Larryoleboy of Bath, ME Great points Nelsonreport abuse

Nelson Donnell of West Gardiner, ME The only people who stand to really benefit from not affording Mr. Dechaine a retrial (where all the evidence is presented to a jury) are those who are supporters of the death penalty for crimes such as this and others that they'll seek in the future in order to silence political dissent from those who question authority.

They are fully aware that if someone like Mr. Dechaine is ever cleared and exonerated of these crimes that he has been falsely convicted of, then their goals to enact more draconian legislation that would be designed to expedite the process of imposing and carrying out the death penalty on wrongfully convicted people would be quashed.report abuse

roni legassie of augusta, ME If everything was on the up and up from the very beginning why is everyone so relunctant to view DNA with a new legal procedure. He was denied DNA testing from the onset. Why?
Guilty (I have my doubts) or not this whole Dechaine trial and conviction seemed pretty hinky to me from the start.
The thing that bothers me is, that we really don't know 100% sure he committed this crime, when its been stated the dna under her fingernails was not his and remained unidentified.
What if he really is innocent and the true murderer is in our midsts?
No one can say that this has never happened.
Look to Texas, how many have been set free after years and decades of inprisonment only to be set free from new DNA breakthroughs.report abuse

James Moore of Brunswick, ME Maidene62 of Augusta, ME --
On a Court TV episode about this case, Deputy Reed said that Dechaine admitted going to the house where Sarah was babysitting and "described it to a t."

That claim is directly contradicted by Reed's own official report which says that Dechaine admitted turning around in some unspecified driveway, somewhere -- nothing more.

Add to that, Deputy Reed wasn't even present when Dechaine was being checked into the Lincoln County jail. (Dechaine was locked up there because Sagadahoc County had no jail.)

Nor -- after combing through the files (which the AG claims is everything the State has) -- did I find any report by anybody claiming that Dechaine made any such statement to anybody.

I think it's time to quit quoting self-serving officials who want us to think they did right, and examine the evidence.

After all, to paraphrase an old political slogan, "It's the evidence, Maidene62."report abuse