AUGUSTA – Attorney General Steven Rowe said Tuesday that a retired judge and two prominent lawyers will review allegations of misconduct in the investigation of Dennis Dechaine, who was convicted of murdering a 12-year-old girl in 1988.

“I have no reason to believe that these allegations are true,” Rowe wrote in letters to retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Eugene Beaulieu of Old Town and attorneys Charles Abbott of Auburn and Marvin Glazier of Bangor.

“However, in order to ensure continued public confidence in the Office of the Attorney General as well as other law enforcement agencies in the State of Maine, I request that you conduct an independent and impartial review of these allegations and issue a report of your findings, which I will make public,” Rowe’s letter said.

Rowe said the three had agreed to conduct the probe, which stems from allegations raised by a group of Dechaine supporters called Trial & Error.

“We are delighted. We do look forward to a complete investigation of fairness and not just misconduct” in the case, said Morrison Bonpasse of Trial & Error.

Dechaine is serving a life sentence in the Maine State Prison for the 1988 murder of Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. Police had discovered his truck near where Cherry’s body was found mutilated and sexually assaulted.

Receipts bearing Dechaine’s name were found in the driveway of the home where Cherry had been baby-sitting. She was bound with rope, pieces of which police say came from Dechaine’s truck.

But questions about the conduct of the investigation and trial were raised in the book “Human Sacrifice” by James Moore published in 2002. Since then, DNA issues have been raised in the courts.

Allegations to be probed by the three-member panel include police altering notes to attribute incriminating statements to Dechaine, prosecutors misleading the jury about Cherry’s time of death, and prosecutors failing to share the name of an alternative suspect with defense counsel, according to Rowe.

Also to be reviewed are allegations that officials in 1992 destroyed physical evidence, and that prosecutors 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.

Bonpasse said he would also like the three investigators to look into what his group claims are missing fingerprints and blood tests, and why two psychologists who interviewed Dechaine could not testify during his trial.

Rowe’s announcement came three days before Trial & Error’s planned Dennis Dechaine Day at the State House, at which supporters plan to present signatures of 5,000 people asking for an independent investigation of the case.

The activists plan to present the petitions to Gov. John Baldacci and Rowe. Baldacci does not plan to be in the State House that day, a spokesman said.

The event coincides with Dechaine’s 47th birthday. Trial & Error said it plans to have a birthday cake for Dechaine on display, along with a life-size standing photo of Dechaine and 16 poster boards depicting world events that have occurred during each year Dechaine’s been in prison. It will also ring a ship’s bell 16 times.

Parents of Murdered Children of Maine did not respond when asked to comment on the event.

The Maine House Clerk’s office, which schedules public events in the State House, does not bar groups because of their political or ideological views, said Clerk Millicent MacFarland.

AP-ES-10-26-04 1820EDT



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