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Maine’s Top Court Rules Prosecutors Can Stay On Carrillo Murder Case

Gabor Degre
/
BDN
Sharon Carrillo, 33, is escorted to the Waldo County Superiour Court. Feb. 28, 2018. Carrillo and her husband, Julio Carrillo, 51, were charged with the murder of Sharon’s 10-year-old daughter Marissa Kennedy in Stockton Springs.";

Maine’s high court has decided that prosecutors shouldn’t be removed from the case of a mother accused in the beating death of her 10-year-old daughter.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court justices issued a decision Tuesday backing Waldo County Superior Court Justice Robert Murray’s ruling that Assistant Attorney Generals Leane Zainea and Donald Macomber should be allowed to continue prosecuting the case.

Sharon Carrillo and her husband, Julio Carrillo, face murder charges after allegedly beating Sharon’s 10-year-old daughter, Marissa Kennedy, on a nearly daily basis for several months until she died from her injuries.

The unusual legal spat started in April when attorneys representing Sharon Carrillo tried to have the entire attorney general’s office removed from the case. Prosecutors had sent subpoenas to a New York school for students with learning disabilities and a Walmart where she formerly worked requesting Carrillo’s personal records, including privileged information regarding her mental health.

The out-of-state subpoenas didn’t go through proper court channels, and indicated a school official would have to attend a court hearing in Maine if she didn’t send the records. No such hearing date was ever scheduled.

In March, Waldo County Superior Court Justice Robert Murray ordered the state to turn over or destroy any records it received in response to those subpoenas. Prosecutors handed the paper records over in a sealed envelope and later submitted affidavits detailing who in the attorney general’s office saw the records and to what extent.

A month later, Murray decided prosecutors shouldn’t be removed from the case because they’d sufficiently minimized potential damage caused by the “procedural error.”

Defense attorney Chris MacLean appealed that decision to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He backed off his calls to have the entire attorney general’s office removed, but still wanted the two lead prosecutors, Zainea and Macomber, to be disqualified.

Maine Law Court justices grilled both sides during a June 12 hearing, asking prosecutors why subpoenas were mishandled and trying to determine whether the state’s errors had actually done any damage to Carrillo’s chances at a fair trial.

This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.