PARIS — A local man sentenced to 40 years in prison for attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend and her grandparents has lodged a second appeal with the state’s highest court in an attempt to reverse his conviction. 

A lawyer for Andrew Freeman, 25, has asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court for the right to appeal a lower court’s decision upholding his conviction.

Last month, Oxford County Superior Court Active-Retired Justice Robert Clifford denied Freeman’s post-conviction review appealing his sentence on the grounds that his trial attorney acted incompetently.

If Freeman obtains a certificate of probable cause he will be allowed to appeal the decision on the grounds that the lower court judge inappropriately denied his request for a new trial. 

William Pagnano, Freeman’s attorney, said there’s no timetable for when he’d hear back from the high court. 

“There’s automatic right for review,” Pagnano said. “Quite often they don’t grant them.” 

In 2011, Freeman broke into his ex-girlfriend’s Norway home, waited until the family was asleep, then set two fires in the basement. There were no injuries, and only some damage to the basement. 

In 2013, Freeman was sentenced to serve 40 years of a 50-year sentence after a jury found him guilty of two counts of aggravated attempted murder, arson and burglary. His conviction was upheld in a separate, unsuccessful appeal to the high court in 2014. 

Pagnano argued that trial attorney Sarah Glynn did not devote sufficient time to his case, did not advise Freeman of his right to testify in his own defense and gave ineffective advice about whether to have a non-jury trial or if he should accept a plea deal that would have seen him spend five years in prison. 

Pagnano told Clifford at a hearing in March that Glynn should have objected to a prosecutor’s remarks that Freeman stalked his ex-girlfriend when in fact there was no evidence corroborating the statements. 

In an eight-page order filed May 11, Clifford rejected those arguments, saying the court was not persuaded that had Freeman had a different attorney he would have been acquitted at trial.

Clifford said time sheets indicated Glynn spent ample time discussing the case with Freeman. He said Freeman was advised he could testify at trial, of the risk requesting a bench trial be held, and of the positives and negatives of accepting a deal in which he would plea to a felony to avoid the possibility of a harsher sentence. 

Freeman knew the consequences of going to trial but was adamant he would not plead to a crime he said he didn’t commit, Clifford said. 

Clifford said Glynn’s trial strategy ensured the law court would review prosecutor’s statements for misconduct and also deflected the jury’s attention away from Freeman’s “damaging conduct” around the time of the arson.

Clifford, noting that the law court did not find any error in 2014, found no grounds for misconduct. 

Clifford also rejected the notion Glynn erred at sentencing when she requested Freeman’s records from the Department of Health and Human Services. The files, which revealed a “long and troubled history of Freeman’s propensity to set fires” and convinced a judge of the dangers he posed to the public, contributed heavily to Freeman’s lengthy sentence, he said. 

However, Clifford said Glynn asked family members about any history of arson before requesting them and, having no reason to fear what they might contain,  thought they might be beneficial to their case. 

“Freeman’s history is what it is, and his attorney’s efforts to procure the DHHS records was not unreasonable or incompetent,” Clifford said. 

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