Dechaine supporters link film to their cause


By DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc

WATERVILLE -- Eighteen years have passed since the body of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry was found in the woods in Bowdoin. The girl had been raped, strangled and stabbed to death.

The body was discovered July 8, 1988, within a mile of where Sarah was reported missing and where, that same day, police found Bowdoinham farmer Dennis Dechaine wandering out of the woods.

Dechaine told police he had gotten lost while fishing. Police later found receipts bearing Dechaine's name and other evidence in the driveway of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting. Dechaine was arrested and charged with murder. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1989 at the age of 31.

The case, long championed by a group called Trial and Error, which claims Dechaine is innocent, will be the backdrop Friday night for a showing of the film "After Innocence." Dechaine supporters are calling for a new trial, with evidence based on DNA test results that have surfaced since Dechaine's conviction.

The film, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize and directed by Jessica Sanders, is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. at Railroad Square Cinema as a part of the ninth annual Maine International Film Festival.

"After Innocence" is the story of eight men who were wrongly convicted of murder or rape, only to be released after DNA evidence proved them innocent, said Trial and Error member Bernie Huebner of Waterville.

"The title of the film, 'After Innocence' deals with what happens to these people after they actually get freed, or what should happen but doesn't," Huebner said. "In some cases, their criminal record isn't even expunged."

He said each of the stories in the movie was a case of mistaken identity or worse yet, frame-ups.

The screening also will include a short excerpt from a work-in-progress movie by local filmmaker Richard Searles and is to be followed by a panel discussion with Dennis Maher, of Lowell, Mass., who is one of the freed convicts in the film and Jim Moore, a former ATF agent and author of two books on the Dechaine case.

Dennis Maher was in prison for 21 years, Huebner said, and will share his views on the judicial process that first convicted him, then exonerated him.

"I added it all up," Huebner said. "The total is over 100 years," he said of the combined time the men spent in prison.

Huebner said the parallels of what happened to the eight men in the movie and the Dechaine case are worth noting.

"There are very strong parallels," he said. "For instance, Dennis, very early on in the investigation, before there was even a trial, said he wanted DNA evidence done. Common sense tells you that no one who is guilty of a crime is going to try and get evidence from a crime analyzed for DNA -- it's almost a sure route to convicting himself."

Huebner, a retired school teacher, said supporters of Dechaine think the investigation was botched when a rape kit, blood samples, hairs and fabric evidence were destroyed -- incinerated -- by the state. Had there been a retrial, these items would have been tested for DNA.

He said the state refused to do DNA analysis before the trial and stands by its case, despite conflicting time-of-death information, the presence of another suspect and other compelling evidence of Dechaine's innocence.

In June 2004, DNA testing performed by the State of Maine Crime Laboratory on the thumbnail of the victim showed unknown male DNA that does not belong to Dechaine or to Sarah Cherry.

Huebner said an amendment to state law, which takes effect next month, could open the way to a new trial for Dechaine. The MIFF screening is a vehicle to that end, he said.

"It was passed overwhelming in both houses. Baldacci signed it, it is now law," he said. "I think it's Aug. 28 when that law comes into force."

Huebner said Dechaine supporters are hoping that with the change in the law, which lowers the threshold for admissible DNA evidence, a retrial will be in the works. "That's the expectation," he said. "We are all looking forward to that."