Dennis Dechaine is led into the courtroom by correctional officers during a two-day hearing at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland in April 2024 to decide if he should have a new trial. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

A Maine man who lost his most recent bid for a new trial in a three-decades-old murder case has again filed a notice of appeal.

Dechaine was convicted in 1989 of the sexual assault, kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry.

Dennis Dechaine was convicted in 1989 of the sexual assault, kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry in Bowdoin. Superior Court Justice Bruce Mallonee ruled last month that new DNA evidence in his case wasn’t sufficient to warrant a new trial.

Cherry was found dead in the woods in July 1988, after she had been reported missing while babysitting at a house nearby. Police found Dechaine’s truck and personal items near the crime scene, but he has maintained his innocence for decades, saying those items were planted while he was lost in the same woods after getting high.

Dechaine has been serving a life sentence in prison while making multiple requests for a new trial. His attorneys brought forth new DNA evidence during a two-day hearing in Knox County Superior Court in April 2024, which showed a different male’s DNA underneath one of Cherry’s fingernails and on the scarf used to choke her.

But this appeal won’t address the new evidence. Attorney John Nale said in a phone interview Wednesday that the state won that argument by “withholding” it and allowing it to degrade.

Instead, Nale said the defense’s focus will be on alleged prosecutorial misconduct during the jury trial 36 years ago.

Nale says the prosecutor “unconstitutionally swayed the jury” by making references to God during the state’s closing arguments.

“The point, as we tried to make to you, with regard to this kind of evidence, whether it be fingerprints or fibers or hairs or what have you, sometimes you have it or sometimes you don’t,” the prosecutor said, according to court documents. “I can give you no better answer than to say, that’s the way God made it.”

Because Dechaine’s defense hinged on proving that he was not at the crime scene, Nale said this statement could have tainted the jury by using religion to explain the limited amount of evidence.

The state said this allegation was raised too late, and the judge agreed in his ruling last month. But Nale said his client is protected by the U.S. Constitution, which says the ability to petition unlawful imprisonment “shall not be suspended.”

The judge also said the prosecutor’s comment was “simply a theistic version of ‘that’s the way it goes.'” Nale argued that the judge must consider the context in which the statement was said, as well as the mindset of the jury.

“If there was a person there, who went home every night and prayed to God for help and guidance in making this very important decision (about) this man’s life … if there’s one of them that went into that jury room with that ringing in his ears, that that’s the way God made it, there was no fair trial,” Nale said.

Maine has never exonerated anyone convicted of a felony, according to lawmaker testimony this week. But state representatives are considering a new unit that would review and reinvestigate criminal convictions, potentially resulting in a new trial or vacating a charge. Rep. Nina Milliken, D-Blue Hill, has said this office could help people like Dechaine, whom she believes may be innocent.