On Sept. 25, the Grafton County Superior Court held a non-evidentiary hearing to consider “legal issues” in the resentencing case of Robert Tulloch. Tulloch was convicted in 2002 of the murders of German studies and comparative literature professor Susanne Zantop and Earth sciences professor Half Zantop.
Judge Lawrence MacLeod made no rulings at the non-evidentiary hearing, New Hampshire Judicial Branch communications manager Av Harris wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. The resentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled, Harris added.
“Judge MacLeod needs to rule on the competing motions filed by [Tulloch’s attorney] related to the parameters for the sentencing he is allowed to consider,” Harris wrote. “Once he rules on that, then the court will talk to both parties and schedule the resentencing hearing.”
Tulloch, who was 17 years old at the time of the murders and 18 at his sentencing, received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole for two counts of first-degree murder.
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled the mandatory sentencing of juveniles to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole to be unconstitutional in Miller v. Alabama. According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, Tulloch’s attorneys filed a resentencing request after the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Miller could be retroactively applied. The New Hampshire Supreme Court’s decision entitled affected defendants to resentencing hearings, according to the opinion issued by the court in 2014.
According to the Associated Press, Tulloch’s attorney Richard Guerriero argued during the Sept. 25 hearing — which Tulloch did not attend — that a child defendant should be considered for parole.
“It is cruel in the constitutional sense to punish children the same way we punish adults, when in every other context we recognize that they are different,” Guerriero said during the hearing.
In 2001, Tulloch conspired with Chelsea High School peer James Parker to rob and kill the Zantops in their Etna, N.H. residence. The two planned to flee to Australia with stolen ATM cards but were apprehended in Indiana weeks after committing the murders.
Parker — who was 16 years old at the time of the murders — pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree murder in exchange for testifying against Tulloch.
In June 2024, Parker, who was serving a 25-year to life sentence with the possibility of parole, was released on parole by the New Hampshire State Parole Board, according to the Associated Press. Parker’s lawyer and Department of Corrections staff said he had taken steps to “rehabilitate himself” by earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree while incarcerated.
According to New Hampshire Department of Justice division of public protection senior assistant attorney general Benjamin Agati, Tulloch has the right to a resentencing hearing, though the verdict may remain unchanged.
“We have interpreted state and federal protections to be the same in his case and believe that a life sentence without the possibility of parole is possible under both constitutions,” Agati said.
In January 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire filed an amicus brief in support of a resentencing hearing for Tulloch. The Disability Rights Center of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, New Hampshire Legal Assistance and the National Association of Social Workers and its New Hampshire chapter joined the brief.
“Despite decades of consensus that children are less culpable than adults and more capable of change and rehabilitation, New Hampshire to this day allows for the imposition of this irrevocable punishment on juveniles before the age of 18 if they are certified as an adult,” New Hampshire ACLU legal director Gilles Bissonnette wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth.
Bissonnette added that the United States is the only country that allows juveniles to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. In recent years, the sentence has become rare in the United States itself, he wrote.
“Within the United States, a majority of states have now eliminated this punishment, and it has become exceedingly rare,” Bissonnette wrote.
