Supporters See Innocent Man Serving Life

UPDATE: Judge calls LaPointe's petition a waste of time.

Supporters See Innocent Man Serving Life
By PETER APPLEBOME
NY Times
Published: July 15, 2007

WEST HARTFORD, Conn.

He is short, clumsy and mentally impaired, with thick glasses and hearing aids in both ears, given to telling the same stale jokes over and over. His nickname was Mr. Magoo. He once was a dishwasher. He’s now a convict serving a life term for rape and murder.

They are people who befriended him without knowing him: advocates for the disabled, lawyers, writers, a detective, nurses, business people, psychologists, teachers, perhaps 100 in all at different times, a core group of perhaps 25. For years, many of them met every other Wednesday at the Burger King in Wethersfield near here to plot strategy.

They have long since abandoned the Burger King. Some of them have died. But 15 years later, the Friends of Richard Lapointe have not abandoned Mr. Lapointe, who was convicted of crimes they say he could not have committed.

After years of legal setbacks, Mr. Lapointe has a hearing beginning Monday, July 17, 2007 in Superior Court in the Tolland Judicial District seeking a new trial on grounds of ineffective counsel and suppressed evidence. Two remarkable stories will play out. The first is an uphill legal one that reflects the enormous hurdles facing any convict lacking the game-over DNA evidence that has freed more than 200 inmates in recent years. The second is a human one, how the Friends of Richard Lapointe have kept the faith all these years, sticking by a humble dishwasher like family when he was poised to disappear forever.

“These are people responding with absolutely pure hearts, who have put their money where their mouth is, their time where their mouth is, for someone they didn’t even know,” said Kate Germond, a lawyer with Centurion Ministries, which has had enormous success in freeing wrongfully convicted prisoners and is defending Mr. Lapointe. “They’re heroes. They really are.”

The case began on March 8, 1987, when Bernice Martin, 88, of Manchester, was raped, stabbed 11 times and strangled, and her apartment set on fire. She was the grandmother of Mr. Lapointe’s wife and someone with whom he regularly watched Red Sox and Celtics games.

Richard Lapointe

Photo by George Rue for NY Times

Supporters of Richard Lapointe at one of their frequent meetings.

For two years, the case went unsolved. On July 4, 1989, Mr. Lapointe, then 43, was preparing for a picnic with his wife and 9-year-old son. The police called and asked him to come down to talk about the case. He’d be back in time for the picnic, they said. When he arrived he was confronted with a bewildering display of exhibits and evidence, much of it bogus, purporting to prove he was the killer.

He was interrogated for nine hours, until 1:30 in the morning. No recording was made. During that time he signed three inconsistent confessions. He later said he signed them so he could go to the bathroom or leave. The first said he was responsible for the death but it was an accident, and his mind went blank. The second said if the evidence showed he did it, he did it, but “I don’t remember being there.” The third had details of the crime, some consistent with known facts, some not. At a 1992 trial, he was found guilty of capital felony murder and eight other charges. That should have been the end of it.

But one of those attending the trial was Robert Perske, a writer with a special interest in cases involving people with mental disabilities. He watched in horror, convinced that Mr. Lapointe was being railroaded on the basis of coerced confessions. He sent an alert to some friends, who attended the trial, too. When it ended, they raised money for appeals, visited Mr. Lapointe in prison, hired lawyers, generated publicity, organized a forum on wrongful convictions.

They say the case is preposterous, that Mr. Lapointe, a victim of numerous mental and physical infirmities, was not capable of such conduct. They say to commit a crime of astounding brutality, Mr. Lapointe, who had no history of violence of any kind, would have decided to sneak out in a 45-minute interval while his wife and son were upstairs. He would have taken a short walk to Mrs. Martin’s apartment, raped her, stabbed her, strangled her with a ligature that required far more dexterity than he had ever shown and set the place on fire.

And then, with no one seeing him come or go, he would have returned home, with no wounds, no blood, no smell of smoke, in time to calmly watch a National Geographic special with his family.

“He didn’t do it, he wouldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it,” said Irv Hargrave, a retired business executive who is one of the supporters.

The jury disagreed. Michael O’Hare, the assistant state attorney supervising the case, said the confessions, a semen sample found at the crime scene consistent with Mr. Lapointe’s blood type and statements he made the night of the murder (which the state contends reflected knowledge of the crime not available at the time) provided ample evidence, and that Mr. Lapointe received excellent counsel. Because of the heat from the fire, no identifiable DNA was recovered.

“I’m sure they’re well-meaning,” he said of Mr. Lapointe’s supporters. “But I don’t believe their beliefs are supported by the evidence, which shows he is guilty and was properly convicted.”

The legal obstacles facing his primary lawyer, Paul Casteleiro, in seeking a new trial are daunting. His supporters could be excused if the whole thing is feeling Sisyphean or worse.

It’s been a long, long road without much to show for it, but some of them met this week to discuss the case and plan what they’ll do if he’s released. Mr. Lapointe still talks about the lobster dinner he ate once at Red Lobster. They’d like to get him a second one.

E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

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