PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday unanimously upheld the conviction of Garrett Cheney in the hit-and-run death of a University of Maine student in January 2010.
Garrett Cheney, 24, of South Berwick was sentenced Dec. 7, 2011, to 15 years in prison, with all but seven years suspended, for manslaughter in the death of Jordyn Bakley, 20, of Camden.
In addition to manslaughter, Cheney was found guilty by a jury on July 28, 2011, of aggravated criminal operating under the influence of intoxicants, leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in serious bodily injury and criminal operating under the influence of intoxicants.
Justices heard oral arguments in the case Sept. 12 in Portland.
Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy praised the work of investigators Tuesday when asked for his reaction to the court’s decision.
“We are pleased with the law court’s decision and grateful that all the hard work that Detective [Andrew] Whitehouse, the Orono police and the Maine State Police put into this case paid off,” Almy said Tuesday in an email.
Timothy Zerillo, the Portland attorney who handled Cheney’s appeal but did not represent him during the trial, maintained his client’s innocence in a statement emailed to the Bangor Daily News.
“The Maine Supreme Court in it’s decision indicated that there were errors in the trial court, but they were harmless errors, or they were errors that Mr. Cheney’s trial lawyer did not object to,” Zerillo said. “It is our belief that the errors were fatal to Mr. Cheney’s case.
“We continue to assert that Garrett Cheney is innocent of the crime of manslaughter,” the attorney continued. “Mr. Cheney and his family will evaluate all their options going forward, but I expect him to continue to do everything he can possibly do to protest his innocence.”
The court found that a statement Almy made in his closing statement that “Cheney had no evidence” that someone else struck the victim “was improper.”
“Over the course of a long trial, it is understandable that prosecutors may, at times, slip into a more familiar vernacular,” Justice Donald Alexander wrote for the court in the 19-page opinion. “Nevertheless, it is essential that the state avoid making any statement suggesting that a criminal defendant has any burden to disprove the charges against him or her. The state is free, however to forcefully argue to the jury that the evidence does not support or is not consistent with the defendant’s theory of the case.”
Cheney’s appeal challenged several decisions made by Superior Court Justice William Anderson during the trial, including his decision to allow testimony to continue after jurors were approached by a man who urged them to convict Cheney and said, “don’t pull a Casey Anthony on us.”
Casey Anthony on July 5, 2011, was found not guilty of murdering her toddler by a jury in Florida. The outrage over that verdict still was being reported by the media when Cheney’s trial began less than two weeks later on July 18, 2011, Zerillo argued in his brief.
William T. Bly, the Biddeford attorney who represented Cheney at his trial, agreed with Almy that the trial should go forward after jurors were questioned by the judge and said they could make an impartial decision in the case.
“Even if the third-party statements trigger the presumption of prejudice standard, Cheney waived any objection when he elected to continue with the trial after the court questioned each juror in Cheney’s presence and asked him if he wished to proceed,” Alexander wrote.
The high court found that Anderson’s decision to continue the trial was not wrong.
Zerillo also argued that there was not sufficient evidence to convict Cheney because it was circumstantial.
“Circumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to support a conviction as long as the evidence as a whole supports each element of the crime,” Alexander wrote for the court. “At trial, the state presented evidence that pieces of grille found near the victim matched the honeycomb grille and the light assembly on Cheney’s truck.
“Cheney’s arguments are directed to the weight, not the sufficiency, of the evidence,” the justice continued. “This evidence, along with the state’s other evidence concerning Cheney’s whereabouts and intoxication, as well as the size of his truck, are sufficient to permit a rational fact-finder to find, beyond a reasonable doubt that operating his vehicle with criminal negligence, Cheney caused the death of the victim.”
Good. This guy never showed any remorse.
If I recall, he plead not guilty and waited for the State to prove its case, never took the stand in his own defense, never admitted guilt and probably still wouldn’t. So if(in his own mind) he was not guilty why would he show remorse?
Because his drunken antics took the life of an innocent woman? That would make me remorseful, regardless of whether I was sober enough to remember committing the crime.
That’s because you have a conscience…evidently this guy has none.
Because he did it, because he knows he did it, and because he is guilty. The question is why he doesn’t show remorse, not why should he, and beemare has answered that question: Cheney doesn’t have a conscience.
Seven years? You got out of it easy Garret!
I bet you Jordyn Bakley would be elated to return to NORMAL life in seven years ….but she never will !
7 years not nearly enough. Whatever happened to truth in sentencing??? He got 15 that is what he should serve. That poor girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time and this Mutt was so drunk he just sped off like nothing happened. No remorse no nothing and he will probably do less with good behavior and that nonsense. WOW
Why do judges bother to give higher sentences (in this situation 15 years) of they are going to suspend a part of that sentence and have the person serve a shorter amount of time (again, in this situation 7 years)? Why not give the person 7 years to begin with?
Because they are on probation for the remainder of the time. If they violate conditions, they can be sent back to prison.
But, then how many times do we read in a paper about some one that was caught breaking the “conditions of their release”, and then more $$ is spent sending them back to jail? Obviously the “punishment” of them being on probation for the remainder of the time isn’t getting the point across. It is about time they need to be held accountable for the full sentence… then maybe they will start to get the point!
You don’t hear about the majority that don’t violate their probation and aren’t sent back to serve the remainder of their sentence. For most, the time they spend in prison and the threat they could go back if they screw up is enough to keep them from re-offending.
I will agree, we probably don’t hear about the majority of the ones that do get their lives straightened out. But, when we do hear about one, it seems to be for more than one event or one “mess up”. There has got to be a better way….
Many of those times, they have re-offended with a new crime. Each charge give the perp a chance to be tried for that offense. Many times, if someone is caught say, drinking, in violation of conditions they are taken to the county jail under a probation hold until they can appear before a judge and have it determined if, or how much of their sentence they will have serve. Because it doesn’t involve a new arrest, it often just doesn’t make the news. Often these offenders still will not serve all of their sentence(s) because the State wants to maintain some control over them. Many have asked to serve their sentences in full, if they are not too long, or will deliberately get themselves sent back so they don’t have to deal with conditions and probation officers.
It’s a judicial workaround for the lack of a parole system in Maine. In a state where they do parole, someone sentenced to 15 years might be paroled in seven, and spend the remaining eight reporting to a parole officer, subject to being sent back to serve the rest of the sentence if he breaks the conditions of his parole. Here, where we don’t have such a system, judges simulate it with partially suspended sentences and probation. The main functional difference is that there isn’t a release/don’t-release decision point at the end of the “all but” period, as there is when an inmate comes up for parole in a state where that’s done.
Thank you for your explanation…. I still don’t like the system and think there has got to be a better way. But, none the less, you have helped answer a couple of my questions. Here is another one for you, why don’t we have a parole system?
I have no idea… it must not have seemed like a good idea to whichever legislature last looked at the issue.
(For the record, my explanation above should not be taken as an endorsement of the way things get done here; it’s just an explanation.)
This tragedy could be repeated up in Orono on any weekend night. Many students and their visitors from out of town once intoxicated seem to have little regard for anything other than their own good time. This was a needless death. If the University started getting rid of some of these people and their pals everyone would be safer.
There is no proof that any of the college students he was seeing were drinking and driving. The tragedy is that this guy chose to drink and drive and the college gets besmirched when one of their own was struck down by someone not affiliated with the university. Have some class.
I hope he finds his time in the graybar hotel to drag on and on. But based on what he has done since this happened no amount of time will make him feel any regret or remorse for his actions. The only differance between Mr. Cheney and other such punks is that Mr. Cheney could afford a lawyer.
Well Garrett, guessing that pic represents a familiar pose (one of them anyway) that you’ll be assuming over the next few years…
I am very glad to hear this. This guy is solely responsible for the death of another. I have zero tolerance for that.
Laura Bush killed a boy with her car and Mitt Romney killed a lady with his. Your zero tolerance is appreciated. ;}
Don’t forget Ted Kennedy.
Thanks for gratuitously injecting politics into this story. The man in this story Mr. Cheney was convicted of driving while intoxicated. Reports from Mr. Romney’s accident (in France in 1968, 44 years ago) suggested that the driver of the other car which crossed the center line into the path of Mr. Romney’s car was intoxicated. No charges were ever filed against anyone in relation to the accident. Mrs. Bush’s accident did occur as a result of her at age 17, while stone cold sober, ran a stop sign night causing an accident that killed her friend riding with her. No charges were filed in the accident. Pathetic, really pathetic attempt on your part to smear these two people’s reputation.
What would you expect from a dude named “Romneydodgedthedraft ” do you think anything he types will make sense at all? Nope! The Dems have become a party of bullies and street level hood talkers.
the piece of garbage got only 7 years in jail while a beautiful young educated woman is gone.
RIP Jordyn. You are missed every single day.
Sad that this guy has so little connection to reality that he can’t admit that the evidence does support what he is accused of doing, even if he can’t remember doing it. He needs to grow up and accept responsibility for his actions.