BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS — A major ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has reopened the case of Latarsha L. Sanders, a Brockton mother convicted in 2022 of killing her two young sons.
Sanders was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the February 2018 deaths of her sons, 8-year-old Edson “Marlon” Brito and 5-year-old La’Son Brito. The boys were found deceased in separate bedrooms of their family’s Brockton apartment.
Sanders received two mandatory life sentences without parole.
On August 6, 2026, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously overturned those convictions and ordered a new trial.
The court did not find Sanders innocent or determine that she was legally not responsible for the killings. Instead, the court concluded that the jury had been prevented from hearing relevant medical evidence concerning Sanders’ mental-health history, and that the exclusion of that evidence constituted prejudicial error.
Sanders acknowledged killing her children, but her defense argued that she was experiencing a severe psychotic disorder and therefore lacked criminal responsibility at the time of the killings.
The Supreme Judicial Court’s opinion describes significant changes in Sanders’ behavior before the murders, including increasingly paranoid and delusional beliefs.
After her arrest, she underwent extensive psychiatric evaluation and treatment.
A defense expert reviewed thousands of pages of post-arrest medical records and testified that Sanders was experiencing severe psychosis. Another psychologist retained by the Commonwealth also documented serious mental illness and described evidence of paranoid and delusional thinking, although that expert did not reach a definitive conclusion about Sanders’ criminal responsibility.
The problem, according to the Supreme Judicial Court, was that the jury did not receive the full picture contained in those medical records.
The court identified records documenting symptoms including paranoia, hallucinations, delusional thinking and diagnoses involving schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Sanders was also eventually transferred to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.
The court emphasized that the central issue at Sanders’ trial was not whether she committed the killings. Rather, it was whether she was criminally responsible for her actions.
The justices concluded that excluding relevant medical records prevented the defense from fully presenting its criminal-responsibility defense.
As a result, the court vacated the convictions and ordered a new trial.
The ruling has received additional attention because of its similarities to the highly publicized case involving Lindsay Clancy.
Both cases were prosecuted by the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, involve mothers accused of killing their children, and involve disputes concerning mental illness and criminal responsibility.
Both cases were also presided over by Judge William F. Sullivan.
The Sanders ruling was issued while Clancy’s trial was taking place, making the decision particularly significant in discussions surrounding the presentation of psychiatric evidence in criminal cases.
Behind the legal arguments are two children whose lives ended tragically.
Edson “Marlon” Brito was 8 years old.
La’Son Brito was 5 years old.
Their deaths remain at the center of the case, and the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office has stated that its responsibility is to represent the victims and continue pursuing the case in their memory.
Cases involving children and severe mental illness raise difficult questions for the justice system.
Every victim deserves Justice and every legal proceeding must be grounded in a fair and complete examination of the evidence.
Marlon and La’Son deserve to be remembered not simply as names in a court case, but as children whose lives mattered.
