BOWDOIN

When the Maine Supreme Judicial Court rejected a motion for a new trial in a decade-old Bowdoin murder, it set a possible precedent for another high-profile murder case, also in Bowdoin.

Olland Reese, who was convicted of murdering 16-year-old Cody Green of Brunswick in 2003, lost an appeal to have his conviction overturned based on new methods of DNA analysis.

Reese argued new methods of analyzing skin cells found on a length of duct tape used to bind Green’s wrists would have cleared him in the May 2002 slaying in Bowdoin.

The Maine supreme court rejected his appeal in a ruling Jan. 17. Reese is serving a 47-year sentence in Maine State Prison.

At the center of the appeal was prior analysis that showed that the DNA came from a male other than Reese, which Reese’s defense attorney contends must have come from the perpetrator of the crime.

‘Voluminous evidence’

However, in a decision written by Chief Justice Leigh Saufley, the court unanimously ruled that there were other plausible sources for the DNA, including detectives at the crime scene and forensic investigators who later handled the evidence.

Moreover, the court said, new DNA evidence was unlikely to change the verdict because it didn’t counter “voluminous evidence that implicated Reese in the murder.”

In 2006, the Legislature enacted a law involving appeals of criminal cases that involve new DNA evidence. It requires defendants to prove in court that the new DNA evidence only could have come from the perpetrator of the crime and that the DNA evidence must be strong enough to outweigh other evidence in the case.

According to the court’s decision, Green last was seen by a taxi driver who dropped her off at Reese’s home while his mother was away and his girlfriend, who was a close friend of Green’s, was working.

The girlfriend returned to the home to find a hatchet outside on a porch. The interior of the house had been cleaned, a striped sheet that had been on the living room futon was missing, and “Reese was anxious to leave the house as soon as she arrived,” according to the decision.

The investigation revealed the presence of Green’s blood on the futon and on a hallway wall. Her DNA was found on the blunt end of the hatchet.

A month after she disappeared, Green’s body was found about 125 yards behind Reese’s mother’s house, wrapped in the missing striped sheet, her wrists bound in duct tape.

Her death was found to have been caused by blunt force trauma to the head, which the prosecution contended was caused by the hatchet.

DNA and duct tape

Reese’s appeal centered on the duct tape. The DNA in question was found on the smooth side of the duct tape, on the outer, exposed layer that bound Green’s wrists.

A latent hand print was found on the same portion of tape, but on the sticky side.

Reese and an alternative suspect cited by the defense were excluded as sources of the handprint, which prosecutors argued could have been Green’s. Her body was too decomposed for comparison.

Later analysis of the DNA showed that some of it came from a female latent print analyst in the Maine State Police Crime Lab. The traces of male DNA could have come from a fingerprint brush the analyst used that had been used in other cases, according to the Jan. 17 ruling.

Procedures at the Maine State Police Crime Lab since have been altered so that similar contaminations no longer can occur.

Latest court test

According to Assistant Attorney General Donald W. Macomber, the Reese decision marks the third time that the 2006 law has been tested in court.

“The Legislature, when crafting the statute, made it so if they’re going to be disturbing a conviction that has already been upheld by the Maine supreme court, they don’t want to have those things disturbed by what they see as insignificant evidence,” said Macomber. “To me, what is precedent-setting is … They clarified that they can look at all of the evidence from the original trial and have to weigh the importance of the new evidence against all the other evidence.”

When the Legislature was considering the law, many tied it to the case of Dennis Dechaine, who is serving a life sentence for the 1988 kidnapping, murder and torture of 11-year-old Sarah Cherry, which also occurred in Bowdoin. Dechaine is seeking a new trial based on DNA evidence that has been unveiled in recent years.

Dechaine case

Among the DNA testing results were the discovery of skin cells on Cherry’s clothing from a male other than Dechaine, though Dechaine’s attorney Stephen Peterson of Rockland has said the results were not 100 percent conclusive.

In the past, investigators have found male DNA that was not Dechaine’s under Cherry’s fingernails.

Peterson said Wednesday that DNA testing in the case is continuing. He said Dechaine’s case has some similarities with the Reese case, but also some key differences. Among them is that DNA testing through the years reportedly has excluded numerous people, including most of the investigators on the case.

Peterson said the evidence against Reese was much stronger than the evidence against Dechaine, though prosecutors and investigators involved in the Dechaine case have said repeatedly that the circumstantial evidence against Dechaine leaves little doubt of his guilt.

Another major difference is that during the Dechaine trial, DNA evidence was not introduced, nor was an alternative-suspect theory.

“I think the analysis that the supreme court did was a very good one and very probative,” said Peterson. “I think these analyses are going to have to be done on a caseby case basis. We asked for DNA testing prior to trial and were denied the chance to do that. … The fact is that the DNA we found does not match Dechaine. When you take that into account, it’s much easier for a jury to conclude that he might not have done it.”

Peterson said he is representing Dechaine in a Superior Court conference hearing to determine how to proceed with that case.

FOR MORE, see the Bangor Daily News at bangordailynews.com.