PORTLAND, Maine — A judge has postponed a hearing in the case of a Maine man seeking to prove he is innocent of a murder for which he has already served nearly three decades behind bars.
After initially declining to put off the hearing, Justice Joyce Wheeler ordered Anthony Sanborn’s post-conviction review postponed until Oct. 10. The proceeding, in which Sanborn is seeking exoneration or a new trial for the murder he was convicted of in 1992, had previously been scheduled to begin on Monday.
The decision followed a Thursday meeting between Sanborn’s lawyer and state prosecutors, according to Timothy Feeley, a spokesman for the Maine Attorney General’s office. Wheeler agreed to the delay “given the number of outstanding motions that need to be decided before the hearing could proceed,” he said.
Now 45 years old, Sanborn was convicted of the 1989 murder of 16-year-old Jessica Briggs, who was brutally killed on the Portland waterfront. He was sentenced to 70 years in the Maine State Prison, where he was incarcerated until this spring, but consistently maintained that he is innocent.
In April, Wheeler released Sanborn on bail following an explosive hearing in which the woman who had originally testified to seeing Sanborn kill Briggs recanted, said she had not been there the night of the slaying and claimed that her original testimony had been coerced by police and a prosecutor.
Among the unresolved matters referenced in Wheeler’s Thursday order is testing being performed by the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory on blood, hair and other samples from Briggs’ body and the crime scene.
The list of samples filed in the Cumberland County Superior Court include “extracts” from Briggs’ bra, a bloody towel and a Bath Iron Works “cap” found near the murder scene. Wheeler ordered that these are not to be tested until their origins are identified.
“Where did the extracts come from, who obtained them, and why do they not have any exhibit number?” the judge wrote.
Wheeler scheduled a hearing on the state’s motion to dismiss some of Sanborn’s claims for Aug. 4.
Sanborn’s lawyer, Amy Fairfield, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.