(Telegraph file photo) Eduardo Lopez, who is awaiting a judge's ruling on his petition to suspend the remainder of his 45-year prison sentence, listens to proceedings in a previous Superior Court hearing with one of his lawyers, Attorney Pamela Jones.

NASHUA — Some 31 years after beginning what was, at the time, a State Prison sentence of life without the possibility of parole, former Nashua resident Eduardo Lopez Jr. was back in Superior Court last week, this time for a hearing on his petition to suspend the remainder of what is now a 45-year sentence — with the possibility of parole.

Lopez, who had turned 17 just a month before he gunned down well-known Nashua restaurant owner Robert Goyette near the corner of Main and West Pearl streets, was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder, which at the time carried a sentence of life without parole.

But about 15 years into that life sentence, Lopez became one of four New Hampshire murder defendants to be awarded re-sentencing hearings, based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Eighth Amendment forbids “a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without parole for juvenile offenders.”

In 2017, now-former Hillsborough County Superior Court South Judge Lawrence Smukler, presiding over a hearing that filled his courtroom with members and friends of the Lopez and Goyette families, re-sentenced Lopez to a term of 45 years to life with the possibility of parole.

Now, several years after coming up short on an unrelated appeal of the verdict to the state Supreme Court, Lopez, backed by many of those same family members and friends, stood before Judge Charles Temple flanked by his lawyers, Attorneys Pamela Jones and Paul Borchardt, in hopes of convincing Temple that he is a far different person today than the “17-year-old punk” he was some 31 years ago.

Thanks to the re-sentencing, Lopez just recently became eligible to file a petition, known as a “motion to suspend,” which asks the court to suspend the remaining one-third of his sentence.

The opportunity applies to defendants serving prison sentences of six years or more. Defendants who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences can file the petition up to one year before they become eligible for sentence suspension.

In Lopez’s case, he hit the two-thirds mark — 30 years — several months ago.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Temple told the parties he will take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling.

On Friday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin, representing the state, argued against granting Lopez his request for sentence suspension on several levels, one of which being how it would negatively affect the Goyette family’s attempts to put the matter behind them.

Lopez, Strelzin said, has “apologized to the family … said he’s sorry for causing the family” so much pain.

“But you’re doing just that,” he added, referring to Lopez’s succession of hearings that make it difficult for the Goyette family to put the matter behind them.

Jones spoke at length about her client, beginning with his trial and his outburst when the guilty verdict was announced.

“Eddie has grown, he has matured, since then. Yes, he flipped the table, he swore at the jury … he’s horrified that it was him … it was him, then, but that’s not who he is today,” she said, referring to the outburst during which he flipped over the defense table, used profanities toward jurors and made an obscene gesture toward media covering the trial.

“But this is about justice and redemption,” Jones said of Friday’s proceedings.

Addressing Lopez’s petition, Jones rhetorically asked Temple, “if not now, when? If not Eddie, then who?”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.