BOWDOIN – Convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine may have found a new ally in his attempts to prove his innocence: famed attorney F. Lee Bailey.

Dechaine and his attorney met with Bailey at the Maine State Prison on Wednesday as they prepared to once more ask for a new trial.

All appeals in Dennis Dechaine’s case have been exhausted, but his attorney, Steve Petersen, hopes DNA legislation passed Sept. 1, 2008, will get Dechaine a new trial.

Found guilty in 1989 of the kidnapping and slaying of Sarah Cherry, Dechaine continues to claim that he isn’t the man who abducted the 12-year-old Bowdoin girl and killed her in the woods.

Peterson said Wednesday that 75-year-old Bailey has agreed to make himself available for consultation on the case, although he probably will not see any courtroom time.

Bailey, one of the most well-known lawyers in the world, drew fame after working on cases that include the trials of Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson.

For Dechaine, 45, Bailey and the new DNA legislation may represent a last bid for a new trial and for freedom.

Dechaine is serving a life sentence. He and his supporters have accused the state of obscuring, concealing and suppressing vital evidence that could have proven his innocence.

They believe that someone framed Dechaine by planting his car-repair bill in the driveway of the house where Cherry was baby-sitting when she was abducted.

They also believe that police and prosecutors ignored leads to other suspects because they decided at the beginning of the investigation that they had the right guy.

The state has repeatedly defended its handling of the case.

In 2003, director of the criminal division for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, Bill Stokes, said: “We’ve got nothing to hide. Let’s do the DNA. That’s fine. But somebody still has to explain all of the other evidence.”

In addition to the papers in the driveway, Stokes said, Dechaine was spotted coming out of the woods where Cherry was murdered, and his pickup truck was found about 400 feet from where her body was found.

He was missing a penknife from his key ring that matched the wounds on Cherry’s body, and four police and corrections officers testified at his trial that he made incriminating statements after his arrest, including, “What punishment could they ever give me that would equal what I’ve done?”

Dechaine claims that he went to the woods that day to get high, injecting himself with liquid amphetamines that he bought in Boston. He blames some of the statements on the fact that he was high and being pressured by police, and he claims others were fabricated or altered by the state.

How the new legislation will affect the case remains to be seen.

Any person convicted of a crime with DNA evidence prior to Sept. 1, 2006, can file a motion for a new trial under the post-judgment conviction motion for DNA analysis, passed Sept. 1, 2008. At the time Dechaine was tried and convicted, experts say DNA analysis was new and not nearly as reliable or refined as it is today.