Trial and Error

The Outcry for Justice in the Dennis Dechaine Case

2012 Common Ground Fair Handout

Sep 25, 2012

DNA and the Dennis Dechaine Case – An Update

In 2011 Judge Carl Bradford ruled that only DNA evidence could be entered in support of Dennis Dechaine’s 2008 motion for a new trial, a trial which Dechaine hoped would — after 24 years proclaiming his innocence — overthrow his 1989 conviction for the murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Supporting evidence Bradford disallowed included the conclusions of two renowned forensic pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Walter Hofmann, regarding time of death, which eliminated Dechaine as the killer.

The DNA evidence consisted of a partial profile of a male who was not Dechaine from a thumbnail clipping taken from Sarah that was inadvertently given to the defense in 1992. Tests showed that it was not the DNA of any male known to have possibly been in contact with Sarah alive or deceased. The state claimed that this DNA was the result of contamination from unsanitary conditions in the medical examiner’s facility, and was of no significance.

Dechaine’s 2008 motion requested the testing of certain items of evidence by the new “touch” DNA technique in the hope of finding additional DNA. “Touch” DNA testing had recently come to public attention by capturing DNA from the pants of Colorado’s JonBenet Ramsey. Unfortunately the items remaining to be tested in the Dechaine case did not include Sarah’s pants, unidentified hair, fingernails, or swabs, which the state had incinerated in 1992 without informing the defense or the court, six weeks after Dechaine had filed an appeal.

After Judge Bradford granted Dechaine’s request for the “touch” DNA testing, defense attorney Steve Peterson and Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes engaged in negotiations regarding the details of that testing for more than three years. In a hearing in Portland in June 2012, Stokes argued that the Maine State Crime Lab’s attempt to obtain DNA using Q-tips, which produced no DNA, qualified as “touch” DNA testing and that no further testing should be permitted. Stokes opposed Dechaine’s request to allow a private lab, Cellmark, to employ the scraping technique more commonly recognized as constituting “touch” DNA testing, a technique that the state lab was not authorized to perform.

Stokes opposed any further testing even though the state would not have to pay for it, just as back in 1988 the state successfully opposed DNA testing which Dechaine offered to pay for himself.

Countering Stokes’s claim that back in 1988 medical examiners did not understand the importance of DNA evidence and good hygiene, Peterson produced documents showing that on July 14, 1988 — this was only a week after the Cherry murder — Maine’s crime lab submitted evidence from the 1983 Judy Flagg murder to a New York lab for DNA testing. In 2010 this case was solved using DNA obtained from a fingernail of the victim.

After the June 2012 hearing, Judge Bradford granted Dechaine’s request for the testing of certain items by a private lab, Cellmark of Dallas, Texas, using the scraping technique. An expert from Cellmark traveled to Augusta to do the scraping, but all testing would be performed in the Dallas lab. Following the completion of tests by Cellmark a hearing will be held in Portland. The importance of this hearing as to Dennis’s future cannot easily be overstated.

Thank you for your interest. For more information please go to www.trialanderrordennis.org. Fighting for justice is expensive, and contributions, which are tax exempt, are greatly appreciated.

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