By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — Hampshire Superior Court Judge Bertha D. Josephson did not fulfill the prosecution’s request to set a trial date for Cara Rintala, but the case took a small step forward Wednesday when Josephson told the attorneys to complete the discovery process by the end of July.
It will be the third trial for Rintala, who is accused of strangling her wife, Annamarie Rintala, in their Granby home on March 29, 2010. Juries deadlocked in 2013 and 2014, and Rintala has been free on $150,000 bail since February 2014. She has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder, and maintains she was running errands with her daughter at the time her wife was killed.
No date had been set for the third trial because her attorney, David Hoose of Northampton, had asked the Supreme Judicial Court last year to dismiss the case on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to convict Rintala. A single justice of the court denied his request in May, and Hoose has since appealed that decision to the full Supreme Judicial Court.
In court Wednesday, First Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Steven E. Gagne said that state law allows a trial to go forward during such an appeal and he asked Josephson to schedule the trial for October.
Hoose said Wednesday that October seemed “not at all realistic” because Gagne has said that he has new evidence for the third trial, but has not shared it with a Hoose as required in the discovery process. Hoose also said if the evidence is what he thinks it is, he will likely need to come before the court to request money to hire an expert witness to refute it.
Josephson took no action on Gagne’s request to set a trial date, saying, “I’m not going to force the issue today.”
Instead, she told Gagne to share the evidence with Hoose by July 20 and gave Hoose until July 27 to respond to the new information. At that point, she said, they would have a better idea of what trial date would be reasonable.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
