TODAY'S HEADLINES
August 16 2010
VIEW OPEN LETTER TO ATTY. GENERAL ON CHANNEL X RADIO WEBSITE.
Open the channel x radio link, go to CX NEWS and click on the upper left hand link to "Open Letter to Maine's Attorney General".
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Dennis Curley, President aroostocrat@yahoo.com |
4 August, 2010
Hon. Janet T. Mills, Attorney General
STATE OF MAINE
Department of Attorney General
6 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333
RE: State vs. Dennis Dechaine
Dear Madam Attorney General:
Dennis Dechaine is a native of Madawaska, one of the communities to which we are licensed. Members of his family continue to reside in the Saint John Valley. Many facts, some new, some old, continue to produce pivotal, but unanswered questions. I have outlined below some of the facts various members of our audience find troubling:
2. A microscopic search of that vehicle by lab technicians did not find a single trace of Sarah Cherry: not blood, sweet or tears, not hair, urine, or salvia, not skin, fabric or fiber; nor were Sarah’s fingerprints or DNA found there.
discovered in blood under one of Sarah’s thumb nails, DNA not belonging to
Dechaine; not from police or medical personnel, or family members, or any of the
cadavers autopsied just prior to Sarah’s. Some of this DNA belongs to a male (not
Dechaine), but yet unidentified.
(conducted at 2:30PM on Friday, July 8, 1988), although he did add that “it could have been longer.” That would mean Sarah expired between 2:30 and 8:30 Thursday morning—five-hours after Dechaine was in police custody.
7. That 36-hour time span has been reconfirmed recently by two extremely experienced and competent forensic pathologists: Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman, both of Pennsylvania.
9. At that time, Dechaine weighed 135-pounds; Sarah, 93. Is it realistic to think he could have abducted this athletic young girl from that second floor home without some sign(s) of a struggle? Police found no evidence of a struggle in or around that structure. Does that fact, combined with the lack of forensic evidence, and more recently the mismatched DNA, create any doubts, any at all, for the State? We are asked that repeatedly.
10. The AG’s office incinerated evidence on June 18, 1992: the rape kit and hairs found with Sarah Cherry’s body and did so even though a motion for a new trial had been filed 44-days earlier, on May 5, 1992. Investigators were unable to match those hairs with Sarah or Dechaine.
Articles belonging to Dennis Dechaine were found at the home where Sarah was
baby-sitting, and in the woods off the Hallowell Road in Bowdoin between Sarah’s body
and Dechaine’s vehicle, while still others were with her remains. We have been asked time and again how Dechaine could have been so “out-of-it”, so careless to do that, while not transferring any forensic evidence to or from her body? This question takes on added importance when one understands that Sarah ultimately died of strangulation—after she was cut—a murder method requiring extremely close and somewhat prolonged personal contact, contact that would reveal the transference of some forensic traces (hair, blood, DNA) from one to the other.
Another question our listeners have raised is about the objects found in the Henkel driveway: It seems odd to some that of the eight-score items in Dechaine’s truck, only two of those items “fell out;” the only two which bore his name. Mathematicians in the University of Maine system tell us the odds of that happening are: <1.6 in 10,000.
The State contends Dechaine’s truck was locked, and it might have been—but it wasn’t locked tight. Trooper Thomas Bureau has no difficulty opening the sliding rear window, reaching into the cab to lace the seatbelt through the steering wheel prior to towing. In addition, a report submitted by Detective Hendsbee a few days before the trial stated that the truck’s doors could be locked without a key.
Dennis and Sarah had never met, never knew each other, and the State has never established or even suggested they were previously acquainted. Thus Dechaine’s knowledge of her whereabouts was,.zero.
Now faced with Dennis Dechaine’s attempted April, 2010, suicide, another set of questions is being raised by those who would like to know:
Given the number of unresolved serious issues in this case, we believe in would be in the public interest if the Attorney General asked the court to grant a new trial where jurors would hear all the evidence and the above questions could be answered publicly once and for all.
We will be pleased to share your response with our audience if you so desire.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dennis Curley
President
News Director
Kennebec Journal
August 13
After looking at the evidence presented recently in the Court TV documentary shown here in New Zealand, I am amazed that the great United States of America, which is undoubtedly a world leader in civil justice, has allowed such a disgrace as the Dennis Dechaine situation to exist, let alone continue for so many years.
Surely a people with a heart for truth and justice would want all of the evidence in a case such as this fully examined, leaving no possibility for error. That an innocent man is condemned to death by stealth is unkind enough without beginning to factor the injustice possibly dealt to the tiny innocent victim and her family by not properly resolving the identity of her assassin.
I pray that the real perpetrator, when finally discovered, is not found to have quietly continued his perverted ways for more than 20 years, undetected.
Please give Dechaine a proper opportunity to present in court the unclouded version of events surrounding the murder of little Sarah Cherry, including all of the forensic evidence, and restore some of the former faith we all had in your American system of law.
Clint Pearce
Auckland, New Zealand
August 5 2010
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
click image to enlarge
Dennis Dechaine
Select images available for purchase in the
Nowhere is the need to avoid judicial conflict of interest more pressing than when it may affect the very freedom of an individual imprisoned for life or the certainty due a murder victim's family that the real murderer is no longer at large.
click image to enlarge
Dennis Dechaine listens to questions from a reporter during an interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren on March 22.
2010 Press Herald file
Select images available for purchase in theBoth are powerfully present in the case of Dennis Dechaine.
We are fast approaching the two-year mark since Dechaine filed his motion for a re-trial, based primarily but not exclusively on DNA test results unavailable at the original 1989 trial.
Remarkably, not even a hearing date has been set by Judge Carl Bradford, the original trial judge who, by statute, holds the authority to rule on the motion
It is not too late, therefore, for Bradford to recuse himself in the public's interest of avoiding an apparent conflict of interest. I'm not questioning Bradford's integrity; I'm confident he made all his trial decisions believing they were right in terms of due process and fairness.
Among these are his ruling against Dechaine's pre-trial request for DNA testing (the results of which now strongly suggest his innocence), and his prohibiting testimony regarding alternative suspects, leading the jury to believe there were none (though now we know clearly there were).
But the public's confidence in its judicial system requires there be not even the appearance of such a conflict. And yet, to rule on Dechaine's motion, Bradford will have to choose between approving it, thus implicating himself in having obstructed due process, or rejecting it, even more damaging in its suggestion of his serving the personal interest of his judicial reputation.
The solution, of course, is to remove himself from this moral dilemma, with its appearance of a paralyzing conflict of interest.
Dechaine is serving a life sentence, so there is still time.
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
In response to the letters to the editor July 27, I find it interesting that only one of the four respondents has firsthand knowledge of the Dennis Dechaine trial and appeals, Christine Beckwith-Hout. The others respond out of speculation and emotion.
Christine heard court testimony of Dechaine's drug history that started in his early high school days. Evidently it continues today. This last overdose was not his first. Staff writer Trevor Maxwell should have had that information and included it in his article. He would have painted a much truer picture of Dechaine for his readers.
Christine speaks of Sarah Cherry's family's pain. She is right. But yet each year in July near the aniversary of Sarah's murder, The Press Herald reruns all the old file information as if it is new information.
Maxwell quotes me and includes pictures, most of which came from old files. His focus when talking to me was "the strong faith of the family."
I believe the indictment of Dechaine for drug trafficking is true based on his history. He wasn't the only one indicted. He isn't the victim here -- nor has he ever been. His claim of attempted suicide is just another Dechaine spin.
How about a real story on his drug history from this paper? Let's finally be honest.
Bob Dorr
Waldoboro
There aren't many mysteries here. Dennis Dechaine is in prison for the rest of his life, no parole. Prison life cannot be that great, so it's not hard to accept that after 22 years he might have had a moment in which he wanted to give up.
I can also accept that in prison one can "get things" that should not be available, i.e. enough prescription drugs to commit suicide.
What I really want to know is, in these tight budgetary times and state belt-tightening, who in state government put "indict Dechaine on drug trafficking charges" at the top of his or her to-do list, and why?
I worked for the state last year. We all had to prioritize our work carefully. Don't these guys have any real work to do? What is really going on here?
Steve Sandau
Brunswick
The letters July 18 concerning the Dennis Deschaine case by Emily Paine, Zach White and Genie Nakel ("Dechaine case, coverage disturbing") have, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head.
Conscientious jurisdiction should be of primary concern. Does Maine continue to condone incarceration of a man whose innocence or guilt is debatable, not proved "beyond a reasonable doubt"?
Taking new evidence and past inefficiencies into account, could this state's jurisprudence make the error of committing a possibly innocent man to life behind bars -- especially considering the magnitude of the crime?
Is it, perhaps more convenient and empowering for our law enforcement, lawyers, judges et al. -- however irritating and/or inconvenient it may be -- to mitigate our residents' fears by claiming, "We found the criminal. See? Problem solved. We've done a good job. Now you can safely go on with your normal daily patterns"?
I intend no slur on our police forces, litigators, judges and penal system. I appreciate the comfort they offer and admire many of them. However, people of any occupation can be fallible. Every human being should keep in mind the need for justice.
During this period of economic hardship, environmental disasters, green concerns and seemingly perpetual wars, it would be uplifting to know that at least one traumatic experience is handled with accurate, thorough examination, philanthropically: It's the American Way.
Alice W. Ingraham
Yarmouth
Is Dennis Dechaine a murderer or a scapegoat? After following this case for years, I'm still in doubt whether he's guilty or not.
Let's see if I have all this straight.
1. Dennis was found under the influence of drugs in the vicinity of Sarah Cherry's body.
2. His truck was nearby.
3. Rope that was supposed to be the same as Sarah was tied with was found in the truck along with some of Dechaine's papers that were on the ground.
4. Sarah was beaten and tied and strangled and bloody. But Dennis had no blood on his person or scratches anywhere, There was no evidence of Sarah being in his truck.
5. At Dennis' trial, the prosecutor and the detective lied under oath (why weren't they charged with perjury?).
6. They found DNA under Sarah's fingernails that was not Dennis'.
Dennis is found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. How many other murderers got 25 to life and were let out of prison early?
The judge has kept him from getting a new trial. Why? The investigators have burned all the evidence. Why?
I feel that Judge Carl Bradford should step down and let a new judge hear this case, as he has been too involved in this case where he has refused Dennis a new hearing.
If I'm correct, Judge Bradford has said Dennis must prove he had new evidence. What ever happened to a case being proven without a doubt -- that a man was innocent until proven guilty?
Whatever happened to our Attorney General's Office? Did it drop this case like a hot potatao?
Let's give Dennis a new trial and stop this once and for all, without Judge Bradford sitting on the bench.
Richard C. Campbell
South Portland
OldGuy said...
Poor old Bob Dorr. This former member of the AG's staff heard the bits of circumstantial evidence prosecutors fed the jury and can't get his mind around the evidence they concealed, nor the facts (like false testimony by police) unearthed when our Legislature forced the attorney general to open his "confidential file" on the case, nor the scientific (DNA and time of death) evidence discovered in recent years. Now he's whining that reporter Maxwell didn't offer him a forum for his out-dated perceptions of this case. Well, as Lincoln once said, "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
August 7, 2010 at 4:34 AM
Dechaine Deserves New Trial, New Judge
http://timmooreat949whom.blogspot.com/
Tim Moore at 94.9 WHOM
Fact, Fiction & Fun, Not Neccesarily In That Order
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Justice.
Webster’s Dictionary defines it as : a)“the quality of being just, impartial, or fair b)(1) the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2): conformity to this principle or ideal.”
In a world where we see a known terrorist who murdered hundreds released by Scottish officials on “humanitarian” grounds, where we hear of admitted murderers get plea-bargained sentences that allow them to see the light of day a few scant years after their crimes, it is no wonder that the public has no appetite for going “soft” on criminals.
Justice is a joke when these abuses are made known.
But what about those wrongly accused?
Dennis Dechaine has been behind bars for over 22 YEARS for a crime he could not possibly have committed. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened to you or me.
An enormity of evidence—both denied to the jury at trial and discovered after the conviction—have, in my opinion, cleared Dennis Dechaine from any involvement in the abduction and murder of 12 year old Sarah Cherry back in 1988.
Despite this evidence, including DNA—Dechaine and his lawyers have been thwarted at every turn in their quest to gain Dennis a new trial. Legal procedure delays, petty maneuvering and the Maine “good ‘ol boy” legal community have conspired to deny a man with a compelling case for innocence the chance at a new trial.
Why?
Simple, really. The ego investment of the prosecutor, the judge and those police officers who failed to follow ANY OTHER leads or suspects would have their incompetence or obstruction of justice become completely exposed in a new trial.
The original prosecutor Eric Wright, in his zeal to satiate the public’s thirst for a suspect and a conviction, made a series of decisions that obscured the time of death (something defense attorney Tom Connolly acknowledged was a failing on his part to explore) This piece of critical evidence alone would have exonerated Dechaine. While finding the TRUTH should be the charge of the Prosecutor’s office, instead it was merely about finding someone to convict—and making the circumstantial evidence conform to sway a jury already predisposed by intense media exposure—to punish someone.
The judge?
Justice Carl O. Bradford. Many believe he made a series of errors in the original trial. I won’t assume his motives were suspect, but clearly the legal tradition of having the ORIGINAL PRESIDING JUDGE decide the fate of appeals is simply ludicrous!
Judge Bradford is semi-retired but still active enough to be the JUDGE WHO WILL DECIDE whether Dechaine gets a new trial in September?
Are you kidding me?
It’s been said that only judges have bigger egos than lawyers—and this judge has turned a blind eye to the JUSTICE principle defined above—to hide behind a stream of legal mumbo-jumbo, anything at all to divert attention away from the blunders he made that have ruined an innocent man’s life. Dennis actually pushed for DNA testing prior to his trial. Does this sound like the request of a guilty man?
Prosecutors opposed the introduction of this DNA evidence—and it was denied by Judge Bradford. One can speculate on WHY the state would oppose a method that would definitively isolate the true killer. Or, why, before Dechaine’s appeal could come to court, why the state INCINERATED all potential DNA evidence, save for a thumbnail, which, through an error of the court clerk, was placed in the possession of the defense counsel.
State laws were painstakingly changed to allow for the presentation of DNA evidence. Here’s another suggestion for a state law:
FORBID THE APPELATE REVIEW OF ANY CASE FROM BEING HEARD BY THE ORIGINAL PRESIDING JUDGE.
Yeah, I know that judges are SUPPOSED to be unbiased, but they are also human—and the last thing that Justice Carl O. Bradford will ever do is admit that he screwed up.
He did.
He probably knows it.
And he doesn’t care…….or does he? Does he really care for this concept called “justice”?
While we certainly can suspect the prosecutor’s office in the withholding and/or destruction of critical evidence, we will ASSUME the judge was not at all aware of these shenanigans. Revelation of these irregularities ALONE should compel the good judge to err on the side of…JUSTICE…and allow a new trial on this basis solely.
Judge Bradford’s upcoming decision on whether or not to grant Dechaine a new trial will define his career on the bench. Should he take into account the mountain of evidence that points in another direction, evidence that makes Dechaine’s guilt physically impossible and takes into consideration the criminally irresponsible behavior of the prosecutor’s office in the conduct of its investigation and subsequent trial, he will rule for justice, a forum where ALL of the evidence can be heard by a jury. Should he continue to hide behind the manipulation of words that lawyers use to distort the truth, he will concoct a lengthy document that, while filled with impressive legalese, will say nothing—other than the system he presides over is corrupt—and he is a part of that corruption.
Which will it be, your honor?
This case has haunted me ever since I read the excellent book by James P. Moore (no relation), entitled “Human Sacrifice”. It reads like a novel—gripping and astonishing, but to those connected to both the victim and the accused, it is nothing short of a real-life horror story. A retired law enforcement officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Moore attended a meeting of “Trial and error”, the group of Dechaine supporters who believe in his innocence and have, for over two decades, sought legal avenues toward gaining Dennis a new trial.
It is difficult to imagine living in prison, but to do so knowing that you didn’t commit the crime is beyond my ability to comprehend.
For those not familiar with the case, here are the basics.
On July 6, 1988, 12-year old Sarah Cherry was abducted while babysitting. Her body was found two days later in the woods. She had been strangled and tortured. Dennis Dechaine was picked up by police after leaving the woods. He was injecting drugs and had become disoriented, losing awareness of the location of his truck. He emerged from the woods around 8:45pm on the 6th.
After Sarah’s body was discovered on the 8th, Dechaine was arrested and charged with murder. He has not been free since.
I remember the case well. I also remember being convinced by news reports—ones that I myself delivered on the radio back then---that the police had arrested the right guy. I am about the same age as Dechaine. In 1988, I was 30 years old and living in Ellsworth, Maine. In the 22 years since then, my life has changed profoundly. Three children, two of whom are in college now. Advances in my career, moving to Portland, buying new houses and cars. Countless vacations, dinners out, family celebrations, holidays and excursions and simple pleasures have filled my days and nights. My wife and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary. It has truly been glorious.
For Dennis Dechaine?
Those same 22 years—losing his wife (a mutually agreed upon divorce to protect her assets from a civil trial), no family, no such simple pleasures—and the crushing boredom of endless days in the hell that is prison. No end in sight. Every hope, every wisp of a chance to introduce JUSTICE is delayed, blunted and thwarted by players in a legal system that’s more concerned with “following procedure/precedent” than finding truth. How Dennis has maintained his sanity and seemingly has come to terms with the bitterness of his situation is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Author James Moore was intrigued by the case—enough to conduct his own investigation—but warned members of “Trial and error” that if he found evidence to CONFIRM Dechaine’s guilt, he would make it public.
In fact, Moore, in his own telling of the circumstances, entered his investigation convinced of Dechaine’s guilt. After all, Dechaine was seen stumbling out the woods near where Sarah Cherry’s body was later found. Items from his truck were found in the driveway where Sarah was abducted. Police reports told of “confessions” by Dechaine-which was used as evidence in the trial, despite the absence of these so-called confessions in the police notes-and Dechaine’s denial of ever confessing to the crime.
The evidence that exonerates Dechaine (in my opinion) but at the VERY LEAST should gain him a new trial is overwhelming, but contains these highlights:
1) According to the medical examiner’s report—given huge windows on either side of the time of death of Sarah Cherry, Dennis Dechaine could not POSSIBLY have committed the crime-----because he was either in custody, being questioned or at home following his initial release by police—and under surveillance. Sarah’s throat was constricted in such a manner that she could not possibly have lived more than about 2 minutes from the time she was strangled. Dechaine was in custody when she died. It’s my opinion that Prosecutor Eric Wright was also aware of the problematic nature of the timing and thus, glossed over it at trial. Had the defense made this an issue, there could have been a different result.
2) DNA evidence from Sarah’s fingernails contain blood that is hers, but also blood from a man who is NOT Dennis Dechaine.
3) Forensic evidence concluded that Sarah Cherry was NEVER in Dennis Dechaine’s pickup truck. No fiber, no hairs, nothing. She was never there.
4) A known child molester with a history of violence was ignored as a suspect. Police notes outlining a set of footprints to this persons trailer—one adult and one barefoot child (Sarah was barefoot when abducted-her shoes left at the home of the people she was babysitting) were never followed up on.
5) Dennis Dechaine had absolutely no record of violence in his past. None. The mutilation that occurred to Sarah suggests a sociopath. Additionally, her panties were missing. Psychologists say that perpetrators of crimes like these often take a “souvenir” such as this. Dechaine had nothing like this on his person, in his truck or in his house. They have never been found—because the killer took them. A killer who is not Dennis Dechaine.
6) Of the nearly 200 items found in Dechaine’s truck, the only two that contained his name (and were part of the damning evidence that convicted him) where the ones that “fell out” of his truck during the abduction. The odds that only these two would be left behind is astronomical. This was a frameup. Remember, Sarah Cherry was NEVER in this truck that supposedly abducted her.
7) Dennis Dechaine did not know Sarah Cherry and would have had no reason to know that she would be at that house, at that time.
8) Dechaine himself pressed for examination of his house, his truck and his person, confident that an honest investigation would clear him. His mistake was in believing in the system, believing that his innocence would be evident.
9) There were multiple alternate suspects in the vicinity, men with criminal records of violence—and violence towards children. Dechaine’s arrest effectively halted all subsequent investigation into these more likely killers. Dechaine’s arrest was reasonable—he should have been a suspect, but certainly NOT the only one—and, as it turns out, the exclusive attention paid to him allowed the real killer to escape investigation and arrest.
There are many other pieces of evidence, circumstances—and just plain common sense that would point towards the notion of a new trial being a good idea.
Here is some video of Dennis himself, being interviewed in prison 6 years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVIb2qplq_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KslcRNuk9iQ&feature=related
Dennis Dechaine tried to take his own life in April. It was not successful—and new charges of trafficking in the drugs he used may be pending. Who could blame him? If you ask: how someone with a new trial decision pending could possibly take his own life, my only response would be that after over two decades of one legal disappointment after another, it’s likely that Dennis is just about out of hope.
So what about the victim’s family?
Many believe that Sarah’s family has been short-changed in all of this—and I cannot disagree. While at least one juror who voted for conviction has publicly said that the introduction of this new evidence would have been grounds for acquittal, I have yet to read or hear from a family member of the victim who believes Dechaine is innocent.
Sarah Cherry, were she alive today, would no doubt be a beautiful and vibrant 34 year old woman. Judging from the details we know about her as a 12 year old, she would likely have graduated college with distinction, perhaps have been an athlete and would likely now be a mother herself.
Perhaps the only “witness” to the abduction of Sarah Cherry was the infant who was being cared for—and who would be about 23 years old today. Apart from the killer, this infant was likely the last person to see Sarah alive.
This brutal murder cries out for justice, not merely “closure”. The conviction of the wrong person does not constitute justice or closure, only retribution.
If you’d like to know more about this case, I highly recommend the book “Human Sacrifice” by James P. Moore. I also encourage you to visit the website of Trial and error: www.trialanderrordennis.org
The tragedy of Sarah Cherry’s death is the ultimate one.
The tragedy of Dennis Dechaine’s wrongful conviction is second in line---and vies with the knowledge that the TRUE killer got away with it (and did God knows what to others since)
Let’s not compound this series of tragedies by allowing Dechaine to be denied a new trial by a judge who has NO BUSINESS being involved with this case any longer. Judge Bradford has the final say, whether he deserves it or not.
It’s not about who made a mistake—or who may have concealed evidence.
It’s about justice.
If you’d like my blog in your box, just let me know: tim.moore@citcomm.com
http://knox.villagesoup.com/news/story/dechaine-pleads-not-guilty-to-drug-charges/343068
By Shlomit Auciello | Aug 04, 2010
Rockland — Convicted murderer Dennis J. Dechaine pleaded not guilty Aug. 4 to a charge that he was in possession of prohibited materials, in the form of drugs, while incarcerated at the Maine State Prison.
Dechaine, who attended the hearing at Knox County Superior Court by way of a video hearing from the prison, was represented by attorney Jeremy Pratt. District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau represented the state at the hearing, which was heard by Judge John David Kennedy.
Dechaine, 52, has been at the Maine State Prison for more than 21 years for the murder in 1988 of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham.
Dechaine was indicted in mid-July for trafficking in prison contraband. The indictment alleged that Dechaine had morphine and/or klonopine on April 5 at the prison.
At the Aug. 4 hearing, Pratt said Dechaine's attorney in the Cherry case, Steve Peterson, had expressed willingness to be retained to represent Dechaine on the drug charges.
Rushlau said he was not seeking bail because Dechaine was not a flight risk while he remained at the prison. The district attorney said he would ask to revisit the question of bail if a new trial in the Cherry case, currently being sought by Dechaine, were to be granted. Rushlau asked to be notified if Peterson was assigned to the drug case.
Dechaine has maintained his innocence in the murder of Cherry who was last seen alive while babysitting at a Bowdoinham home. Attorneys for Dechaine are attempting to introduce DNA evidence to try to win a new trial.
The Herald Gazette reporter Shlomit Auciello can be reached at 207-236-8511 or by e-mail at sauciello@villagesoup.com.
July 31 2010 Posted: 12:00 AM
Kennec Journal
http://www.kjonline.com/opinion/letters/Who-named-Bradford-as-Dechaine-hearing-judge.html
When I read that the presiding judge in the court hearing for Dennis Dechaine was Carl Bradford, the same judge who convicted him 22 years ago, I was puzzled and uneasy.
Certainly the state of Maine has many judges, and it would look better if the judge were someone else.
Why Bradford? Who named him as the judge for this case? Isn’t he retired? Won’t there be questions?
It seems that with the national publicity this case has received, the judicial system would not leave itself vulnerable to questions such as mine.
Gail Schade
Hallowell
Dechaine: 'What I sensed ... was relief'
http://www.pressherald.com/news/what-i-sensed-___-was-relief-_2010-07-25.html
Posted: July 25
Updated: Today at 10:43 PM
By Trevor Maxwelltmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Prisoner Dennis Dechaine, in his first interview with the media since his suicide attempt in April, said Friday he believes prosecutors have charged him with trafficking in prison contraband as payback for his outspokenness about his case, and also to undermine his pending motion for a new trial.
click image to enlarge
Joined by his attorney Steve Peterson, left, of Rockport, Dennis Dechaine speaks to a reporter at the Maine State Prison in Warren in March. Dechaine, incarcerated since his arrest and subsequent conviction for the 1988 slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin, has a court hearing in September which his attorney has described as his “last, best chance” at a new trial.
2010 file photo by The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
SEE THE COMPLETE PACKAGE including multimedia resources here
"This is nothing more than a political ploy," Dechaine said in a 30-minute telephone interview from the mental health unit at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
"I think it's a case of kicking a man when he is down," he said.
Chris Fernald, an assistant district attorney for Knox County, declined to comment specifically about the trafficking charge against Dechaine, which was handed up by a grand jury July 15. But Fernald said it is not uncommon for prisoners serving life sentences to be charged with other crimes during their incarcerations.
"If we didn't prosecute these individuals, then basically the message would be sent to the inmates that if you are serving a life sentence you can do anything you want," Fernald said.
Dechaine, 52, was convicted by a jury and sent to prison for life for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in the small Sagadahoc County town of Bowdoin. He claims that he is innocent, but four court appeals at the state and federal levels have failed.
His latest motion for a new trial, filed by his attorney in August 2008, is tentatively set to be heard by a judge in September.
Dechaine said he tried to commit suicide on April 4 by overdosing on a combination of morphine and Klonopin inside his cell. The next morning, guards found him unconscious, with an extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital, where he spent the next two weeks recovering before being sent back to the prison.
The Department of Corrections investigated the incident and Knox County prosecutors sought charges against him. No date has been set for his arraignment.
Until Friday, Dechaine had been off limits to the media since his hospitalization. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections has said there were several reasons for prohibiting interviews of Dechaine in that time frame, but she said those reasons are confidential.
The suicide attempt raised questions about why Dechaine would try to end his life when he is just months away from a court hearing that has been described by his attorney as Dechaine's "last, best chance" at getting a new trial.
On Friday, Dechaine explained that by early April the cumulative impact of his years in prison had pushed him to a state of despair. Also, he came to believe that his appeal could not succeed, particularly because it will be heard by the same judge who sentenced him.
But even more than his doubts about the court proceedings, Dechaine said he arrived at the suicide decision because he felt that the life he could have had outside of prison had already been lost.
"Even if I do overturn my case, the best years of my life have been taken from me," he said. "I can't start a family. I'm too old to start a business. That is depressing."
"Oddly enough, what I sensed when I made the decision (to kill myself) was a sense of relief," Dechaine said.
He said he was devastated when he regained consciousness at Maine Medical Center. Dechaine said his outlook on life improved during his hospital stay thanks to the kindness of the medical staff, but that outlook deteriorated when he was returned to the prison. He said he has never attempted suicide before, and this is the first time that he has been housed in the prison's mental health unit, which consists of two areas of 16 cells.
For the first two weeks back, Dechaine said, he was on a strict suicide watch and he was not allowed to have any items in his cell except for a thin pad on the floor on which he slept. He said he now has a bunk and has been provided some reading and writing materials. He is allowed one hour per week for approved visitors such as family members, he said.
Dechaine said he was not taking any medications before his suicide attempt. He declined to say how he obtained the drugs he used on April 4, and said he has not answered questions about that from Department of Corrections investigators, because he is concerned about retribution.
In the mental health unit, Dechaine meets for one hour a week with a counselor, he said, and the only drug he is taking is a blood thinner to treat the effects of a clot suffered in the suicide attempt.
Dechaine said he has asked to be returned to the general prison population, but so far the request has been denied.
"It doesn't look promising," he said.
Dechaine's pending motion is based on a state law originally passed in 2001 and revised in 2006 that allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.
The evidence in question is a fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail five years after Dechaine's conviction. His attorney says the partial DNA profile discovered by scientists holds the key to finding the real killer. Prosecutors say the right man is behind bars, and the DNA could have come from any incidental contact Sarah Cherry had leading up to her death, or from contaminated nail clippers at her autopsy.
Sarah Cherry, a straight-A student at Bowdoin Central School, was kidnapped while baby-sitting on July 6, 1988.
The mother who had hired her to baby-sit came home around 3:20 p.m. and found a notebook and a receipt in her driveway, bearing the name Dennis Dechaine. Police began a search for both the missing girl and Dechaine, and about five hours later he was seen walking out of the woods about three miles north of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting.
He told police that he had been fishing and had gotten lost and he could not find his truck. He denied having anything to do with Sarah's disappearance. Later that night, police found his pickup truck on a discontinued logging road nearby.
A search team found Sarah's body around noon on July 8, in the woods near the spot where Dechaine's truck was found. She had been stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf. The rope binding her wrists and the scarf had come from Dechaine's truck.
Dechaine says he went into the woods on July 6 to inject speed and to wander around. He claims he was alone the whole day, got lost, and someone must have grabbed his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.
Dechaine sounded despondent during the interview Friday, and while he did not expressly say that he was still suicidal, he indicated that his will to live was not strong.
"I'd rather not be here," Dechaine said.
When asked if he meant the prison's Special Management Unit, or if he meant he did not want to be alive, he said: "I'd rather not be here. I'll just leave it at that."
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
Posted: July 25
Updated: Today at 1:14 AM
By TRACY SCHECKEL
GRAY - As a news editor myself, I'm always reading for the "editorial slant." I found the Dennis Dechaine series quite balanced, yet intriguing. In Maine for only three years, and hailing from New Jersey where Megan's Law originated after an equally heinous murder of an innocent child, I've been a proponent of the death penalty for certain crimes. I bear no sympathy for perpetrators of such unthinkable crimes.
click image to enlarge
James Moore’s account of the case for Dennis Dechaine’s innocence was impressive to this Maine writer.
Telegram file photo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tracy Scheckel is editor and half-owner of Maine Hometown News LLC, publisher of the Gray and New Gloucester Gazette, an online journal (www.gnggazette.com).
Reading Trevor Maxwell's stories, I pondered, "If Maine had the death penalty, we wouldn't have been supporting this guy for the last 22 years."
I reflected on the horror that both Sarah Cherry's parents and Megan Kanka's family in New Jersey continue to endure. I became intrigued at the Trial and Error group, so convinced of Dechaine's innocence. They couldn't be right and not have prevailed after 22 years.
CRACKING THE BOOK
I really wanted to read James Moore's book, "Human Sacrifice," mentioned in Maxwell's stories. Aware that the proceeds from the sale went to the Dechaine defense fund, I was reluctant to "contribute."
Curiosity becoming the victor, I ordered the book. In two days I devoured all 418 pages. I re-read and thumbed back and forth, getting more incensed by the page. Moore portrays a miscarriage of justice that would be unbelievable in a John Grisham crime novel.
Recently, a reader from Waldoboro commented that he thought the Dechaine series running on Independence Day was inappropriate. In some ways he's correct; this must be a horrid time for Sarah's family, the state is brimming with summer tourists, and "Vacationland" is supposed to be a happy place.
His comments explain the zeal with which the police worked in July 1988 to see that justice was done. "It's the height of the tourist season, this is the worst crime ever committed here, and this is 'Vacationland,' crimes like this don't happen here, and, above all, the family of this child needs closure. This crime needs to be solved ASAP!"
Dechaine was an easy suspect. His truck, belongings and drug-impaired self, all in the vicinity of the crime, created an open-and-shut case for police. Based on trial transcripts, notes and police reports, the entire Dechaine saga is reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, Good Ol' Boys, and Catch 22 all rolled into one giant nightmare.
Everybody makes mistakes, but our legal system, through its appellate process and other legal mechanisms, is designed to assure that justice is ultimately done. In spite of numerous efforts by the Dechaine defense team, it is obvious that our judicial system has failed repeatedly.
The lack of hard evidence against Dechaine is far more compelling than the prosecution's circumstantial evidence. The judge disallowed evidence of the existence of two other viable suspects, both known child sex offenders.
The time of death, per the testimony of the state coroner -- if one could decode the rhetoric and do the math -- places Dechaine in the custody of police while Sarah was being murdered. There's DNA evidence that doesn't match Dechaine's. I could go on ...
The point is that the system has failed Dennis Dechaine and the family of Sarah Cherry. Her murderer is still out there, and an innocent man is imprisoned. One can't begin to imagine the eternal pain felt by little Sarah's family. In spite of the need for closure, one has to conclude that they would want the real murderer incarcerated.
"Human Sacrifice" brought mixed emotions. My assumption of fairness in our judicial system has been obliterated, yet I am glad to have provided even some support for Dechaine's defense. I now wonder if the death penalty should be abolished nationwide. I'm sure the judicial ineptness doesn't stop at Maine's borders.
I commend the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for having the courage to tell the story and inspire readers like me to look at all the facts, not just what the jury saw and heard.
WILL A RETRIAL HAPPEN?
The Dechaine team will seek a retrial in September based on DNA information. I contacted Moore regarding his book and to see what might be done in support of Dechaine.
To my suggestion of a pardon request, he replied, "Dennis has consistently rejected suggestions that he apply for a pardon, since that would imply he'd done something to be pardoned for. He and some Trial and Error members have urged the governor to commission an honest, objective, bona fide inquiry into the case but to no avail."
He did suggest letters be sent to the Attorney General's office.
Maybe it's not too late.
- Special to the Telegram
Morning Sentinel Staff
"Did Dennis Dechaine kill Sarah Cherry?" was the headline in the July 4 Morning Sentinel. It referred to a more than 22-year-old case in which a man was convicted of a crime for which he has always maintained his innocence.
Upon reading it, I was reminded of an interview I conducted three years ago for an access TV show I was producing. I interviewed retired federal agent James P. Moore and several people who had studied transcripts of the trial. At the end of the interview, I was convinced Dechaine at least deserved a new trial.
Moore drew an actual police investigative time line. This time line showed Dechaine to be in a lengthy police custody. Forensics by experts determined that Sarah Cherry died in the middle of that custody. It was even determined that there was a scuffle in the woods, 'in the same spot where Sarah Cherry's body was found.' At the time, the detective holding Dechaine refused to let police dogs investigate the scene. Had that search been allowed, the real killer might have been apprehended, and Cherry might still be alive.
Another troublesome fact was that one of the detectives changed the wording of his original notes. The new version implied guilt, while the original notes implied innocence. During the trial, another of the detectives actually testified in conflict with his own crime- scene notes. Again, the court version implied guilt, whereas the original notes implied innocence.
The position of Dechaine's truck also bothered me. According to the detective's version, Dechaine abducted Cherry, drove her to a location, killed her, walked way past his truck and exited the woods.
Why didn't he just get in his truck and leave?
Peter P. Sirois
Madison
Posted: July 24 2010
Updated: Today at 7:20 PM
Morning Sentinel Staff
Moved by news of Dennis Dechaine's attempted suicide, I've just studied that part of Maine law that pertains to "trafficking in prison contraband."
It's clear that Knox County (and AG's office?) officials are risking mental dislocation in their over-reaching attempts to stifle the growing awareness of the injustices visited upon MSP inmate #1725 by responding to his suicide attempt with an indictment for criminal possession of prescription drugs.
Forget the lawyers with their jargon and the bureaucrats their stone walls. In the court of public opinion, it's finally the straight face test that must be met.
Try and keep one here:
* While the indictment uses the inflammatory word "trafficking," the only drugs found were in Dechaine's blood stream. There were none in his cell or on his person.
* After 22 years of frustrated effort to present DNA and other new evidence of his innocence in a new jury trial, Dechaine's desperate but "reasonable response to an intolerable situation" (his words) is being twisted to conform to a section of the law code (Maine Revised Statutes Title 17-A, Part 2, Chapter 31, Section 756) whose heading, ironically, is "Aiding escape."
* Even though Dechaine is working out two hours a day and is reinvigorated, he is being kept in solitary confinement indefinitely, presumably because he is a risk to himself.
* Anyone who has visited prisoners knows how difficult it would be to smuggle in drugs. Likely Dechaine obtained them from prison staff, yet he is the only one being charged.
* Why go to the trouble and expense of trying to convict someone who is already serving a life sentence without parole?
Why, indeed. Unless it is the equally desperate act of a justice system trying to destroy itself.
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
More Letters to the editor, July 22, 2010
Dechaine series continues to elicit strong reactions
http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/letters/commentary_2010-07-22.html
July 22 2010
Since it is not against the law to attempt to commit suicide, Dennis Dechaine is to be persecuted, er, prosecuted for having traces of prescription drugs in his blood.
Traffficking" makes great headlines, even though legally the charge is a real stretch, and morally it is indefensible -- talk about kicking a guy when he is down!
No matter. The Maine Attorney General's Office -- and until told otherwise we can assume the local district attorney is a puppet for the state -- has shown no shame over having sealed the records on the Dechaine case; incinerated evidence; opposed DNA testing and the findings of its own psychological experts; presented perjured testimony; obscured the time of death, etc.
If Dechaine receives five years for trying to commit suicide, but is later exonerated on the wrongful murder conviction, do you suppose our attorney general will insist that he serve the five years before being freed? It's a fair question.
William Bunting
Whitefield
In the Dennis Dechaine case, DNA proves the wrong man has been in prison for 22 years.
I applaud Trevor Maxwell for his in-depth investigative story about the Sarah Cherry murder case and owner Richard Connor for publishing it. The two-part special report in the Maine Sunday Telegram and the multimedia information presented on The Portland Press Herald website are outstanding.
DNA technology has been used successfully by the Innocence Project to exonerate over 250 wrongfully convicted individuals. The Innocence Project lawyers believe the DNA profile found in the Cherry case is significant enough for Dechaine to be granted a new trial.
How can Maine prosecutors say that DNA in the Dechaine case is irrelevant? How can the head of the Criminal Division of the Attorney General's Office, William Stokes, say with a straight face that the DNA evidence from the 1988 Cherry case came from "dirty" nail clippers?
Stokes recently argued and won the case against Thomas Mitchell for the 1984 murder of Judith Flagg of Fayette using DNA evidence extracted from Flagg's fingernail clippings. The AG's office felt that DNA technology was relevant enough in the Flagg case to send material for testing in the summer of 1988, yet it opposed DNA testing to be done in 1989 in the Cherry case, saying that the technology was too new. Then-Judge Carl Bradford denied Dechaine's request.
I commend the AG's office for the conviction of Mitchell; however, the same degree of importance concerning DNA evidence should be used when it proves a wrongful conviction.
It is becoming abundantly clear that the Attorney General's Office can no longer be objective when it comes to the Dechaine case. For prosecutors, it is no longer about finding the truth but about upholding the jury's verdict.
Nancy Farrin
Pittston
With all the passion, facts, fiction and misinformation around the guilt or innocence of Dennis Dechaine, it's hard to keep one's eyes on the prize -- certainty about the perpetrator without doubt.
My fervent hope is that Justice Carl Bradford will allow a new trial so that all the evidence -- old and new -- can be laid on the table.
I believe the citizenry, the law enforcement community, the family and friends of Sarah Cherry, those of us who have followed this case since 1988 and certainly the AG's office and the judiciary want justice -- a fair, impartial, honest conclusion reached from consideration of true events and scientific data.
I believe there is more than reasonable doubt as to Dechaine's guilt. Once that is recognized, we can get on with following other lines of investigation and maybe find a child's killer.
Charlotte Henderson
Washington
Trevor Maxwell has done a stellar job again reporting on the Dennis Dechaine case. With all the facts of the case so thoroughly laid out, only questions remain.
The state's case is based solely on items from Dechaine's truck. Would the state have incinerated hairs, clothing and swabs if they showed any evidence whatsoever that Sarah had contact with Dennis or his truck?
If Sarah Cherry's hands were bound in front of her and had her own blood on them, how could Dennis emerge from the woods without a drop of blood on him?
If no forensic evidence was found in Dennis' truck, how could he drive her three miles from where she was babysitting to the woods?
How could he have carried her 350 feet into the woods without any trace evidence on either of them? Why was no missing article of Sarah's clothing or a knife found on Dennis, or anywhere else?
What guilty person asks for DNA testing to be done? There are potentially thousands of people worldwide whose DNA would match the partial profile in this case. But Dennis Dechaine is not one of them!
William Stokes, the head of the Criminal Division of the Attorney General's Office, states that DNA on a murder victim's fingers doesn't automatically identify the killer. But it certainly rules one out! The state would have relied heavily on this DNA evidence had it been a match for Dechaine.
Stokes states: "With partial profiles, you have to be careful because you may actually implicate a lot of innocent people."
Is Mr. Stokes more concerned about implicating an innocent person whose DNA does match the profile than he is about implicating an innocent person whose DNA does not match the profile? Let's have a new trial where all the evidence is presented. Let's finally have a fair trial.
Susan Pastore
Portland
It's not like Dechaine is asking for pardon
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/opinion/letters/98972129.html
Morning Sentinel Staff
July 22 2010
Thank you for publishing Trevor Maxwell's piece on the Dennis Dechaine case. It's journalism like this that makes me optimistic that local newspapers can survive.
Like most Mainers I've been somewhat aware of this case over the years but only in snippets or fragments. It was very helpful see the sad story from its beginning to the present. With a case this of this magnitude I can't understand why the authorities have fought a retrial for so many years, especially with the science of DNA being so much more developed.
The fact that Dechaine was denied the use of DNA testing from the beginning is grounds for a new trial. It's not like he's asking for a pardon.
It's almost like the prosecution doesn't believe in their own judicial system.
David Jordan
Somerville
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/149215.html
7/20/10 07:37 pm Updated: 7/20/10 07:45 pm
Not the whole story
Emmet Meara’s July 9-10 BDN column expressing his certainty of Dennis Dechaine’s guilt in the murder of Sarah Cherry would have been more convincing if his listed evidence had dealt with a thorough investigation of two factors that have left me questioning Mr. Dechaine’s guilt over the years.
Why hasn’t the government deemed it important to know who the DNA found under her fingernails belongs to and provided a clear reason why tha DNA hasn’t been compared with an extended family member who had been charged with child sexual abuse of other family members at the time of this murder?
When convictions are the result of circumstantial evidence, no matter how prolific, and hard evidence is ignored, doubts will remain.
I cannot imagine the pain that the Cherry family has endured over the years and they have my profound sympathy. But if Mr. Dechaine is not guilty, a murderer is still walking free among us.
Pat Jenkins
Bangor
Wasteful indictment
There aren’t many mysteries here. Dennis Dechaine is in prison for the rest of his life, no parole. Prison life cannot be that great, so it’s not hard to accept that after 22 years he might have had a moment in which he wanted to give up.
I can also accept that in prison one can get things that should not be available, i.e. enough prescription drugs to commit suicide.
What I really want to know is, in these tight budgetary times of state belt-tightening, who in state government put “indict Dechaine on drug trafficking charges” at the top of his or her to-do list and why?
I worked for the state last year. We all had to prioritize our work carefully. Don’t these guys have any real work to do? What is really going on here?
Steve Sandau
Brunswick
Wrongly convicted
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/149097.html
July 19 2010
I was saddened to read in the July 17-18 BDN that Dennis Dechaine had attempted suicide this past April. He obviously felt such despair from having lost faith in the Maine state justice system that even while waiting for a decision about a retrial, he didn’t have faith that the justice system would know what we all know would be right: a retrial.
Having been let down countless times before, from having concrete evidence that proved his innocence brought forward over the years and ignored by the AG’s office, it’s no wonder he felt the way he did. He’s only human. A wrongly convicted human.
Why would he be charged with “drug trafficking” for having it for the sole purpose to use to try to take his own life?
In Maine a life sentence isn’t 25 years, as in some states. It’s for life, unless you were wrongly convicted and can prove it. Why charge him for using something for the sole purpose of committing suicide? What’s to be gained from that? Tack on more years to a life sentence? That doesn’t make any sense.
In my opinion, these are very suspicious actions by an office that has fought to try to prevent Dennis from receiving a fair trial with all of the evidence that was not brought forth in the initial trial.
Add this indictment to the growing list of suspicious actions of that office, where Dennis and real justice is concerned.
Lori Dumont
Bangor
July 20 2010
In the Dechaine case, DNA proves the wrong man has been in prison for 22 years. I applaud Trevor Maxwell for his in depth investigative story of the Sarah Cherry murder case and Richard Connor for publishing it. The two part special report appearing in the Maine Sunday Telegram and the multimedia information presented on the Portland Press Herald website are outstanding. DNA technology has been used successfully by the Innocence Project to exonerate over 250 wrongfully convicted individuals.
The Innocence Project lawyers believe the DNA profile found in the Cherry case is significant enough for Dennis Dechaine to be granted a new trial. How can State of Maine prosecutors say that DNA in the Dechaine case is irrelevant? How can the head of the Criminal Division of the state Attorney General’s Office, William Stokes, say with a straight face that the DNA evidence from the 1988 Cherry case came from “dirty” nail clippers? William Stokes recently argued and won the case against Thomas Mitchell for the 1984 murder of Judith Flagg of Fayette using DNA evidence extracted from Flagg’s fingernail clippings. The AG’s office felt that DNA technology was relevant enough in the Flagg case to send material for testing in the summer of 1988 yet opposed DNA testing to be done in 1989 in the Cherry case citing that the technology was too new. Judge Bradford denied Dechaine’s request.
I commend the AG’s office for the conviction of Mitchell, however, the same degree of importance concerning DNA evidence should be used when it proves a wrongful conviction. It is becoming abundantly clear that the state Attorney General’s office can no longer be objective when it comes to the Dechaine case. For them, it is no longer about finding the truth but about upholding the original jury’s verdict.
Nancy
Letter from Dennis to Trevor Maxwell at the PPH
Dear Trevor,
I have received the first series of articles you wrote, published July 4.
I was surprised that there was such an interest in making public my recent
hospitalization. The reason why I was hospitalized on April 5 is because
on the evening of April 4 I ingested a combination of prescription drugs
in an attempt to end my life.
I didn't think I would ever have to explain myself, but since the state
now seems intent in charging me criminally, it appears that keeping this a
private matter is no longer a possibility. What drove me to suicide? A
combination of factors.
I have been imprisoned 22 years and the soul crushing monotony, boredom,
institutional food, pervasive violence, 24 hour lights, near constant
noise, harsh treatment, myriad petty rules, lack of resources, loss of
potential, separation from family and friends, along with a raft of other
negativity, simply conspired to erode my will to live.
Combined with the overwhelming oppression of prison were thoughts about my
case and my chances for justice. It seems that every time exculpatory
facts are revealed, state agents respond by digging their heels in with
greater resolve. The state, with its infinite resources, tilts the playing
field so precipitously that a defendant with limited resources doesn't
stand a chance. All I ever wanted is the right to present all of the facts
in my case to a jury of my peers, something our constitution fundamentally
affords. Why can't I do that in Maine?
Prosecutor Bill Stokes implied that I should not be allowed to continue
appealing my case because I failed to make my case in previous efforts.
That's the sort of flawed reasoning that drives me to distraction. Stokes'
office first argued against DNA testing and now it's arguing to keep a
jury from ever hearing the results of that testing. His office also fought
to keep any discussion of alternate suspects from a jury. One of his
colleagues had potentially crucial forensic evidence incinerated before
the value of that hair and fiber could be ascertained. Why would a
prosecutor want to make evidence disappear? Logically, anyone who destroys
evidence or sanctions its destruction, clearly isn't interested in truth
or justice. That no jury will ever benefit from the knowledge inherent in
that evidence creates frustration that weighs heavily on me.
Another source of frustration was also alluded to in one of your articles,
which stated that no other case in Maine has ever been litigated for so
long. The vast majority of that time has been wasted waiting for the state
to respond to motions, and for the courts to schedule hearings or make
decisions. As time goes by the torment of waiting worsens, diminishing any
hope for a return to a meaningful and productive life.
In Maine, a life sentence is a cruel and lingering death sentence that
eventually breeds despair and hopelessness. I have watched men grow old in
prison and I have been horrified by the thought of it. This is no place
for men weakened by age or disability. Given my prison experience, the
lack of control over my own life, the sense of frustration where
prosecutors and courts are concerned, it takes no great effort to
understand why I tried to end it all. Is it unreasonable to believe that
suicide may very well be a reasonable response to an intolerable
situation?
Sincerely,
Dennis Dechaine
7-10-10
WARREN, Maine (NEWS CENTER)
July 16 2010
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=120690
A man serving time for a high profile murder has been indicted on charges of trafficking in prison contraband.
Dennis Dechaine was convicted of murdering 12 year old Sarah Cherry in 1988.
NEWS CENTER'S midcoast media partner Village Soup dot com reports that a Knox County grand jury has indicted Dechaine.
The indictment alleges that on April fifth, Dechaine had morphine and / or klonopine. That was the week that he was rushed to the hospital, reportedly near death after his heart rate and blood pressure dropped. Dechaine was hospitalized for two weeks.
Prison officials have never said what he was treated for.
Posted: 12:00 AM
July 18 2010
What madness is this, that state officials, including prosecutors and judges, bound by some of the oldest and most revered oaths in U.S. history, would willfully ignore evidence that may not only prove that an innocent man has been imprisoned for a horrible crime, but also serve to lead investigators to the person who is truly responsible for the unimaginable atrocities committed against 12-year-old Sarah Cherry?
Dennis Dechaine, right, and his attorney Steve Peterson listen to a question asked by reporter Trevor Maxwell during an interview at the Maine state Prison in Warren on March 22.
2010 Telegram file
As an American citizen and citizen of the great state of Maine, it is inconceivable to me that the men and women we trust to uphold our values, defend our liberties and protect us from harm could be so casually dismissive in their attitude toward the overwhelming evidence that has come to light pointing toward Dennis Dechaine's innocence.
I do not know who killed Sarah Cherry in 1988, but I'd like to find out. I would like to be shown undeniable proof that some terrible monster who has been lurking around snatching up little girls has been caught and dealt with.
I'd like to think state officials would like this, too, and will finally leave their egos at the door and do their jobs as they swore an oath to do and listen to what forensic experts and witnesses to events surrounding the case have been trying to say:
They say there's more to this story, more facts to consider and suspects to pursue, and that there may still be a monster out there somewhere, free to take more innocent lives.
Professional integrity. Doing the right thing in the face of public humiliation. Officials owe that much to Sarah Cherry. They owe that much to Dennis Dechaine. They owe that much to you and me, and they owe that much and more to whoever destroyed that little girl.
It's time they paid up.
Emily Paine
Buxton
Hats off to?Trevor Maxwell and the Maine Sunday Telegram for such extensive coverage of the Dennis Dechaine case.
I do want to comment on a few points: What does state prosecutor William Stokes mean that Dennis "does not deserve a new trial"? How does he define "deserve" and under what circumstances would someone "deserve" a new trial?
As for being given "so many opportunities to make your case and you haven't done it," I would hope Mr. Stokes knows that appeals are based on procedural issues, not evidence.
Secondly, Mr. Stokes complains about how much the state has spent on the case. Think how much the state might have saved on incarceration expenses had Dennis been allowed to be tested and present DNA evidence that would have excluded him back in 1988.
Lastly, Mr. Stokes is quoted as saying Dennis said, "It must be somebody else inside of me." This statement comes from the trial testimony of Detective Alfred Hendsbee who claimed, under oath, that he was reading this statement from his notes.
However, when Jim Moore gained access to those notes, he discovered that no such quote is in those notes.
Webster's Dictionary defines "deserve" as "to have a right to because of acts or qualities; be worthy of." I always thought any person in America deserves the right to a fair trial.
If a defendant does not receive a fair trial, then he deserves a new trial. Dennis did not receive a fair trial because the investigation was incompetent, evidence was concealed and police gave false testimony.
I think those are grounds for "deserving" a new trial and Dennis is most certainly worthy of one.
Genie Nakell
Portland
Dechaine says he attempted to commit suicide
Dennis Dechaine, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a 12-year-old girl in 1988, says he tried to kill himself with prescription drugs earlier this year.
In a letter sent this week to The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Dechaine said he "ingested a combination of prescription drugs in an attempt to end my life" in early April at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
A grand jury in Knox County indicted Dechaine this week on a charge of trafficking in prison contraband. Dechaine wrote in the letter to the newspaper that he acknowledged the suicide attempt publicly because he is being charged in the case.
Dechaine, 52, was convicted in 1989 of killing Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. The Madawaska native has maintained his innocence through four unsuccessful appeals, and the case has been the subject of intense legal and media interest over the years.
This fall, the judge who presided at his trial is expected to hear arguments on whether Dechaine should get a new trial, based primarily on a fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail.
Dechaine was hospitalized on April 5. His brother said Dechaine was near death, but prison officials have refused to comment, citing confidentiality laws.
According to the indictment issued Tuesday, Dechaine had morphine and Klonopine, a drug that's used to treat seizure and panic disorders. No one else was indicted in connection with the incident, according Geoffrey Rushlau, Knox County's district attorney.
Dechaine wrote in his letter, dated July 10, "I have been imprisoned 22 years and the soul crushing monotony, boredom, institutional food, pervasive violence, 24 hour lights, near constant noise, harsh treatment, myriad petty rules, lack of resources, loss of potential, separation from family and friends, along with a raft of other negativity, simply conspired to erode my will to live."
Dechaine's letter detailed frustration with his case and called his suicide attempt "a reasonable response to an intolerable situation."
Dechaine's attorney, Steve Peterson, said he doesn't expect the indictment to affect his client's push for a new trial.
If Dechaine were convicted of trafficking before his hearing on the request for a new murder trial, it could be brought up at the hearing, Peterson said, but a rapid conviction is unlikely.
"I don't know how much sense it makes to indict someone who's already serving a life sentence," said Peterson. "I've seen it happen before."
Asked if some might see the suicide attempt as an admission of guilt, Peterson said he has seen the letter his client wrote and doesn't think so.
"What it is, is a venting of how frustrated he is about being in jail and being wrongfully convicted," said Peterson. "Trying to get this righted has been a very frustrating thing for him."
Peterson said Dechaine is now in an exercise program at the prison and appears to be stable. "Whatever depression he was in that caused this to have happened seems to have passed," he said.
Dechaine's friends and family in Madawaska said they took the news of the attempted suicide hard.
"It was devastating for us," said Carol Waltman, a friend of Dechaine's since high school and the founder of Trial and Error, an advocacy group that maintains his innocence. "We've got to understand where he's coming from. Being in a place like that, it's a hellhole."
Both Waltman and Don Dechaine, Dennis Dechaine's older brother, were upset that he got prescription drugs in the first place.
Don Dechaine said people who visit inmates go through an intensive search. He said he believes the drugs had to have been smuggled in by a prison worker.
"They search, scan, there's no way to receive any drugs," said Don Dechaine. "It has to come from within the prison."
He said he plans to talk with Peterson about filing a complaint with the state.
Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Department of Corrections, said the department is continuing to investigate the circumstances.
"We're concerned if drugs are coming, or are in the facility inappropriately or illegally," said Lord. "We're definitely looking into it."
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Dechaine-indicted-following-suicide-try.html
A Knox County grand jury has indicted convicted murder Dennis Dechaine on trafficking in prison contraband following a suicide attempt at the state prison in Warren.
In a letter sent this week to The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Dechaine said he had “ingested a combination of prescription drugs in an attempt to end my life.”
Dechaine, 52, is serving a life sentence for the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin. The Madawaska native has maintained his innocence through four unsuccessful appeals – as have a number of friends, family and others – and the case has been the subject of both legal and media interest over the years. This fall, he is expected to get a hearing before the judge who originally convicted him on whether Dechaine should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.
Dechaine was hospitalized on April 5. His brother said Dechaine was near death, but prison officials have refused to comment, citing confidentiality laws. According to the indictment handed down July 13, Dechaine had in his custody morphine and Klonopine, a drug used to treat seizure and panic disorders.
Dechaine wrote in the letter that he was acknowledging the suicide attempt publicly because he was being charged criminally in the case.
“I have been imprisoned 22 years and the soul crushing monotony, boredom, institutional food, pervasive violence, 24 hour lights, near constant noise, harsh treatment, myriad petty rules, lack of resources, loss of potential, separation from family and friends, along with a raft of other negativity, simply conspired to erode my will to live,” Dechaine wrote in the letter dated July 10.
Dechaine’s letter detailed frustration with his case, and called his suicide attempt “a reasonable response to an intolerable situation.”
To read more about the Dechaine case and watch a video interview with Dechaine, visit our multimedia package.
July 11 2010
SEE THE COMPLETE PACKAGE including multimedia resources here
Posted: 12:00 AMBy Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
July 11 2010
In prisoner Dennis Dechaine’s latest bid for a new trial, the key piece of evidence is actually old news.
click image to enlarge
Accompanied by his attorney Steve Peterson, Dennis Dechaine listens to a reporter's questions during an interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren on March 22. With a new appeal more than two decades after his conviction in the death of Sarah Cherry, no other case has been litigated in Maine's court system for so long.
March 2010 photo by Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
click image to enlarge
Thomas Connolly, the Portland lawyer who represented Dennis Dechaine at his 1989 trial, says he regrets not pushing harder for pretrial DNA testing. "I wasn't hanging my hat on the DNA at the time," Connolly said this spring. "It was only after the verdict that I realized the enormity of it.'
December 2006 file photo/The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
Select images available for purchase in theIt is a fragment of unidentified male DNA, extracted by scientists in 1994 from a thumbnail clipping of 12-year-old murder victim Sarah Cherry.
Dechaine was convicted of the murder in 1989 and is serving a life sentence. He says he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that another man set him up.
Prosecutors say the right man is behind bars.
Although the mystery DNA was discovered 16 years ago, an upcoming court hearing would be the first time for that evidence to be considered by a judge. It took a new state law in 2001, a revision of that law in 2006, additional genetic tests on the thumbnail by the state and the defense, and a great deal of legal wrangling to reach this point.
At the hearing, tentatively scheduled for September, Dechaine’s legal team must convince a judge that jurors in 1989 probably would have acquitted him if they had known about the thumbnail DNA.
His lawyers also will ask Justice Carl O. Bradford to consider other evidence in the case, such as recently obtained opinions about Sarah Cherry’s time of death, and information about alternate suspects.
But the crux of the motion is the DNA, whether it will be deemed credible by the judge, and whether it raises enough doubt for a new trial to be granted in one of Maine’s most notorious homicides.
“That is overwhelming evidence, in our view, that it was not Dennis Dechaine who did this,” said his attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport.
‘THIS CAN’T ... BE RANDOM’
Sarah Cherry was abducted while baby-sitting at a home in Bowdoin on July 6, 1988. Her body was found two days later, in the woods about three miles north of the home.
Her wrists were tied together in front of her chest. A gag had been placed in her mouth and a scarf was wrapped around her neck. The killer sexually assaulted her with sticks, and tortured her with a small blade before strangling her.
Papers belonging to Dechaine were found in the driveway of the house where Sarah had been baby-sitting.
His truck was found about 450 feet from the body. The rope and scarf used to commit the crime had come from Dechaine’s truck. He walked out of the woods on the night of July 6 in the general vicinity of his truck and Sarah Cherry’s body.
Dechaine maintains that he went into the woods that afternoon to inject drugs and to wander around. He says he was alone the whole day, got lost, and someone must have grabbed his papers, the rope and the scarf from his truck.
“I offered up my truck willingly for them to go through,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
“They went through it microscopically. There was absolutely no proof that Sarah Cherry had ever been in my vehicle.
There’s no proof that Sarah Cherry ever knew me, or that I ever knew her.
“And there is no doubt in my mind that whoever took Sarah Cherry knew who she was and where she was. This can’t possibly be random.”
Dechaine hopes his defense team will be able to obtain DNA samples from a number of people, including a list of alternate suspects put together by private investigators who have worked on his behalf.
DNA ‘DOESN’T SHOW ANYTHING’
State prosecutors say Dechaine murdered Sarah Cherry, the evidence proved it, and the DNA is irrelevant.
The thumbnail was subject to possible contamination both during the autopsy and during the year it was in the custody of Dechaine’s trial lawyer, Tom Connolly, said William Stokes, head of the criminal division at the state Attorney General’s Office.
“Our position has been that the most likely source of that DNA is contamination at the time of the autopsy, since nail clippers were reused from autopsy to autopsy at that time and were stored in a way that was conducive to contamination,” Stokes said.
Clippers, blades and other equipment used by medical examiners in 1988, he said, were stored in a toolbox lined with a towel.
While scientists have confirmed the existence of the DNA on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail, they cannot say what type of material it is. It could be from blood, saliva or even a particle of skin. The only other biological material found on the thumbnail was her own blood.
Stokes said there was no evidence suggesting that Sarah Cherry had scratched her killer; state chemists found no tissue underneath her fingernails.
Even if the unknown DNA somehow got transferred to the thumbnail before her death, that doesn’t prove someone else killed her, Stokes said. Unlike a rape case, where a sperm sample can identify or clear a defendant, DNA on a murder victim’s fingers doesn’t automatically identify the killer.
“What does the DNA prove? From our perspective, it doesn’t show anything.”
SEARCH CONTINUES FOR IDENTITY
The male DNA profile found on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail is incomplete; there is enough genetic material to rule out most people as the source, but there is not enough to conclusively identify an individual.
In 2004, the state crime lab ran the partial profile through a database containing DNA profiles of convicted felons in Maine. Seven possible matches were identified.
Crime lab officials reviewed the histories of the men, and conducted further analysis on the DNA profiles, and ruled them out as potential suspects.
The list of the convicts whose DNA matched the partial profile on the thumbnail remains under seal by an order of the court.
“With partial profiles, you have to be careful because you may actually implicate a lot of innocent people,” Stokes said. “We just don’t have enough of a profile to make a perfect match.”
Dechaine criticized the Attorney General’s Office for not doing more to determine the source of the DNA.
“Is that really why we hire prosecutors? Is that why we hire police?” he said. “It would seem to me that anything that could be examined and investigated should be. I would obviously put DNA at the top of that list.”
Although neither side has determined whose DNA is on Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail, they have ruled out more than a dozen people who had contact with her.
Lawyers who handled the evidence envelopes, police officers and members of the Medical Examiner’s Office were all tested and excluded. Family members of Sarah Cherry also were ruled out.
Peterson said the defense also reviewed some autopsies that were performed before Sarah’s body was delivered to the Medical Examiner’s Office. None of the autopsies reviewed provided a match.
JUDGE DENIES TESTING
After Sarah Cherry’s fingernails were clipped during her autopsy in July 1988, a state chemist used up all of them – except for the thumbnails – while testing for blood types.
Chemist Judith Brinkman determined that the blood found on her fingernails was a match for Sarah. Because her hands had been bound in front of her body, the blood likely was transferred as Sarah groped at her upper chest and neck, where she had been stabbed repeatedly.
About three months before his trial was set to begin, Dechaine asked for a continuance and for DNA testing of the bloodstained thumbnails.
DNA profiling was considered pioneer science at the time. In 1988, an appeals court in Florida was the first U.S. court to admit DNA findings as evidence. Courts around the country were developing standards for how DNA evidence would be handled by lawyers, judges and juries.
While DNA findings had not yet been admitted in a Maine court, the state Attorney General’s Office was using the technology by the summer of 1988. Several months before Dechaine made his request, the state sent out items for testing at a commercial lab in New York in connection with a homicide in Fayette.
A hearing on Dechaine’s request for DNA testing was held in front of Justice Bradford on Jan. 27, 1989.
The judge relied primarily on input from Brinkman, who had spoken with staffers at a lab in California. They thought the chances of getting usable results were remote, because of the small amount of blood on the nails.
In light of Brinkman’s testimony and the other evidence in the case, Bradford denied the request for testing, which would have delayed the trial for at least a few months.
“I have never gotten over the fact that the judge ruled against me,” Dechaine said. “My personal feeling is that there was one overlying reason, and that was that it was simply inconvenient to the court schedule.”
Connolly, Dechaine’s trial lawyer, blames himself for not pushing harder for pretrial DNA testing. Connolly said he failed to bring in his own expert to argue against Brinkman and the state prosecutors.
“I wasn’t hanging my hat on the DNA at the time. I thought we were going to win with or without it,” Connolly said during an interview at his office in March.
“It was only after the verdict that I realized the enormity of it.”
LONG, STRANGE JOURNEY FOR CLIPPINGS
But Connolly did one thing that has essentially kept the case open ever since: During the trial, he placed a defense exhibit sticker on the sealed envelope that contained Sarah’s thumbnails, even though they technically belonged to the state.
Then he got a letter from court officials in 1992, saying the exhibits would be destroyed if the lawyers did not pick them up. After writing back to make sure there was not some mistake, Connolly picked up the envelope.
Connolly sent the package for DNA testing at CBR Laboratories in Boston, using money raised by Dechaine’s supporters.
State prosecutors found out that Connolly had the nails, and he returned them to state officials under an order from Bradford in late 1993. The results from the lab came back in 1994, showing a mixture of Sarah’s blood with DNA from an unknown individual, not Dechaine.
Dechaine filed two court appeals in the years following the discovery of the thumbnail DNA – a petition for post-conviction review with the state supreme court in 1995, and a federal habeas corpus petition in 2000 – asking the court to decide the legality of his imprisonment. Connolly resigned as Dechaine’s lawyer in 1995 because the appeal focused on the claim that Connolly had provided ineffective counsel.
In both appeals, judges determined that the case did not merit any new hearings.
State supreme court Justice Donald Marden and U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cohen, in written opinions, said that even with knowledge of the thumbnail DNA, a reasonable juror could have found Dechaine guilty.
“The presence of a DNA profile inconsistent with those of either Cherry or Dechaine does not in itself undermine the weight of the evidence against Dechaine,” Cohen wrote.
DOORS OPEN FOR DNA APPEALS
Just as it seemed that Dechaine had exhausted all of his legal options, the Maine Legislature in 2001 passed a law giving prisoners the right to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.
Dechaine’s new lawyer, M. Michaela Murphy of Waterville, filed a motion for a new trial in May 2003.
She got help from the Innocence Project, a national organization founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who became famous as members of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team.” The project is dedicated to the exoneration of wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. Six staff lawyers are currently working on about 300 active cases, including Dechaine’s.
According to statistics compiled by the Innocence Project, 255 people in 34 states have been exonerated through DNA evidence in the past 21 years. None of those exonerations has been in Maine. In New England, Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only states to have adjudicated DNA-based exonerations, with nine and three respectively.
The majority of the exonerations have occurred after a full DNA profile was obtained from testing of evidence such as blood or semen found on a victim, and the profile did not match the person convicted of the crime, the Innocence Project reports. The group does not keep data on exonerations based on partial DNA profiles, such as the one extracted from Sarah Cherry’s thumbnail.
Murphy and state prosecutors agreed in 2003 to a new round of DNA testing for the thumbnail clippings. The results confirmed those from the 1994 test: One of the thumbnails contained a mixture of Sarah’s blood with unidentified DNA. The new tests also showed the unidentified DNA belonged to a male.
A hearing was scheduled in September 2005, but Murphy abruptly withdrew her motion just before it was set to begin.
In order to get a new trial, Dechaine would have needed to prove that the DNA on the thumbnail was not his, and that only the real killer could have left it on Sarah’s thumbnail. It was an unfair demand on the defendant, and one that the lawyers could not possibly meet, Murphy said at the time.
Michigan and Maine were the only states in the country that put such a heavy burden on convicts.
Dechaine’s supporters lobbied for a change in the law that would bring Maine in line with the majority of states. In the spring of 2006, the Legislature revised the statute. Lawmakers critical of the revision dubbed it “The Dennis Dechaine Bill.”
Under the revised law, a convicted person has to show that the DNA evidence, had it been available at the trial, probably would have resulted in an acquittal.
In August 2008, Peterson filed the motion for a new trial based on the revised law. Murphy was forced to leave the case behind because she took a post as a Superior Court justice.
Since the time that Peterson filed the motion, little progress has been made toward a hearing. But Peterson and Stokes recently agreed on a schedule that set a hearing date for September.
In the meantime, Peterson has asked the court for $6,500 to have some of the original evidence tested again for DNA. That evidence includes the sticks, the rope, the bandana and the scarf used to kill Sarah Cherry.
Tests on those items in the past decade failed to detect the DNA of anyone other than the 12-year-old victim, but
Peterson wants them tested again using a scraping method that has not been tried on the items. Peterson also intends to have the thumbnail clippings tested one more time.
The court has not yet ruled on his request for funds. If he is denied, Peterson said he will turn to private sources.
Other evidence that might have yielded DNA results was incinerated by the state in 1992. At that time, it was routine for the state to destroy evidence that was not introduced by either side at trial. Several items from the murder investigation were incinerated, including the jeans Sarah Cherry was wearing, hairs found on her body and swabs of Sarah’s body that were obtained during the autopsy.
The state is now required to preserve all physical evidence in cases where the identity of the perpetrator is disputed.
That requirement was part of the 2001 state law governing post-conviction appeals based on DNA evidence.
“It’s unfortunate,” Peterson said of the 1992 incineration. “Now that we’ve proven the technology to be as good as it is, it would have been helpful to have those items available for testing.”
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
July 11 2010
Famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey thinks the unidentified male DNA found on murder victim Sarah Cherry's thumbnail is intriguing, but it might not be enough to get a new trial for prisoner Dennis Dechaine.
click image to enlarge
Inmate Dennis Dechaine shakes hands with attorney F. Lee Bailey, right, after a meeting at the Maine State Prison in Warren on April 8, 2009. “All that I promised to do, and have done, is to use past friendships and associations to get Dennis what he couldn’t afford,” Bailey said. “I don’t wish to be an advocate for anybody.”
April 2009 file photo/The Associated Press
click image to enlarge
F. Lee Bailey
Jack Milton
Select images available for purchase in theNEW EXPERTS WEIGH IN
• Dr. Cyril Wecht, based in Pittsburgh, has served as a medical-legal and forensic pathology consultant in civil and criminal cases since 1962. He is perhaps best known nationally for his criticism of the Warren Commission’s conclusions in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. For more information, see www.cyrilwecht.com.
• Dr. Walter Hofman is coroner for Montgomery County, Pa., and practices pathology at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia. Hofman is a designated forensic pathologist for the State of New Jersey and is a consultant to the Department of Health for the State of Florida. For more information, see www.drhofmanfourn6path.com.
But Bailey does believe, based on two new expert opinions, that she was killed several hours after Dechaine was in custody, and that should tip the scales in favor of a new trial.
The reports were prepared in December, at Bailey's personal request, by Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman.
Both forensic pathologists have performed more than 10,000 autopsies each, and have testified as consultants for prosecutors and defendants in civil and criminal cases nationwide.
"If the pathologists are right, he has to be innocent," Bailey said of Dechaine. Bailey said it is not possible, given the nature of Sarah Cherry's injuries, that the 12-year-old survived for several hours after the attack.
Dechaine is serving a life sentence for his conviction in 1989. His latest motion for a new trial is tentatively scheduled to be heard by a judge this fall.
State prosecutors say the new opinions are not credible, and have no place in the upcoming proceedings.
"These are doctors who were not there, who are reviewing only a few facts and pieces of evidence, coming up with an opinion more than 20 years later," said William Stokes, head of the criminal division at the state Attorney General's Office.
"Most forensic pathologists that I have dealt with, when you ask them about time of death, are understandably cautious," Stokes said. "I don't think any medical examiner can give you a precise time of death. Anyone who tells you that is not credible.
"Dr. Wecht and Dr. Hofman are fine, but they weren't there," Stokes said. "It's speculation."
Bailey, 77, became famous for his work on high-profile cases, including the trials of Dr. Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson. He has been a figure of controversy in recent years.
He was jailed briefly in 1996 for refusing to return millions of dollars in stocks formerly held by one of his clients. Bailey was later disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for his conduct related to that case.
Bailey has business ties in Maine and he is moving to Yarmouth this month from Massachusetts. A longtime pilot, Bailey is a close friend and business partner with Jim Horowitz, the founder of Oxford Aviation.
Bailey heard about the Dechaine case a few years ago from Waterville lawyer Jon Nale. Bailey read a copy of "Human Sacrifice," the book about the case by James P. Moore, a Brunswick author and retired federal agent. Bailey was intrigued by Moore's contention that Sarah Cherry's time of death was much later than the theory put forward by state prosecutors.
Bailey met Dechaine and his attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport, at the Maine State Prison in April 2009. He agreed to serve as an unpaid "ombudsman" in the case.
"All that I promised to do, and have done, is to use past friendships and associations to get Dennis what he couldn't afford," Bailey said. "I don't wish to be an advocate for anybody."
Bailey said he receives about a dozen requests each year from lawyers and prisoners asking him to review their cases but he rarely gets involved. Moore's book was the difference-maker that prompted him to take an active role in Dechaine's case.
Bailey sent a packet -- including Sarah Cherry's autopsy report, portions of the trial testimony, weather reports and other case data -- to Wecht, who is a longtime friend. Wecht agreed to provide an opinion for free. Bailey also sought a second opinion from Hofman, whose nominal fee of $1,000 was paid by Dechaine's advocacy group, Trial and Error.
Both Wecht and Hofman disagreed with the findings of Ronald Roy, the deputy state medical examiner who conducted Sarah Cherry's autopsy after her body was found by a search team around noon on July 8, 1988.
At Dechaine's trial, Roy testified that when he examined Sarah's body that afternoon, rigor mortis -- the temporary stiffening of a corpse's joints and muscles -- was still present but was passing off. The body had been found in the woods in Bowdoin, covered by five to six inches of leaves, sticks and other forest debris.
In the estimate he provided for the jury, Roy said Sarah died a minimum of 30 hours before he examined her, or sometime before 8 a.m. July 7. But Roy said Sarah probably died much earlier than that, most likely sometime on the afternoon of July 6.
Dechaine walked out of the woods in Bowdoin around 8:45 p.m. on July 6, and his whereabouts after that time are accounted for.
According to the opinions written by Wecht and Hofman, if Sarah had died anytime on July 6, there is no way that rigor mortis still should have been present when Roy examined the body. There also should have been much more insect activity on Sarah's body, given the daytime temperatures of close to 90 degrees, the pathologists contend.
In Wecht's opinion, the earliest possible time of Sarah Cherry's death would have been 3 a.m. on July 7, six hours after Dechaine was picked up by police. Hofman's report said the earliest time of death would have been around noon on July 7.
Roy is retired and living in British Columbia, Canada. He did not respond to phone messages seeking comment for this story.
Peterson, Dechaine's attorney, continues to prepare arguments in hopes of convincing a judge to grant Dechaine a new trial. At that upcoming hearing, Peterson intends to introduce the DNA evidence found on Sarah Cherry's thumbnail; the time of death opinions written by Wecht and Hofman; and witness testimony supporting the defense's theory of an alternate suspect.
But it is unclear whether Justice Carl O. Bradford will consider the Wecht and Hofman reports at the hearing. Dechaine is the first prisoner to test the state law allowing this type of appeal. The law was passed in 2001 and revised in 2006.
"The scope (of the law) includes bringing in old and new evidence in any area that had been involved in earlier proceedings," Peterson said.
Stokes disagrees with Peterson's reading of the law. He said the defense is limited to the DNA evidence, and the law does not open the door to other evidence. Disagreements over time of death and the possibility of alternate suspects have already been heard in several previous appeals lodged by Dechaine, all of which have been rejected by the courts.
"This is a hearing on DNA evidence," Stokes said. "It is not an opportunity to retry the case."
Bradford will likely have to make a ruling before the hearing on what pieces of evidence he will consider.
By Matt Wickenheiser mwickenheiser@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
July 11 2010
MADAWASKA - The boys would play on the train tracks near their neighborhood, climbing ladders on the sides of the freight cars and jumping from one to the next.
click image to enlarge
In a yearbook photo from Dennis Dechaine's
junior year at Madawaska High School, the teenage Dechaine,
left, holds a camera that he used when he was on the yearbook staff.
"The camera was bigger than him," said his childhood friend Carol Waltman.
Courtesy photo
Jesse and Carol Waltman of Madawaska
were childhood friends of Dennis Dechaine
and remain among his supporters today.
Carol Waltman is the founder of Trial and Error,
the group advocating for Dechaine's freedom.
Maatt Wickenheiser photo
Down across the flood plains of the St. John River, they'd launch into the air on Tarzan swings that stretched from tall trees across old gullies.
One, Jesse Waltman, had moved to town when he was in fifth grade, after his dad died in Vietnam. The other, Dennis Dechaine, was 9 years old and had lost his mother to cancer. The two became best friends.
But in 1988, Dechaine's life took a dark turn. He was 30 when he was charged with the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Dechaine has been incarcerated since his 1988 arrest.
His path from life in this small mill town to the central role in one of Maine's most contentious and notorious murders is inconceivable to those who knew him.
"I've never been able to accept that Dennis could have done this," said Roger Martin, Dechaine's guidance counselor at Madawaska High School.
"I didn't see him getting into any fights in school, altercations with other kids ... Dennis was just a good kid, easy to talk to, always very polite -- just a nice kid."
Dechaine, the youngest of four brothers, grew up in a big house in a neighborhood off Main Street, behind the town's police station.
His father owned a gas station and ran a taxi service. After Dechaine's mother died, an aunt helped keep house and watch the kids.
But then, when Dennis was 14, his father died of a heart attack. His oldest brother, Phil, left the Coast Guard and returned home to take care of his brothers.
Dechaine was a good student, recalls Carol Waltman, Jesse Waltman's wife, who herself was a good friend of Dechaine's in high school. She is the founder and main force behind Trial and Error, the advocacy group that has been pushing for a new trial for Dechaine.
Even after losing both parents, Dechaine was a very positive person, said Carol Waltman, adding that he enjoyed photography and took pictures for the school yearbook.
"In high school, all you'd see was Dennis with a smile, and a camera -- and the camera was bigger than him," she said.
Carol Waltman said she didn't know Dechaine was experimenting with illegal drugs during high school. At his 1989 trial, Dechaine said he tried to hide that aspect of his life because he was embarrassed. He began smoking marijuana around his sophomore year, and he also tried cocaine and LSD while he was a teenager. At his trial, Dechaine said that when he was in his 20s, he sporadically used marijuana and cocaine.
In high school, Martin, the guidance counselor, recommended Dechaine for the Upward Bound program at Bowdoin College, an outdoors-based education experience.
Martin said Dechaine didn't have a lot of parental oversight, and he wanted him to experience a bit of the world, and to get him thinking about college. "I probably felt he had more ability than he used," he said.
Dechaine took part in the program for three years. After graduating in 1976, Dechaine enrolled at Vermont Technical College, where he studied agricultural business management.
Dechaine received his associate's degree and moved on to Western Washington University.
Steve Young didn't know Dechaine well in high school. But when Young was at the University of Maine at Orono, Dechaine came for a concert and stayed with him. The two became good friends.
The two talked about nature and jazz music, and canoed the Allagash. When Dechaine moved to Washington state, he convinced Young to join him.
Dechaine was always working, keeping busy, said Young.
"Dennis was the kind of guy that if it rained, he was out there picking up night crawlers to go fishing," said Young. "He represented to me what people say about the work ethic of people from northern Maine."
Dechaine had met a woman, Nancy Emmons, at Western Washington University. They graduated together in 1983, married that fall in Colorado and returned to Maine to work on a sheep farm in Bowdoinham.
The couple started their own business, with a vegetable stand, greenhouses and Christmas wreaths and gift baskets. They bought a house and called it Basswood Farm, where they raised sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, geese and ducks.
Days before his arrest, Dechaine was in Madawaska for a family reunion. He visited with Young's parents, and with Young, who had a 3-week-old daughter. Dechaine wanted Young, an accomplished photographer, to take some product shots of the gift baskets he and his wife were selling.
"He was real happy," said Young.
A few days later, Young's sister called to tell him Dechaine had been arrested for murder. Young called the jail and spoke with Dechaine; his friend told him he didn't know what was going on.
"It was like a dream, but like a bad one, of course," said Young.
Nancy Dechaine and Dennis Dechaine divorced shortly after he was convicted in March 1989.
Tom Connolly, Dechaine's trial lawyer, said Nancy still supported Dennis but needed the divorce to protect her half of the marital property in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Dechaine by Cherry's family. The family later won its case.
Nancy moved out of Maine, remarried and had children. She eventually told Dechaine that she would not be in contact because she did not want to expose her new family to the case, Connolly said.
Reached last week by e-mail, Nancy Emmons declined to comment for this story.
Over the years, Young said, he would visit regularly with Dechaine in prison, bringing photos of his daughter. But Dechaine eventually asked him not to communicate so often.
"It'd bum him out -- he'd think about what it was, about what it could have been," said Young.
Young firmly believes his friend is innocent, and a guilty person is free.
And his close friends wonder how Dechaine's life -- and their own -- would be different if he hadn't been charged and convicted.
"Compared to Sarah Cherry's family, or to Dennis -- you can't compare. But all his close friends and relations have never been the same," said Young.
At the end of an interview, Jesse Waltman leaned forward, tapping his finger where his neck meets his head.
"The Dennis thing's always here, in the back of my head."
 |
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 click image to enlarge
Dennis Dechaine,1976 senior class photo |
 click image to enlarge
Steve Young, a good friend of Dechaine’s from Madawaska, said “he represented to me what people say about the work ethic of people from northern Maine.” Matt Wickenheiser photo |
 click image to enlarge
Retired Madawaska High School guidance counselor Roger Martin knew Dechaine as a student. "I've never been able to accept that Dennis could have done this," he said. Matt Wickenheiser photo |
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Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
July 11 2010
In 1992, a retired federal agent from Brunswick saw a notice in a local newspaper.
click image to enlarge Select images available for purchase in theTrial and Error, the group of people who believe Dennis Dechaine was wrongfully convicted for a murder in 1988, was holding a meeting in town.
James P. Moore, a private investigator who had retired in 1985 from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, recalls thinking that the group was likely a "bunch of birdbrains." Out of curiosity, though, he attended the meeting.
By the end of that evening, Moore agreed to look into the case, with one caveat.
"I told them if I found more evidence that he is guilty, I'm giving it to police," Moore said.
He began by reviewing the 1,500-page trial transcript. Moore was initially struck by the testimony of the deputy state medical examiner, who could not rule out the possibility that Sarah Cherry was killed after Dechaine was in police custody.
Other elements of the case concerned Moore: the lack of physical evidence and the fact that police did not pursue leads on other suspects, including a known child rapist who lived down the road from the house where Sarah Cherry had been abducted.
For the next 15 years or so, Moore devoted a significant part of his life to the investigation of the case, and he became one of Dechaine's fiercest advocates.
"You have some poor guy in jail that didn't do anything," Moore said in an April 26 interview. "I couldn't let go of it."
In the fall of 2002, Blackberry Press published Moore's book, "Human Sacrifice." Moore's central claim was that Dechaine could not have committed the crime and had been set up by another man. Moore contended that police and prosecutors, in their single-minded belief that Dechaine was guilty, ignored other leads, manipulated witnesses and withheld police reports from Dechaine's lawyers before the trial.
The book sparked a renewed public interest in Dechaine's case, and it swelled the ranks of Trial and Error. A revised version of the book was published in 2006, after Moore filed a lawsuit against the state Attorney General's Office and gained access to the investigative files.
Moore said he did not accept payment for his work as an investigator or as a writer. He also has received none of the royalties from "Human Sacrifice," which retailed at $15 and has sold more than 10,000 copies. Profits from the books have gone to Trial and Error, Moore said.
He said he decided a few years ago to cut down his advocacy work on the case, and to let Dechaine's lawyers go about their business of seeking a new trial.
In response to the book, the lawyers at the Attorney General's Office have said the evidence led to Dechaine, and to no one else, because he kidnapped, tortured and murdered Sarah Cherry.
Eric Wright, the prosecutor who represented the state at Dechaine's trial in 1989, now works as an attorney for the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection. He declined to comment for this story. But Wright did respond to Moore's book in 2003 in a newspaper article published in the Lewiston Sun Journal.
"Moore goes so far as to suggest, though not with proof, that the trial justice was unfair; that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court did not give this case any more than cursory review; that Mr. Dechaine did not stand a chance against a self-protective, clubby legal profession; that the state's deputy chief medical examiner was incompetent, subject to manipulation, or a liar; that a dozen or so detectives and deputies from the Maine State Police and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office were either bumblers or conniving co-conspirators in repeated perjury," Wright wrote in a five-page letter to the Sun Journal.
"This is no more than savaging good people for sport," he wrote.
Posted: 12:10 AM
The Alternate Suspect: Is former Mainer linked, or 'nothing but speculation'?
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
July 11 2010
Lawyers, friends and supporters who believe Dennis Dechaine was framed for the murder in 1988 of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry have pointed fingers at several possible alternate suspects.
But one name -- Douglas Senecal -- has been at or near the top of their lists since the beginning.
At least three judges, however, have found no credible evidence linking Senecal to the crime, and they have said Dechaine's alternate suspect theory is nothing more than speculation.
Senecal himself says the target painted on his back forced him to move out of Maine shortly after Dechaine's conviction. Being labeled as a possible suspect in one of Maine's most infamous murders has essentially destroyed his life over the past 22 years, Senecal said in a brief telephone interview last week.
"Whose life is ruined?" he asked tersely.
Senecal, 57, said he hopes he outlives Dechaine, but he still wants to hear a confession from the prisoner so his own name might finally be cleared.
"He won't do it," Senecal said. "He can't confess because he is too far into it, and he is too intelligent."
During the telephone interview, the retired drywall mason used profanity to blast Dechaine's camp and the media, including The Portland Press Herald, for dragging his name through the mud in the past two decades.
Since leaving Maine, Senecal has lived in North Carolina and Florida. He wouldn't say where he currently resides.
In 1988, Senecal lived in Phippsburg and ran a drywall business. He was under indictment in Sagadahoc County for the alleged sexual abuse of one of his stepdaughters five years earlier.
Senecal was connected to Sarah Cherry through a series of divorces and marriages. His stepdaughters were stepsisters to Sarah, and the girls lived in the same home in 1983 at the time of the alleged abuse.
A few days after Sarah Cherry's body was found in July of 1988, a tenant of a property owned by Senecal called a state social worker to report that she believed Senecal had committed the crime. According to court records, the social worker contacted detectives and told them Senecal had been acting strangely since the murder and was the subject of several allegations of sexual abuse in addition to the pending indictment.
Tom Connolly, Dechaine's trial lawyer, wanted to call Senecal and his tenant as witnesses at the trial, under the theory of an alternate suspect. Connolly theorized that Senecal feared Sarah Cherry would testify against him in the sexual abuse case. Connolly also claimed Senecal could have known where Sarah was baby-sitting on the day she was abducted.
Senecal's attorney said his client was running errands the afternoon of the abduction, and his whereabouts were accounted for. The lawyer, Joseph Field, said Senecal had no motive because Sarah was not on the witness list in the sexual abuse case. Field said Senecal had no knowledge of Sarah's plans to baby-sit.
Justice Carl O. Bradford agreed with Field, and he would not allow Connolly to present his theory at Dechaine's March 1989 trial.
"I admire your ingenuity, but this is inviting the jury to engage in nothing but speculation," the judge told Connolly during a conference in chambers, according to a court transcript.
Nor was Senecal tried on the sexual abuse charge. His case was scheduled for trial in late July 1988, but prosecutors continued the case twice because Senecal's stepdaughter left Maine earlier that summer. Several witnesses said in affidavits that Senecal's wife arranged for the girl to travel to California so she would not be available to testify. Prosecutors did not resurrect the charge after the girl returned to Maine.
Connolly focused on Senecal again in 1992 in a motion for a new trial for Dechaine. At the hearing, five witnesses provided information implicating Senecal in the murder. One man claimed to have heard Senecal's voice and the voice of a little girl on a road near the spot where Sarah's body was found.
Justice Bradford found the testimony was either not credible, hearsay or otherwise inadmissible. The judge ruled that the new evidence "still lacked the substantial link between Douglas Senecal and the alternative perpetrator theory of defense."
Then in 1994, laboratory testing done by Dechaine's legal team discovered a partial DNA profile from an unidentified male on Sarah Cherry's clipped thumbnail. The profile is sufficient to rule out some people, including Dechaine, but there is not enough genetic material to conclusively match the profile to any other individual. There are potentially thousands of people worldwide whose DNA would match the partial profile.
Undeterred by the odds, Dechaine's defense team has tried to identify the man whose DNA was left on or under Sarah's thumbnail.
In 1996 and in 1998, Dechaine asked the Superior Court to order Senecal to provide a sample of his saliva for the purposes of a comparison. Dechaine made the same request to a federal judge in 2000. The requests were denied.
In a 2004 interview with Bill Nemitz, columnist for The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Senecal said he would not provide a DNA sample to Dechaine's defense team because he did not trust them. Senecal believed lawyer Connolly might have already secretly obtained his DNA -- perhaps by taking one of his hairbrushes or a dropped cigarette butt -- and transferred it onto Sarah Cherry's thumbnail.
Senecal reiterated that deep sense of suspicion in last week's telephone interview.
"There is not a soul on this earth that I trust, except my wife and son," he said, while noting that his wife died three years ago.
Senecal is aware that his name could come up once again in Dechaine's pending bid for a new trial. Dechaine's current attorney, Steve Peterson of Rockport, has said he will try to introduce evidence to support his theory that another man killed Sarah Cherry. But Peterson said a court order prohibits him from talking about that aspect of the appeal.
"When is it going to be done? I've been waiting 25 years," Senecal said. "I don't need an attorney, I have done nothing wrong except be born."
His son, 29-year-old Isaac Senecal, said anyone who truly knows his father knows that Doug Senecal had nothing to do with Sarah Cherry's death.
"Having seen what my dad and the rest of my family has had to go through, it is disheartening," Isaac Senecal said of the constant intrusions by reporters and private investigators.
Isaac Senecal lives in North Carolina and serves in the Air Force Reserves. He went on reserve status three years ago after seven years of active duty that included three years in the Iraq war. Isaac was 7 years old when his father's name was first connected with the Dechaine case.
"He is my best friend in the world," Isaac Senecal said of his father. "He is an awesome person, and I have a very close circle of friends that would say the same thing.
"You can go to anybody in prison and they have an army of people behind them who say they didn't do it. What bothers me is they have no facts," he said. "A name came up on the radar, it was my dad's, and he has had to live with that."
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Posted: 12:13 AM
Updated: 10:21 AM
July 4 2010
The prisoner says he is tired of telling the story.
click image to enlarge 
click image to enlarge
Thirty-year-old Dennis Dechaine of Bowdoinham is escorted to his arraignment in the slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry on July 12, 1988, four days after his arrest. Dechaine has been in custody since.
1988 file photo/The Associated Press
COMING NEXT WEEK: In Dennis Dechaine’s latest bid for a new trial, the key piece of evidence is a fragment of unidentified male DNA, extracted by scientists in 1994 from a thumbnail clipping of 12-year-old murder victim Sarah Cherry. Serving a life sentence for the crime, the prisoner hopes this trace of genetic material can alter his fate.
But there’s a court hearing on the horizon that could be his last chance at a new trial. There are some things that he wants the public to hear again.
So Dennis Dechaine answers the same questions the officers asked on that summer night in the woods of Bowdoin in 1988. Did you take the girl? Did you kill Sarah Cherry?
“I’m not the guy who did this,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
“Somebody, somewhere in their heart of hearts at the state level has to know this.
“It is a nightmare,” Dechaine said.
The Dechaine case occupies a unique position in Maine’s collective consciousness.
No other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long – almost 22 years and counting.
Maine knows Dennis Dechaine, inmate No. 1725, as the farmer convicted for one of the most shocking crimes in state history – the kidnapping, torture and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Most Mainers also know that Dechaine, now 52, has maintained his innocence, and a large group of backers has provided the emotional and financial support behind his quest for a new trial.
In four appeals, state and federal judges have upheld the conviction and life sentence.
But he will get at least one more shot.
Sometime this fall, a judge is expected to decide whether Dechaine should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.
His lawyers must convince Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford – who presided at the 1989 trial – that the jury likely would have acquitted Dechaine if they had known about the thumbnail evidence. The lawyers also will ask Bradford to consider two forensic reports suggesting Dechaine could not have committed the crime. The hearing is tentatively set for September.
“We only get one shot at getting this right,” said attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport, who has worked on the case since 2003 and has been Dechaine’s lead defense lawyer since the fall of 2007.
“It’s his last, best chance,” Peterson said.
William Stokes, head of the Criminal Division at the state’s Attorney General’s Office, will argue that Dechaine does not deserve a new trial. The only mystery, as far as Stokes is concerned, is why the case has not been closed for good.
“When you have been given so many opportunities to make your case, and you haven’t done it, there’s that point where the family of the victim should get some finality,” Stokes said.
AN INCOMPARABLE CASE
The coming court battle was made possible by a state law enacted in 2001, and revised in 2006 at the urging of Dechaine's supporters. The law allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.
Only a handful of prisoners have filed motions based on the law, and Dechaine's motion would be the first to go before a judge if the hearing takes place as scheduled.
"In terms of public interest, there have been no other cases that compare to the Dechaine case. Never. Not even close," said prominent Augusta defense lawyer Walt McKee, who is not involved.
"Everybody has got their own take on the case," McKee said. "The first school of thought is that he had a trial with excellent lawyers on each side, the jury ruled, and how long do we have to go through this. On the other hand, there's the thought that the jury didn't hear some information that we now have, so let's put it in front of a new jury and let them decide."
The stakes are high. An advocacy group called Trial and Error, composed largely of Dechaine's family and friends, have raised and spent more than $200,000 on lobbying to change the state law regarding DNA appeals, DNA testing, private investigators, a website and the production and distribution of DVDs about the case.
The state, meanwhile, has spent thousands of dollars on Dechaine's court-appointed lawyers, court time and the prosecutors who have contested Dechaine's appeals. At least $10,000, including for the estimated cost of more than 200 hours of staff time, also has been spent by the state crime lab for DNA testing.
"We do not keep a running tab on any case, but this case has consumed literally thousands of hours of attorney time and law enforcement time as well as the lab and the court. So it's a lot of money, certainly tens of thousands," Stokes said.
The case has attracted the attention of some high-profile consultants.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the exoneration of convicts through DNA testing, has been involved in the case since the early 1990s. One of the organization's staff lawers, Alba Morales, is helping Peterson. Lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who created the Innocence Project in 1992, became famous for their work on the O.J. Simpson "dream team" that won an acquittal for the former football star in 1995.
Another member of the Simpson team, famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, also has entered the Dechaine fray.
Bailey, who has business ties in Maine and is moving to Yarmouth this month, heard about the case from another attorney. Bailey met with Dechaine at the prison in April 2009. At Bailey's request, two nationally recognized forensic pathologists reviewed some of the evidence and gave their opinions that Dechaine could not have committed the crime.
"This was a strong circumstantial case put on by the state, but it is possible that someone could have set him up," Bailey said. "The inflammatory nature of the crime makes it rife for opportunity to go astray because the public wants someone to pay."
Dechaine said that the prosecution's desire to make an arrest and assure the public that the killer was behind bars denied him a full and fair investigation.
"I have forced it so far to the back of my mind that I don't like to think about it anymore," he said while sitting in one of the visitation rooms at the state prison in Warren. "I don't like to think about all of the events that led to my wrongful conviction ... It took a lot of, well, pounding square pegs into round holes to do what was done to me."
HEALTH SCARE, CRIMINAL PROBE
Lawyers on both sides will be watching Dechaine's health as the hearing date approaches, because of an incident that took place at the prison in early April.
On the morning of April 5, two weeks after he was interviewed for this story, Dechaine was found unconscious in his cell, with an extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital, where doctors inserted a tube to help him breathe. Dechaine was speaking and walking again within a few days. He was returned to the prison on April 21.
Don Dechaine, a brother who lives in Madawaska, said Dennis Dechaine apparently ingested an unknown medication that nearly killed him. The family does not know what the medication was, how it got into Dechaine's system or how it was administered.
"There are a lot of questions we don't have the answers to," Don Dechaine said. He said he spoke to his brother on the telephone last week, and he sounded good. Dennis does not appear to have any lasting problems, such as brain damage.
The Maine Department of Corrections investigated the circumstances surrounding the emergency, and passed on the results of their probe to Knox County District Attorney Geoff Rushlau.
Rushlau and Denise Lord, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, declined to comment on details of the investigation.
"The matter is being reviewed for possible criminal charges," Rushlau said last week.
Peterson, Dechaine's lawyer, said any criminal charge arising from the April 5 incident would be dealt with separately from the DNA appeal.
"It will not affect that hearing at all," Peterson said.
VICTIM'S FAMILY SEEKS CLOSURE
Sarah Cherry's family members hope Dechaine's motion for a new trial will be denied and they will be afforded the closure they have been seeking since Sarah was kidnapped while babysitting on July 6, 1988.
Searchers found her body in nearby woods two days later. Sarah had been bound, gagged and sexually assaulted with sticks. She had been stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf.
"It's not right that he should be allowed to go on with this forever, to keep coming back to the courts time and time again," said Peg Cherry, Sarah's maternal grandmother.
Peg and her husband, Bud Cherry, live in Lisbon Falls, a short drive from the small town of Bowdoin, where Sarah lived with her mother and stepfather, Debbie and Chris Crosman.
Peg Cherry displays elementary school photographs of Sarah on cabinets. From her tidy living room, the 77-year-old grandmother can see where Sarah and her cousins used to play games of soccer, softball or tag.
Sarah would have been 34 years old on May 5.
Chris and Debbie Crosman declined to comment for this story because they say they still have difficulty discussing it more than two decades after their daughter's murder.
Many family members, including Peg Cherry, attended the trial in March 1989 at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland. Cherry has been in regular contact with prosecutors before and since. And no matter what Dechaine or his supporters say, she is certain he committed the crime.
"The evidence is overwhelming. There is no other answer," she said.
"He thought he was going to hoodwink everybody. Here is this pretty boy, really clean-cut, and he wants you to believe there's no way he could do it.
"Well, looks can be deceiving."
THE STATE'S POSITION
"No question, this was a circumstantial case, but sometimes that can be even more powerful than direct evidence," said William Stokes, the state prosecutor who inherited the Dechaine case from his predecessors in 1995.
Stokes said the state had more evidence against Dechaine than it does in many murder cases:
• A notebook and receipt from Dechaine's truck were found in the driveway of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting.
• Dechaine was seen walking out of the woods in the general area where Sarah's body was later found.
• His truck was found 450 feet from the site.
• The scarf used to strangle Sarah and the rope binding her wrists had come from Dechaine's truck.
• Two detectives and two corrections officers testified that Dechaine made incriminating statements on the day of his arrest, including, "It must be somebody else inside of me."
Dechaine's testimony at the trial also was a key piece of evidence, Stokes said.
Dechaine said he went into the woods on the afternoon of July 6 to inject drugs, and got lost at some point. In an interview with the state's chief psychologist after the arrest in 1988, Dechaine said his history of drug use began with marijuana around the age of 13, and he had occasionally used various drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines, since that time.
During cross-examination at his trial, Dechaine conceded that his memory of the afternoon of July 6 was not as sharp as it might have been if he had not been using the drugs. But he insisted that he was not in an altered state of consciousness, and that he never saw Sarah Cherry that day. Dechaine believes another man took the items from his truck and used them to frame him.
Stokes takes offense at the accusations made by some of Dechaine's supporters, who claim that he and others within the Attorney General's Office have worked to protect the police and to hide and distort evidence pointing away from Dechaine.
"They have their point of view," Stokes said. "They are entitled to their point of view. What I do have a problem with is the personal attacks."
Stokes, an Augusta city councilor who also has served on the school board, said people sometimes ask him whether Trial and Error, the advocacy group that backs Dechaine, might be right in proclaiming his innocence.
"They're not trying to offend me, but I look at them and say, 'Do you really think I would fight and use my skills in the courtroom to keep someone in prison who I believe to be innocent?' " Stokes said.
"Consider the accusations that have been made, that we are basically conspiring to conceal evidence to keep a man we know is innocent in prison," he said. "That is personally very offensive to me, and I'm sure it's offensive to everyone else who bears the brunt of it."
WAITING AND HOPING, ON BOTH SIDES
At the Maine State Prison, Dechaine awaits the upcoming hearing with "reserved hope." There are some questions about his case that Dechaine wants the public to consider.
He noted that police never found physical evidence, not a hair, fiber or drop of blood, connecting him and Sarah Cherry. Investigators never found the knife used to stab Sarah, or her missing panties.
When the police dog tracked from Dechaine's truck into the woods, the dog took investigators on a few indirect routes, but did not lead to Sarah's body. Also, the dog did not find a scent of Sarah in Dechaine's truck, and that information was not provided to his lawyers before the trial.
"Had I abducted Sarah Cherry while in a complete stupor, which is what would have been required here, evidence of her presence in my vehicle would have been undeniable," Dechaine said. "Had I abducted Sarah Cherry in a complete stupor and killed her in the way that she was killed, I would have been covered in blood."
Dechaine said he would not have pushed for DNA testing of all the evidence, ever since the beginning of the case, if he had anything to hide.
More than anything, though, Dechaine said his own personality demonstrates that he was not capable of committing the acts that were perpetrated on the 12-year-old victim.
"I dare anybody to find a single incidence of violence in my life -- ever," he said. "It's not in my being. It's not who I am."
Peg Cherry says that claim of innocence has a hollow ring, in light of all the evidence against Dechaine. It defies common sense, Cherry said, to believe that anyone other than Dechaine could have been the one who killed her granddaughter.
In Lisbon Falls, Peg and Bud Cherry go about their own routines, supported by their community. They try not to get worked up by the actions of Dechaine's supporters.
Occasionally the phone rings and it is Bill Stokes, keeping them posted on a process that Peg Cherry describes as tiring.
"With each of these appeals, we keep thinking that it's going to be the last one, and then it isn't," she said.
Whenever Dechaine's pending motion goes to court, Cherry intends to be there.
"They're not going to get rid of us," she said. "As long as I can physically get in there, I will -- to my dying breath. And she is worth it."
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
Did this man kill Sarah Cherry?
http://www.pressherald.com/news/pressherald_com_2010-07-04.html
July 4 , 2010
by Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com Staff Writer
Thirty-year-old Dennis Dechaine of Bowdoinham is escorted to his arraignment in the slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry on July 12, 1988, four days after his arrest. Dechaine has been in custody since. 1988 file photo/The Associated Press
The prisoner says he is tired of telling the story.
But there’s a court hearing on the horizon that could be his last chance at a new trial. There are some things that he wants the public to hear again.
So Dennis Dechaine answers the same questions the officers asked on that summer night in the woods of Bowdoin in 1988. Did you take the girl? Did you kill Sarah Cherry?
“I’m not the guy who did this,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
“Somebody, somewhere in their heart of hearts at the state level has to know this.
“It is a nightmare,” Dechaine said.
The Dechaine case occupies a unique position in Maine’s collective consciousness. No other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long – almost 22 years and counting.
Maine knows Dennis Dechaine, inmate No. 1725, as the farmer convicted for one of the most shocking crimes in state history – the kidnapping, torture and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Most Mainers also know that Dechaine, now 52, has maintained his innocence, and a large group of backers has provided the emotional and financial support behind his quest for a new trial.
In four appeals, state and federal judges have upheld the conviction and life sentence.
But he will get at least one more shot.
Sometime this fall, a judge is expected to decide whether Dechaine should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.
His lawyers must convince Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford – who presided at the 1989 trial – that the jury likely would have acquitted Dechaine if they had known about the thumbnail evidence. The lawyers also will ask Bradford to consider two forensic reports suggesting Dechaine could not have committed the crime. The hearing is tentatively set for September.
“We only get one shot at getting this right,” said attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport, who has worked on the case since 2003 and has been Dechaine’s lead defense lawyer since the fall of 2007.
“It’s his last, best chance,” Peterson said.
William Stokes, head of the Criminal Division at the state’s Attorney General’s Office, will argue that Dechaine does not deserve a new trial. The only mystery, as far as Stokes is concerned, is why the case has not been closed for good.
“When you have been given so many opportunities to make your case, and you haven’t done it, there’s that point where the family of the victim should get some finality,” Stokes said.
AN INCOMPARABLE CASE
The coming court battle was made possible by a state law enacted in 2001, and revised in 2006 at the urging of Dechaine's supporters. The law allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.
Only a handful of prisoners have filed motions based on the law, and Dechaine's motion would be the first to go before a judge if the hearing takes place as scheduled.
"In terms of public interest, there have been no other cases that compare to the Dechaine case. Never. Not even close," said prominent Augusta defense lawyer Walt McKee, who is not involved.
"Everybody has got their own take on the case," McKee said. "The first school of thought is that he had a trial with excellent lawyers on each side, the jury ruled, and how long do we have to go through this. On the other hand, there's the thought that the jury didn't hear some information that we now have, so let's put it in front of a new jury and let them decide."
The stakes are high. An advocacy group called Trial and Error, composed largely of Dechaine's family and friends, have raised and spent more than $200,000 on lobbying to change the state law regarding DNA appeals, DNA testing, private investigators, a website and the production and distribution of DVDs about the case.
The state, meanwhile, has spent thousands of dollars on Dechaine's court-appointed lawyers, court time and the prosecutors who have contested Dechaine's appeals. At least $10,000, including for the estimated cost of more than 200 hours of staff time, also has been spent by the state crime lab for DNA testing.
"We do not keep a running tab on any case, but this case has consumed literally thousands of hours of attorney time and law enforcement time as well as the lab and the court. So it's a lot of money, certainly tens of thousands," Stokes said.
The case has attracted the attention of some high-profile consultants.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the exoneration of convicts through DNA testing, has been involved in the case since the early 1990s. One of the organization's staff lawers, Alba Morales, is helping Peterson. Lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who created the Innocence Project in 1992, became famous for their work on the O.J. Simpson "dream team" that won an acquittal for the former football star in 1995.
Another member of the Simpson team, famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, also has entered the Dechaine fray.
Bailey, who has business ties in Maine and is moving to Yarmouth this month, heard about the case from another attorney. Bailey met with Dechaine at the prison in April 2009. At Bailey's request, two nationally recognized forensic pathologists reviewed some of the evidence and gave their opinions that Dechaine could not have committed the crime.
"This was a strong circumstantial case put on by the state, but it is possible that someone could have set him up," Bailey said. "The inflammatory nature of the crime makes it rife for opportunity to go astray because the public wants someone to pay."
Dechaine said that the prosecution's desire to make an arrest and assure the public that the killer was behind bars denied him a full and fair investigation. "I have forced it so far to the back of my mind that I don't like to think about it anymore," he said while sitting in one of the visitation rooms at the state prison in Warren. "I don't like to think about all of the events that led to my wrongful conviction ... It took a lot of, well, pounding square pegs into round holes to do what was done to me."
HEALTH SCARE, CRIMINAL PROBE
Lawyers on both sides will be watching Dechaine's health as the hearing date approaches, because of an incident that took place at the prison in early April.
On the morning of April 5, two weeks after he was interviewed for this story, Dechaine was found unconscious in his cell, with an extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital, where doctors inserted a tube to help him breathe. Dechaine was speaking and walking again within a few days. He was returned to the prison on April 21.
Don Dechaine, a brother who lives in Madawaska, said Dennis Dechaine apparently ingested an unknown medication that nearly killed him. The family does not know what the medication was, how it got into Dechaine's system or how it was administered.
"There are a lot of questions we don't have the answers to," Don Dechaine said. He said he spoke to his brother on the telephone last week, and he sounded good. Dennis does not appear to have any lasting problems, such as brain damage.
The Maine Department of Corrections investigated the circumstances surrounding the emergency, and passed on the results of their probe to Knox County District Attorney Geoff Rushlau.
Rushlau and Denise Lord, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, declined to comment on details of the investigation.
"The matter is being reviewed for possible criminal charges," Rushlau said last week.
Peterson, Dechaine's lawyer, said any criminal charge arising from the April 5 incident would be dealt with separately from the DNA appeal.
"It will not affect that hearing at all," Peterson said.
VICTIM'S FAMILY SEEKS CLOSURE
Sarah Cherry's family members hope Dechaine's motion for a new trial will be denied and they will be afforded the closure they have been seeking since Sarah was kidnapped while babysitting on July 6, 1988.
Searchers found her body in nearby woods two days later. Sarah had been bound, gagged and sexually assaulted with sticks. She had been stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf.
"It's not right that he should be allowed to go on with this forever, to keep coming back to the courts time and time again," said Peg Cherry, Sarah's maternal grandmother.
Peg and her husband, Bud Cherry, live in Lisbon Falls, a short drive from the small town of Bowdoin, where Sarah lived with her mother and stepfather, Debbie and Chris Crosman.
Peg Cherry displays elementary school photographs of Sarah on cabinets. From her tidy living room, the 77-year-old grandmother can see where Sarah and her cousins used to play games of soccer, softball or tag.
Sarah would have been 34 years old on May 5.
Chris and Debbie Crosman declined to comment for this story because they say they still have difficulty discussing it more than two decades after their daughter's murder.
Many family members, including Peg Cherry, attended the trial in March 1989 at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland. Cherry has been in regular contact with prosecutors before and since. And no matter what Dechaine or his supporters say, she is certain he committed the crime.
"The evidence is overwhelming. There is no other answer," she said.
"He thought he was going to hoodwink everybody. Here is this pretty boy, really clean-cut, and he wants you to believe there's no way he could do it.
"Well, looks can be deceiving."
THE STATE'S POSITION
"No question, this was a circumstantial case, but sometimes that can be even more powerful than direct evidence," said William Stokes, the state prosecutor who inherited the Dechaine case from his predecessors in 1995.
Stokes said the state had more evidence against Dechaine than it does in many murder cases:
• A notebook and receipt from Dechaine's truck were found in the driveway of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting.
• Dechaine was seen walking out of the woods in the general area where Sarah's body was later found.
• His truck was found 450 feet from the site.
• The scarf used to strangle Sarah and the rope binding her wrists had come from Dechaine's truck.
• Two detectives and two corrections officers testified that Dechaine made incriminating statements on the day of his arrest, including, "It must be somebody else inside of me."
Dechaine's testimony at the trial also was a key piece of evidence, Stokes said. Dechaine said he went into the woods on the afternoon of July 6 to inject drugs, and got lost at some point. In an interview with the state's chief psychologist after the arrest in 1988, Dechaine said his history of drug use began with marijuana around the age of 13, and he had occasionally used various drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines, since that time.
During cross-examination at his trial, Dechaine conceded that his memory of the afternoon of July 6 was not as sharp as it might have been if he had not been using the drugs. But he insisted that he was not in an altered state of consciousness, and that he never saw Sarah Cherry that day. Dechaine believes another man took the items from his truck and used them to frame him.
Stokes takes offense at the accusations made by some of Dechaine's supporters, who claim that he and others within the Attorney General's Office have worked to protect the police and to hide and distort evidence pointing away from Dechaine.
"They have their point of view," Stokes said. "They are entitled to their point of view. What I do have a problem with is the personal attacks."
Stokes, an Augusta city councilor who also has served on the school board, said people sometimes ask him whether Trial and Error, the advocacy group that backs Dechaine, might be right in proclaiming his innocence.
"They're not trying to offend me, but I look at them and say, 'Do you really think I would fight and use my skills in the courtroom to keep someone in prison who I believe to be innocent?' " Stokes said.
"Consider the accusations that have been made, that we are basically conspiring to conceal evidence to keep a man we know is innocent in prison," he said. "That is personally very offensive to me, and I'm sure it's offensive to everyone else who bears the brunt of it."
WAITING AND HOPING, ON BOTH SIDES
At the Maine State Prison, Dechaine awaits the upcoming hearing with "reserved hope." There are some questions about his case that Dechaine wants the public to consider.
He noted that police never found physical evidence, not a hair, fiber or drop of blood, connecting him and Sarah Cherry. Investigators never found the knife used to stab Sarah, or her missing panties.
When the police dog tracked from Dechaine's truck into the woods, the dog took investigators on a few indirect routes, but did not lead to Sarah's body. Also, the dog did not find a scent of Sarah in Dechaine's truck, and that information was not provided to his lawyers before the trial.
"Had I abducted Sarah Cherry while in a complete stupor, which is what would have been required here, evidence of her presence in my vehicle would have been undeniable," Dechaine said. "Had I abducted Sarah Cherry in a complete stupor and killed her in the way that she was killed, I would have been covered in blood."
Dechaine said he would not have pushed for DNA testing of all the evidence, ever since the beginning of the case, if he had anything to hide.
More than anything, though, Dechaine said his own personality demonstrates that he was not capable of committing the acts that were perpetrated on the 12-year-old victim.
"I dare anybody to find a single incidence of violence in my life -- ever," he said. "It's not in my being. It's not who I am."
Peg Cherry says that claim of innocence has a hollow ring, in light of all the evidence against Dechaine. It defies common sense, Cherry said, to believe that anyone other than Dechaine could have been the one who killed her granddaughter.
In Lisbon Falls, Peg and Bud Cherry go about their own routines, supported by their community. They try not to get worked up by the actions of Dechaine's supporters.
Occasionally the phone rings and it is Bill Stokes, keeping them posted on a process that Peg Cherry describes as tiring.
"With each of these appeals, we keep thinking that it's going to be the last one, and then it isn't," she said.
Whenever Dechaine's pending motion goes to court, Cherry intends to be there. "They're not going to get rid of us," she said. "As long as I can physically get in there, I will -- to my dying breath. And she is worth it."
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
Accompanied by his attorney Steve Peterson, Dennis Dechaine listens to a reporter’s questions during an interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren on March 22. With a new appeal more than two decades after his conviction in the death of Sarah Cherry, no other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long.
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Dennis Dechaine is seen at Maine State Prison in Thomaston in June 1992, about a month after filing a motion for a new trial. It was denied in July.
1992 file photo/The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
JULY 3 2010
Through 22 years and a conviction, Dechaine maintains the same story: innocence
The case -- already litigated for almost 22 years -- is expected to be revisited this September, when Dechaine makes one more bid for a new trial, based on DNA evidence.
MaineToday Media reporter Trevor Maxwell conducted dozens of interviews and reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and police records dating back to 1988. Maxwell, 33, is the newspaper's courts and legal affairs reporter. He has been a staff writer for the Portland Press Herald since 2005.
Learn more about the Dennis Dechaine case:
• Time of death opinions by Dr. Cyril Wecht (pdf) and Dr. Walter Hofman(pdf)
• Excerpts from Reporter Trevor Maxwell's interview with Dennis Dechaine (pdf)
• March 2005 letter from Dennis Dechaine to Maine legislators (pdf)
June 26th
To view the interview please follow the link below.
Maybe FBI, federal courts should take Dechaine case
Kennebec Journal Staff
May 1 2010
As the years in prison mount for Dennis Dechaine, the case refuses to go away.
When justice is achieved, the world overcomes tragedy and sorrow and settles in a restful closure. But when injustice is perpetuated on an innocent person, the whole universe is out of whack and cannot rest until justice is restored and the perpetrators exposed and punished.
Almost 22 years after he was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of Sarah Cherry, Dechaine has become synonymous with miscarriage of justice and wrongful incarceration. More and more people wonder why this state will not own up to its mistakes, release an innocent man and pursue the real killer and conveyors of injustice with all its authority and vigor.
An act of the Legislature several years go opened up the state's secret files to scrutiny and exposed contradictions between investigators' sworn testimony in court and their notes written at the time.
Why did the Attorney General's Office not pursue that as wrongful testimony that helped convict Dechaine? That office is mired in its own attempts to cover up illegalities and destroy evidence that would have cleared Dechaine.
Pertinent materials from the crime scene were incinerated, including the rape kit that exonerated Dechaine, just before an appeal was heard in court.
If Maine is incapable of rendering justice in this case, maybe it's time for the FBI and federal courts to step in.
Ross Paradis
Frenchville
***This letter was also published in the St.John Valley Times April 28 2010
Dechaine case alive since some believe he's innocent
April 28 2010
Kennebec Journal Staff
Once again (April 21), the Dennis Dechaine case raises its ugly little head in the Maine news.
Since it never goes away, one would think that it was the most heinous crime in Maine history or even in the past 21 years. But surprisingly, it is not.
It certainly is/was a horrific crime and tragedy. I remember as if it were yesterday, seeing Sarah Cherry's picture on TV, then the inevitable announcement of the crime, the pictures of her driveway, the notebook, the truck, Dechaine and the accompanying news coverage and trial.
As with any crime, there is always the debate amongst friends, family, etc. about the guilt or innocence of the accused. And when the accused is found guilty and is incarcerated, those who thought he was guilty have achieved all the compensation that they can possibly get, and the case "goes away."
So why does Dechaine remain in the news so often over the years? I think that many people are uncomfortable with this case -- uncomfortable because they believe that he is innocent and has been wrongfully imprisoned for a very long time.
In 1988, people were quick to convict, out of horror and rage -- now, they may not be so sure. I believe that the murderers of Sarah Cherry are still alive and in the area -- and comfortable that Dechaine is serving their punishment.
Rhonda Hamilton
Washington
Dechaine returns to prison after hospital stay
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/dechaine-back-in-prison-after-2-week-hospital-visit_2010-04-22.html Posted: 12:00 AM
April 22 2010
PORTLAND -- Dennis Dechaine is back in the Maine State Prison after staying at a Portland hospital for more than two weeks with an undisclosed medical condition.
Correcti
ons Commissioner Martin Magnusson said Thursday that Dechaine was transported to the prison in Warren sometime in the past few days.
He would not say whether Dechaine has been returned to his regular housing unit, or if he is staying in the prison infirmary or another special unit.
Dechaine, 52, is one of the state's best-known prisoners. He is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin in 1988. He maintains that he is innocent.
A judge is expected to hear arguments later this year in his most recent bid for a new trial, based on DNA evidence. Dechaine's four previous appeals have been rejected.
Dechaine's family members have said that he was found unconscious in his cell on the morning of April 5, with very low pulse and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Don Dechaine, one of Dennis' three brothers, said he doesn't know what caused the emergency.
Magnusson said the Department of Corrections still is investigating the incident. He said it would not be appropriate for him to discuss the nature of the investigation, or any preliminary results, before it is finished.
Magnusson also said the law prohibits him from discussing Dechaine's health.
Don Dechaine said his brother suffered a similar, but less serious, incident about 10 years ago. He was hospitalized briefly at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. Don Dechaine said the cause of that incident was undetermined.
He said he doesn't think that Dennis Dechaine has been on any medications, except possibly one to lower his cholesterol.
April 23
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Dennis Dechaine is back in the Maine State Prison, after staying at a Portland hospital for more than two weeks with an undisclosed medical condition.
Select images available for purchase in the
Maine Today Photo Store
Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson said Thursday that Dechaine was transported to the prison in Warren sometime in the past few days.
He would not say whether Dechaine has been returned to his regular housing unit, or if he is staying in the prison infirmary or another special unit.
Dechaine, 52, is one of the state's best-known prisoners. He is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin in 1988. He maintains that he is innocent.
A judge is expected to hear arguments later this year in his most recent bid for a new trial, based on DNA evidence. Dechaine's four previous appeals have been rejected.
Dechaine's family members have said that he was found unconscious in his cell on the morning of April 5, with very low pulse and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Don Dechaine, one of Dennis' three brothers, said he doesn't know what caused the emergency.
Magnusson said the Department of Corrections is still investigating the incident. He said it would not be appropriate for him to discuss the nature of the investigation, or any preliminary results, before it is finished.
Magnusson also said he is prohibited by law from discussing Dechaine's health.
Don Dechaine said his brother suffered a similar, but less serious, incident about 10 years ago. He was hospitalized briefly at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. Don Dechaine said the cause of that incident was undetermined.
He said he doesn't think that Dennis Dechaine has been on any medications, except possibly one to lower his cholesterol.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
What if Sarah Cherry's real killer still at large?
April 21 2010
Kennebec Journal Staff
It sure is a wicked good thing we live in Maine, a state where the judicial system never makes mistakes.
Imagine how you'd feel if we lived in Connecticut, where James Calvin Tillman was wrongly convicted of rape in 1988 and had to wait, imprisoned, for 18 years for advanced DNA identification techniques to exonerate him.
What's worse for Connecticut, it took another two years for the same DNA technique to identify the real perpetrator, Duane Foster, who fortunately was already securely in jail for other crimes. Imagine if he had been at large, a continuing threat to assault other women.
At least Connecticut's prosecuting attorney, Edward R. Narus, had the courage and character to admit the state's grievous error: "We genuinely believed at that time that justice had, in fact, been served," he said when the real perpetrator, Foster, was sentenced recently (Kennebec Journal, 4/17/10).
But here in Maine, thankfully, we never make that kind of mistake.
Some say we did in the Dennis Dechaine case, which curiously also involves a horrible sex crime committed in 1988, and a man (still in prison after 21 years, actually) whom DNA tests strongly indicate -- still more curiously -- is innocent. But, as Assistant Attorney General William Stokes continues to assure us, "In Maine, we are different!" (Stokes' quote from a meeting about Dechaine with former state Rep. Ross Paradis of Frenchville).
And if Maine's judicial system is simply incapable of producing wrongful convictions, then there's not a chance the real perpetrator of the Sarah Cherry murder remains at large, where he might strike again. And again.
I'll bet you're really relieved we Mainers don't have Connecticut's problem. And aren't you mighty proud to live in a state that doesn't make mistakes?
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
bhuebner@roadrunner.com
In Loving Memory
Lilla Maclaren (Nicholas) Carter (Augusta Trial and Error Chapter Chairwoman)
We will miss you dearly!
CHELSEA -- Lilla MacLaren (Nicholas) Carter died unexpectedly April 14, 2010, at MaineGeneral Medical Center, Augusta.
She was born in East Millinocket on Dec. 1, 1924, the daughter of Carl and Josephine (Haskins) McLaren.
Lilla married Dennis Nicholas in 1945, with whom she had four children: Barbara, Bettijane, Jerry and Michael.
She and her family lived in the Gardiner area for many years and she worked as a housekeeper for various local families. Even though she was "retired," she couldn't bring herself to stop providing this service for a couple of very special clients -- who were actually as dear to her as family.
In 1969, she married Maurice Carter, with whom she operated L&M Lobster Pound in Chelsea for many years. He died in 1989.
"Ma" or "Gram" was a dedicated member of the Augusta Gardiner Lions Club, receiving Lion of the Year and Melvin Jones awards. She was the club's eyeglass chairwoman, assisting countless people in need to obtain eyeglasses. She was also a member of Trial & Error, and one of the happiest days of her life was when she met Dennis Dechaine, in whose innocence she profoundly believed.
Ma/Gram will be remembered for her strength, sense of humor and dedication to and love for her family -- as well as her willingness to help others in need.
She was predeceased by her parents; her husbands, Dennis and Maurice; daughters Barbara Nicholas and Bettijane Soule Goulet; son Jerry Nicholas; sister Jane Walls; and brothers Vernon and Frank MacLaren.
She is survived by her sister, Anne Jewett and family, of Lewiston; son Michael Nicholas and his wife, Paula, of Chelsea; grandchildren Katrina Evans and her husband, Rob, of China, Julie Anderson and her husband, Chris, of Australia, Michael Nicholas Jr. and his wife, Vaunalee, of Chelsea, Paul Soule and his partner, Brian Tompkins, of Augusta, David Soule and his wife, Kim, of Chelsea, and Laurie Soule, of Virginia; and daughter-in-law Margie Nicholas and family, of Randolph. She leaves nine great-grandchildren, Chelsea and Emily Soule, Nathan and Jacob Evans, Harper and Will Anderson, Michael (III) and Austin Nicholas, and Devonte Bivins; as well as many dear, close friends.
Ma/Gram will be missed more than words can say, but she would want everyone to remember this:
"Don't stand at my grave and weep, I am not there. I do not sleep ... When you awake in the mornings hush, I am the swift unflinging rush of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft star-shine at night, Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die."
Friends may visit from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, April 22, at Plummer Funeral Home, 16 Pleasant St., Augusta, where a memorial service will be held at 6 p.m. Burial will be at a later date in the family lot in Belfast.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to HealthReach Hopsice & Volunteers of Kennebec Valley in Gardiner, c/o MaineGeneral Health Office of Philanthropy, P.O. Box 828, Waterville, ME 04903. Condolences to the family may be sent via the funeral home Web site at www.plummerfh.com.
Brother says Dechaine was found near death
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND — A brother of Dennis Dechaine said Thursday that the well-known prisoner continues to recover at Maine Medical Center, after being found near death Monday morning in his cell at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
Don Dechaine of Madawaska said he intends to visit his brother at Maine Med today. He will be the first family member to see Dennis Dechaine since the emergency.
Don Dechaine said he doesn't know what caused his brother's heart rate and blood pressure to plummet.
"We have no idea what happened," he said Thursday. "He has been pretty healthy. The good news is that he is getting better. He knows where he is, he knows who he is."
Dennis Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin in 1988. He maintains that he is innocent. A judge is expected to hear arguments later this year in his most recent bid for a new trial, based on DNA evidence.
Don Dechaine said he has not spoken with his brother since he was taken to the hospital. Family members are getting updates from employees with the Department of Corrections.
Denise Lord, a spokeswoman for the department, said this week that the circumstances of Dechaine's illness are being investigated. She declined to speak about his condition or his health history at the prison, citing confidentiality laws.
Lord could not be reached for comment Thursday. A spokesman for Maine Med could not confirm that Dechaine is being treated at the hospital.
Dechaine was taken to Maine Med by helicopter Monday morning, his brother said. Doctors initially inserted a breathing tube, but Dechaine's condition stabilized and the tube has been removed.
Don Dechaine said his brother suffered a similar, but less serious, incident about 10 years ago. He was hospitalized briefly at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. Don Dechaine said the cause was undetermined.
He said he doesn't think that Dennis Dechaine is on any medications, except for possibly one to lower his cholesterol.
"He is not a medication taker; that is what I don't understand," Don Dechaine said. He said he doesn't know how long his brother will remain in the hospital.
Steve Peterson, the lawyer in Rockport who represents Dechaine in his pending bid for a new trial, said he is unaware of what caused the emergency.
He said Dechaine has gained weight recently but has not had any major health problems.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
Follow link below for latest on News 13
http://www.myfoxmaine.com/news/90075037.html
April 7 2010
Bangor Daily News ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine stands by a window in a conference room at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine, April 6, 2005. Dechaine was hospitalized for an undisclosed illness. |
WARREN, Maine — The Maine State Prison inmate who's seeking a new trial for the 1988 kidnapping and killing of a 12-year-old girl has been hospitalized for an undisclosed illness.
Corrections officials say 52-year-old Dennis Dechaine was removed from the prison on Monday. She declined to discuss his medical condition.
Bill Moore, a private investigator who's part of Dechaine's legal team, tells the Portland Press Herald that Dechaine had problems with heart rate and blood pressure.
Dechaine, a former Bowdoinham farmer, is serving a life sentence for the murder and rape of Sarah Cherry. Dechaine maintains his innocence and is pressing for a new trial based on DNA evidence.
Prisoner Dechaine falls ill, sent to hospital
Portland Press Herald
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Dennis Dechaine, the one-time farmer from Bowdoinham who is serving a life sentence for the murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1988, has been hospitalized for treatment of an undisclosed medical condition.
click image to enlargeDennis Dechaine
File photo 
Dechaine, 52, was taken from the Maine State Prison in Warren to a hospital Monday morning, and he remained there Tuesday night, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Denise Lord.
Lord said she could not discuss Dechaine's medical condition or location because of confidentiality laws.
"He is hospitalized at this point," Lord said Tuesday night. "If and when he is returned to the prison, that would be public information."
Bill Moore, a private investigator who is part of Dechaine's legal team, said Dechaine went to the hospital because of problems with his heart rate and blood pressure. Moore did not have further details, except that he expects Dechaine to be returned to the prison soon.
Lord said the Department of Corrections is investigating the circumstances that led to the hospitalization. She declined to elaborate on the purpose of that investigation.
The prison has an area where inmates get routine medical care and mental health services, Lord said. Inmates are taken outside the prison in emergencies, or when they have to be seen by specialists.
Steve Peterson, the Rockport lawyer who represents Dechaine in his pending bid for a new trial, said Tuesday night he was not aware that Dechaine had been taken to the hospital.
He said Dechaine has gained weight recently but has not had any major health problems. Peterson does not think Dechaine has had any other medical emergencies during his incarceration.
On July 6, 1988, Sarah Cherry was kidnapped from the home in Bowdoin where she was baby-sitting. Her body was found in the woods two days later; she had been sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled.
Dechaine was tried and convicted in March 1989. He maintains he is innocent, and that someone set him up by taking several items from his pickup truck. His appeals to the state and federal courts have been rejected.
This fall, a judge is expected to hear arguments in Dechaine's pending motion for a new trial based on DNA evidence.
The crux of the motion is a bit of DNA from an unknown male -- not Dechaine -- that was extracted from one of Cherry's thumbnails four years after Dechaine was convicted.
His lawyers say the DNA came from the real killer; state prosecutors say it was likely deposited on the nail from dirty clippers during Cherry's autopsy.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at: tmaxwell@pressherald.com
Massive loophole' exists in Freedom of Access Act
Kennebec Journal
April 4 2010
A glaring omission in Judith Meyer's rosy account of the status of Maine's Freedom of Access Act (March 30) was the Maine Supreme Court's divided 2008 ruling regarding then-Attorney General Steve Rowe's Dechaine commission.
The commission was created and charged in its task by the attorney general, it used state facilities and employees and its findings were announced by the attorney general. In spite of those facts, however, the court ruled that the commission's records were closed to public scrutiny. Meyer's own newspaper (Lewiston's Sun Journal) was highly critical of this decision.
The Attorney General's Office serves as the ombudsman for the FOAA, but a deputy attorney general assisted the commission's lawyers in their successful effort to shred the act.
Any bureaucrat can now beat the system simply by picking a few non-bureaucrats to "investigate" an embarrassing situation.
The "investigators" then can produce a whitewashed finding without providing a scintilla of supporting evidence, even if -- as in the Dennis Dechaine case -- there is undisputed evidence to the contrary from the state's own files and/or court records.
Yet neither the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition or the Legislature has made any effort to correct this massive loophole.
Whatever his intentions, Rowe's prediction that no wrongdoing would be uncovered had the appearance of a self-fulfilling prophecy when, over the nearly two years that the commission labored at its task, no attempt was made to contact Dechaine's lawyers or supporters. Meanwhile, Rowe served out his remaining term without having to make any controversial decisions regarding the Dechaine case.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Evidence favoring Dechaine piles up
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD
March 15 2010
Dennis Dechaine is shown in a 2005 file photo while serving a sentence at the Maine State Prison, where he remains today.
Dennis Dechaine is shown in a 2005 file photo while serving a sentence at the Maine State Prison, where he remains today.
The Associated Press
Thanks to the Portland Press Herald for publishing an article on its front page about new opinions relating to the Dennis Dechaine case ("Analyses by two experts offer hope to Dechaine." Feb. 25).
It is interesting that the prosecutor in the case was not and is not interested in two key pieces of evidence.
One is murder victim Sarah Cherry's time of death. Prosecutor William Stokes states, "Dr. (Ronald) Roy never gave, and the state never relied upon, a precise time of death." If the prosecutor's job was to seek justice, why didn't the medical examiner give, and why didn't the state rely upon, the estimated time of death?
Was this because the evidence did not support the state's case against Mr. Dechaine since, at the estimated time of death, based on the autopsy, Mr. Dechaine was already in police custody?
The second piece of evidence is DNA. Again, the prosecution viewed this as inconsequential. Inconsequential? Dozens of innocent people are being exonerated as a result of DNA evidence, many saved from death row. I dare say they do not consider DNA evidence inconsequential.
As for the DNA being transferred during the autopsy, it has been determined that the DNA belongs to an unknown male and not to Mr. Dechaine or any male present at the autopsy.
One can only wonder why the prosecution continues to downplay evidence that exonerates Mr. Dechaine.
Genie Nakell
Portland
Perhaps the conclusion by two renowned forensic pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman, that Sarah Cherry probably died 16 to 20 hours after Dennis Dechaine was in police custody, will mark the beginning of the ending of this tragic and shameful episode of Maine history.
Deputy Attorney General William Stokes' response, inferring that death occurred long after the killer left the scene, is also notable in that Stokes did not mention that Sarah's neck was constricted to 3 inches or less, surely resulting in a quick death.
Stokes has stated that the DNA of an unknown male found under the girl's thumbnail bears no logical connection to the killer, while prosecutor Eric Wright has claimed that the DNA is of no significance because Dechaine had no scratches on him!
At trial, the state successfully opposed DNA testing, and after Dechaine filed an appeal, Deputy Attorney General Fern LaRochelle ordered the incineration of possible DNA evidence.
Over the past 21 years, not one new fact has surfaced supporting the state's case against Dechaine, while a mountain of exculpatory evidence – including proof that the damning testimony of two detectives was contradicted by their own notes – has been uncovered.
For the past 21 years, Dennis Dechaine has sought a new trial, one in which a jury would hear all of the evidence. In effect, the state would also be on trial, and perhaps that is why Stokes, in increasingly desperate opposition, makes statements that would be laughable were the circumstances not so tragic.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Science has changed
Mar 07, 2010
This is in response to Deputy Attorney General William Stokes' comment about
Dennis Dechaine, printed Feb. 25.
First, let me say that those “renowned forensic scientists” are putting
their reputations on the line by what they have determined to be the
evidence of Sarah Cherry’s tragic death timeline — something to be noted.
This would be a retrial to submit more evidence to prove Dennis Dechaine’s
innocence, not just the victim's time of death.
There is much more than just her time of death. This is so tragic because
while the police had Dechaine in custody, they could have still looked for
Sarah Cherry. I may add, it was found to be several hours after Dechaine's
arrest. DNA could hold a big clue that he didn’t do it.
Forensics has come a long way since 1986. Stokes is supposing that science
hasn’t changed much since then. I would be very surprised if Stokes wouldn’t
use DNA evidence to convict someone solely on that evidence alone.
Bev Gallant
Dixfield
Noted Pathologists Refute Time Of Death In Dechaine Case
March 3 2010
Lincoln County News
By Lucy L. Martin
Two nationally acclaimed forensic pathologists challenge conclusions
that helped convict Dennis Dechaine of the 1988 murder of a 12-year-old
Bowdoin girl.
Dechaine's attorney, Steve Peterson, of Rockport, said this week Dr.
Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman reviewed the case. They concluded
that when the Bowdoinham farmer came out of the woods July 6, 1988 and
was taken into police custody about 9 p.m., Sarah Cherry, who had
earlier disappeared from the house where she was babysitting, was still
alive.
In April 2009, criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey joined the defense
team for Dechaine, who is serving a life sentence in state prison for
Cherry's murder. Speaking before Bangor businessmen last week about job
training for released prisoners, Bailey mentioned his consulting role
in the Dechaine case and recent reports by "two experts," describing
the pathologists as "one a household name, the other at the top of his
professional ladder."
Taped by WCSH-TV, Bailey said, "I have looked at the written reports
and they are totally inconsistent with guilt."
Medical examiner Dr. Ronald Roy argued at the 1989 trial that the
victim died a minimum of 30-36 hours - "and it could well be longer,"
he testified - before the body was discovered and before an autopsy was
performed (two days after Cherry's disappearance).
In reviewing Roy's findings, Hofman disagreed with the examiner's
opinion, placing the death at about 16 hours after Dechaine was taken
into custody, while Wecht said the earliest possible time was about
seven hours afterward.
Wecht is clinical professor at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of
Medicine & Dental Medicine and an editorial board member of more than
20 forensic scientific publications. His expertise and opinion have
figured in many high profile cases, including the assassinations of
Pres. John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the
JonBenet Ramsey and OJ Simpson cases.
Hofman spent nearly 25 years in the Depts. of Legal Medicine and
Forensic Sciences at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, is former
chair of laboratory medicine at Roxborough Hospital, Philadelphia, and
a designated forensic pathologist for the State of New Jersey.
Peterson is preparing for a court hearing in September. A change in
state law several years ago regarding DNA evidence allows the court to
"consider old evidence as well as new," the attorney said.
Peterson said he thinks the pathologists' reports tie in because of the
testimony given at the time of the 1989 trial alleging "30 hours and
possibly more" had passed between Cherry's death and the time she was
discovered on Friday noon, July 8. He will ask Justice Carl Bradford,
who presided in 1989, to consider Wecht's and Hofman's opinions as the
defense seeks a new trial for Dechaine.
Peterson also said he wants some of the original evidence to be
subjected to a new type of "touch" DNA testing. Earlier DNA analysis
used "a different methodology," he said, that tested "random spots" on
an item. Touch testing involves scraping an entire item, such as a
shirt or scarf, with a razor blade and doing DNA testing on everything
collected.
Six years after Dechaine was convicted, further tests revealed male DNA
from an unknown source under Cherry's thumbnail. State law was changed
in 2006 allowing the court to convene a new trial if it seemed possible
that DNA evidence would result in a different verdict.
Dechaine requested DNA testing at the time of his trial but the judge
ruled against it.
Peterson said his team will be discussing whether it is "prudent or
practical" to do a more sophisticated type of DNA testing, called
miniSTR, which allows highly degraded samples to be analyzed. The
technology was developed in the aftermath of the World Trade Center
9-11 attacks to identify victims' remains.
'Mountain' of evidence bolsters Dechaine's claims
Morning Sentinel Staff
Sunday, March 7, 2010
That two renowned forensic pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman, have concluded that Sarah Cherry probably died 16 to 20 hours after Dennis Dechaine was in police custody should have been a front-page story, not hidden on B6.
Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes' response, inferring that death occurred long after her killer left the scene, was also newsworthy, especially as Stokes did not mention that Sarah's neck was constricted to a diameter of 3 inches or less, surely resulting in a quick death.
Stokes has stated that the DNA of an unknown male found under Sarah's thumbnail bears no logical connection to the killer, while prosecutor Eric Wright has claimed that the DNA is of no significance because Dechaine had no scratches on him.
At trial, the state successfully opposed DNA testing, and, after Dechaine filed an appeal, Deputy Attorney General Fern LaRochelle ordered the incineration of possible DNA evidence.
Over the past 21 years, not one new fact has surfaced supporting the state's case against Dechaine, while a mountain of exculpatory evidence -- including proof that the damning testimony of two detectives was contradicted by their own notes -- has been uncovered.
For the past 21 years, Dechaine has sought a new trial, one in which a jury would hear all of the evidence.
In effect, the state also would be on trial, and perhaps that is why Stokes, in increasingly desperate opposition, makes statements that would be laughable were the circumstances not so tragic.
William Bunting
Whitefield
STILL ANGRY WITH ROWE AND STOKES ABOUT DECHAINE DNA
St.John Valley Times
March 3 2010
Every day that Dennis Dechaine spends in jail, the worse Maine looks, resurrecting the image that the state is behind the times in stubbornly maintaining that it cannot make any mistakes, a position that is ironically held by the very agency that is supposed to keep up with the times-our won Attorney General's Office.
When I was in the House of Representatives, I met with then Attorney General Steve Rowe and Assistant AG Bill Stokes over the inconsistencies of the Attorney General's Office in the Dechaine case.
When I mentioned that in light of the frequent exonerations around the country Maine could also have a few inmates who are innocent, Stokes immediately retorted, "In Maine, we are different!" I couldn't believe what I heard. Even Rowe winced, not that he ever did anything constructive to allay the growing public conviction that Dechaine did not receive a fair trial and that he might indeed be innocent given the results of DNA tests.
Stokes, the state's chief prosecutor, has been particularly ambivalent in regards to DNA. While he dismisses the results of two DNA tests related to the 1986 murder of Sarah Cherry, he has used DNA to help convict felons.
What Stokes doesn't get - but most states do-is that DNA cuts both ways; bit I can also prove the innocence of a defendant or convict - WITHOUT A DOUBT.
Ross Paradis
Frenchville
Dechaine lawyers doubt time of victim's death
KENNEBEC JOURNAL
25 February 2010
BY TREVOR MAXWELL, Portland Press Herald
Lawyers for Dennis Dechaine said Wednesday that two renowned forensic pathologists have provided opinions that could help Dechaine get a new trial in the murder of a 12-year-old girl more than two decades ago.
Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman reviewed the case at the request of Steve Peterson, a Rockport lawyer, and F. Lee Bailey, the famed defense attorney who is a consultant to Dechaine.
In their opinions, Wecht and Hofman agreed Sarah Cherry likely died several hours after Dechaine emerged from the woods in Bowdoinham and was taken into police custody.
Dechaine, 52, is serving a life sentence for Cherry's kidnapping and murder in 1988.
The time of Cherry's death has been a point of contention ever since the trial. Wecht and Hofman reviewed the autopsy report, photographs, weather reports and the testimony of the late Dr. Ronald Roy, the state's chief medical examiner at the time of the murder.
"These are extremely reputable people who have given these opinions. They are putting their reputations on the line," Peterson said. "Both opinions basically would exclude Dennis from being the perpetrator."
The state prosecutor in the case has not been provided with the opinions. Nonetheless, William Stokes said Wednesday that any new attempts to pinpoint the time of Cherry's death should be treated with skepticism.
"It is absolute conjecture," said Stokes, head of the Criminal Division in the state Attorney General's Office.
"My point has always been, how do you know when she actually dies? Whoever said she died instantly? Dr. Roy never gave, and the state never relied upon, a precise time of death," he said.
Stokes said that even if Cherry's time of death was later than the estimate provided by Roy, that fact alone would not exclude Dechaine as the killer. The jury based its finding on several pieces of evidence, Stokes said.
Cherry disappeared while babysitting on the afternoon of July 6, 1988.
While police were looking for her, Dechaine wandered out of the woods three miles from the site of her disappearance, claiming that he had gotten lost while looking for a fishing hole. He admitted to police that he had been injecting drugs.
A day later, searchers found Cherry's body in the woods about 400 feet from Dechaine's truck. She had been raped with sticks, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly around her throat with a small blade. Her hands were bound with yellow plastic rope.
The rope was made of the same material as a yellow plastic rope found in Dechaine's truck. A piece of yellow rope matching the rope in the truck and on Cherry's hands was found in the woods near Cherry's body. Evidence technicians found that it had been cut from a piece of rope in Dechaine's barn.
A repair bill and a notebook belonging to Dechaine were found in the driveway at the site of the abduction.
Dechaine's supporters say he was set up. They note that there was no physical evidence linking Dechaine with Cherry. Someone easily could have taken items from the back of his truck, they say, and investigators failed to consider other suspects.
Dechaine was taken into custody at 8 p.m on July 6.
Roy, the medical examiner, testified at the trial that Cherry likely died 30 to 36 hours before he did the autopsy, at 2 p.m. on July 8. That would have put the time of death between 2 and 8 a.m. on July 7 - well after Dechaine was in custody.
But Roy called the 30 to 36 hours a minimum, adding, "It could well be longer."
Hofman, who reviewed the case for the defense, practices pathology at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia and serves as coroner for Montgomery County, Pa.
In his opinion, the earliest time of Cherry's death would have been around noon on July 7, about 16 hours after Dechaine was taken into custody.
"I emphatically disagree with Roy's opinion that Cherry was dead 'probably 30 hours or more'" before the autopsy, Hofman wrote.
Wecht, the other pathologist, has gained a national reputation for his reviews of high-profile cases such as JonBenet Ramsey's killing. He is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's conclusions in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In Wecht's opinion, the earliest possible time of death would have been around 3:40 a.m. on July 7. For his calculations, Wecht used an autopsy time of 3:40 p.m. on July 8.
Peterson had not planned to discuss the opinions publicly until later this year. Those plans changed when Bailey mentioned the opinions while speaking with business leaders in Bangor on Wednesday morning.
Peterson did not provide copies of the opinions to the Portland Press Herald on Wednesday because he must submit them first to the Attorney General's Office. He declined to say how much the defense paid for the opinions.
Peterson filed a petition in August 2008 seeking a new trial for Dechaine based on a change in state law related to DNA evidence. The petition hinges mainly on a single thumbnail that was clipped during Cherry's autopsy.
Years after the trial, the thumbnail was tested and analysts discovered the DNA of an unknown male.
Supporters of Dechaine say the finding is proof that the one-time farmer is innocent. Prosecutors say the thumbnail is inconsequential when viewed in the context of all the evidence, and the unknown DNA most likely was transferred onto the nail during the autopsy.
Peterson seeks additional DNA testing over the next couple of months on remaining pieces of evidence.
Having lost a series of state and federal appeals, Dechaine could have his last chance for a new trial in the pending petition. Peterson and Bailey must convince Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford that the DNA evidence likely would have led to a different verdict if it had been admitted in the original trial.
A hearing is tentatively scheduled for September.
Peterson said he will ask Bradford to consider the opinions of Wecht and Hofman, as well as the DNA evidence. The lawyer contends that the new state law opens the door for the opinions.
"The judge will have to make a ruling on whether we can introduce this type of opinion evidence into the DNA hearing," Peterson said.
Stokes declined to give his opinion on the admissibility of the work by Wecht and Hofman.
http://www.pressherald.com/news/analyses-by-two-experts-offer-hope-to-dechaine-_2010-02-24.html
By Trevor Maxwell tmaxwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Lawyers for Dennis Dechaine said Wednesday that two renowned forensic pathologists have provided opinions that could help Dechaine get a new trial in the murder of a 12-year-old girl more than two decades ago.
Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofman reviewed the case at the request of Steve Peterson, a Rockport lawyer, and F. Lee Bailey, the famed defense attorney who is a consultant to Dechaine.
In their opinions, Wecht and Hofman agreed that Sarah Cherry likely died several hours after Dechaine emerged from the woods in Bowdoinham and was taken into police custody. Dechaine, 52, is serving a life sentence for Cherry's kidnapping and murder in 1988.
The time of Cherry's death has been a point of contention ever since the trial. Wecht and Hofman reviewed the autopsy report, photographs, weather reports and the testimony of the late Dr. Ronald Roy, the state's chief medical examiner at the time of the murder.
''These are extremely reputable people who have given these opinions. They are putting their reputations on the line,'' Peterson said. ''Both opinions basically would exclude Dennis from being the perpetrator.''
The state prosecutor in the case has not been provided with the opinions. Nonetheless, William Stokes said Wednesday that any new attempts to pinpoint the time of Cherry's death should be treated with skepticism.
''It is absolute conjecture,'' said Stokes, head of the Criminal Division in the state Attorney General's Office.
''My point has always been, how do you know when she actually dies? Whoever said she died instantly? Dr. Roy never gave, and the state never relied upon, a precise time of death,'' he said.
Stokes said that even if Cherry's time of death was later than the estimate provided by Roy, that fact alone would not exclude Dechaine as the killer. The jury based its finding on several pieces of evidence, Stokes said.
Cherry disappeared while babysitting on the afternoon of July 6, 1988.
While police were looking for her, Dechaine wandered out of the woods three miles from the site of her disappearance, claiming that he had gotten lost while looking for a fishing hole. He admitted to police that he had been injecting drugs.
A day later, searchers found Cherry's body in the woods about 400 feet from Dechaine's truck. She had been raped with sticks, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly around her throat with a small blade. Her hands were bound with yellow plastic rope.
The rope was made of the same material as a yellow plastic rope found in Dechaine's truck. A piece of yellow rope matching the rope in the truck and on Cherry's hands was found in the woods near Cherry's body. Evidence technicians found that it had been cut from a piece of rope in Dechaine's barn.
A repair bill and a notebook belonging to Dechaine were found in the driveway at the site of the abduction.
Dechaine's supporters say he was set up. They note that there was no physical evidence linking Dechaine with Cherry. Someone easily could have taken items from the back of his truck, they say, and investigators failed to consider other suspects.
Dechaine was taken into custody at 8 p.m on July 6.
Roy, the medical examiner, testified at the trial that Cherry likely died 30 to 36 hours before he did the autopsy, at 2 p.m. on July 8. That would have put the time of death between 2 and 8 a.m. on July 7 -- well after Dechaine was in custody.
But Roy called the 30 to 36 hours a minimum, adding, ''It could well be longer.''
Hofman, who reviewed the case for the defense, practices pathology at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia and serves as coroner for Montgomery County, Pa.
In his opinion, the earliest time of Cherry's death would have been around noon on July 7, about 16 hours after Dechaine was taken into custody.
''I emphatically disagree with Roy's opinion that Cherry was dead 'probably 30 hours or more''' before the autopsy, Hofman wrote.
Wecht, the other pathologist, has gained a national reputation for his reviews of high-profile cases such as JonBenet Ramsey's killing. He is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's conclusions in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In Wecht's opinion, the earliest possible time of death would have been around 3:40 a.m. on July 7. For his calculations, Wecht used an autopsy time of 3:40 p.m. on July 8.
Peterson had not planned to discuss the opinions publicly until later this year. Those plans changed when Bailey mentioned the opinions while speaking with business leaders Wednesday morning in Bangor.
Peterson did not provide copies of the opinions to the Portland Press Herald on Wednesday because he must submit them first to the Attorney General's Office. He declined to say how much the defense paid for the opinions.
Peterson filed a petition in August 2008 seeking a new trial for Dechaine based on a change in state law related to DNA evidence. The petition hinges mainly on a single thumbnail that was clipped during Cherry's autopsy.
Years after the trial, the thumbnail was tested and analysts discovered the DNA of an unknown male.
Supporters of Dechaine say the finding is proof that the one-time farmer is innocent. Prosecutors say the thumbnail is inconsequential when viewed in the context of all the evidence, and the unknown DNA most likely was transferred onto the nail during the autopsy.
Peterson seeks additional DNA testing over the next couple of months on remaining pieces of evidence.
Having lost a series of state and federal appeals, Dechaine could have his last chance for a new trial in the pending petition. Peterson and Bailey must convince Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford that the DNA evidence likely would have led to a different verdict if it had been admitted in the original trial.
A hearing is tentatively scheduled for September.
Peterson said he will ask Bradford to consider the opinions of Wecht and Hofman, as well as the DNA evidence. The lawyer contends the new state law opens the door for the opinions.
''The judge will have to make a ruling on whether we can introduce this type of opinion evidence into the DNA hearing,'' Peterson said.
Stokes declined to give his opinion on the admissibility of the work by Wecht and Hofman.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER)
-- Famed criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey made name for himself defending high profile clients such as O.J. Simpson and Patty Hearst. He visited Bangor today to speak with business leaders about a program that helps put inmates to work once they leave prison.
"If he stumbles help pick him up and help give him another chance," Bailey told business leaders at the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
He added that an inmate soon to be released from the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham would be coming to Bangor looking for a job. That inmate took part in a Workready job training program.
"We would like to see him get a job and we would like to see him succeed so this would be a good test case, widely watched," he said.
In addition to his inmate rehabilitation work, Bailey has also been working as a consultant in the Dennis Dechaine case. After consulting with two leading forensic experts Bailey told NEWS CENTER that he does not believe Dechaine should have been found guilty of the 1988 murder of 12 year old Sarah Cherry.
"I have looked at the reports and they are totally inconsistent with guilt."
NEWS CENTER |
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=114838&catid=2
Praying for justice for Dennis Dechaine
Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel
Februrary 7 2010
July 8, 1988, my 65th birthday, was a day I will never forget. I watched the TV and saw a young man arrested for a crime he did not commit. Since that day, I have felt that a miscarriage of justice was done but also felt that it would be straightened out. It is now 2010 and I am 86 years old and Dennis Dechaine is still in prison for a crime I believe he did not commit. There were so many mistakes made and no one in the attorney general's office in charge of the case would try to make it right. It was one cover-up after another. I pray that there will be justice while I am still alive.
Francis Miller
Whitefield
Dechaine lawyer seeks test using new DNA technique He hopes the results will lead to a new trial for the convicted murderer, who is serving a life sentence.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=309156&ac=PHnws
January 15, 2010
By TREVOR MAXWELL, Staff Writer
The lawyer for Dennis Dechaine intends to use an emerging type of DNA testing on some evidence that remains from the 1989 trial at which Dechaine was convicted of murder.
Attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport says he hopes the testing will be done in the next few months, and after Peterson gets the results, he will be ready for a hearing in front of Justice Carl Bradford.
"One of the big questions in this case has been, does additional testing need to be done?" Peterson said Thursday. "We think it does."
Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham.
Peterson filed a petition in August 2008 seeking a new trial based on a change in state law related to DNA evidence. The petition hinges mainly on a single thumbnail that was clipped during Cherry's autopsy.
Years after the trial, the thumbnail was tested and analysts discovered the DNA of an unknown male. Supporters of Dechaine say the finding is proof that the one-time farmer is innocent and deserves a new trial. Prosecutors say the thumbnail is inconsequential when viewed in the context of all the evidence, and the unknown DNA most likely was transferred onto the nail during the autopsy.
Dechaine, 52, has maintained his innocence throughout his 20-year incarceration, and a vocal group of supporters continues to push for a retrial or his outright release. Having previously lost a series of state and federal appeals, Dechaine's pending petition could be his last chance to get a new trial.
William Stokes, head of the Criminal Division at the Attorney General's Office, is handling the case for the state.
Stokes said he looks forward to the hearing, and he does not understand why it has taken so long for Peterson to coordinate with him about the DNA testing that he wants done. Stokes said he met with Peterson last May at the Maine State Police crime lab – where the evidence is kept – but the Attorney General's Office has not yet received a list of the items that Peterson wants tested, and the methodology that he wants used.
"I have been trying to get some determination from Mr. Dechaine's camp. Is there additional testing that they want done? What is it?" Stokes said. "That is what I have been trying to do so ultimately we can move this forward to a hearing."
Peterson said the delay was due to miscommunication. He said he submitted a list of the items to Stokes' office some time ago. Peterson said he wanted to have a conference call with Stokes and Bradford before Christmas, but coordinating their schedules has been difficult.
"I agree that the case has dragged on a little bit, and we probably want to move it along," Peterson said.
William Bunting of Whitefield, one of the Dechaine supporters who has frequently written letters to the editor of the Portland Press Herald and other media outlets, said he is hopeful that the upcoming tests will help to free Dechaine.
"I became involved in this cause when I was convinced that Dechaine had not received a fair trial. I later became fully convinced by the evidence that Dechaine is innocent," Bunting said.
On March 18, 1989, a jury in Rockland found Dechaine responsible for the death of Cherry, who disappeared while baby-sitting. While police were looking for her, Dechaine wandered out of the woods three miles from the site of her disappearance, claiming that he got lost while looking for a fishing hole. He admitted to police that he had been injecting drugs.
A day later, searchers found Cherry's body in the woods about 400 feet from Dechaine's truck. She had been raped with sticks, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly with a small blade around her throat. Her hands were bound with yellow plastic rope.
The rope used to tie Cherry was made of the same material as a yellow plastic rope found in Dechaine's truck. A piece of yellow rope matching the rope in the truck and on Cherry's hands was found in the woods near Cherry's body. Evidence technicians found that it had been cut from a piece of rope in Dechaine's barn.
A repair bill and notebook belonging to Dechaine were found in the driveway of the abduction site.
Dechaine supporters argue that there was no physical evidence linking Dechaine with Cherry, and that someone else took the items out of the back of Dechaine's truck. They also say investigators failed to consider other suspects.
Peterson said he wants some of the original evidence, including sticks and a scarf, subjected to a newer type of DNA analysis called "touch" DNA. Analysts essentially scrape or swab surfaces of objects that might have been touched by people, hoping to gather enough microscopic skin cells to provide a DNA profile. The method has allowed investigators in some cases to get DNA profiles off objects that would have been considered unlikely sources in the past.
Results from those tests could supplement the key piece of evidence in Dechaine's pending petition, the fingernail clipping, Peterson said.
In order for Dechaine to get a new trial, Bradford must rule that the new evidence presented by Peterson likely would have resulted in a different jury verdict if it had been admitted in the original trial.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
DNA: The Freedom Fighter (Part III of III)
THE HUFFINGTON POST
Washington D.C. based writer
Posted: January 8, 2010 04:57 PM
Maine resident Morrison Bonpasse has worked tirelessly for the exoneration of a man he had never met or even heard of until just a few years ago. Alfred Trenkler was convicted in Federal Court in 1994 for making a bomb that killed a Boston police officer.
Trenkler was sentenced to two concurrent life terms in prison.
Bonpasse believes whole-heartedly in Trenkler's innocence.
According to Bonpasse, two to 5 percent of all people in prison have been wrongfully convicted. That translates to 40-thousand to 100-thousand people. Bonpasse, a non-practicing attorney, believes so strongly in the imperfect storm that led to Trenkler's conviction that he wrote a 700- page book about Trenkler, Perfectly Innocent. He also created a website for him, www.alfredtrenklerinnocent.org, and has even gone into debt for him forcing the 62-year-old, Ivy League-educated Bonpasse to take a menial job at a call center to help pay the bills.
"I'm doing what I learned to do in the 60s when I was at Yale. Save the world," Bonpasse says with a chuckle, but he is only half joking. For Trenkler and the other men he is trying to free, Bonpasse is doing just that.
While Bonpasse is just one man digging and prodding his way through the nation's judicial system seeking justice for his clients, there are a number of organizations, thousands strong, that work on behalf of the wrongly convicted. The Innocence Project, which relies on attorneys working pro-bono with regional chapters throughout the country, has had success using DNA to prove the innocence of those wrongly convicted.
"DNA is the Nobel Prize of innocence," says Bonpasse.
Established in 1992 by civil rights attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, the Innocence Project has to date helped exonerate more than 240 people in the United States. But exoneration is by no means a simple or quick process. In fact, after four years of working alone for Trenkler, Bonpasse applied last year to the Innocence Project of New England for their help. He still doesn't know if they will take Trenkler's case. Often, even if the argument for exoneration is strong, even when there is DNA evidence proving innocence (which in Trenkler's case there isn't), exoneration is a painfully slow process.
"The system needs to be fixed," says says Paul Enzinna a partner at D.C. law firm Baker Botts who lends his expertise, pro bono, to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. "DNA testing can help fix the system. All but a handful of states have statutes allowing inmates access to DNA testing."
Yet there are still roadblocks, including the following facts:
So, how do we fix the system?
The Innocence Project says we can start by changing laws that involve snitches, false confessions, forensic science and eyewitness identification.
Snitches contribute to 15% of all wrongful convictions. Snitches are inmates who are often given a break on their own cases to testify against a suspect. In addition, we need to let the jury know what the snitch is getting for his/her testimony. "We need disclosure of compensation, favors and other information bearing on witness credibility," says Enzinna. In Alfred Trenkler's case, for example, one of the lead witnesses was an inmate who shared a cell with Trenkler for one weekend. Subsequently, the inmate told law enforcement officials that Trenkler confessed the crime to him. In return, this individual received a four and a half year decrease in his own incarceration.
False confessions contribute to 25% of all wrongful convictions. Duress, coercion, exhaustion, diminished capacity, ignorance of the law and bargaining by law enforcement officers contributes to false confessions. None of these confessions are on the record because these interrogations aren't being recorded. "We need to record the entire interrogation so that the jury can see if there are any off-screen suggestions or threats," says Enzinna.
Forensic science contribute to 65% of all wrongful convictions. Too often, evidence is not preserved so those wrongfully convicted have no recourse in the future. "We need to preserve evidence," says Enzinna who adds that we also need accreditation/oversight for these labs. "Who's running them?" Enzinna asks pointing out that in January 2008 the Department of Justice found insufficient oversight during congressional hearings.
Eyewitness identification contribute to 75% of all wrongful convictions. Here again, the victim or witness needs to be interviewed on tape. "Videotape the ID so the jury can tell if the officer involved was overly suggestive," offers Enzinna. "In addition to this we need blind administration to make sure that the officer showing the photos in a photo line up doesn't know who the key suspect is so s/he doesn't make suggestions." Enzinna also suggests sequential lineups. "Instead of six photos on one page a victim should be shown one photo at a time. Studies show that victims get as many right in this layout but don't get as many wrong when photos are presented this way," says Enzinna.
Additional facts compiled by the Innocence Project:
For further information, read:
Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer.
Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton with Erin Torneo, the true story of one victim's incorrect identification of her rapist.
1/08/10
Bernie Huebner's letter (Jan. 1) is right on target. I noticed the same similarities in both cases. Apparently, the Washington, D.C., Superior Court judge has a more common sense approach to justice than does our Maine Supreme Judicial Court. This court went against its own rules in the decision in the "James Moore vs.
Atty. General Steven Rowe."
Justice Levy pointed this out in his dissenting opinion.
This case in which a panel of three lawyers appointed by Rowe, was given "carte blanche secrecy" of their findings of "No Wrongdoing" in the Dennis Dechaine case. This court thumbed its nose at the Freedom Of Access Act by ruling 4 to 3 against allowing access to the findings of this "duly appointed panel." What did they have to hide in light of the panel's conclusion of "no wrongdoing" in the Dechaine trial?
If that was the case, I would think the attorney general's office would have been shouting the evidence from the rooftops of our State House.
Unfortunately, I can understand the court's reluctance to make these papers open to the public. After all, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is ranked 50th in the nation for "transparency" and nobody seems to care, according to www.halt.org.
I commend Huebner's quest in trying to right a wrong, but with our court not willing to listen to common sense arguments, I am fearful that Dechaine will languish in prison forever.
Kevin P. Morrissey
Winslow
Many similarities between Dechaine, D.C. cases
01/01/2010
There may be hope for Dennis Dechaine, who DNA tests show is innocent of the crime for which he has now spent more than 20 years in jail.
Though Maine's Attorney General's Office still won't face up to the bungling and corruption of the original investigation and the prosecution, the editorial board of the Sentinel/KJ seem to have demonstrated a refreshing openness to giving Dechaine's case a second look.
At least that's the suggestion of the Dec. 23 editorial, "Justice Delayed: Innocent man freed after 27 years in prison," reprinted from The Washington Post. Consider the parallels between Dechaine's case and that of Donald E. Gates, the Washington, D.C. exoneree.
* Gates was convicted largely on the testimony of FBI special agent Michael Malone, who asserted that two pubic hairs found on the victim's body were microscopically identical to a sample from Gates. Unfortunately, Malone's report is not supported by his notes. In the Dechaine case, trial testimony of two police investigators, presented under oath as evidence of confession, is similarly contradicted by the officers' notes.
* The magistrate in the Gates case, D.C. Superior Court Judge Fred B. Ugast, calls "absolutely appalling" that neither he nor the defense were informed after Malone's false testimony was discovered in 1997. In the Dechaine case, while police were aware of other suspects, prosecutor Eric Wright told the court, "there is no evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in this case of an alternative perpetrator" (p. 1489 of trial transcript).
* An equally compelling parallel is the Post's observation that "while Gates sat in jail, [the victim's] real killer has gone unpunished." Those familiar with the brutality of the crime for which Dechaine was wrongly convicted may draw their own conclusions about the real perpetrator.
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
Release after 35 years recalls Dechaine case
December 31, 2009
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=305860&ac=PHedi
Three things stood out when I read about James Bain's release from prison based on DNA evidence.
First, he had been held longer, 35 years, than any of the 246 prisoners previously exonerated by DNA evidence. The longest-serving before him was released after 27 years in prison. If Dennis Dechaine receives the new trial he deserves and is exonerated, his 22 years in prison could make his incarceration the third-longest in that category.
Second, there was the comment by the prosecutor who said he didn't recall any of the specifics, "but (Bain's) conviction seemed right at the time. ... I wish we had had that evidence back when we were prosecuting cases. I'm ecstatic the man has been released."
In Dechaine's case, this evidence was available, but DNA testing requested by the defense was denied because the case would have been delayed.
Such evidence does exist, and DNA under Sarah Cherry's thumbnail does not belong to Dennis or to anyone thus far identified. This evidence, added to the absence of hair, fibers, blood, saliva, sweat or DNA belonging to Sarah Cherry in Dechaine's truck, in which he presumably drove her three miles on a hot July afternoon, would surely have raised doubt in the minds of the jurors.
Third was what the judge said: "Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order. You're a free man. Congratulations."
Let's hope we have an "ecstatic" prosecutor and congratulatory judge when Dennis Dechaine receives a new trial and is finally set free.
Genie Nakell
Portland
Here is a letter that was sent to the press but not published:
A letter from Richmond Me.
My wife is a native of Aroostook County and, during the many times we've driven that beautiful section of Route 1 up through Grand Falls to Madawaska, I'm inevitably struck by a sad association that puts a shadow over everything. Madawaska is the town where Dennis Dechaine grew up and lived an exemplary life. That was before he was convicted in 1988 of murdering a child in the Maine town of Bowdoin, and sentenced to life in prison.
As many are already aware, that sentence has since become the most controversial murder conviction in Maine's history for these facts and others:
•DNA under the victim's finger nails belongs to a male who is not Dechaine.
•When Dechaine filed a motion for a new trial, the state incinerated the so-called rape kit and other items of evidence.
•The sworn testimony of two detectives who claimed Dennis had admitted guilt is contradicted by notes they made at the time.
•No evidence connects Dechaine to the crime or to the victim. The items from Dechaine's truck that were connected to the crime could have been removed by anyone.
•In 1988, after quickly deciding that Dechaine was the killer, police ignored other subjects including known pedophiles in the immediate area.
All of which raises a question we need to ask: Why have a few state and county investigators in Augusta and Bath— prominent law enforcement people long-associated with Dennis's case— worked so hard to keep him from having a second fair trial? Could it be fear that the very likely not guilty outcome of a second trial would raise doubts about their competence?
Last August a motion for retrial was filed by Dennis's attorney based on Maine's revised DNA statute. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of a new trial. It is a tragedy that an innocent man has been left to rot in prison 21 years while hundreds of other falsely accused prisoners in other states have been exonerated by DNA evidence. What's wrong with Maine? Why isn't Maine's law enforcement community right now looking for Sarah Cherry's real killer?
Lloyd Ferriss
Richmond, ME
Morning Sentinel
Nov. 7 2009
Citizen's Concern Maine citizens may believe "justice prevails", only those guilty of something are in prison. That's not the real world, our system of justice, though good, is not infallible. History has taught even the United States Supreme Court, and it's Honorable Justices are not incapable of error. If those nine justices go astray when rendering some decisions, why not our own Maine Judiciary? This should concern Maine citizens. Did justice prevail for a heinous crime committed in 1988? As a school bus driver in central Maine during this period I recall a morning prior to discharging the remaining older students, a radio announcer giving commentary regarding poor Sarah Cherry. The announcer was too descriptive, what was aired did not seem appropriate. I dialed the radio off. I admit some initial bias toward the accused. The television, newspaper and radio commentary generated in southern Maine was slanted. These news avenues should have provided enlightenment. Instead, along with most readers and listeners I became less informed and increasingly bias. A crude method of justice came to mind, "jail is too good for this animal, better they nail his___ to a stump and tip him over!" Certainly crude justice. The atmosphere created in that part of Maine during the late eighties toward the accused gives validity to the suggestion of there being Two Maine's. A less refined justice exist than the use of a stump. Injustice is the cruelest. Which brings us back to a Citizen's Concern, did justice prevail? It did not, not for the family of Sarah Cherry, neither for the family of Dennis Dechaine. I admire those striving for the truth twenty-one years. It is praiseworthy of Aroostook County publications and radio station Channel X (Presque Isle) their willingness to ask, did justice prevail, why is an appeal for a new trial being denied? Maine citizens should challenge it's judiciary. Democritus wrote: "If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it." Perhaps, but, it's not known if those responsible for this alleged injustice have lost sleep. They would have to admit mistakes. Clear that hurdle then authorizing a new trial should be easy, and, it would be good for justice in Maine.
Sincerely,
Martin Franck Dionne
Sinclair Me.
From Richmond Me.
It's been 21 years since Dennis Dechaine was sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder. His case has since become the most controversial murder conviction in Maine's history for these facts and more:
•DNA under the victim's finger nails belongs to a male who is not Dechaine.
•When Dechaine filed a motion for a new trial, the state incinerated the so-called rape kit and other items of evidence.
•The sworn testimony of two detectives who claimed Dennis had admitted guilt is contradicted by notes they made at the time.
•No evidence connects Dechaine to the crime or to the victim. The items from Dechaine's truck that were connected to the crime could have been
•In 1988, after quickly deciding that Dechaine was the killer, police ignored other subjects including known pedophiles in the immediate area.
All of which begs a question: Why have a few state and county investigators long-associated with Dechaine's case worked so hard to keep him from having a second trial? Could it be fear that the probable not guilty outcome would raise doubts about their competence and positions?
Now that a motion has been filed for a new trial based on Maine's revised DNA statute, nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of this trial. It is a tragedy enough that a man who is very likely innocent has been left to rot in prison for over two decades.
Lloyd Ferris
Richmond Me.
From Whitefield Me.
Dear Editor.
Mainers, reading of Texas governor Rick Perry's recent efforts to bury evidence proving that an innocent man was among the more than 200 inmates executed on Perry's watch, might well rejoice in not living under such a barbaric system. But we should not be so smug, witness the state of Maine's shameful record in the Dennis Dechaine case --- see trialanderrordennis.org. The stubborn refusal of Maine's leaders to honestly and courageously address the considerable evidence of governmental malfeasance, and of Dechaine's innocence, will surely someday blot their reputations, just as the execution of Todd Willingham will become Gov. Perry's legacy.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Evidence demands a new trial for Dennis Dechaine
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=297394&ac=PHedi
November 22, 2009
The state's case against Dennis Dechaine boils down to the fact that easily accessible items were removed from Dechaine's truck, and to the desperately held hope among members of the Attorney General's Office that Dechaine is guilty. Wishes, although strongly held, are not evidence.
Now that facts previously concealed by the state have been exposed, the evidence of Dechaine's innocence far outweighs the theories suggesting his guilt. Officials, taking ethical shortcuts to achieve what they believed to be a justifiable end, have apparently put an innocent man in prison while allowing a psychopathic killer to go free.
During the trial the state succeeded in blocking DNA testing and the admission of psychological findings; obscured the time of death; and put detectives on the stand whose damning testimony was, we now know, contradicted by their original notes.
Such actions suggest that winning the game took precedence over arriving at the truth, as did the state's incineration of potential DNA evidence after Dechaine filed an appeal. True to form, the state is presently opposing a retrial in which a jury might, at long last, hear all of the evidence. Would that the Attorney General's Office demonstrated a greater concern for justice than for saving face.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Evidence of Dechaine's innocence compelling
Kennebec Journal
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/letters/7092038.html
11/20/2009
The state's case against Dennis Dechaine boils down to the fact that items, accessible to anyone, were removed from Dechaine's truck, and to the desperately held hope at the attorney general's office that Dechaine is guilty.
Wishes, however strongly held, are not evidence.
Now that facts previously concealed by the state have been exposed, the evidence of Dechaine's innocence far outweighs the theories suggesting his guilt. During the trial, prosecutors succeeded in blocking DNA testing and also the admission of all psychological findings; obscured the time of death; and put detectives on the stand whose damning testimony, we now know, was contradicted by their original notes. Officials, taking ethical shortcuts to achieve what they believed to be a justifiable end, likely put an innocent man in prison for life, while allowing a psychopathic killer to go free.
These actions suggest that winning the game had taken precedence over arriving at the truth, as did the state's incineration of potential DNA evidence after Dechaine filed an appeal.
The attorney general could end suspicions that her office remains more concerned with saving face than in seeking justice by dropping its current opposition to a retrial, in which, at long last, a jury would hear all of the evidence.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Dennis Dechaine's birthday one more year of injustice
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=293707&ac=PHedi
November 3, 2009
On Oct. 29 Dennis Dechaine "celebrated" yet another birthday in prison for a crime from which all pertinent evidence exonerates him as the killer of Sarah Cherry in 1988.
Foremost among this evidence is DNA testing, twice, that excludes him from the crime.
Also important is the fact that his pickup truck contained absolutely no trace of Sarah Cherry's presence, negating the state's claim that Dechaine had transported her in that vehicle after abducting her.
Moreover, highly trained police dogs could not connect her clothing to the pickup truck.
An objective and thorough examination of the house where Sarah babysat would have noted that there was no sign of a struggle, a fact that strongly points to an intruder that the 12-year old girl knew and maybe even trusted – not the complete stranger that Dechaine was.
The state is guilty of incinerating pertinent evidence: the rape kit and unknown hairs, among others.
The sworn testimony of the two police detectives who claimed that Dechaine had confessed is contradicted by the notes they had made at the time of the crime investigation.
The state also impounded Dechaine's assets before the trial, thus preventing him from hiring the best defense possible. Was that constitutional?
The least that a tainted state can do now is to grant Dechaine another trial where all the evidence can be heard. Even better, Maine should confess to its flawed behavior, repent and move on.
Ross Paradis
Frenchville
Copyright 2009 by The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. All rights reserved.
Dechaine celebrates another birthday in prison
Kennebec Journal
November 2 2009
On Thursday, Dennis Dechaine "celebrated" yet another birthday in prison for a crime
from which all pertinent evidence exonerates him as the killer of Sarah Cherry in 1988.
Foremost among this evidence is DNA testing, twice, that excludes him from the crime.
Also important is the fact that his pickup truck contained absolutely no trace of Sarah,
negating the state's claim that Dechaine had transported her in that vehicle after abducting her.
Moreover, highly trained police dogs could not connect her clothing to the pickup truck.
An objective and thorough examination of the house where Sarah babysat would have noted
that there was no sign of a struggle, a fact that strongly points to an intruder that the 12-year-old
girl knew and maybe even trusted -- not the complete stranger that Dechaine was.
The state is accused of incinerating pertinent evidence: the rape kit and unknown hairs, among others.
The sworn testimony of the two police detectives who claimed that Dechaine had confessed is contradicted
by the notes they had made at the time of the crime investigation.
The state also impounded De-chaine's assets before the trial, thus preventing him from hiring the best defense possible.
Was that constitutional?
The least that a tainted state can do now is to grant Dechaine another trial where all the evidence can be heard. Even better,
Maine should confess to its flawed behavior, repent, and move on.
Ross Paradis
Frenchville
TRIAL AND ERROR
OCTOBER 2009 NEWSLETTER
PO Box 153 Madawaska Maine 04756
Dear Supporters
Once again a newsletter and still, Dennis spends more time behind bars. Yet
another year slowly closes in and still we have not given up the fight for justice as we surpass
the 21st year in Dennis' wrongful conviction.
The best news yet is that the legendary defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey has
reaffirmed his deep interest in Dennis's case, and Dennis's defense team has expressed
great
admiration and appreciation for his advice and counsel. Mr. Bailey is
not asking for any pay for his services. The biggest expenses now will be for
expert testimonies and perhaps more investigative fees.
It has never been more important for Dennis's supporters to make their
opinions known. One very good way to do this would be to attend the
hearing in Portland -- we will let you know the time and date as soon
as it is posted. Of course, any unruly behavior by Dennis's supporters,
or behavior that is insensitive to the Cherry family, would be very
harmful to Dennis. However, having as large a turn-out of supporters as
possible on hand at the courthouse to quietly bear witness to the
profound importance of this proceeding would make a public statement
that could not be ignored. We will send you more detailed instructions
and suggestions when the date is set.
In the meantime, if you have the option of taking a personal day off
from work, please save it for the hearing. Or, if you are sickened by
what has happened to Dennis, perhaps you can take a sick day! Please
also think now about contacting neighbors and friends -- especially
retired folks - with whom you have discussed Dennis's case, and who
have expressed interest in seeing a retrial, and invite them to car
pool with you. If every supporter who wishes to attend the hearing were
to bring several others along as well we could make an important
statement.
And if you have often thought that you might write a letter to a
newspaper but have never gotten around to it, this is the time to
finally do it! Your letter need not be long -- in fact, shorter is
better! Even if your letter is not published it lets the editor know
that there are readers who are very concerned about this case. And if
enough letters are received the paper will surely pay more attention to
what is happening with the case. We have included some suggestions for
letter writers at the end of the addresses list included here:
Lincoln County News - lcn@lincoln.midcoast.com (250 words)
Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal - letters@centralmaine.com (250 words)
Portland Press Herald - letterstotheeditor@pressherald.com (250 words)
Bangor Daily News - letters@bangordailynews.net
Lewiston Sun Journal - letters@sunjournal.com (250 words)
Journal Tribune (Biddeford/Sanford) - dmcmullin@gwi.net (Drew McMullin is
the publisher)
Ellsworth American - info@ellsworthamerican.com
Pioneer Times (Houlton) - pioneertimes@nepublish.com
York Country Coast Star (Kennebunk) - yccs@seacoastonline.com
St. John Valley Times - newseditor@sjvnews.com
Star Herald (Presque Isle) - starherald@nepublish.com
Republican Journal (Belfast) - news@villagesoup.com (300 words; specify for
Republican Journal)
Courier-Gazette (Rockland) - news@villagesoup.com (300 words; specify for
Rockland)
Free Press Online (Rockland) - freepress@freepressonline.com
Brunswick Times Record – http://www.timesrecord.com/forms/letters/ (350 words)
* No evidence connects Dennis to the crime or to the victim. The items
from Dennis's truck that were connected to the crime could have been
removed by anyone.
* After the police decided that Dennis was the killer they ignored
other suspects, including known pedophiles in the immediate area.
* This type of terrible crime is associated with psychopaths. The
psychiatric experts who examined Dennis found him to be a normal young
man who was not experiencing a drug psychosis. The jury was NOT permitted to hear this testimony.
* Since Dennis was convicted in 1989 over 240 wrongfully convicted men
have been released from prison on account of DNA evidence, thanks in
large part to the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project has been
assisting Dennis in his struggle for a new trial for about 18 years.
Only two opponents spoke up, both claiming to know something damning about
Dennis, but refusing to say what it was. Both appeared to enjoy being
annoying. Of course this is a line we have heard many times, and in the rare
cases when the person actually tells us what he or she "knows," it has
always been some wild rumor that is easily disproved.
Among the more noteworthy individuals who stopped to talk were the
psychologist who interviewed Dennis for the defense, a friend of Steven
Rowe, a reporter at the time for the Sun-Journal, a professor at the
University of Maine at Orono, and a former prison guard. The psychologist
said that he had never interviewed a defendant like Dennis, and that he was
very disappointed that he was not permitted to testify during the trial. The
friend of Rowe's said that he was convinced of Dennis's innocence, and was
disappointed and mystified by Rowe's silence on the case. The former
reporter said that she was convinced at the time that Dennis was innocent,
and left a nice donation. The professor teaches an honors seminar about the
case.
The former guard said that there were 7 correctional officers who were assigned to guard
Dennis during the trial. As was the custom, when the jury went out, they voted among themselves.
All 7 voted "not guilty." Dennis has said that one of the 7 guards is still employed at the prison,
and has always treated him with respect. Speaking for my fellow booth-mates, we sincerely hope
that it will not be necessary to have a booth at next year's fair!
A sincere “THANK YOU” to all who helped man the booth!!!
Bill Bunting
Once again Dennis will spend another birthday behind bars. Please be sure to send him a birthday card
for Oct 29th.
His address is, Dennis Dechaine 807 Cushing Rd. Warren Me. 04864.
Please stand by for a “heads up” on the hearing. As soon as we know we will forward the date and time to you.
At this time, please, please send in your letters to the press to help us keep the case alive.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support!.
Justice will prevail!
Sincerely,
Carol Waltman
Bill Bunting
Steve Sandau
Bernie Huebner
Don Dechaine
NEWS
by Lance Tapley
Why won't the Maine press inquire deeply into major issues? In these days of economic collapse and competition from the Internet, of course, many news organizations are running with skeleton staffs with no time to dig into anything. But for years, on numerous issues, I have seen the indications get fewer and fewer that Maine reporters want to confront government officials or other authorities and get the real story.
Take, for example, the mass torture of mostly mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison's solitary-confinement "Supermax," a subject I've covered for years. I'd welcome competition on this story, and in years past I would have expected it. Inmate suicides, hunger strikes, a murder, beatings by guards, official secrecy - this is raw meat for a feeding frenzy of media attention. Not this time - mostly, there has been silence.
Politicians, too, are silent on many issues. I cover the State House, and I can say categorically no politician there has expressed more than token interest in how prisoners are treated. For sure, convicted criminals are not exactly popular, but they are not a special case. Politicians also show little interest in the state's scandalous treatment of those mentally ill people who happen not to be in the prisons. In years past, there would have been a few politicians - a few liberals, maybe - who would have seen a cause or two in these issues.
So, why, nowadays, are both politicians and press so neglectful of such issues? To try to answer this question is to illuminate the current condition of journalism in Maine and what has shaped it.
There's a tight fit, a symbiosis, between politicians and press. They feed each other. If daily newspapers and TV news covered prison torture or the treatment of the mentally ill as the scandals they are, politicians would embark upon reform. More powerfully, though, politics feeds the press. If political actors cried for reform, the press would be on the story. American journalism and politics have demonstrated this symbiosis since the revolutionary days of the fighting and scribbling Sons of Liberty.
In politically liberal or conservative times, reflecting what is permitted by the ideological spirit of the times, the managers and practitioners of journalism become more liberal or conservative. Over my long career, I've witnessed an expansion and contraction of journalism's boldness and power: from the end of a conservative era to liberal-radical activism and back to conservatism. Maine and national journalism have now contracted to the most conservative point I have seen - so far.This wave in journalism was in synch with a political wave. Conservative politics means preserving the status quo and, on economic issues, those whom it rewards. Conservative journalism means going along with these things. It's a contemporary cliché to say journalism's future depends on how it meets the challenge of the Internet, which is killing newspapers while providing few places for newspapermen and -women to be employed, but journalism's future also depends heavily on political developments.
If Barack Obama's election launches a new progressive era, American journalism may become activist again. But if the election turns out not to bring real change to America, then the continued political conservatism combined with the effect of the Internet will cause journalism, I predict, to fall into a deep, deep coma.
In arguing for journalistic activism, I'm not asking for more bloggers' rants. I'm advocating accurate, fact-heavy reporting that questions, digs, and comes to fair, intelligent conclusions about society's problems. An activist press is "the reason a free press is important," as legendary Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus writes in a recent Columbia Journalism Review essay.
Right now, with some wonderful exceptions, the press is not important.
A very brief history
Beginning in the 1960s, mirroring the activist politics of the time and reacting to the postwar press conservatism that hid huge social injustices, alternative media exploded, even in the out-of-the-way state of Maine. Many new publications gave voice to the marginalized: women, gays, African Americans, poor people, the young, Native Americans, disabled people, peaceniks, environmentalists, even prisoners.
Daily newspapers, too, became activist. In the '70s the Washington Post's Watergate investigative series inspired reporters around the country. During that period, I traveled to a radical journalism convention in Washington with - it's hard to believe now - a pack of Press Herald staffers. At another such convention, in New York, I heard the renowned New York Times reporter Tom Wicker declare - to cheers - that the biggest myth of journalism is that news is what officials say.
Throughout this era, the Portland newspapers produced many remarkable investigative pieces. My prison stories are, in a way, a continuation of a series the Maine Sunday Telegram published in the '70s, which paralleled the political activism taking place then on behalf of prisoners.
The country's turn to the right, however, which accelerated after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, began a new phase: Gradually, nationally and in Maine, journalism got feebler. As Pincus writes, for journalism "it has been downhill ever since" Watergate. In Maine, substantial alternative weeklies like the Maine Times, founded in 1968, got fainter and eventually disappeared. Many small but consequential political and other special-interest publications also faded away.
As corporate power expanded, the managers of the dailies increasingly became the heads of big, conservative corporations. They saw little need for the investments of time - and money - that investigative reporters require. For some time now there has been no full-time investigative reporter at a Maine daily. No daily-paper reporter covers state government with the impact of the Press Herald's Bob Cummings, who through his articles in the '70s caused the return to the public of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest stolen by the 19th-century timber barons.
A few reporters in Maine still dig a little, but nowadays most of them rewrite news releases or cover news conferences - managed news. I respect Maine Public Radio more than I do most "establishment" news media, but I joke with my wife that when we wake in the morning and turn on the radio the first words we'll hear will be "Governor John Baldacci said . . ." It's no joke.
This increasing journalistic conservatism tracked the state's politics. Since Democrat Kenneth Curtis, a liberal who revolutionized state government, left office in 1975, every Maine governor has been corporate-conservative - Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
For a long time, the majority legislative Democrats, while liberal on abortion and gay rights, have been almost as conservative on economics as the Republicans. Baldacci is more conservative than some leading Republicans. Thus, many injustices - on taxes, health care, delivery of state services to the needy - don't get remedied in the corporate-lobbyist-dominated State House. When the right-wing Maine Heritage Policy Center congratulates Baldacci and Democratic legislators on their budget, it means something.
In a feedback loop, when no aggressive reporters are looking over their shoulders, the authorities, governmental or corporate, become emboldened to ride ever more rough-shod over the press and public. Press critics have observed how poorly the national media questioned the Bush administration's promotion of the Iraq invasion and how little they examined the financial boom that led to the current bust. In Maine, the dailies ignore the tax favors to the corporations and the rich that are financially hamstringing state government.
The Internet choke-hold
And now there is that big other - though nonpolitical - conservative force, which has abruptly twisted the journalistic contraction into a choking. The collapse or cutbacks of daily newspapers occasioned in part by Internet competition for news and advertising (to some extent, self-competition) has hit journalism like someone with multiple sclerosis having a stroke.
The Internet makes news more available than ever, but the reporting feeding news sites is dying because original reporting is largely dependent on the dailies, and nobody has figured out how to make money with Internet news operations that employ lots of reporters. About 16,000 newspaper jobs evaporated nationally in 2008, scores in Maine. The Portland papers have closed their bureau in Augusta, sending reporters there only on a per-story basis. As recently as 2005, 10 reporters were based at the State House, and in 1979 there were 15. Now there are six.
Maybe, indeed, Obama's election presages a new age. When I feel optimistic, I see the new activism appearing on Web sites financed by foundations, contributions, and tax money, like public broadcasting. But history teaches that the future depends on what we do, all of us as citizens and some of us as journalists, to create it.
If DNA solves a murder, why not Sarah Cherry's?
July 17, 2009
Portland Press Herald Maine Sunday Telegram
Thomas Mitchell recently was found guilty of the 26-year-old murder of Judith Flagg.
What a tremendous relief that must be for Flagg's family to finally have the perpetrator of this heinous and violent act held accountable.
Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes said in a television interview that the most important evidence in this case was found on Flagg's body. Part of that evidence was the DNA of Mitchell under Flagg's fingernails.
So, I must ask this of Stokes: If the DNA evidence under Flagg's fingernails was so crucial to the conviction of Mitchell, why is it that the DNA evidence under the thumbnails of Sarah Cherry (you know, the DNA that does not match Dennis Dechaine) is of no importance to the state of Maine and the Attorney General's Office in particular?
What is it that sets Dechaine apart from almost every other defendant in the country?
Why is it that the DNA evidence in this particular case is considered by the Attorney General's Office to be irrelevant?
Why has the state spent the last 21 years doing everything possible to avoid a retrial?
The family of Sarah Cherry suffered an excruciating loss. I'm sure they live with a constant heartache that will never abate. For that, I am truly saddened and sorry.
However, by incarcerating Dechaine for the last 21 years, the state has given a false sense of closure and security to the Cherry family.
The man who committed this horrible act, the man whose blood and DNA ended up lodged under Sarah's fingernails as she desperately fought for her life, lives freely amongst us still.
One is left wondering why it is the state of Maine continues to carefully shield this animal from the justice he deserves.
Richard Townsend
Portland
Copyright © 2009 MaineToday Media, Inc.
After reading of the importance of DNA analysis in the recent conviction of Thomas H. Mitchell Jr. for the 1983 slaying of Judith Flagg, I thought back to my struggle in high school English class to understand the concept of irony.
The dictionary was little help. Mine defines irony as "an outcome of events contrary to what was expected; the incongruity of this."
The Mitchell case offers just what I needed.
First, praise is due Deputy Attorney General William Stokes for bringing "the application of modern DNA technology" (his words) to bear on a 26-year-old case.
But, ironically, Stokes seems unable -- or refuses -- to apply the same DNA technology to the 20-year-old Sarah Cherry murder, in which the same attorney general's office secured the murder conviction of Dennis Dechaine.
The irony, of course, arises from how "the application of modern DNA technology" now shows that Dechaine is not the murderer, as he has always claimed. Rather it is some other male as yet unidentified and possibly at large committing similar crimes.
But at least now I get it.
Irony is when the unexpected outcome -- in this case, that the AG's office touts DNA evidence to secure a conviction, but then refuses to accept its findings which would overturn one -- is incongruous.
Tragically, for Dechaine, an innocent man in his 20th year in prison, it is also rank injustice.
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
bhuebner@roadrunner.com
Why doesn't fingernail DNA exonerate Dechaine?
Portland Press Hereld
May 23, 2009
On May 13 the Press Herald carried a story about Paul House, nearly executed for a 1985 murder in Tennessee, and now exonerated thanks in part to DNA evidence found under the victim's fingernails.
Recently, in Massachusetts, Kurvin Richardson was convicted of a 1990 murder after his DNA was found under the victim's fingernails. And in Maine, Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes is about to prosecute Thomas Mitchell for the 1983 murder of Judith Flagg because tests allegedly found Mitchell's DNA under her fingernails.
However, in the Dennis Dechaine case, Stokes says that the DNA found under the victim's thumbnail, proven to belong to a male who is not Dennis Dechaine, is of no significance. (The state opposed Dechaine's pre-trial request for DNA testing of fingernail blood, which was not Dechaine's type, and destroyed the fingernails and other potential DNA evidence. The thumbnail escaped incineration due to a clerk's error).
Prosecutor Eric Wright has stated that this DNA is of no significance because Dechaine had no scratches on him. In other words, the state maintains that Dechaine is guilty no matter who the man was who Sarah Cherry scratched.
And Maine's journalists, politicians, and lawyers apparently either agree with the state, are afraid to publicly question the state, or do not care what the state does in their name.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Copyright © 2009 Blethen Maine Newspapers
Why is a different set of rules used for Dechaine?
Kennebec Journal
04/14/2009
In Massachusetts, a man named Kurvin Richardson has just been convicted of the 1990 murder of Noemi Roman after his DNA was found under her fingernails. In Maine, Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes is prosecuting Thomas Mitchell for the 1983 murder of Judith Flagg because tests allegedly found Mitchell's DNA under her fingernails.
Yet Stokes says that the DNA found under Sarah Cherry's thumbnail, proved to belong to a male who is not Dennis Dechaine, is of no significance. (The state destroyed her fingernails after finding that the blood under them was not Dechaine's type, destroyed the rape kit and unknown hair and lost an unidentified fingerprint).
[Prosecutor] Wright has stated that the DNA is of no significance because Dechaine had no scratches on him. In other words, Dechaine is guilty no matter who the man was who did get scratched. And the press, it seems, does not care.
William Bunting
Whitefield
WGAN News/Morning Show
April 10, 2009
Here is an awesome interview with F.Lee Bailey on the Dennis Dechaine case with Ken and Mike on the Morning Show/News.
Click on the link below.
http://www.wgan.com/KenAndMikeMorningNews/2758623
F. Lee Bailey, Dechaine to meet
The attorney has often worked high-profile cases, and Dechaine's conviction has been controversial
. By TREVOR MAXWELL, Staff Writer April 8, 2009
Dennis Dechaine
2003 Associated Press File
Defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey has been a figure of controversy in recent years, and was disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts.
Famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey is expected to meet today at the Maine State Prison with Dennis Dechaine to discuss what role Bailey might play in a pending appeal that could be the convicted killer's last chance to get a new trial.
Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham.
Steve Peterson, the Rockland lawyer who represents Dechaine, said he first spoke with Bailey last week after hearing from another lawyer that Bailey had expressed interest in the case.
Bailey has business ties to Maine and has been pushing for prison reforms that would help convicts here and in other states.
"We are meeting tomorrow at the prison with Dennis," Peterson said Tuesday. "It is a consultation. Any input he would have is welcome. Whether it becomes more participatory than that is yet to be seen."
Bailey, 75, gained notoriety for his work on high-profile cases, including the trials of Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson. He has been a figure of controversy in recent years.
He was jailed briefly in 1996 for refusing to return millions of dollars in stocks formerly held by one of his clients. Bailey was later disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for his conduct related to that case. Last month in Brunswick, Bailey was stopped by police after side-swiping a guardrail on Interstate 295 with his Mercedes. He was not cited for the incident.
With his planned consultation with Dechaine, Bailey steps into a case that has been controversial for two decades.
In 1989, a jury in Rockland found Dechaine responsible for the death of Cherry, who disappeared while babysitting. While police were looking for her, Dechaine wandered out of the woods three miles from the site of her disappearance, claiming that he got lost while looking for a fishing hole.
A day later, Cherry's body was found in the same woods, bound, gagged, strangled, stabbed and raped with sticks.
Her hands were tied with rope that matched a piece from Dechaine's truck, and his repair bill and notebook were found in the driveway of the abduction site.
Dechaine has maintained his innocence, but has lost a series of state and federal appeals. A group of supporters called Trial and Error has pushed for a new trial or outright release of Dechaine. And James P. Moore, a retired federal agent and writer from Brunswick, has published two books that challenge the state's case.
Last August, Peterson filed a motion seeking a new trial, based on a change in state law in 2006. The law allows prisoners to seek new trials based on advances in DNA testing. A judge would have to find proof that the original jury would not have voted to convict if it had seen the evidence.
Prior DNA testing has shown that Cherry had the blood of an unknown man under her fingernails at the time of her death. That information was not presented at the trial. Peterson said the judge on this latest appeal will have that information to consider, and Peterson also wants to perform a new round of testing on the evidence – including clothing, rope and sticks – that remains under the control of the Maine Attorney General's Office.
Advances in so-called "touch DNA," Peterson said, could provide new information.
Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes said he has yet to receive a request from Peterson on what items he wants tested, and the timetable for conducting those tests. Stokes said a series of DNA tests on the evidence, done as recently as a few years ago, have not yielded any new evidence.
"We have asked him repeatedly what it is he wants us to test. I am doing the best I can to get an answer from him," Stokes said.
Stokes said he had not heard that Bailey was interested in the case. "I didn't even realize he was still practicing," Stokes said. Even if Bailey decides to join the defense team, that does not complicate the process for the Attorney General's Office, Stokes said, as long as Peterson remains on the case.
Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:
tmaxwell@pressherald.com
Copyright © 2009 Blethen Maine Newspapers
F Lee Bailey meets with Dennis.
WLBZ Link
http://www.wlbz2.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=103133
F. Lee Bailey agrees to aid Dechaine bid for new trial
The renowned lawyer will serve as a consultant to the convicted killer's defense attorney.
The Associated Press April 9, 2009
enlarge The Associated Press
Dennis Dechaine, left, thanks attorney F. Lee Bailey after meeting at the Maine State Prison in Warren on Wednesday. Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the murder of Sarah Cherry.
WARREN — Famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey met with convicted child killer Dennis Dechaine on Wednesday and agreed to help with his petition for a new trial.
Bailey met Wednesday with Dechaine at the Maine State Prison, where he's serving a life sentence for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham.
"He's basically going to be available as a consultant," Steve Peterson, Dechaine's lawyer, said of Bailey.
He said he didn't envision Bailey playing a role in the courtroom, but that's subject to change.
"We didn't really define a role or anything like that," Peterson said.
Dechaine maintains his innocence. Last August he petitioned for a new trial based on DNA evidence that wasn't available at his trial.
His petition is made possible by a 2006 change in state law that let prisoners seek new trials based on technological advances in DNA testing.
Sarah Cherry disappeared on July 6, 1988, from a house where she was baby-sitting. Her body was found days later. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly in the head, neck and chest.
The evidence against Dechaine was damning. He wandered out of the woods near where the girl's body was eventually found. A car repair bill bearing his name was found outside the home where she disappeared. And rope used to bind her matched rope from his truck and barn.
DNA technology was in its infancy when Dechaine was stood trial. Later tests of Cherry's fingernail clippings showed the presence of the DNA of a man other than Dechaine.
Bailey, 75, has worked on a number of high-profile cases, including the trials of Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson.
But he's also run afoul of the law. In 2000, he was sent to prison for contempt after he refused to turn over profits from stock owned by a drug dealer he represented. Bailey was later disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for his conduct related to that case.
Peterson said he hoped to be ready for a hearing on his petition for a new trial later this summer. It will likely be heard by the trial judge, Justice Carl Bradford.
Dechaine gains ally in trial bid
F. Lee Bailey consults convicted murderer
April 8, 2009
By Abigail Curtis
BDN Staff
WARREN, Maine — Famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey has agreed to serve as a consultant on convicted child murderer Dennis Dechaine’s petition for a new trial. Bailey spoke with Dechaine for about an hour Wednesday afternoon at the Maine State Prison in Warren “It was very productive,” said Dechaine’s defense attorney Steve Peterson of Rockport after the meeting. “F. Lee Bailey is happy to consult with us.”
Dechaine, 50, is serving a life sentence for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoinham. He has maintained his innocence, however, and last August petitioned for a new trial based on DNA evidence not available at the time of his trial.
On July 6, 1988, Cherry disappeared from a home where she was babysitting. Her body was found days later. She had been raped with sticks, strangled with a scarf and stabbed repeatedly.
Three years ago, an independent panel found no misconduct by prosecutors or investigators in its review of the case. But Peterson says that improvements in DNA science could now provide a breakthrough for Dechaine.
“We want the same items tested again with new technology,” Peterson said Wednesday.
DNA technology was in its infancy when Dechaine stood trial. Later tests of Cherry’s fingernail clippings showed the presence of the DNA of a man other than Dechaine.
After meeting with Bailey, Peterson and attorney John Nale of Waterville, Dechaine looked upbeat as he left the small visitor’s room. He and Bailey both declined to speak to the press.
“Dennis is a very bright guy. He understands very well what’s going on,” Peterson said.
Though Bailey most likely won’t be part of any new courtroom proceedings, the nonprofit Innocence Project would help provide “other counsel,” Peterson said. That organization, which has worked for years with Dechaine’s defense team, is based at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and was created to han-dle cases where post-conviction DNA testing of evidence could yield conclusive proof of innocence. Bailey, 75, has worked on a number of high-profile cases, including the trials of Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson — at whose trial DNA testing played a crucial role. But he’s also run afoul of the law. In 2000, he was sent to prison for contempt after he refused to turn over profits from stock owned by a drug dealer he represented. Bailey was later disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for his conduct related to that case.
Bailey will take no consulting fees for his work with Dechaine, Peterson said, and heard about the Maine case because he serves on a prison reform panel with Nale.
Bailey wanted to be a consultant in part because of “the cloud that hangs over this case, the feeling by the public that Dennis wasn’t given a fair trial,” Peterson said.
The state’s case was built on evidence that included Dechaine’s wandering out of woods near where Cherry’s body eventually was found. A car repair bill bearing his name was found outside the home where Cherry disappeared and rope used to bind her matched rope from his truck and barn. Dechaine told police he had been fishing, but later admitted he had been injecting speed, or methamphetamine.
An active, organized group has been pressing for Dechaine’s case to be reopened. One member of the pro-Dechaine group Trial & Error, William Bunting of Whitefield, was at the prison Wednesday wearing a pin with Dechaine’s picture on it.
“I’m feeling very encouraged,” Bunting said. “F. Lee Bailey is certainly a very knowledgeable person, and he seems more successful than we are at getting attention.”
Bunting said that the case had always troubled him, and after he read the book “Human Sacrifice,” by James Moore, he was convinced that Dechaine did not get a fair trial.
“I’ve been meeting with Dennis for about two years,” Bunting said. “He’s an extraordinary individual.” Peterson said he hoped to be ready for a hearing on his petition for a new trial later this summer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
How is Dechaine evidence different from Flagg case?
03/25/2009
Kennebec Journal
If a tree is cut down in the judicial forest and all three Blethen papers refuse to hear it, does it still make a sound?
Actually, the papers can hear it if the tree is Judy Flagg, the 1983 murder victim whose alleged killer will soon go on trial, thanks to DNA evidence developed years later from the victim's fingernails. All three Blethen papers -- Morning Sentinel, Kennebec Journal and Maine Sunday Telegram -- gave the story two-thirds page coverage on March 22.
What if the tree is Dennis Dechaine, wrongly convicted of a 1988 murder and now in his 21st year of a life sentence in Maine State Prison? What if the DNA in this case, also from the victim's fingernails and also developed years after the trial, is not Dechaine's? What if Dechaine is actually innocent? Can the Blethen papers hear that? Apparently not.
It's bad enough the Maine attorney general's office is in denial. It's bad enough Judge Carl Bradford, Dechaine's original trial judge, seems unfamiliar with the Sixth Amendment guaranteeing the right to a speedy trial -- Dechaine's motion for retrial based on the exculpatory DNA remains unanswered after seven months.
But the press need not stonewall; they need not whitewash. They need not protect their reputations like the police investigators and prosecutors who bungled the Dechaine case. They might even look good doing their jobs as investigative reporters.
I know that justice is supposed to be blind, but is she also deaf?
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
If jailing innocent is wrong, why did it happen long ago?
March 16, 2009
Portland Press Hereld
Columnist Bill Nemitz quotes Capt. Vern Malloch of the South Portland police as saying that even "10 minutes is too long" for an innocent person to be jailed ("Selling art that will set people free," March 5).
Dennis Dechaine is now in his 21st year of life imprisonment for a crime that the totality of the evidence says he did not commit.
How would the judge who denied Dechaine's request for DNA testing; the detectives who gave false testimony; the prosecutor who misled the jury by claiming there were no other suspects; the former deputy attorney general who ordered the incineration of potential DNA evidence; the journalists who have never bothered to look at the attorney general's files; and the present deputy attorney general who claims that DNA from under a thumbnail which excludes Dechaine is of no significance, while preparing to prosecute a case based on just such evidence, respond if they were all wrongfully locked up for even 10 minutes?
I think we know.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Copyright © 2009 Blethen Maine Newspapers
02/17/2009
Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel
I have read many articles in the Kennebec Journal and in your readers' opinions' about the Dennis Dechaine case.
In May 1990, Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida. His case gained notoriety because the electric chair malfunctioned and he burst into flames before he died. Tafero's wife and co-defendant Sonia Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced to death on exactly the same evidence that sent her husband to his death. Two years later, however, she was released from prison after a U.S. Circuit Court found that her conviction was based solely on prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence and perjury by the prosecution's star witness, who was the real killer (Jacobs v. Singletary 1992).
In candid terms, getting the state to concede it has convicted (let alone executed) an innocent defendant is no easy matter. Once an innocent person is convicted, it is almost impossible to get that conviction reversed on grounds of the accused's innocence. And even if the prisoner does obtain release by overwhelming evidence of his or her innocence, usually the prosecutor or some other state official will continue to insist publicly that the person really was guilty.
Lastly, sad but true, because human nature is inherently power-seeking, any grant of authority to government officeholders must be scrutinized with extreme care and caution since they will inevitably always attempt to abuse their positions.
Robert Jon Vicino
Augusta
Dechaine's judge has obvious conflict of interest
Kennebec Journal
02/04/2009
What's good for the judicial goose is good for the judicial gander.
Your editorial of Jan. 23, "Judge Mills needs distance from AG's office," states that "Maine's judicial system must be free of all appearances of conflict of interest."
Your position is especially persuasive because "We have every reason to believe that, ethically, (Judge) Nancy Mills is above reproach." Nonetheless, in order to maintain "public confidence in the judicial system," you call for Judge Mills to recuse herself in any situation involving her sister-in-law, Attorney General Janet Mills.
If even a respected judge like Nancy Mills must be held to this standard in the abstract, what of Judge Carl Bradford, the original trial judge in the Dennis Dechaine case?
Bradford denied the defendant's early request for DNA testing, even when Dechaine offered to pay the costs. Now Bradford stands to rule on Dechaine's motion for a re-trial, based largely on DNA evidence developed more recently that excludes Dechaine as contributing the male DNA found in blood under the victim's thumbnails.
Such evidence is routinely grounds for a re-trial, if not outright release, in other states where the original trial judge could not rule on his own conduct.
Bradford suffers an obvious conflict of interest. If he denies the motion, he defends his earlier, erroneous prohibition of DNA evidence. If he approves the motion, he admits his earlier mistake. Either way, his gander is cooked.
As you say, "appearances matter, especially in our judicial system."
Bernie Huebner
Waterville
'Dechaine deserves to walk out of jail'
01/30/2009
A prayer for Dennis Dechaine -- because I believe that Maine's so-called
justice system has committed a sin of the highest caliber.
After all of these many past years he has been incarcerated, Dechaine
deserves to walk out of jail wearing a tuxedo and holding a sign saying: I
told you so!
Anna S. Albee
Augusta
Dennis Dechaine case changes outlook on justice
01/21/2009
Kennebec Journal
I once believed a basic American freedom was not having to fear false imprisonment. And that the press would strive to see that justice was done. I would not have believed that a Maine State Police detective's testimony would be contradicted by his notes, or that the Attorney General's Office would destroy evidence in an active case. But the Dennis Dechaine case changed everything.
Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes claims there's no connection between the unknown male DNA under Sarah Cherry's thumbnail and her killer, yet Stokes is about to prosecute another murder case based on fingernail DNA. Go figure.
Six years ago "Human Sacrifice" was published. Apparently only one reporter, Lucy Martin of the Lincoln County News, has examined the state's case file. Do others not care? And no one has claimed the $2,000 reward offered for finding any untrue statement concerning the evidence or official misconduct.
Former Attorney General Steven Rowe's response to the growing body of exculpatory evidence was a farcical commission that refused to explain its denial of official misconduct. Yet Jon Lund, a former attorney general and seasoned prosecutor, has called for a retrial. May our new attorney general, Janet Mills, another former prosecutor, follow Lund's example -- after all, it took Nixon to go to China. And may the press be a watchdog, not a lapdog. Only then, once upon some future day, might Maine's justice system earn our trust again.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Dechaine should have new trial based on DNA evidence
Kennebec Journal
01/17/2009
I am writing to express my opinion about Dennis Dechaine being allowed a new trial. It is simply unconscionable to deny him a new trial after a man wrongly accused has sat in jail for 20 plus years if new evidence has surfaced.
DNA evidence should never be denied in a trial. It's either Dennis or it isn't Dennis. Just because the DNA belongs to an "unknown" person, it still proves it doesn't belong to Dechaine.
So many people have been freed all over the country because they were given a second chance thanks to DNA testing being introduced. It's just not fair Dechaine isn't given that same chance to clear his name and be found innocent. It's a lot better than convicting a man for the rest of his life due to circumstantial evidence.
Dorothy M. Sanford
Glen Burnie, Md.
If DNA is good evidence, it should count everywhere
January 9, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Blethen Maine Newspapers
Staff writer David Hench wrote of a rise in requests for DNA processing from state police and other agencies to identify suspects ("State: Police relying more on DNA," Dec. 27).
Hench also stated that the success rate of DNA in sexual assault cases will likely rise because analysts can focus on markers present only in male DNA, which may have been retrieved from skin cells under a victim's nails. Currently, the state will likely focus on such fingernail DNA to prosecute Thomas Mitchell for the murder of Judy Flagg in 1983.
But equally, if not more important, is the use of DNA profiling to eliminate a suspect or free a convicted person who is innocent. Dennis Dechaine's case is one where DNA should play this important role. DNA from under the fingernail of the female victim in that case is from a male, but it is not Dennis' DNA, nor the DNA of any male family person of the victim or the investigating team.
If the state can use DNA to prosecute Thomas Mitchell, doesn't it have the same obligation to free a man whose DNA excludes him as a suspect? Given that Dennis' request to present DNA evidence at his trial was denied, and given that the state actually eliminated possible DNA evidence by incinerating hair and a rape kit while his conviction was under appeal, doesn't the state have an obligation to grant him a new trial?
As has been said, "It is better that 10 guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted."
Genie Nakell
Portland
Dennis Interview (comment through our youtube acct.)
I came across the Dennis Dechaine interview early this morning and I just had to thank you for posting it (them). I was originally a little frustrated that comments had been disabled, but do understand. Given the course too many "comments" take here on youtube, it rather would be like leaving the door open for folks to detract from what is being said in the interview.
I spent several years in Maine State Prison and consider it a privilege to call Dennis my friend. Like Jim Moore, I went into things automatically assuming Dennis' guilt (I was a convict in a population of convicts--innocent men were a rare commodity.) It's an injustice of demonic proportions that Dennis remains incarcerated. This video was made in March, '04, five years ago, and Dennis saw 20 years pass by on last July 6th. Every time I think of it I feel a cold fist in my guts.
For me, the second part of the interview held the most personal resonance. Dennis' recollection of arriving at the old State Prison in Thomaston (the labyrinthian passages, the old Seg unit...) actually had me grinning. I was one of the men in the cellblocks watching when he was first allowed to live in General Population (his "Darryl story"), figuring his life would get very ugly indeed. Dennis survived well enough in Thomaston, though watching his legal ordeal play out and the constant denial of any hope of justice was agonizing to watch. He became, for me at least, an example of the resiliency of the human spirit.
As I've said, I remain proud to know Dennis as my friend. He IS an innocent man.
Thanks for sharing this.
Yours, Scott Antworth
TRIAL AND ERROR NEWSLETTER
OCTOBER 2008
Edited January 7, 2009
P.O. BOX 153 MADAWASKA, ME. 04756
Dear Supporters
Another year has passed with Dennis still in prison. Let us hope and pray
that 2009 will bring justice for Dennis.
As you can see this newsletter was put together to be sent out in October.
It was then held back because of the election, and since then I have been
swamped by the holiday rush at work and by the sickness of some family
members. I apologize for the delay.
There has not been very much to report about Dennis's case since Steve
Peterson filed the motion for a new trial on August 30. We expect that
things will now be happening, and we will keep you informed. In the meantime
our investigators have been busy and we will soon have new bills to pay.
Remember that 100 percent of your contributions go directly to seeking
justice for Dennis.
Letters to newspapers have been very important in our fight in the past, and
will be in the future. Please write letters. Even if some are not printed
they will tell the editor that people feel strongly about justice for
Dennis. Here is a list of Maine newspaper addresses for you to file.
Please click on the links and send your letter today.
Lincoln County News - lcn@lincoln.midcoast.com (250 words)
Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal - letters@centralmaine.com (250 words)
Portland Press Herald - letterstotheeditor@pressherald.com (250 words)
Bangor Daily News - letters@bangordailynews.net
Lewiston Sun Journal - letters@sunjournal.com (250 words)
Journal Tribune (Biddeford/Sanford) - dmcmullin@gwi.net (Drew McMullin is the publisher)
Ellsworth American - info@ellsworthamerican.com
Pioneer Times (Houlton) - pioneertimes@nepublish.com
York Country Coast Star (Kennebunk) - yccs@seacoastonline.com
St. John Valley Times - newseditor@sjvnews.com
Star Herald (Presque Isle) - starherald@nepublish.com
Republican Journal (Belfast) - news@villagesoup.com (300 words; specify for
Republican Journal)
Camden Herald - news@villagesoup.com (300 words; specify for Camden Herald)
Courier-Gazette (Rockland) - news@villagesoup.com (300 words; specify for
Rockland)
Free Press Online (Rockland) - freepress@freepressonline.com
Brunswick Times Record - rlong@timesrecord.com
Capital Weekly - Cwmail@courierpub.com
Here are a few great letters recently published:
Editorials
Portland Press Herald
September 4, 2008
No easy path toward a Dechaine retrial
The state sets an appropriately tough standard for overturning old convictions.
It won't be easy for Dennis Dechaine to win a new trial for the 1988 torture murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry, nor should it be.
Despite two decades of claims by his loyal supporters, Dechaine received a fair trial in 1989, using standard evidence practices of the day.
His conviction has been upheld in appeals to the state and federal courts, without findings of reversible error.
But the former Bowdoinham farmer still has a chance, probably his last, to overturn his conviction using DNA evidence discovered after his trial.
In this proceeding, a judge would have to find "clear and convincing" proof that the original jury would not have voted to convict if it had seen the DNA evidence.
That's a very high standard to meet, which is appropriate. It would be very difficult for the state to reassemble its witnesses and evidence so long after the crime. As a practical matter, a new trial order in this case would probably mean freedom for Dechaine.
Dechaine is entitled to this review by a state law that was amended two years ago to put Maine's practices in line with those of other states.
In light of the number of serious convictions which have been overturned around the country, it is fair that Dechaine's case should also get another look in light of new information.
So far, the DNA evidence Dechaine has presented is enigmatic. Blood on Sarah's fingernails contained the DNA of an unknown man. The profile was complete enough to exclude Dechaine and others, but not enough to affirmatively identify its source. There is no real evidence of how it got there.
A lot has changed since the time of his conviction, however. There have even been advances in the last three years since Dechaine withdrew a previous new trial petition.
His lawyer says that a new technique may be able to draw more detailed information out of samples that have already been tested, or to discover DNA on other exhibits.
Dechaine has the right to use these tests, compare the results with other evidence and try to present a compelling theory that explains all the evidence against him, including his presence and that of his belongings near the abduction and murder sites.
That is a tough test for Dechaine, but it is not too much to ask when a murder conviction is at stake.
Dennis Dechaine could receive fair trial – unlike his first one
September 14, 2008
Portland Press Herald Maine Sunday Telegram
The Press Herald is to be commended for its evolving position regarding Dennis Dechaine's attempt to gain a retrial with DNA evidence. A Sept. 4 editorial stated, "A new trial order in this case would probably mean freedom for Dechaine."
But Dechaine would only be freed, either by a jury or by the state taking a pass to avoid an embarrassing trial, if the evidence supporting his innocence was compelling– as indeed it is. It should not be "very difficult" to conduct a fair retrial; as for those few witnesses who are deceased or unavailable, their 1989 testimonies could remain in play.
Dechaine's 1989 trial was not fair by any reasonable standard, beginning with the denial of his request for DNA testing, which he offered to pay for.
It has since been revealed that crucial testimony of two detectives was contradicted by their own notes. The prosecutor obscured the time of death, and told the jury that there were no other suspects, when, in fact, there were several. And so on– so much for the idea that a trial is an attempt to find the truth.
Dechaine might now be free had the state not incinerated DNA evidence shortly after an appeal was filed. For this inexcusable wrongdoing alone– the bizarre finding to the contrary by the attorney general's commission notwithstanding – Dechaine deserves a new trial. By supporting a retrial, Attorney General Steven Rowe would take a big step towards restoring honor to his office.
William Bunting
Whitefield
Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers
Dechaine conviction may console, but not justice
10/02/2008
Kennebec Journal
The newspaper on Sept. 26 carried a story about the meeting of Parents of
Murdered Children
Every humane person sincerely sympathizes with relatives of a murdered
child, but I resent group spokesman Howard Klerk's denunciation of my book,
"Human Sacrifice," a book for which I've taken no royalties.
Considering the scientific evidence detailed in this book and the proof of
gross official misconduct (concealed evidence, incinerated DNA and false
testimony by police), all of which is documented from trial records and the
files of the attorney general (and posted online at
http://www.trialanderrordennis.org/pdfs/report.pdf), it seems incredible
that Klerk's opinion could be based on an intelligent reading and
understanding of the facts.
Understandable emotional reactions cannot substitute for undeniable facts
demonstrating Dennis Dechaine's wrongful conviction, nor the reality that
the depraved creature who actually perpetrated this grotesque crime remains
free.
Two years ago, I posted this ad in the Kennebec Journal and most of Maine's
other major newspapers:
"$1,000 REWARD: to person specifying any untrue statement by author re:
evidence or official misconduct, in new, expanded edition of Human
Sacrifice. James P. Moore, P.O. Box 1032, Brunswick, ME 04011."
No one has stepped up to collect that reward. It remains open. To paraphrase
the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan: Klerk is entitled to his own opinion, but
he's not entitled to his own facts.
Having an innocent man pay for a tragic murder might console some people,
but it's not justice.
James P. Moore
Brunswick Maine
New Dechaine trial matter of justice
September 9, 2008
Portland Press Herald
Incarceration rates at the Maine State Prison and elsewhere should be a public issue – as should the imprisonment of Dennis Dechaine.
Having just read the Maine Voices column Aug. 30 ("Dechaine investigation badly flawed") by James Moore, I am recalling recent statistics regarding prison populations in the United States. For example: Although the United States has 3 percent of the world's population, we have 26 percent of the world's prisoners.
Furthermore, the prison industry is the fastest-growing industry in the country. I find it interesting that the prison industry and the justice system are not topics of conversation among political candidates.
Growing up as a flag-waving American in the fruit belt country of Pennsylvania, I believed justice was a given in my America. Moving to Maine to raise my family, I felt even more secure that justice was alive and well. As Americans and Mainers strive for changes in the world view of our politicians, elected and appointed officials, I would think a retrial for Dennis Dechaine would go a long way toward renewing any Mainer's faith in our justice system.
I believe that responsible Maine officials can step up to the plate. Maine can join so many other states that have had the courage and strength of character to admit that errors may have occurred and that justice has failed in the face of science.
Susan Strode Pastore
Portland
NEW TRIAL
St. John Valley Times
September 3 2008
Dennis Dechaine has applied for a new trial based on new DNA legislation. His lawyer, Steve Peterson of Rockport, has filed the necessary papers in hopes that new technology will increase the possibility of discovering if the state has erroneously incarcerated the wrong man and let the real murderer go free for 20 years.
The old post-conviction DNA statute allowed a new trial for an inmate imprisoned for murder, rape or other major crime if DNA testing after conviction showed no trace of the convicted person, as the new law does. However, the old law also required the convicted person to link the DNA to the real perpetrator of the crime.
Since this requirement is impossible, it virtually denied someone like Dechaine a new trial that could very likely find him innocent. The new legislation does not have that requirement, only that new DNA evidence raise the probability of innocence.
Although the new law was not aimed at Dechaine specifically, it benefits his quest for justice. In 1989 he was convicted to life without parole for the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in 1988. He had requested DNA testing during his trial, but was refused by Judge Carl Bradford.
Fortunately, some nail clippings from the murdered girl still existed and were twice tested by excellent national labs under the supervision of the Maine Crime Lab. The results were the same: The male DNA is not from Dennis Dechaine! Then, to whom does the male DNA belong?
Ross Paradis
Frenchville Maine
DNA technology could exonerate Dechaine
Kennebec Journal - Morning Sentinel
09/10/2008
Through DNA analysis, the Innocence Project has gained freedom for 220 innocent people convicted of violent crimes across the United States.
Wrongful convictions happen in every state. Maine is no exception. The Maine Attorney General's Office has repeatedly used DNA technology to solve crimes and win convictions. However, it falls short in recognizing the value of DNA technology in post-conviction exonerations.
Dennis Dechaine has served 20 years of a life sentence for the murder of Sarah Cherry. He asked for DNA analysis to be done before his trial at his expense. The judge denied his request.
The Attorney General's Office incinerated hairs, the rape kit and other potentially DNA rich evidence while the case was still in the appeal process.
A 2001 DNA statute allowed for post-conviction DNA analysis to be performed on the remaining evidence.
In 2004, the Maine Crime Laboratory revealed a male DNA profile under the victim's fingernail that does not match Dechaine. Further testing ruled out male family members, police officers or medical examiner office personnel who may have inadvertently contaminated the evidence.
Nevertheless the Attorney General's Office continues to refuse to acknowledge the importance of post-conviction DNA analysis in exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals like Dechaine.
It is time for the Attorney General's Office to step up and support a new trial for Dechaine.
Nancy Farrin
Pittston
BUT WHO JUDGES THE JUDGE?
Portland Press Herald
October 18, 2008
As Dennis Dechaine awaits a yet-to-be scheduled hearing to decide on a retrial, old concerns resurface. For if Maine custom prevails, the judge who will say yes or no to granting the new trial will be the same judge, Carl Bradford, whose work on the case has been seriously questioned.
Among Judge Bradford¹s controversial rulings at the original murder trial in 1989 was one to deny the defendant¹s request for DNA testing. Tests conducted since then show the DNA found on the victim¹s body was not Dechaine¹s.
Unless the judge recuses himself, how can we be sure the retrial request will be handled without prejudice? How can we be sure it would not be denied simply to prevent scrutiny of earlier decisions? How can we be sure Dechaine, who is just one of an estimated 20,000 wrongfully convicted inmates in U.S. prisons, has gotten a fair shot?
Among those publicly calling for a retrial are two retired trial lawyers. One, Weld Henshaw of Brunswick, says he was a longtime friend of Judge Bradford before ultimately putting justice above friendship. The other, Jon Lund, was a prosecutor, Maine Attorney General, and Chair of the Criminal Law Revision Commission. Yet their stands have received virtually no media attention.
So, it comes down to you and me. If we don¹t ask questions, write letters, rattle cages and otherwise shine the light of public awareness on the Dechaine case, who will? If we don¹t make sure our justice system is just, who will?
Bob MacLaughlin
Warren
*************
The Dennis Interview is now on You Tube!
Click on these links to open the 2 part interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVIb2qplq_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KslcRNuk9iQ
Other than encouraging supporters to write letters, hand out reading information, and send donations to help with investigative expenses, there are a few other outlets that we may use as a route to publicize and educate the public on wrongful convictions. If there is any public event that you think may be a good place to have a booth, etc., please be sure to let us know so we may book and participate. One good example is the Common Ground Fair, which we participated in during September.
A great example of supporters giving of themselves is indicated below. Their support and constant stamina is way beyond words can say. Not only do we raise awareness on wrongful convictions, but the people we meet at these public events are quite impressive. You never know who that someone may be—perhaps just the one we need to help carry this case to the halls of justice!
Here is an update of our last event at the Common Ground Fair.
Common Ground Fair
September 2008
Trial and Error representatives were back in the T&E booth for all three days of the Common Ground Fair, September 19-21. Sandy Weston and Bill Bunting both wrote reports of their encounters with fair-goers, from which the anecdotes below are drawn. The T&E booth was very, very busy. Often while we were talking to one person, two or three more would stop to listen.
There were always those who seemed afraid to approach us, but a smile and a question if they knew about Dennis would usually draw them in. More people than in past years seemed unaware of Dennis's case. Others would say, "Yes, we know about him; we are surprised you're still here."
A number of people had just moved here; some were college students who don't remember the murder happening. One hostile person asked why we thought Dennis was not guilty. When told of the exculpatory DNA evidence, he seemed shocked and said, "Well I didn't hear that!" He argued some more, then walked away befuddled.
A man who had just moved here from Boulder, Colorado, said that where he came from a similar incident happened to friends of his and that no one would believe them until this new DNA testing was done to prove them innocent. He was talking about John and Patsy Benet. He said his son and their son, Burke, were friends. He recounted some cover-ups the police allegedly made in that case, too. The new DNA testing he spoke of was "touch DNA," the same recently developed use of DNA testing on residues left on clothing that has been mentioned for possible use in Dennis's case.
The number of folks who expressed a belief that Dennis is guilty was extremely small. A few passers-by glared. A Maine state trooper kept repeating "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" but wouldn't stop to talk.
The most outspoken supporter was a former state trooper who was more animated in his passion even than we were. He said that he had recently cornered Attorney General Rowe at a gathering but couldn't get any real response from him. He couldn't believe how farcical the commission was. He bought one the DVDs of the interview that we had for sale. [Editor's note -- it will soon be on You Tube]. Another copy went to the wife of a sheriff's deputy. Her husband thought that Dennis was where he belonged, while her mother thought otherwise. She herself was supporting her husband but was obviously troubled. Another DVD went to the daughter of a legislator; she absolutely "got it," and said that it didn't make any difference if Dennis were innocent or not, he deserved a new trial because the first one was so flawed. She had read the copy of HS which we had given to members of the legislature.
Yet another DVD went to a woman from Rockland whom Bob McLaughlin had talked with on Friday, who had read the handouts and came back for more discussion
with Bill Bunting on Sunday. It turned out she had bought some of Bill's grass-fed beef from a friend who had bought a side and who was AG Tierney's secretary at the time of the murder. In Maine we are only two degrees of separation apart.
A man stopped by who had recently been released from Maine State Prison, and wanted to be remembered to Dennis. Also, several people who lived in Richmond, Bowdoinham, and Bowdoin at the time. All claimed never to have thought that Dennis was guilty.
As in past years, many people stopped to say that they thought Dennis was innocent, wished us "Good Luck!" and then departed. And once again we wished that there were more who asked, " How can I help?"
People who did help by manning the booth, in addition to Sandy, Bob, and Bill, were Nancy Farrin, Lilla Carter, Heidi Masselli, Jim Moore, Tom Weston, and Bernie Huebner. Our special thanks to all of them for their continued dedication and support.
So supporters, as you can see, public awareness is our number-one vehicle to carry on this case. Please let us know if there is anything you can do to help in this matter. Please use the links above to write letters. Your letter may be the one that opens the eyes of a citizen that may otherwise not have been involved if he or she had not read your letter.
Once again, to all who have donated funds, their time, and ideas, we thank
you from the bottoms of our hearts!!!
Sincerely,
Carol Waltman
jcjm_walt@hotmail.com
carol@trialanderrordennis.org
Bill Bunting
wbunting1@roadrunner.com
Steve Sandau
ssandau@gwi.net
Bernie Huebner
bhuebner@roadrunner.com
Don Dechaine
don.mur@verizon.net
*** Have a wonderful New Year and may we all be blessed with Health, Joy, Happiness, and Justice!!!
provides support only in DNA cases. The demand for their services far
outstrips their resources, giving me cause to be thankful that these
good people are in my life.
No matter how difficult or discouraging my judicial experience, I find
comfort by simply counting the blessings in my life and my greatest
blessings are people who care enough about justice to fight for it.
Thank you for giving me that priceless gift.
Dennis
**********
On July 21, despite short notice, over thirty supporters gathered in
Whitefield's picturesque Arlington Grange Hall for a potluck supper,
and
a general get-together, up-date, and discussion. Members were urged to
write
letters to newspapers -- even if not published, they are read by the
editors. Several members volunteered to work on arranging a fund
raising
bike ride for this fall -- anyone reading this who would be interested
in
helping or participating should contact Bill Bunting at
wbunting1@roadrunner.com who will put you in touch with those folks.
Documentary filmmaker Richard Searls took some footage of the gathering
for possible use in the film he is producing about the Dechaine case.
The Board of Directors also held their annual meeting, in which Bernie
Huebner of
to the press of other obligations. Bernie is a retired English teacher
and also
sits on the board of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. He has actively
worked on issues relating to civil rights in for many years, and
brings a strong voice for justice to Trial & Error.
We wish to thank the members of the Arlington Grange for the generous
use of their splendid hall; also Master of the Grange Charlie Miller,
and Ed and Mary Emerson -- all members of T & E as well -- for
their
kind help.
*****
Trial and Error's persistent questions about official actions in
Dennis'
case moved Attorney General Rowe to create a commission to review the
case. This might have been his biggest mistake so far.
That commission reported "no official misconduct" but refused to
provide
any facts to support that conclusion. Maine's highest court held that
the commission had a right to keep that secret.
Maine newspapers greeted the commission's "no official misconduct"
report as if were gospel from on high, but now they're starting to
wonder about all these secrets.
The Kennebec Journal wrote: "Government accountability was dealt a blow
last week when Maine's highest court in effect said the public cannot
see records of an investigation related to a highly controversial
murder
case."
The Brunswick Times Record wrote: "Bureaucratic protectionism won out
over public interest on Tuesday when the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
ordered that the details a three-man panel's exploration of misconduct
in the 1989 murder trial of Dennis Dechaine should remain sealed.
Government transparency and Mainers' right to know how their business
is
conducted suffered another significant setback. . . The gist of
Tuesday's split decision holds that the panel does not meet a four-part
test to establish it as a public entity, in part because the
Legislature
did not authorize its mission. Therefore, the group's working papers
are
not subject to the Freedom of Access Act, despite the fact that retired
U.S. Magistrate Judge Eugene Beaulieu and attorneys Charles Abbott and
Marvin Glazier undertook the study at the behest of Attorney General
Steven Rowe.
"Such legal legerdemain might conform with the fine print in textbooks
used at the Maine School of Law, but it completely subverts Rowe's
stated goal of restoring public confidence in the trial that resulted
in
Dechaine's conviction for the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry
in
Bowdoin. Outside the musky atmosphere of a courtroom, it looks like
another attempt to cover government officials' backsides with red tape."
Lucy Martin of the Lincoln County News wrote: "Secrecy wins again, and
it's nothing to be proud of."
Officialdom, sometimes in the form of law enforcement, sometimes as
state prosecutors, now as the Maine Supreme Court, has decided the
public doesn't have the right to know details of the findings of a
panel
appointed by the state Attorney General. . . . Rowe acted to defend his
office against allegations of wrongdoing in investigations and court
proceedings that led to the 1989 trial and conviction of Dennis
Dechaine
for the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Dechaine is serving a life
sentence in state prison. His supporters, organized as Trial and Error,
made the allegations. . . . In a democratic system of government,
predicated on openness and fairness to all, how does a shut door
advance
public confidence in the institutions that are supposed to serve and
safeguard the citizenry? It's been said that ignorance never resolves a
question. The questions surrounding this case, or any other instance
where officials dispose of evidence, or are perceived as losing,
concealing or mishandling evidence, will not go away.
Professor Dan Kennedy of
Muzzle Awards on AG Rowe, and wrote, "Rowe's censor"ous action, now
certified by the state's highest court, makes a mockery of open
government.'
Several
Press article reporting that commission member "Beaulieu had yet to
read
the opinion and said it would not be appropriate to comment on it. When
asked why it was important to keep the documents under wraps, the
former
judge said all three panel members agreed to that policy and he didn't
feel that he should speak for all of them."
The
part, "Having combed the attorney general's file numerous times, I can
tell you this: There is no evidence there disproving misconduct."
"The most the commission could possibly have relied upon is a string of
lame excuses and mealy-mouthed 'explanations' by the implicated
officials themselves.
"If you think that's worth much when the hard evidence documented in
court records and the attorney general's own files proves them wrong,
you probably believe that O.J. Simpson was innocent and the Duke
Lacrosse players raped that exotic dancer…. The commission didn't
dispute any of that evidence. Not the documents proving that detectives
testified falsely at Dechaine's trial about so-called confessions, nor
evidence that the prosecutor concealed evidence and misled the jury.
"They didn't dispute the court's denial of Dechaine's pre-trial request
for DNA testing, or the post-trial tests showing some other man's DNA
in
the blood under Sarah Cherry's nails, or proof that the state
incinerated more DNA evidence shortly after Dechaine filed an appeal.
"'Qua tacit consentire' is a legal maxim meaning 'silence betokens
consent.' In legal terms quite familiar to those three attorneys, this
suggests that they consented to the evidence proving the allegations.
"They just don't think that giving false testimony, hiding evidence,
destroying evidence or lying to legislators and others about Dechaine
having 'confessed' constitutes misconduct. The officials did those
things, but so what?"
So hey, let's hope T&E members will have the courage and
determination
to demonstrate their support for Dennis by writing more letters to
newspapers and legislators. While avoiding any personal attacks on
those with whom we so strongly disagree, let them know that many
Mainers want a new trial for Dennis - one where a jury hears ALL the
evidence. And let them know we're not going to fade away.
*****
Weld Henshaw's letter to the Times Record Editor,
To the editor:
Over the years I have found it utterly astonishing that our state has
been so tenacious in clinging to the myth that Dennis Dechaine was
fairly convicted of the murder of Sarah Cherry 20 years ago.
For some time now, we have all known that vital evidence was concealed,
ignored or not known when Dechaine was convicted. Without any lengthy
rehash - which could not in any event improve on the superb work of
James Moore, William Bunting and many others - just focus on the
undisputed fact known now, but not at the time of trial, that the blood
of a male other than Dechaine was found under the fingernails of the
victim.
Add to that the undisputed fact that there was no DNA on or about the
victim that links Dechaine to her.
Finally, consider that there were a number of known sexually violent
offenders in the general area, none of whose DNA has been compared to
the DNA under Sarah's nails. Dechaine has no history of any sexual
deviance or violence.
It is unlikely that if Dechaine were granted a new trial, he would ever
be retried, not because evidence has been lost, but because new
exculpatory evidence has been found.
I am a
trial law, for almost 40 years in
my silence on this because the trial judge was a close friend of mine
since 1963, and
retain jurisdiction of criminal cases even when his own actions and
rulings are under scrutiny.
Some things must transcend friendship, and justice is certainly one of
them.
To those who knew and loved Sarah Cherry, I urge them to consider that
-
aside from the fact a man was unfairly convicted for the crime - the
state of
the real murderer. This is not a case of harmless error.
Weld Henshaw,
Brunswick
*****
Jon Lund's unpublished letter to the editor of the Bangor Daily News in
February, 2008
To the Editor,
In his Feb. 2 piece regarding Dennis Dechaine's conviction, Emmet Meara
writes that when he covered the trial as a reporter, he was convinced
of
Dechaine's guilt.
There is important evidence that the jury did not hear and of which Mr.
Meara is unaware or chooses to ignore. Sarah Cherry was brutally
mutilated and murdered and most likely tried to defend herself. Tests
have now shown that the DNA material removed from her fingernails were
not Dechaine_s but came from some other male. The jury didn't hear that
evidence, and Mr. Meara does not try to explain it away. If the jury
had
been told of the DNA evidence, they might have reached a different
verdict.
If you did the crime, would you request DNA testing? Dechaine's
attorney
did request DNA testing, but the presiding judge denied the request.
Moreover, additional evidence in the form of a rape kit in the
possession of the Attorney General's office was destroyed after
Dechaine
filed an appeal. DNA testing of that evidence could have confirmed the
other DNA findings.
All over the United States, DNA evidence is demonstrating that innocent
men and women have been wrongly convicted of crimes by courts and
juries, and the numbers are shocking, especially in the state of Texas.
But here, in
choose to close our eyes when DNA evidence points to judicial error.
This writer prosecuted crimes, including homicides, as Kennebec County
Attorney, served as chair of our Criminal Law Revision Commission, and
served as this state's first full-time attorney general.
I do not know whether Dennis Dechaine is guilty or innocent, but I do
not believe he received a fair trial, and that is what we are supposed
to provide in this state.
Jon Lund
Hallowell
*****
Bernie Huebner's letter to the editor of the Waterville Sentinel --
adding another $1,000 to Jim Moore's challenge:
For years Trial and Error and Brunswick retired ATF agent James Moore
have alleged serious misconduct by the state in the 1989 murder trial
of
Dennis Dechaine.
Yet the AG's hand-picked panel instructed to assess the merits of five
of the allegations chose only to say, in effect: take our word for it
(e.g., "What happened with regard to the notes was fully explained to
us, and we find the explanations to be satisfactory"). More
telling is
that
substantive
falsehood in his presentation of the evidence of official misconduct
still has no taker.
Maybe
$2,000 to anyone who can point to a single substantive falsehood in the
presentation of allegations of official misconduct. For example,
when
we say the state's own files show criminal investigators lied on the
trial stand, someone needs to show that this is not so. Surely,
if
Moore and T&E members are only misguided fools, it should be both
easy
and lucrative to prove.
I'll even sweeten the offer with the following promise: if someone can
show where we've misrepresented the facts, I'll resign from the board
of
directors of T&E and never write another letter to the editor about
the
case. The $1,000 would cost me, but having to fall silent in the
face
of a miscarriage of justice as serious as this would hurt more.
Bernie Huebner
*********
Five years ago several criminal justice students at the University of
at Augusta asked administrators if they could invite Jim Moore to
speak. They
reported that they were told that the Dechaine case "was too
controversial
for a university campus." Happily, if at long last,things are changing.
In
recent months students in one class at UMA participated in a debate over
the case, while Jim spoke to a class studying legal ethics in the
Criminal
Justice Department. And at the University of at Orono, Jim spoke to an
honors
class about evidence of official lying in the case. In all three
instances
students were responsible for initiating the idea of studying the
Dechaine case.
**********
All who knew Pat Christopher, of Hallowell, co-chair of the Augusta-area
chapter of Trial & Error, are saddened by her recent death. Pat was
a very
good soul. As a former county employee, she had served Dennis his first
meal
after he arrived at Lincoln County Jail after he had been arrested, and
never forgot the scared and bewildered look on his face. She doubted his
guilt even then. She became a passionate advocate for Dennis, always
wearing
her Dennis Dechaine button the better to spark conversations about the
case.
She put copies of Human Sacrifice and State Secrets in the hands of many
people, some of them occupying high positions in state government. We
shall
miss her very much, and shall not forget her.
*****
In closing, I would like to express the importance of your support.
It is only through your contributions that we may continue to fight for
justice. You may donate funds through our website at, www.trialanderrordennis.org
and use the pay pal icon or send your contributions to Trial and Error
C/O Carol Waltman PO Box 153 Madawaska Maine 04756.
Once again, and most importantly, we thank those of you who have
recently sent in very generous contributions. By your generosity,
please know that further forensic testing and forensic experts will not
be a burden but possibilities and reality for the best we can afford.
Please feel free to copy this newsletter and hand it out to anyone you
may
know who gives a hoot about justice and the freedom of an innocent man.
Thank You for your continued support!
President
Carol Waltman
carol@trialanderrordennis.org
Directors:
Steve Sandau
ssandau@gwi.net
Bill Bunting
Don.mur@nci1.net
Bernie Huebner
bhuebner@roadrunner.com