PORTLAND, Maine - The Maine Supreme Court has denied another request from Dennis Dechaine for a new trial. Dechaine was convicted of the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin in 1989.He and his supporters have argued that new DNA evidence is sufficient to warrant a new trial because its consideration would likely result in a different verdict. But the Maine Supreme Court disagrees.
In their 42-page decision, the justices note that they have addressed the Dechaine case three times before. Fifteen years ago, a federal judge also denied a similar petition at the federal level.
Federal Magistrate Judge David Cohen considered DNA evidence from the victim's thumbnail that suggested two unidentified people other than Dechaine were contributors. But the judge said he could find no evidence that the mystery DNA was transferred during the actual commission of the crime. And, said Cohen, it "does not in itself undermine the weight of the evidence against Dechaine."
Now, the Maine Supreme Court also says Dechaine has failed to convince them otherwise. "I'm not surprised by the decision. The law court hasn't been overly friendly on Dennis's appeals in the past," says Steve Peterson, Dennis Dechaine's attorney.
"I do think the decision was very well reasoned, and it was very well written, even though we're not happy with the outcome," Peterson says. "I would take issue with the court that said, basically, it agreed with the Superior Court, that the DNA evidence involved here is not necessarily even relevant to the crime, that it could have very well been the product of contamination."
The Maine Supreme Court agreed with other court rulings that the thumbnail DNA could have come from someone involved with Cherry's autopsy in a hospital morgue under "primitive" conditions. They said there is no evidence it was transferred during the time of Cherry's death.
But Peterson says he thinks his experts did a good job explaining how cross contamination of DNA is unlikely in a case such as Dechaine's. The court also rejected Dechaine's claim that he should have been allowed to challenge the victim's time of death and to present alternative suspects. "The statute," the justices wrote, "says nothing about reopening or supplementing the evidence introduced in prior proceedings."
"You know, good old boys club. They're going to cover each other up, I guess. I don't know," says Carol Waltman. Waltman, of Madawaska, is the founder and president of Trial and Error, a group devoted to proving Dechaine's innocence. She says her mailing list is now 7,000 names long and she estimates the group has spent half-a-million dollars on Dechaine's behalf.
Waltman says she's disappointed with the latest decision but she's not giving up hope. "We've got to go to the (sic) U.S. Supreme Law Court, so we'll take it there and we'll see what happens with that. Probably new eyes and new ears. Somebody that wants the truth to come out so this can end for everybody, the Cherry family and also for the Dechaine side."
Attorney Steve Peterson says he's still evaluating what next steps he might take. One option is to pursue a claim of Dechaine's actual innocence. It's something the state of Maine has never recognized as grounds for post conviction relief, but Peterson says it could be fair game in federal court.
Assistant Attorney General Don Macomber says either route is going to be an uphill battle for Dechaine. "Since he's already been to federal court and lost he would have to get permission from the First Circuit Court of Appeals to even file an action and it would be unlikely he'd be given that permission," Macomber says. "And even if he was, the evidence against Dechaine is so overwhelming that actual innocence is just not in the cards for him."
Macomber calls the chances of the U.S. Supreme Court taking a case like Dechaine's "slim to none. So what we're really hoping is that this decision by the law court will be one of the last chapters in the saga of ending the myth that Dennis Dechaine is not guilty of this murder."
Dechaine, who is now 57 years old, is serving a life sentence for the crime.
