The majority of the people of Maine elected the senators and representatives to take a stand on our behalf in various important issues. They have before them a resolution that Rep. Ross Paradis created called LR 2115. This resolution was created for a very important issue, that of (justice) for all of the citizens of Maine. All Mainers have a constitutional right if and when arrested, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. They also have a constitutional right to a fair trial.

The legislators are the ones who elect an attorney general and they have an obligation to the citizens of Maine to ensure that the person they elect as attorney general pursues justice and not merely the securing and upholding of convictions. One wrongly imprisoned person is one too many. Making sure that doesn’t happen is part of their job, both through the person they elect as attorney general and through urging the one they elect to do what’s right for the people of Maine.

Right now, there is a wrongly imprisoned man, one too many. The Senate and House of Representatives have the opportunity and obligation to do what’s right for those who elected them. They have been given evidentiary facts to read concerning this particular case, facts that not only show that Dennis Dechaine did not commit the crime he’s been imprisoned for, but also facts that show beyond a reasonable doubt that the investigation of the case was negligent, that Mr. Dechaine was presumed guilty and has had to try to prove his innocence all of these years. That isn’t how the justice system is supposed to work. DNA testing was done and showed the DNA of a man who was not Dennis Dechaine. The investigators failed to look into registered sex offenders in Maine, 34 at that time, while Dennis Dechaine was never and is not a sex offender/pedophile or child murderer, they focused only on him. At least two known pedophiles were in the immediate proximity of this particular crime. None of the sex offenders/pedophiles were looked at in any serious way.

This is a gross injustice. Every citizen of Maine deserves far better than that, including Dennis Dechaine, who by the way, had never had any previous record of any sort of crime, let alone this type of crime against little girls. Those who have had records of crimes like that, were overlooked and allowed to go free by the investigators, prosecutor and the attorney general at that time. Seventeen years is far too long to allow this injustice to continue.

This type of thing must change so that it never happens to another person under their jurisdiction. A Yes vote would be their support that justice be served in this case, a No vote would be their support of the continued cover-up of the failures and lack of justice in this case. A Yes vote will also urge the current attorney general to support a retrial for Dennis Dechaine because he never received a fair trial to begin with. They have facts in the white paper that show relevant evidence that the jury in 1989 did not hear.

Someone else committed this crime and it’s time to find out who that is and convict the right person. Without a retrial for Mr. Dechaine, the cover-ups will continue; that should not be acceptable to anyone in Maine, including our legislators. I hope that every Legislator will vote Yes and urge the attorney general to support a retrial and I hope the citizens of Maine encourage them to do so.

A retrial takes nothing away from the people of Maine. Not allowing it deprives the people of Maine the entitlement we all have to due process and fair trials. If one person is allowed to be deprived of that liberty we all are, and Dennis Dechaine was deprived of that liberty.

Lori Dumont is a resident of St. David.