By CHAD CAIN
Staff Writer
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — A Hampshire Superior Court judge has denied a defense motion to dismiss the murder charge against Cara Lee Rintala who is accused of murdering her wife in 2010.
The nine-page ruling Monday by Judge Mary-Lou Rup may clear the way for a third trial against Rintala, who is accused of strangling her wife, Annamarie Cochrane Rintala, 37, in the basement of the couple’s Granby home on March 29, 2010. Rintala, 47, has already been tried twice on the murder charge. Both time juries came back deadlocked and mistrials were declared.
Rintala’s attorney, David Hoose, said yesterday he is analyzing the ruling and is weighing whether to ask the state Supreme Judicial Court to review it. He said that decision should be made within the next three weeks.
“We’re obviously disappointed and we are taking a look at the decision,” Hoose said.
Should the defense appeal to the SJC, Hoose said their arguments would mirror those detailed in its 42-page motion to dismiss filed in Hampshire Superior Court in May. In that motion, Hoose and defense attorney Luke Ryan, both of Northampton, argued that the prosecution has no significant new evidence to present at another trial and that the evidence at the second trial was insufficient to persuade a jury to convict their client. The defense also asserted Rintala’s right to a fair trial and due process, and that she not to be placed in double jeopardy.
A month later, First Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Steven Gagne filed a motion opposing the request to dismiss the charge. He said he expects new evidence to be entered at a new trial including testimony from paint, crime-scene and strangulation experts.
“We’re pleased that Judge Rup denied the motion and confident that the decision will be upheld on appeal should the defendant pursue one,” Gagne said ysterday in a statement through Mary Carey, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.
In her decision, Rup disagreed with the defense argument that the state had placed Rintala in double jeopardy by twice failing to present legally sufficient evidence to support a conviction in its case against her. She said double jeopardy does not prevent a retrial after a mistrial is declared because of a hung jury, as long as the state presented evidence legally sufficient to convict at the earlier trials.
In her decision, Rup described the evidence presented at trial and ruled that it was sufficient to persuade a rational jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime.
“It cannot be said that the question of the defendant’s guilt had no solid foundation in established facts or that it was left to mere conjecture,” Rup wrote.
The defense also argued that the time-of-death opinion of a medical examiner and a gray cloth found in a McDonald’s trash receptacle should have been excluded from earlier trials, and therefore that testimony should not be used to determine if prosecutors met their burden of proof.
Rup disagreed, but said even if they were excluded, the remaining evidence was sufficient to find “that the Commonwealth had proven beyond reasonable doubt the necessary elements of the crime charged.”
Rup also questioned whether she has authority as a judge to dismiss an indictment after two mistrials resulting from the inability of jurors to reach unanimous verdicts, as the defense argued. Even if she did, Rup said she would not exercise that authority in this case. “In my view the circumstances in this case do not warrant my exercise of that authority,” she wrote.
The case is scheduled for an Oct. 22 status hearing in Hampshire Superior Court.
Hoose said yesterday that Cara Rintala, who was released on $150,000 bail in March, is doing well but is “obviously disappointed at this news.” He added, “We’re obviously in this for the long haul.”
Her defense maintained Cara Rintala is the target of a narrowly focused investigation that zeroed in on her while ignoring evidence that did not fit the theory that she committed the murder.
Chad Cain can be reached at [email protected].
