Re: “Maine convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine loses bid for new trial” (April 10):

Once again, Dennis Dechaine has been victimized by Justice Carl Bradford. The retired active judge remains very much in character, wrapped in an aura of infallibility, oblivious to the progress of science in the application of justice.

At the 1989 trial that resulted in Dechaine’s conviction for the murder of Sarah Cherry, Justice Bradford denied Dechaine’s request for DNA testing, saying that the testing was not reliable.

For his information, more than 300 inmates have been exonerated over the past three decades because of DNA findings, just through the Innocence Project.

Justice Bradford is not alone in his belief that Dechaine is guilty of murder, no matter what the evidence. The Attorney General’s Office for the past quarter of a century has stubbornly wrapped itself in the mantra of infallibility: “In Maine, we’re different.”

No matter that DNA tests fail to tie Dennis to the crime; that time of death eliminates Dechaine as the perpetrator; that no trace of Cherry was ever found in his truck; that investigators changed their notes and perjured themselves in court; that 54 percent of Maine people polled support a new trial, as does former Attorney General Jon Lund – the miscarriage of justice continues.

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The Dark Ages of Maine’s judicial system are in stark contrast to the Enlightenment Age throughout the rest of the country.

The Damon Thibodeaux case in Louisiana stands out. There, the presiding judge in the rape-murder trial and the county district attorney agreed that DNA and other evidence proved Thibodeaux’s innocence, and the 15-year death row inmate was released.

Ross Paradis

Frenchville

 


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