The state will not retry a Limington man whose murder conviction was overturned after the Maine Supreme Judicial Court last year threw out the search of the victim’s property that led to the discovery of his body.
Bruce Akers, 64, was sentenced to 38 years in prison in November 2020 for murdering his neighbor, 55-year-old Douglas Flint, with whom he had been in a longstanding feud over property boundaries and whom he had accused of stealing a six-pack of alcohol.
It is the first time in recent history that the Maine attorney general’s office, responsible for prosecuting all homicides in Maine, has not retried someone after a murder conviction was overturned.
Akers was released last week on personal recognizance bail after being incarcerated since his arrest in 2016, according to his attorney Kristine Hanly of Portland. She said Monday that he is living with a relative in southern Maine and getting his life back on track by doing things such as getting a driver’s license again and buying a cellphone.
“The dismissal makes it as if the murder charge was never filed,” she said.
It also sends a strong message to police in Maine that officers must obtain warrants before going on private property to conduct searches unless they have clear probable cause to be there.
Hanly said that the suppression of the evidence in such a serious case “is a direct reflection of the egregious nature of the Constitutional violations that occurred.”
“Hopefully, the order serves as a deterrent to law enforcement and to the state against future violations of the Constitution,” she said.
Hanly called the dismissal of the murder charge “unprecedented.”
Justices on Maine’s high court in September 2021 agreed with Akers’ assertion that York County sheriff’s deputies illegally searched his property when looking for Flint after Flint’s family reported him missing in June 2016.
The Maine attorney general’s office filed a notice of dismissal Monday at the York County courthouse.
“While we remain confident in the evidence that resulted in a guilty verdict, given the decision rendered by the Law Court, and the follow-up decision by Superior Court Justice [Wayne] Douglas, the state is left without sufficient evidence to proceed to trial and therefore has dismissed the charges against Mr. Akers.”
Douglas ruled earlier this month that the evidence obtained from the illegal search could not be used at a retrial.
York County Sheriff’s deputies went onto Akers’ property multiple times in the middle of the night and peered through his camper windows when trying to locate Flint, actions the court said were unreasonable and violated his privacy.
“Because the officers had no warrant and because no exceptions to the warrant requirement apply, the search of Akers’s [property] was unreasonable,” the justices said last year.
Akers said that police had used statements he had made after he refused to speak to them to obtain a warrant. The deputies then searched Akers’ property and found Flint’s body and the machete allegedly used to kill him.