted […]
Lapointe hearing July 7-8-9, 2010
Christopher Cosgrove, Lapointe’s public defender during the criminal trial, and Henry Theodore Vogt, who sought a new trial for Lapointe in the late 1990s, testified during the latest hearing seeking a new trial for Lapointe. Paul Casteleiro, Lapointe’s current lawyer, focused on what Cosgrove and Vogt didn’t do when they handled the Lapointe case in […]
Lapointe hearing July 6, 2010
During direct examination on Tuesday, Lapointe’s attorney, Paul Casteleiro, suggested that in his quest for a confession, Detective Morrissey overlooked inconsistencies in Richard’s admission to Morrissey and failed to ask important questions. In his confession, Richard said he had strangled 88-year-old Bernice Martin with his hands, but the medical examiner determined she had been strangled […]