Is it justice? I guess you be the judge

I receive a large number of e-mails at the office each day. Ninety percent of them are trying to sell me a mortgage or a sex toy, neither of which I’m currently in the market for.

I got one on Monday, however, that I did find interesting because it informed me that the majority of Mainers favor a new trial for convicted killer Dennis Dechaine.

That’s truly amazing, I thought, because people aren’t often sympathetic toward those in our society who are convicted of raping, sodomizing and killing children.

Dechaine was convicted of the 1988 brutal murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. His conviction has withstood five appeals, including one in federal court.

The press release sent out by Trial and Error, an organized group of people dedicated to freeing Dechaine, stated that it’s the first time that a poll has been conducted to determine how the public felt about whether a convicted murderer should be retried.

Well, thank goodness for that anyway. Let’s hope it’s the last.

I mean, think about it. We can have the U.S. Congress coming to the bedside of every comatose patient to determine whether they should live or not, and we can conduct telephone polls to determine the fate of our convicted criminals.

Who the heck needs this judicial system we’ve established anyway? Think of the taxpayer money to be saved if we send all of the nation’s judges to the unemployment line.

Seriously though, have no fear, Dechaine’s case is not going to hinge on a telephone poll, which, by the way, involved only 400 Mainers.

That would be silly. Instead, the Legislature is going to take a whack at it.

Feel better now?

It’s true. Rep. Ross Paradis, a Democrat from Frenchville, has put forth a resolution, LR 2115, in which the Legislature would urge Attorney General Steve Rowe to support a new trial for Dennis Dechaine.

Ross said this week that 62 lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors of the resolution, which, at some point, will be heard before the Judicial Committee.

I wonder how many of those lawmakers have visited the sixth floor of the State House to examine the five boxes of investigative material, court decisions and transcripts pertaining to Dechaine’s case that are available for public perusal.

There is no doubt that individual cases, heartaches and tragedies inspire legislation. It’s why we toughened our laws against drunken driving and made it illegal to pass a stopped school bus. But those were laws that were studied and passed to do a greater good.

It’s a problem when legislators start involving themselves and passing legislation to determine the outcome of individual court cases. There is a reason new laws that are passed don’t apply to those who already have been charged or convicted of a crime. They apply only to those arrested after the law has been passed. It ensures that laws are not changed to affect the outcome of a particular case.

Rowe’s a pretty important guy, but he has no say in whether Dechaine gets a new trial. That’s up to a judge. But apparently if this resolution passes, Rowe will have to stand before a judge and say that he supports a new trial, whether he does or not.

You’ve just got to love that.

This week we’ve seen two university system trustees resign because they feel that the Legislature undermined the board’s authority in making decisions affecting the system.

One has to wonder who may be resigning should this resolution get passed.