PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Maine’s highest court is affirming the conviction of a Nebraska man found guilty of sexually abusing an 8-year-old relative in Maine, despite the man’s contention he did not receive a fair trial.
A jury found Clarence Cote (KOH’-dee) guilty in 2014, nearly a quarter century after the crime. A judge ordered him to serve five years in prison. Cote appealed on the grounds that his constitutional right to a fair trial was violated by the state’s failure to preserve a recording of a police interview with the victim.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court rules that Cote’s motion is denied because he failed to prove the state acted in bad faith in failing to preserve the 1994 recording. The court say it was “at most, only potentially useful.”
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