Defense cites no major infractions since 2012
Tulloch pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was automatically sentenced to life without parole for the 2001 killings of Half and Susanne Zantop, married professors at Dartmouth College.
The proceeding follows U.S. Supreme Court rulings on juvenile sentencing. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, and later applied that decision retroactively. The rulings gave hundreds of juvenile lifers a shot at freedom, including five men serving life sentences in New Hampshire.
Tulloch’s case is the last of the five to be heard.
The hearing takes place at Grafton County Superior Court. Tulloch’s attorneys, Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom, argued in a court filing that a minimum sentence in the range of 30 to 40 years is appropriate. The defense grounded that request in a review of comparable juvenile murder cases in New Hampshire and in cases nationwide affected by the Supreme Court decisions.
The attorneys also cited Tulloch’s prison record as evidence of rehabilitation. According to the defense filing, Tulloch maintained good conduct after initial misconduct early in his incarceration, having had no major infractions since 2012 and no minor infractions since 2017. “The vast majority of his write-ups are for possessing too many books,” Guerriero and Bloom wrote in the filing.