PORTLAND – State officials are asking that a man accused of stabbing with a pocketknife the owner of a truck he had stolen earlier in the day be held without bond.

The Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office based its request, which attorneys made during Monday’s hearing, on a law that prevents prisoners charged with capital offenses from being released.

Julia Sheridan, an assistant district attorney, said the attack’s apparent random nature makes Nicholas Bennett dangerous to the community. “Someone that aggressive and violent should not be out on bail,” she said.

Bennett, 21, a transient with family in Eliot, is charged with breaking into the home of John Ohrt last Thursday and stabbing him repeatedly with a pocketknife.

Burglary after dark used to be a capital offense in Maine before the state abolished the death penalty in 1887. According to police, sunset occurred at 4:43 p.m. Thursday, making the entry a nighttime break-in.

According to police reports, Bennett stole Ohrt’s truck earlier in the day and used identification he found in it to learn where Ohrt lived.

Ohrt told police that he was on the telephone when a man police have said was Bennett came into his apartment and began hitting Ohrt with a green bottle and stabbing him with a pocketknife.

Bennett drove away in Ohrt’s pickup truck and was later arrested in Yarmouth.

His attorney said that holes in the state’s evidence mean his client should be released. “I think there’s a lot more to this case than meets the eye,” said Howard O’Brien, who would not go into specifics.