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

Dechaine lawyers doubt time of victim's death

http://www.kjonline.com/news/dechaine-lawyers-doubt-time-of-victim_s-death_2010-02-24.html

KENNEBEC JOURNAL  

25 February 2010

They claim the young girl died after he was in custody

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.

Analyses by two experts offer hope to Dechaine

February 25 2010

Lawyers for the convicted killer say new opinions on the time of death back his bid for a new trial.

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."

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:

tmaxwell@pressherald.com

DNA: The Freedom Fighter (Part III of III)

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Cari Shane Parven

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:

• Not all states allow DNA testing

• Not all crimes involve DNA or DNA evidence was not found

• Some statutes do not allow testing where an inmate pled guilty

• Some states have a "Sunset Provision" allowing DNA testing for only a limited period of time.

• A lot of states do not preserve evidence. This means if changes do not take place, innocent men and women will continue to sit in jail with no hope of release. It seems unfathomable.

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:

• There have been 249 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

• The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989.

• Exonerations have been won in 33 states; since 2000, there have been more than 170 exonerations.

• 17 of the 238 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.

• The average length of time served by exonerees is 12 years. The total number of years served is approximately 2,941.

• The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions is 26.

• Races of the exonerees include mostly African Americans (majority), Caucasians and Latinos.

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.

Courts are suffering from a lack of transparency

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.

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

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/letters/7030574.html

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

Our Journalism Echoes Our Politics

Friday, July 31, 2009

byLance Tapley

The Phoenix (Portland, Maine)

If the press reflects the times, which way will it go now?

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.

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.

Killer's conviction gives good example of 'irony'

Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel

7/5/2009

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

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

State unlikely to concede any error after conviction

 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

www.trialanderrordennis.org

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!!!

Newsletter, August 2008

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 Waterville was elected to replace Steve Young, who resigned due
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 Northeastern University bestowed one of his
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 Maine newspapers and the Boston Globe published an Associated
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 Portland Press Herald even published an article I wrote saying, in
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, January 11, 2008

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 Harvard Law School graduate who had a law practice, including
trial law, for almost 40 years in Massachusetts. Shamefully, I have kept
my silence on this because the trial judge was a close friend of mine
since 1963, and Maine has an absurd practice of having the trial judge
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 Maine very likely has the evidence it needs to find and convict
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 Maine, where we are proud of our fine court system, we
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 Moore's standing offer of $1,000 to anyone who can document a
substantive
falsehood in his presentation of the evidence of official misconduct
still has no taker.

Maybe Moore's $1,000 isn't enough.  So I'll add another $1,000.  That's
$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

wbunting1@roadrunner.com

Don Dechaine
Don.mur@nci1.net

Bernie Huebner
bhuebner@roadrunner.com

Newsletter, December 2007

Jim Moore's Infamous FOAA Suit

MCLU Claims Court Order Damages Freedom of Access Act

Public Entities Should Be Subject to Public Scrutiny

A Day at the Common Ground Fair

Fundraising

Get a show on your local cable network

Waldo County Citizen Opinions

Dennis Dechaine: Imprisoned farmer dreams of nonprofit respite farm

Separate from the world

Hopes for a future

Other late breaking editorials

Newsletter, June 2007

Trial of Errors Video 

Getting a Trial & Error Video on Public Cable, by Jim Moore

Bill and Rae's Excellent Adventure at the Innocence Network

Conference, by Bill Bunting

A Special Trial & Error Matching $10 Donations Fundraiser

Jim Moore's Report on his FOA Request

Possible Changes in New York's DNA Law

October, 2006 newsletter

March, 2006 newsletter

February, 2006 newsletter