High court affirms man’s manslaughter conviction

PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Wednesday the manslaughter conviction of a Tremont man and rejected his attorney’s argument for a new trial based on sexual self-defense.

Edwin Graham, 27, was found guilty by a Hancock County jury in November 2002 of causing Zachary Savoy’s death by stabbing, beating and kicking Savoy after the two men got into an altercation at Graham’s home on Dec. 22, 2001.

After deliberating nearly six hours, the jury found Graham not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter in the killing of his neighbor.

The justices on the state’s high court unanimously rejected Graham’s contention that Maine Superior Court Justice Donald Marden erred when he failed to instruct the jury on sexual self-defense. Marden sentenced Graham in January 2003 to a 30-year prison term with all but 18 years suspended and six years probation.

The men rented neighboring properties and had met for the first time earlier that evening at a Christmas party thrown by their landlord, who also was Graham’s employer. At his trial, Graham testified that he and Savoy got together at Graham’s home after the party. He said he and Savoy started fighting after Savoy began acting in a strange manner and tried to smoke marijuana in his home.

The fight spilled outside Graham’s home, where Graham kicked Savoy and broke a baseball bat over Savoy’s head. Graham testified he could not remember stabbing Savoy.

Graham testified that he believed Savoy had made a sexual pass at him and that he was concerned Savoy might sexually assault him as his brother had when he was a child.

“The evidence, however, does not support Graham’s position that he honestly and actually believed that a sexual assault was about to be committed against him in the trailer,” wrote Justice Robert Clifford for the court. “Moreover, based on the circumstances surrounding the incident, any belief on Graham’s part that Savoy’s making a pass at him, standing alone, justified the use of deadly force is not objectively reasonable. … Savoy’s actions in Graham’s trailer certainly do not come close to generating a sexual self-defense instruction.”

Justices agreed that someone making a pass doesn’t rise to the level of invoking the defense. The court also said Graham had clearly prevailed in the fight and there was no evidence that Savoy had the intent or the capacity to carry out a sexual assault on the defendant.

Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber, who handled the appeal, said Graham never mentioned anything about the victim making a pass at him after the assault. That only came up later.

He said the defendant should consider himself lucky that he was convicted of manslaughter and not murder.

“Looking at the massive violence he inflicted, he’s lucky just to be convicted of manslaughter. This may be one of those cases where the phrase ‘literally got away with murder’ applies,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.