FARMINGTON -- A former Jay man convicted in 2019 of murdering his 51-year-0ld girlfriend has had his amended petition for post-conviction review denied.
James E. "Ted" Sweeney, 64, was convicted of killing Wendy Douglass of Jay while she slept in her bed July 11, 2017, at her home at 5 Jewell St. in Jay.
The two had been in a relationship for about 10 years when Douglass called a halt to the relationship in June 2017 but allowed Sweeney to stay at the house. He slept upstairs in another bedroom.
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Defense attorney Walter "Woody" Hanstein and Thomas Carey were appointed to represent Sweeney, who is deaf.
Sweeney was convicted Feb. 1, 2019, after a five-day bench trial before Justice William Stokes in Franklin County Superior Court and sentenced April 10, 2019, to 38 years in prison.
Stokes told the court during the trial that Sweeney "knowingly and deliberately struck Douglass in the face and head three times with sufficient force and violence to cause multiple fractures of the face and skull and extensive bleeding from multiple lacerations."
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Stokes sentenced Sweeney to 38 years in prison.
A two-day post-conviction review of the case was held in May in Franklin County Superior Court in Farmington before Stokes. Six American Sign Language interpreters were in the courtroom during the hearing.
The focus of the hearing were allegations that Hanstein, now retired, and Thomas Carey of Sanders, Hanstein, Carey law firm in Farmington, provided Sweeney with "constitutionally ineffective" assistance by "failing to ensure that the petitioner was able to understand all stages of his defense, given his need for interpreters and his mental health issues; and by not adequately presenting the mental health defense or not guilty by reason of insanity, limited to the allegedly failure to ensure that Mr. Sweeney was able to communicate with Dr. Riley (a psychologist) during his interviews/examination of the petitioner."
It was further clarified during the hearing that Sweeney was not asserting that the American Sign Language interpreters at trial were "inadequate" or did not "faithfully interpret." Rather, the claim is that Sweeney did not fully understand, and his trial counsel did not do enough to make sure he did understand," according Stokes' ruling.
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"Based upon the evidence presented at the post-conviction hearing, the court concludes that Mr. Sweeney has failed to meet his burden of proving either of the standards applicable to the review of ineffective assistance claims. More specifically, the petitioner has not demonstrated that that performance of his attorneys was objectively unreasonable in any way. Nor has he shown that any error his attorneys made, even assuming there were any, undermines the confidence in the outcome of his case and renders that outcome unreliable," Stokes wrote in his brief filed at the court on Oct. 16.
"From virtually the beginning of their representation of Mr. Sweeney, the attorneys had the services of (American Sign Language) interpreter Meryl Troop available to them. Indeed, with few exceptions, whenever the attorneys met with Mr. Sweeney, Ms. Troop was there and provided ASL interpretation. This continued throughout the pretrial proceedings in this case."
Stokes also wrote, "At no point during the pretrial stage of this case did Attorneys Hanstein or Carey ever have or raise a concern that Mr. Sweeney did not understand what was being said to him or the proceedings involving in his case. Moreover, no evidence was presented that even remotely suggested that Ms. Troop raised any such concern to Attorneys Hanstein or Carey."
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