SALEM — The legal status of Jerome McNulty, whose murder conviction in the stabbing death of his Salem girlfriend was overturned last year by the state's highest court, will be sorted out next month in Superior Court.
Judge David Lowy set a May 9 hearing for McNulty, who appeared in court yesterday during a brief hearing in shackles and wearing a gray prison jumpsuit.
While McNulty waits to be retried in the fatal stabbing of his 27-year-old girlfriend, Linda Correia, a judge will have to resolve a number of issues related to his conviction for stabbing Correia's 10-year-old daughter and a baby sitter that same morning of March 29, 2001, in a Peabody Street apartment.
Although the state's Supreme Judicial Court tossed out the first-degree murder conviction, it upheld guilty findings for two separate charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on the daughter and baby sitter.
McNulty, now 32, received a mandatory life sentence without parole for the murder and a consecutive sentence of eight to 12 years in state prison for the two stabbings.
He has been incarcerated for 10 years.
At the May 9 resentencing hearing, a judge will have to answer a number of questions. Now that the life sentence has been vacated, how much state prison time does McNulty have left? Is he eligible for parole?
In addition, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office could seek a new and longer sentence.
It's also possible McNulty's attorney may ask for bail pending the new murder trial, which has not yet been scheduled.
In November, the SJC ruling put this case under a temporary cloud.
In a split decision, the high court threw out the murder conviction after finding that Salem police delayed telling McNulty that his defense lawyer wanted him to stop talking. Some of the statements McNulty made to police should have been suppressed, the court said.
Blodgett appealed that ruling, but the SJC denied a request for a new hearing before all seven justices. The original appeal was heard by a five-judge panel.
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