Lapointe Appeal Back In Court May 18

Lawyers for Richard Lapointe, the disabled man convicted of murdering his wife’s grandmother in 1987, will take their appeal to Connecticut Appellate Court on May 18. Lapointe’s false, coerced confession and the Manchester Police Department’s pursuit of him have drawn national attention to the case.

Lawyers for the former dishwasher are appealing Superior Court Judge John Nazzaro’s denial of Lapointe’s bid for a new trial. In rejecting Lapointe’s habeas corpus petition, Judge Nazzaro questioned whether the former dishwasher was truly impaired: 

The court notes that much has been made of the petitioner’s purported mental deficiencies. The petitioner’s own mental health experts concluded that his level of intelligence was in the normal range. The petioner’s arguments, quite understandably, do not consider the possibility that the petitioner intentionally gave the police a mixture of both truthful and misleading information. The petitioner’s behavior may be nothing more than manipulation and duplicity ..

[Lapointe's] testimony … reflect(s) an individual who answered questions quite well but nevertheless was often evasive, selective in his recall and bordering on so incredible as to be not believable (e.g. signing a statement that he had committed a brutal sexual assault and murder, but did not expect the police to arrest him; the police believed he did not commit the crimes because he signed the statements …)