AUBURN – A state prosecutor said she wants a single trial to include both defendants in the beating deaths of two Lewiston men.
Thomas Dyer, 20, and Gary Gauthier Jr., 25, pleaded not guilty Wednesday at their first appearance in Androscoggin County Superior Court since grand jury indictments on murder charges.
The two Auburn men are accused of killing John Graffam, 30, and James Vining, 43, last fall. The two men beat the victims with a baseball bat after one of them accidentally spilled beer in a car, according to court records.
Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese filed a notice to join the two cases and have both defendants tried in the same courtroom for the same crime.
Robert Ruffner, a Portland lawyer defending Gauthier, said after the hearing he likely would argue for separate trials.
Dyer and Gauthier appeared in court Wednesday morning in dark blue pants and shirts imprinted across the back with Androscoggin County Jail, where the two have been held without bail since their arrests last month. They were shackled at the wrists and ankles. Both sported faint goatees.
The 8:30 a.m. hearing was delayed an hour awaiting Dyer’s lawyer, Peter Rodway of Portland.
Neither defendant argued for bail. Both have claimed indigence and filed for court-appointed lawyers. Dyer sought and was granted $1,000 of public money to hire a forensics expert to defend his case.
Persuading a judge to hold two trials instead of one would be difficult, said Daniel Lilley, a defense lawyer in Portland.
“Trying to get the trial separated is almost impossible,” he said.
Lilley, who has practiced criminal law for 37 years, said “judicial economy” usually overrules such requests, given the high potential cost of murder trials.
Whether joining the cases would hurt the defendants depends upon the facts, he said.
“The sins of the co-defendant may be visited upon your client.” That would be the major concern, he said, “guilt by association.”
However, joined cases don’t always result in guilty verdicts.
In a well-known case, Lilley defended Truman Dongo in the murder trial of a Hollywood film producer. Dongo was paired with codefendant Herbert Schwartz, whose lawyer was Jack Simmons of Lewiston. Both defendants were acquitted. Dongo was later murdered.
Lilley is currently involved in a case in which his client has been joined with two other defendants in the shooting death of a man whose body was found beside the Maine Turnpike.
Lilley said he doesn’t know yet whether he will request a separate trial for his client. If he does argue against one trial for all three defendants, he said his chances of winning, “I think, are slim.”
Comments are no longer available on this story