"Dartmouth professors’ murderer to get new sentence" by Peter Schworm and John R. Ellement | Globe Staff August 29, 2014
The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled Friday that four men who committed murders as juveniles, including the killer of two Dartmouth College professors in an infamous 2001 slaying, deserve new sentence hearings, vacating their terms of life in prison without parole.
In a unanimous decision, the court found that a 2012 US Supreme Court decision, which struck down mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles as unconstitutional, should be considered retroactive.
I'm a bit troubled by this releasing of violent people while nonviolent drug users get hammered through the $y$tem.
Of course, violent people on the streets means more fear and need for security, doesn't it? Nice revolving door we have here, huh?
In its landmark decision, the high court ruled that juvenile offenders have “diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform” and judges should be able to consider the “mitigating qualities of youth” in sentencing.
I dunno, kids are growing up awfully fast these days, what with their social media gadgets and devices.
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The decision has spurred appeals of life sentences across the country and led to the release of three prisoners in Massachusetts in recent months. But the killing of Half and Susanne Zantop in their Hanover, N.H., home is perhaps the highest-profile crime to be revisited.
Robert Tulloch was 17 when he and his best friend, 16-year-old James J. Parker, chanced upon the Zantops’ home in search of someone to rob. The two teens were from Chelsea, Vt., a tiny town some 30 miles away.
The teenagers knocked on the couple’s door, said they were conducting an environmental survey for school, and were let inside. After they spoke for more than 10 minutes, Tulloch attacked Half Zantop, 62, with a knife. When Susanne Zantop, 55, heard her husband’s screams and rushed into the room, Tulloch ordered Parker to cut her throat.
See: Tulloch Told Parker to Slit Zantop's Throat
The case garnered national headlines for its random brutality.
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Lawyers for several of the prisoners praised the ruling, saying their clients deserved a chance at a lesser sentence and the possibility of parole. Their first-degree murder convictions automatically sentenced them to life behind bars.
“I thought it was the right result,” said Andrew Schulman, who represented one of the prisoners affected by the ruling, Michael Soto, who was convicted of first-degree murder for the 2007 killing of Aaron Kar in Manchester.
Soto was not the shooter but “wiped the gun with his shirt, racked the slide to cock it, and handed it’’ to the person who actually pulled the trigger, according to court records.
Another convicted killer, Eduardo Lopez Jr., was 17 years old when he shot and killed Robert Goyette in Nashua in 1991. Another, Robert Dingman, also 17, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1997 for orchestrating the shooting deaths of his parents and coercing his then-15-year-old brother, Jeffrey, to participate in the killings.
The lawyer for Tulloch, convicted in the Zantops’ deaths, could not be reached for comment.
Despite their legal victory, the men are likely to remain in prison for years to come, legal specialists said.
“They are still going to get hefty sentences,” predicted Albert Scherr, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law....
In Massachusetts, the parole board this month voted to release a 38-year-old who was convicted in a 1992 murder, a day after granting parole to a 36-year-old convicted of stabbing a man following a fight at a party despite objections from prosecutors and the victim’s family....
I think they sent them to Tennessee, but I'm not sure.
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