PORTLAND (AP) – A judge has issued an order outlining issues that can be aired at a Friday hearing on whether convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine should get a new trial. Dechaine is serving a life sentence at Maine State Prison for the killing of a 12-year-old girl in 1988.

Superior Court Justice Carl Bradford said in his order that no new evidence, except for DNA analysis and information about an alternate suspect, can be presented at the upcoming hearing on a motion for a new trial for the 47-year-old the former Bowdoinham man.

Bradford presided over Dechaine’s 1989 trial, in which he was convicted of murdering Sarah Cherry while she was babysitting in Bowdoin. The judge issued a written ruling in Cumberland County Superior Court on Monday.

To win a new trial, Dechaine’s lawyers must provide convincing evidence that DNA found under the young victim’s fingernails came from her killer, that the evidence was properly handled and that it outweighs all of the other evidence that led to his conviction.

A lawyer for Dechaine, Michaela Murphy, and the state’s chief murder prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Willliam Stokes, had no comment on the judge’s order.

“The order speaks for itself,” Stokes said.

Police said Dechaine admitted to the crime, but his defenders say the investigation was flawed in many ways, including the time of death provided by the medical examiner, alleged doctoring of investigators’ notes and destruction of evidence that might prove his innocence.

Dechaine’s defenders said in July 2004 that testing by the state crime lab showed DNA of an unidentified man, not Dechaine, was in a sampling from Cherry’s fingernails.

In his decision this week, Bradford said that for the purposes of this DNA analysis hearing, Dechaine’s lawyers defendant may not re-litigate the issue of time of death by calling an expert witness to contradict testimony from the original trial.

Similarly, Dechaine’s lawyers may not re-litigate whether he confessed to the crime.

“If he meets his burden by establishing by clear and convincing evidence that someone else is the source of the DNA evidence and the evidence was not contaminated, he will be granted a new trial with which to litigate every issue surrounding Sarah Cherry’s death,” the judge said.

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-09-21-05 0857EDT