Maine’s highest court upheld an attempted murder conviction and life sentence for a Milford man.
Djvan Carter, 49, was sentenced to life in prison in March 2025 for attacking his girlfriend with a hammer before police shot him in 2023. Carter appealed the conviction and sentence, arguing there was insufficient evidence and the life sentence was disproportionate for the aggravated attempted murder conviction.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld all parts of Carter’s appeal in a decision issued Thursday.
Carter argued he did not voluntarily waive his Miranda rights when police interviewed him days after his arrest, in part because he was coming off “a multi-day methamphetamine binge.”
But he did not provide evidence of that during a hearing and that alone is not enough to mean Carter involuntarily waived his right to silence, the opinion said.
He also argued there was no evidence of “extreme cruelty” to uphold adding aggravated to attempted murder. Instead, he said there needs to be evidence of torture or gratuitous suffering.
The opinion strongly disagreed with Carter’s argument, outlining the horrific abuse the woman suffered. There is sufficient evidence to support the conviction, the judges said.
“He strangled her; attacked her with a hammer, causing more than 20 skull fractures; threatened to cut her into pieces for her children to find; and then made her look at her injuries in a mirror before telling her she was going to die,” the opinion said. “Even after the police arrived at the scene, Carter continued to beat the victim, and it was only after the police shot him that he finally stopped.”
When the woman was forced to look at herself in the mirror “she saw two holes in her head, one at each temple,” the court’s decision said. The woman was drifting in and out of consciousness.
The judges also found Carter’s sentence was proportional to the facts and similar cases.
The attack started in May 2023. A woman called police to say Carter hit his girlfriend on the head with a hammer and was reportedly suicidal. Troopers and Penobscot County sheriff’s deputies began their search for Carter and his girlfriend’s vehicle.
Cpl. Blaine Silk and another state trooper found the girlfriend’s vehicle backed up against a gate on Indian Nations Road in Alton. Silk and the other trooper took cover behind a police cruiser with their pistols drawn. They ordered both occupants out of the vehicle, but neither exited.
The troopers then saw what they believed was someone striking another person. As the troopers approached the vehicle, Carter accelerated the car backward, striking the gate, and then sped toward the officers.
Silk feared Carter would “run him over” or that Carter would kill his girlfriend, so Silk fired several shots at Carter, who then drove into a ditch. Carter then lunged at his girlfriend and Silk fired again, according to investigators with the attorney general’s office, which in December 2023 cleared Silk in the shooting.
Carter was treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to the chest.
He is serving his life sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren.