This story was originally produced by the Valley News. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
A man who has spent the past 24 years in prison on a life sentence without possibility of parole for murdering two Dartmouth College professors in 2001 now is eligible to be considered for release in the future.
The change in his eligibility leaving prison comes following a Grafton County Superior Court judge’s ruling last month that life in prison without parole for juvenile offenders runs afoul of the New Hampshire state constitution.
Robert Tulloch, of Chelsea, was 17 years old when he and an accomplice tricked their way into the Etna home of husband and wife Half and Susanne Zantop and murdered them as part of a robbery.
Now at age 41, the court can move ahead with his request for resentencing, according to Judge Lawrence MacLeod’s 32-page opinion issued July 21.
The judge’s decision — even if survives on appeal — does not mean Tulloch will ever be granted parole. But it is a significant change. Previously, Tulloch was barred by law from even being considered for parole.
Tulloch received two automatic life sentences without possibility of parole after pleading guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in 2002.
His accomplice, a high school friend named James Parker, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was paroled last year after nearly serving the minimum of his original 25-years-to-life sentence.
Tulloch, a juvenile at the time he participated in the murders and was sentenced, has been seeking a new sentencing hearing since 2013. His effort began after the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 2012 landmark case, Miller v. Alabama, that a mandatory life sentence without parole for juveniles is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
The highest court in the land’s decision was followed by the New Hampshire State Supreme Court unanimously ruling in 2014 that four New Hampshire men — one of whom was Tulloch — who were sentenced as teenagers for murder without possibility of parole should have the opportunity to receive new sentencing hearings in light of the SCOTUS decision.
Since then, Tulloch’s attorneys, Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom, have been pressing for a new sentencing hearing for their client, who is incarcerated at the state prison in Concord.
In their petition before the court, Guerriero and Bloom argued that mandatory life without parole violated the “cruel and unusual” clause under the Eighth Amendment whenimposed on a person who committed their crime when a juvenile.
Initially, MacLeod had punted on rendering a decision and referred the question up to the state Supreme Court on grounds that it would be an issue the high court was likely going to address eventually.
But in April, the state’s highest court declined to take up the matter, saying that the question should first be dealt with in the lower court.
In his July 31 order, MacLeod concurred with Tulloch’s attorneys’ argument that mandatory life without parole — or LWOP — for juveniles met the standard of both the “cruel” and “unusual” as accepted by jurists and the legal community today.
“Since the defendant’s 2002 sentencing, the legal landscape has shifted dramatically toward an approach that accounts for a defendant’s youth and reserves the most serious punishment for adult defendants only,” MacLeod wrote.
“The court determines that LWOP for minors is ‘cruel’ because it effectively sentences a juvenile to death in prison, and the severity of the punishment increases with the youth of the defendant … (and) is further persuaded that LWOP for minors is ‘unusual’ because it is an uncommon sentence in New Hampshire and an increasingly uncommon sentence regionally and nationally.”
MacLeod further concurred with Tulloch’s defense attorneys — should his decision be appealed before the state Supreme Court — that if the state’s constitution does allow for life without parole for youths under 18 years old, it nonetheless requires the state to prove “permanent incorrigibility” beyond a reasonable doubt.
The resentencing has not been scheduled. And depending on the outcome, either the state or his defense could appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court.
There’s also the potential that prosecutors and Tulloch’s attorney could negotiate an agreement on the terms of a new sentence before a sentencing hearing.
“We will review the judge’s order and determine appropriate next steps,” Michael Garrity, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said via email to the Valley News.
