Supreme Court won't opine in Dartmouth murders resentencing
The state's highest court declined to weigh in on constitutional questions surrounding the resentencing of a man who is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for killing two Dartmouth College professors when he was a teenager.
Robert Tulloch pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the 2001 slayings of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop inside their Hanover home. He was 17 at the time.
Tulloch's lawyers said the life sentence without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional since the U.S. Supreme Court declared such mandatory sentences for juvenile murderers unconstitutional in 2012.
Judge Lawrence MacLeod ordered the transfer of disputed questions to the high court after concluding that the 'constitutional issues in this case are significant and complex and have not yet been addressed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.'
The two sides disagree over whether the state allows life sentences without parole for minors, according to MacLeod's order.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case prior to resentencing.
'Prior to resentencing, the trial court shall rule upon the defendant's 2018 motion to declare life sentences without the possibility of parole unconstitutional for juvenile offenders,' the order reads.
In 2001, Tulloch, alongside James Parker, who was then 16, planned to rob and kill someone that day to get money to travel overseas. Tulloch was the mastermind behind the scheme. Parker, who was sentenced to 25 years, has since been paroled.
Tulloch's lawyers, Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom, called keeping the sentence of life without parole cruel and unusual punishment for a man who was a juvenile at the time of the crime.
At a hearing on Sept. 25, both sides agreed that if the state Constitution allows a sentence of life without the possibility for parole for minors, a court must find the child is incapable of change before imposing such a sentence.
No further court hearings have been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.
jphelps@unionleader.com
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