PORTLAND — An attempt by Linda Dolloff’s lawyers to get an acquittal or new trial has been turned down by a Cumberland County Superior Court judge.
Justice Joyce A. Wheeler denied the motion Tuesday, saying that several statements by prosecutors in the attempted murder case were improper, but weren’t bad enough to have deprived the Standish woman of a fair trial.
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Dolloff was convicted of attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and filing a false report in May, but has not yet been sentenced. She faces as much as 30 years in prison.
A jury found that Linda Dolloff severely beat her husband, Jeffrey Dolloff, with a baseball bat and shot herself in an attempt to cover up the crime. Dolloff then called 911, the jurors found, and falsely reported that a home invasion was behind her husband’s beating and her shooting in April 2009.
Wheeler also turned down defense contentions that several items allowed into evidence, including Jeffrey Dolloff’s interpretations of the tape of the 911 call, were inadmissible.
Wheeler said the finding by the jury that Linda Dolloff beat Jeffrey Dolloff because she was distraught over an impending divorce and then staged the shooting and other evidence was reasonable.
In her ruling, she said that District Attorney Stephanie Anderson made several improper remarks in her closing statement, including her recitation of how the beating may have occurred, why the baseball bat used to beat Jeffrey Dolloff was charred and speculation on what Jeffrey Dolloff’s dog, Zoe, might have been thinking during the assault.
Wheeler said the jurors had the evidence that was presented during the trial and she instructed them that speculation by lawyers was not to be considered evidence. She also relied on court rulings that lawyers are allowed to use “imaginative illustration” in presentations to jurors.
A call to Daniel G. Lilley, Dolloff’s attorney, was not returned by early afternoon.
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