Review affirms Deschaine casework No misconduct seen in ’88 murder probe

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AUGUSTA – An independent panel found no misconduct by prosecutors or investigators in its review of a 1988 court case that put a Bowdoinham man in prison for life in the murder of 12-year-old baby sitter Sarah Cherry, the state attorney general announced Monday.

Dennis Dechaine, 48, is serving a life sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren for the Bowdoin girl’s murder.

Dechaine has maintained his innocence, and an active, organized group has been pressing for the case to be reopened.

On July 6, 1988, Cherry disappeared. Her body was found days later. She had been raped, strangled, and stabbed repeatedly.

In October 2004, Attorney General Steven Rowe named a retired federal magistrate judge and two lawyers to review allegations of misconduct by prosecutors and investigators involved in the child murder case “to ensure continued public confidence in the Office of the Attorney General as well as other law enforcement agencies in the state of Maine,” Rowe said Monday in a prepared statement.

A report of the findings by U.S Magistrate Judge Eugene Beaulieu of Old Town and lawyers Charles Abbott of Auburn and Marvin Glazier of Bangor was released Monday and concludes that the allegations had no merit.

“I find it incredible they would find that conclusion,” Dechaine said in a telephone interview Monday.

Dechaine, who did not know the panel’s findings had been released, said there were “tremendous discrepancies” in the testimony of a couple of officers at trial. “They lied on the stand,” he said, referring to alleged confessions by him. He also said police altered investigative notes.

Dechaine cited numerous American Bar Association standards that he says were not followed by prosecutors. “They violated their standards,” he said.

What is most upsetting, Dechaine said, is the destruction of physical evidence while a motion for a new trial was pending. A rape kit and hairs and fibers were “incinerated without testing them,” he said. “Any suspect should have access to all evidence. We’ll never know now, and that pisses me off.”

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.

Police say Dechaine confessed to the crime, but his supporters say there was no confession. They have alleged police misconduct and say the evidence was planted to divert attention from the real killer.

Carol Waltman, president of Trial & Error, a group supporting Dechaine, could not be reached Monday for comment.

“This is a case that desperately needs to be resolved in a courtroom and not through the issuance of press releases by either side,” defense attorney Michaela Murphy said Monday. Murphy expressed disappointment that neither defense attorneys nor Dechaine supporters were interviewed by the panel.

On Monday, Glazier said the panel made the decision to limit comment to that of prosecutors and investigators because the review “wasn’t dealing with guilt or innocence.”

The panel’s report was not released sooner to the attorney general at the request of defense attorneys to allow pending court and legislative proceedings in Dechaine’s case to be resolved.

The panel reviewed the following claims:

. Law enforcement officers altered their notes and reports to falsely attribute incriminating statements to Dechaine.

. Prosecutors misled the jury with respect to Cherry’s time of death.

. At the time of trial, prosecutors and law enforcement officers had information about an alternative suspect, which they should have shared – but did not – with defense counsel.

. Law enforcement officers, with approval of prosecutors in 1992, inappropriately destroyed physical evidence that included a rape kit as well as hairs and fibers discovered at the scene where Cherry’s body was found.

. Prosecutors inappropriately failed to notify the court and defense counsel of a consultant’s opinion regarding the reliability of an outside laboratory and DNA tests conducted in 1993.

“We find that none of the allegations … have any substantive merit,” the panel wrote.

The panel called allegations that Assistant Attorney General William Stokes, chief of the criminal division, inappropriately failed to notify the court and defendant’s counsel in a timely manner of a consultant’s opinion a “close question.”

Eventually, the report was provided to the defense and has since been the subject of comment and litigation.

“Better practice may have been for Mr. Stokes to have given this report immediately to Mr. Dechaine’s defense counsel,” the panel wrote. “However, we find that Mr. Stokes’ action was not improper under the circumstances.”

Under a new law, the defense may file a motion for a new trial based on DNA evidence. No decision has been made on whether or when to file such a motion, Murphy said.