ROCKLAND, Maine — A convicted murderer got three months tacked onto his life sentence Tuesday after pleading no contest to taking morphine while in prison.
Dennis Dechaine, 54, was ready to go to trial on Tuesday and the jury was waiting in the wings of Knox County Superior Court when he had a change of heart and instead pleaded no contest.
Dechaine overdosed on morphine in April 2010 in what he said was a suicide attempt. He was then charged with trafficking drugs and unlawful possession of morphine by consumption. On Tuesday the trafficking charge was dropped and Superior Court Justice William Brodrick handed down a three-month sentence and $400 fine. The sentence will be served separately from his murder sentence, which Dechaine is currently contesting using DNA evidence.
In court Tuesday, Dechaine’s attorney Steven Peterson argued that any drug sentence should be entirely suspended. If Dechaine gets acquitted for the murder charge in a new trial, he would have already served time he didn’t need to; if not, he’s in for life anyway and another three months on a life sentence wouldn’t make a difference.
“It seems absurd,” Peterson said. “My client was punished for this [drug offense] in prison already. As I understand it, he spent several months in [solitary confinement].”
District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau argued for a six-month sentence and said Dechaine needed to be treated like any other prisoner who committed a drug crime.
Rushlau called Dechaine’s drug use recreational because there was no suicide note.
Peterson said that claim was bunk and that his client was depressed after he spent decades fighting his murder conviction. Dechaine had to be hospitalized after prison officials found him unconscious in his cell. There were no drugs found in the cell afterward. Dechaine was then put on a prison suicide watch.
“They don’t put people on suicide watch for recreational use,” Peterson said after the sentencing.
According to Rushlau, whether it was or wasn’t a suicide attempt would not have affected the sentence.
Dechaine was given a life sentence in 1989 for the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry of Bowdoin. He is seeking a new trial based on DNA from the victim’s fingernail clipping. Dechaine’s attorney says that fingernail has the DNA of an unknown male, which would have changed jurors’ minds at his 1989 trial.
Typically, this type of misdemeanor drug sentence would be tacked onto the end of a murder conviction, but because Dechaine is contesting that conviction Rushlau asked the justice to instead interrupt the murder sentence so Dechaine would serve his three-month drug charge now. Brodrick agreed.
Dechaine, wearing prison blues, showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down.
“He’s already in prison, so it’s purely academic,” Peterson said concerning when the three months would be served.
I am sorry but why bother once someone gets a life sentence? Seems like a colossal waste of time.
and $$
You are correct………Waste of money.
Sick of hearing about this creep. The details of his crime are something out of hannibel lecter.
I was going to ask the same thing ha ha!! It makes about as much sense as giving someone “two consecutive life sentences”
If this guy is ever exonerated of murder, a distinct possibility, I wonder if time already served in prison will count towards the three-month additional sentence on his drug charge even though both convictions are legally unrelated.
I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.
So how many years is a life sentence in Maine? How many more years does he have to serve before he gets out? Just wondering.
Dennis is doing a natural. Unlike most states, a life sentence is exactly what it means. He’ll die inside.
Thanks
You hope so, don’t you camcat. Still hoping the sins of prosecutor Eric Wright will remain hidden, and nobody will find out why he was fired from the Attorney General’s office shortly after his chicanery in the Dechaine case started coming to light.
I know it’s become a mental thing for you Moore, but please.
Dennis Dechaine abducted, tortured and murdered Sarah Cherry. After a fair trial, 12 ordinary citizens rendered their judgement. Since then, no other case in the history of Maine jurisprudence has undergone more scrutiny. No murderer has had more bites at the apple.
And hey, let’s say we fact-adjust — it should be familiar to you — and give you the fact that Wright was fired. He wasn’t, but we’ll humor you and say he was:
What does that have to do with the fact that Dennis Dechaine abducted, tortured and murdered a young girl?
You think elderlygent is Moore????? I like that. He sure spews the Moore books opinions doesn’t he?
He sure do…
The anti-Eric Wright stuff is pretty telling, too. Eric put a dozen or more murderers in the can. His reputation in the legal community was and is above reproach. But since he — and the AG’s office — have always refused to dance to Moore’s tune, then he and they are corrupt. They lie. They hide and destroy evidence, ad nauseum…
For those readers with any legal experience, Moore’s problems with the AG’s office began with their refusal to just hand over Discovery and work product simply because he asked for it.
I know. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it either.
” Eric put a dozen or more [people] in the can.
Judging by how he handled the Decha9ine case, we can only wonder whether any of them were murderers.
Each and every one of them, Moore. Including your hero.
Yeah, admit that Wright was fired after his chicanery in the Dechaine case was exposed.
HE WAS FIRED!
And he couldn’t get/keep a job with any law firm because none of them wanted a “lawyer” who operated like him. So he went crawling back to the State and they gave him a VERY low profile job where he languishes today (when he’s not using state computers to read the papers and issue self-serving comments).
And that other dude involved in the case, Deputy AG LaRochelle was demoted the same day.
Anybody who examines the documents revealed when the Legislature forced the AG to open that “confidential” file on this case will see how they railroaded Dechaine.
You continue to make outlandish claims without any basis in fact. How do you know the details of Wright’s employment? Under state law, the details of a person’s employment re: hiring and firing are confidential. Do you have a source? Are you suborning illegal activity?
How do you know “None” of the law firms in Maine wanted a “Lawyer who operated like him?”
Like your book, you simply can’t help adjusting, exaggerating or creating facts to fit your theories.
Wright’s character and the opinion of those in the legal community are no secret.
Statements like these illuminate how shallow your thinking really is. Seriously, you are the only person (other than your acolytes) I’ve ever heard mutter these opinions.
But you KNOW they’re true because you’ve lived it.
I’m told folks back in Athens, Ohio have very amusing memories of you. Ever notice that none of them invite you to come back for a visit?
I’ve never been to Ohio.. Not that there’s anything wrong with Ohio.
Suffice to say Moore, you’re not the only person who knows this case. You like to think so, but like so many, many of your claims, you’re simply wrong.
You are the only one however who not only doesn’t understand the Rules of Court and the Rules of Evidence et.al., but has chosen to side himself with a man who abducted, tortured and murdered a young girl..
You never lived at 14 N May Ave, Athens Ohio?
Moore supports his statements with evidence.
You give us your unsupported allegations.
Gosh, who should we believe?
Ever use the handle “heyyou”?
Sorry Moore. Not me.
I know it’s killing you wondering who has the temerity to stand up to you. But I’m a Mainer.
Again — documents are not evidence. That’s a simple, basic fact.
Because you *believe* you found a discrepancy in the record, and wrote a book about it does not make it evidence.
I’m not alleging anything. Dennis Dechaine abducted, tortured and murdered a little girl. It’s a fact. So said a jury. So say all of us.
By the way: You’re hung up this DNA jazz. You do recall that DNA evidence was not admissable evidence in Maine courts when the Dechaine case was on the docket, don’t you? I know you like to obscure that fact, but it’s true.
By golly, you’ve done it!
You’ve convinced .; . . yourself.
Really? You mean that you didn’t know that DNA evidence wasn’t admissable evidence during the Dechaine era?
You can look it up. We’ll wait.
(Hint: State v. Fleming. He too was a kidnapper/rapist/torturer/murderer. I’ll bet you collected his stats. You seem attracted to the type)
Now: Can you explain the chain of custody issues with this Holy Grail of ‘Proof’ you harp on?
While you’re waiting, how about some justification for prosecutors’ subversion of the criminal justice system by corruptly concealing and misrepresenting evidence (all PROVED by the official documents illustrated in Moore’s book) in order to railroad an innocent man for a crime Maine’s authorities were too inept to solve.
Waiting . . . . waiting . . . . (I think we all have a long wait).
Don’t you get it, Moore? Documents don’t “Prove,” anything. In every court in the land, documents are hearsay.
Don’t tell me you didn’t know that? Are you serious? You hold yourself out as an ace investigator. How could you not know that?
I don’t know why I waste my time — Wait! Yes I do. You’re trying to convince people that your hero didn’t abduct, torture and murder a poor little girl and I’m reminding them that after a fair trial, a jury of good Maine citizens said he did.
Now, what about the chain of custody issues on this magic piece of evidence upon which you’re hanging your hat. C’mon. Tell us.
Either the documents are reliable or the officials who created them are crooks.
Wait9inf for you to explain the official corruption.
The way you test a document’s reliability is in court, with testimony. Not by simple assumption, which as I’ve stated ad nauseum is the fatal flaw in your argument.
You simply do not understand what constitutes, “Proof.”
If you’re of a mind to, you can believe in the innocence of the monstrous Dennis Dechaine all you want. It’s a free country. But to allege that you have “Proved” anything is so wrong as to be laughable — except no one’s laughing. You’ve taken up for a child killer, Moore. There’s no corruption on earth, up to and including the imaginary corruption you allege in your awful book, that descends to the depth of that depravity.
Now, tell us what the chain of custody issue is with this magical piece of DNA evidence you’re promoting. And what about that bite mark. You never answered that one. And wasn’t the alternative suspect theory throroughly examined — and debunked — in hearings in open court? Why do you continue to beat that old drum?
OK, how do we test your unsupported aid to corrupt officials?
We get it Moore. If someone dares contradict you, then they’re corrupt. That’s an awful lot of corruption, damn near everyone in the State of Maine.
You’ve been bullying people ever since you crawled into this case. You have no problem at all slandering decent folks just to free a man who abducted, tortured and murdered a girl
How do you live with yourself?
He will die inside, unless he gets out on a new trial. Happened once, doubt it will happen here
The window is considered closed forever. (As if it wasn’t before)
This should have been taken care of in house. Yet another waste of tax payer money.
So how exactly did he get morphine in prison?? Is there any investigation into that?
If you think there are no drugs in prisons then you are sorely mistaken.
I never suggested that Homer. I just found it odd that there is no mention of an investigation. And I do find it strange that people in prison have such easy access to illegal drugs. Someone is allowing them into the prison.
As a former corrections officer I can tell you first hand there are more drugs in prison then on the streets. Drugs are brought in by visitors, corrupt officers, inmates coming back from furlough, inmates that work outside the prison (work release), inmates that work jobs on the prison grounds (they have their friends or family drop it off outside and they pick it up the next day or two) after they have called home to find out where it was put.
Very hard to investigate drugs in prison.
Just last October, police found $30,000 worth of heroin in the bathroom of the Maine State Prison Showroom in Thomaston, apparently waiting to be smuggled into the prison by one of the workers. (See Bangor Daily News article by Heather Steeves, October 4, 2011).
” what he said was a suicide attempt” ???
RARELY have I seen a more biased piece of reporting, including the photo of Dechaine with lawyer F. Lee Bailey who had nothing to do with this case.
And WRONG about the sentence. Dechaine begins serving it NOW, while he’s in prison for the other conviction, which means HE WILL SERVE NO ADDITIONAL TIME FOR THIS DRUG CHARGE. Nice of you to add that tidbit AFTER I firsttried to post this comment.
The BDN is getting careless. Its bias against Dechaine, indifference to the evidence hidden by prosecutors, and obsequious sucking up to those prosecutors HAS NEVER BEEN SO OBVIOUS.
Obviously you don’t recall how thoroughly the Bangor News covered the trial — understandable since you never attended a minute of it — but it was substantial. Indeed, no trial since has seen such coverage.
Everyones’s wrong. Everyone’s an enemy. From the cops who worked the case to the prosecutors who’ve tried it to the jurors who decided it and and every single person who believes in his guilt. Now we’ll add a whole newspaper.
Mr. Moore, if you walked into an emergency room and exhibited these beliefs, it’s doubtful they’d let you go home..
How come you haven’t stepped up to collect the $1,000.00 Moore offered to anybody who can specify a single false statement he made regarding the evidence or the official misconduct?
Put up or shut up!
Blood money. That’s what you’re offering. Blood money. Do you think everyone is so low as you to make money off the memory of a poor, dead girl?
Oh we get it. You’re too sensitive to go for the $1,000.00.
Considering your demonstrated hatred for Moore, nobody believes you’d miss a chance to take his money. N0obody believes ANYTHING you say about that book because you won’t cite a single false statement Moore made about the evidence or official criminality.
Moore backed up his statements with hard evidence FROM OFFICIAL FILES!
All you have is a big mouth and empty claims.
Sorry Moore. I’m on the right side of this. What you’re offering is blood money. You can make all you want, just like you’ve been doing. I don’t want any. Not a grand, a hundred grand or a million.
You also have a yen for the limelight that should creep out any decent person.
Bottom line Moore: You don’t know the case. You’ve never known the case. You only know the record. You are simply unable to discern between them and aside from a world class case of narcississtic personality disorder, that has always been your problem..
P.S. Documents in and of themselves are not, “Hard Evidence.” I know you believe otherwise, but..
Well, Moore’s book relies on official records.
I suppose your vague, unspecific allegations are more reliable?
And you find people who believe that?
By the way, I asked Moore’s publisher. Moore has taken NO royalties from the book.
OK, forget the money you don’t want. SHOW US Moore’s false statement about the evidence in that case or about the official conduct proved by the state’s documents.
Or maybe you want us to believe the AG and his men phonied up the documents to make you look bad. Yup, everybody’s against poor old Eric Wright.
Probably the same people who killed JFK.
Got Moore’s publisher on speed-dial do you?
Geez, Jim Moore, this is really pathetic, pretending to be someone else citing your work.
You’re not showing us . . . anything.
Only changing the subject. (Old sleazebag lawyer trick.)
The $1,000 is a false offer and you know it. Anyone who submits a claim could easily be denied without good reason or for any reason at all.
To be serious it must be in an escrow account held an attorney who could make an independent judgment. You cannot. And, it is not enough to put up with all the trouble it will bring.
If the offer to prove a false statement is false then for the hassle it will bring the amount sadly has to be serious and held by a third party. So, man up. Make it $100,000 or more and you’ll get takers. Guaranteed.
Put up or shut up!
Find the false statement in the book. Make your claim publicly — with the proof of course.
All your inuendo and phony allegations are trash.
Put up or shut up. YOU CAN’T because THE AUTHOR MADE NO FALSE STATEMENTS either about the evidence or the disgustingly cruel misconduct.
Adding three months onto a life sentence is like attacking General Custer on June 27,1876
Everybody is entitled to their opinion as to Dennis’ guilt
or innocence. I for one feel that the EVIDENCE presented at trial leaves no
doubt that Dennis is right where he should be. Yes, I know there have been
numerous books written by a former ATF agent expressing the beliefs that he is
innocent. Those books to me are based on speculations and assumptions about
evidence in the case. The four biggest things that I cannot get past about his
possible innocence are: (the receipts from Dennis’ truck found in the driveway –
I do not find it plausible that someone removed them from his truck and took
them there; The tire tracks found in the driveway where the kidnapping took
place are similar to Dennis’ truck tire; the fact that he was in those woods
that day under the influence of drugs that he say is speed – I think he was on something
else and that explains his inability to remember what happened that day and
lastly the numerous pairs of undergarments that were found in Dennis’ room
during the initial search that were not entered as evidence at the trial and
did not belong to his wife) All the other speculations of DNA under one
fingernail, time of death being wrong, etc etc are just that. Speculation,
opinions and not evidence.
Your facts are wrong Pal. There was one woman’s size underwear under Dechaine’s mattress-most likely his wives. Talk about speculation and opinions Dana? Tha DNA is evidence. There would have been much more if the states AG office didn’t incinerate all the other evidence once Dechaine filed for an appeal.
Did you get the one pair from Moores book? Even throwing out the pair of panties, the evidence to me is overwelming. The DNA under one nail is not enough to throw out his conviction in my opinion. That DNA could have come from a number of sources who are as yet not identified. Now if it turns out to be from one of the alternate suspects I will be the first one to stand in line and say sorry to Dennis.
This state has proven time and time again to be corrupt. Many items from many cases have been discarded, falsely filed, or messed with so that it could not be used. They did it to my brother’s DNA and they have likely done the same to Deschaine’s. I dont believe this guy is an angel, he obviously has some demons, but the proof of this murder is pretty weak and we have seen many more murderers in this state face far less time with a whole lot more evidence. The entire governing body should be under investigation. They should stop wasting more of Deschaines time behind bars when he will eventually file a lawsuit that Maine will never be able to pay, when the DNA comes back proof positive that they convicted an innocent man. He has spent more than enough of his life’s time in prison. It would have been nice to see murderers like Anziani, the guy that set the guy on fire down by the Kenduskeag stream, and the guy that pushed Greenleaf to the ground actually be given a sentence that fits the crime than to continue each year with the state trying to keep this man from getting the truth out.
There was no speed. Dennis came up with that well after he’d been apprehended in a lame attempt to mitigate his guilt, when a mental defense was being explored. Since Dennis had no real idea of where one might score drugs (especially injectable speed — a drug so rare at the time to be practically non-existent) in Boston, he came up with that haven of drug dealers, the Museum of Science.
Camcat, not sure where you get your history on amphetamines, but it is incorrect. The drugs have been abused for decades — back to the thirties and forties — and the injectable variety was by no means rare in the 1980s when Dechaine was arrested. As for Dechaine’s personal history with the drug, he had a problem that threatened his marriage, according to a book that is sympathetic to his cause, “Human Sacrifice” by James Moore, aka Elderly Gent. And Dechaine clearly continues to have a drug problem.
Delores, no disrespect, but I’m sure that the Museum of Science isn’t the place to purchase drugs, especially in such an esoteric form from a stranger like Dennis claimed. And it is just a claim. He never supplied a single detail otherwise. It simply does not pass the smell test. Sorry.
But if you understand the context of the case — not what you’ve gleaned from Moore’s book — but the actual who/what/where, you’ll see that the drug thing was a reach meant to mitigate his monstrous act.
Example: He didn’t do it. He wasn’t involved. It was someone else. He would have NEVER killed Sarah. He couldn’t even kill a chicken (And what a creepy character reference that was!). He was looking for places to fish — even though he had no fishing gear on him because threw away his rod/reel/tackle box out of frustration at being lost.
Mind you, he’d already lied to the old couple who found him and to the police.
But as the circle closed in on him, his story changed. Okay, sure he was in the woods. But he was there to get wasted, not kill a girl, and if there is a dead girl, well, it must have been the drugs.
See how that works?
Maine has millions of acres of woods. The murder scene itself was pretty dense. Have you ever wondered what the simple geographical odds are of having a murderer, a victim and a falsely accused man who was there to boot up some drugs all within an easy reach of each other in the same patch of woods on the same day at the exact same time?
I have. The jury did.
And you know how we feel..
Hey, camcat, I agree with you about his guilt, however, I also believe he is a drug addict and that his crime may well have been fueled by that addiction. I am not overly concerned about the truth of his statement about where he purchased the drugs.
Following up on my first reply: Yes, I always thought Dechaine’s defense and Moore’s theories depended on a preposterous set of circumstances — that “alternative killer” would have to be one extraordinarily lucky, smart, and bold man. My only area of disagreement with you is that I think Dechaine was high AND he killed Sarah Cherry.
I agree with your scenario as well Delores. However, I don’t think it was speed he was on. The symptons he described that he was having appear to me to be something different.
Dana, perhaps if you looked at the evidence withheld by prosecutors, evidence they had but prevented the jury from hearing, you may change your mind.
I see a lot of OPINIONS here.
Moore’s book backs up his statements with EVIDENCE — documents from the AG’s own files, science, and trial transcripts.
Why buy opinions when you can get facts?
I have read Moores books as I have read the transcripts of this case. In a criminal case there is always evidemce that is not admitted at trial. There was nothing that was witheld from the defense. Dennis’ attorney had access to everything the prosecution had. The so called evidence that Moore talks about is not evidence in the case. He has done in my opinion is a cut and paste job of what he thinks happened after arm cahir quarterbacking. If you read the trial transcripts available on Dennis’ own support website you will see why the jury convicted him. If you want to blame Wright for withholding evidence you should also blame Dennis’ attorney for failing to include the supposed evidence.
Prosecutors hid evidence, did not make it availoable to the defense, never allowed the jury to hear it.
Look at the facts they concealed, THEN tell me it wasn’t relevant to the murder.
All I see here is speculation & conjecture. Seems like there are idiots out there who cannot see beyond their noses. This character Rushlau should be charged with wasting state’s money to try to convict Dechaine of the drug charges. I’d see if the guy had a few months left, then the punishment would fit the crime, but to flagrantly waste valuable tax dollars is beyond me. What are these lawyers looking for anyways, some way to gain notoriety because of this case. What idiots! I cannot believe we pay people to do this stuff.
I recall that he was smoking pot in the woods,but never nothing about speed.
In the trial transcripts available on his website speed was the drug.
What a joke 3 more months? Ha thats nothing to this guy. Waste of tax payers money bringing this guy back to court
Has there ever been proof that all the evidence from this case was destroyed? I lived in Madawaska where this man is from and they all think he is innocent. I was told over and over that the rape kit was burned as well as any thing else they could use to find DNA on. If that’s true why hasn’t his family come forward and sued? I think it is funny that they say all the evidence is gone but they still have a fingernail?? Somethings wrong with that picture!!!
Why hasn’t the family sued?
In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court in Van de Kamp v. Goldstein effectively reinforced a longstanding constitutional rule of law that prosecutors who engaged in unethical and criminal misconduct to secure criminal convictions are immunized from civil liability. They are protected by the doctrine of absolute immunity which insulates them from civil liability when performing their official duties, even if their conduct is unethical and criminal so long as the conduct is carried out within the scope of the official’s duties.
That’s what gives them the confidence they can get away with their crimes.
OK I understand that but is the evidence all gone?
The DNA which prosecutors incinerated (blo0dy fingernails, vaginal swabs, and hairs found on little Sarah’s body which were not hers nor Dechaine’s) are gone forever. Prosecutors knew the mystery DNA on that thumbnail wasn’t Dechaine’s because he’s
not evetr the same blood type.
What prosecutors have done kills any chance that we’ll ever learn whose DNA Sarah scratched fron her killer.
The familiarity in which you use Sarah’s name is beyond despicable. Have you no shame? You’re trying to free her killer.
You’d rather change the subject than discuss the prosecutorial misconduct which allowed Sarah’s killer to go free.
Sickening. Really.
The most haunting part of the information recorded about Sarah Cherry’s death is that sounds were heard in the woods but dismissed. It has always seemed to me that those sounds were Sarah struggling and trying to cry out. But no one went to see what the noises were. Investigators thought they had the perp. They didn’t. And that perp is still out there smiling about getting away with murder.
Let Dennis free!! He is a DOPER and will O.D. And be dead in just a day or two! That will be too good for him, not like he gave that little girl any breaks!
Off with his head.
So how does this work…..after he dies they keep his body in prison to serve the 3 months? What a waste of time and money this was.
I agree, why would you bother to even think about trying him again….no wonder we are in a deficit…it’s like killing someone who’s dead just to make a point.