AUGUSTA, Maine — A man says he is being wrongly held at a mental hospital and he wants out.
Donald Beauchene, 72, is currently at Riverview in Augusta. He was found not guilty due to mental disease or defect in the 1969 stabbing death of 30-year-old Bernadine Israelson. He has also been convicted of rape.
Beauchene says he’s being held unconstitutionally because he has no treatable diagnosis. He says a pretrial psychiatric evaluation in 1970 found he had no mental disease or defect.
A psychiatrist testified he had an “explosive personality.” A judge ordered Beauchene to be held at Riverview in 2011, saying he did not prove that he was no longer dangerous.