First the good news: Dennis Dechaine is still guilty.
Now, the bad news: The independent report released on August 21 clearing the state Attorney General’s Office of allegations of misconduct in the prosecution of Dechaine for the 1988 murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry seems custom-designed to keep the controversy over his conviction raging until long after he’s completed his sentence. Which is for life.
The investigation was conducted by three legal wonks with all the public-relations skills of the Warren Commission. Like that group’s infamous probe into the assassination of President John Kennedy, the Dechaine report of retired federal Magistrate Eugene Beaulieu and attorneys Charles Abbott and Martin Glazier raises more questions than it answers.
Good work, guys. There’s probably a job waiting for you clearing up the NSA wiretapping scandal.
Let me be clear. I am not — let me put this as politely as possible — one of those wackos, who continue to insist Dechaine is innocent. I think he had a fair trial in which he was represented by one of the best criminal-defense lawyers in Maine. I think the jury exercised good judgment in determining the credibility of witnesses for the state and the defense. I think the evidence against Dechaine was overwhelming. I think the minor inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case were irrelevant. I think Dechaine has had every reasonable opportunity to appeal, and it’s gotten him nowhere. I sleep better at night knowing he’s behind bars.
One of Dechaine’s defenders once asked me what it would take to convince me of his innocence. I said it would require somebody else confessing to the murder. Let me now amend that. It would require a confession from somebody other than John Mark Karr.
In his book No Way To Treat A First Lady, Christopher Buckley writes, “People believe unbelievable things because it’s self-flattering to think that you are intellectually daring enough to accept what others find preposterous.” That sums up the pro-Dechaine crowd. If they didn’t have this court case to occupy their time, they’d be hanging around Roswell, New Mexico, hunting for the secret vault where the government keeps the space aliens’ bodies, or running around Turner looking for werewolves.
But back to the Beaulieu-Abbott-Glazier report (which I’m determined not to call a BAG job). Its principal flaw is that it asks us to take its conclusions on faith. For example, the first issue it deals with is whether the cops altered their notes on the case to make it appear as if Dechaine had confessed to the murder. Here’s the BAG boys’ conclusion: “What happened with regard to the notes was fully explained to us, and we find the explanations to be satisfactory. We find no dishonesty in any of the officers’ testimony with regard to the preparation of notes.”
That’s it. The nature of what was “fully explained” to them and why it convinced them of the cops’ honesty is missing from their final draft. Apparently, their pronouncements are of the sort that are usually made public by being carved on a tablet and brought down a mountain by Moses.
