PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments Wednesday at the Cumberland County Courthouse in the appeal of a man serving 60 years in prison for the 2013 murder and kidnapping of Glenburn teen Nichole Cable.
Attorneys for Kyle Dube, 22, of Orono have argued that Superior Court Justice Ann Murray erred by permitting lay witnesses to testify that a confession describing the victim’s death was in Dube’s handwriting, and failed to intervene when the prosecutor, in closing argument, repeatedly urged the jury to use “common sense.”
Dube is seeking a new trial.
A jury found that Dube had lured Cable out of her mother’s home in Glenburn on May 12, 2013, by using someone else’s identity on Facebook, then killed her in an abduction gone wrong.
Caleb Gannon of Augusta, Dube’s attorney for the appeal, argued that the four witnesses who were called to identify Dube’s handwriting on a detailed confession that included a diagram should not have been allowed to take the stand because they were not familiar enough with his handwriting to express an opinion.
Gannon also told the justices that Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea should not have been allowed to use the words “common sense” a dozen times in her closing arguments. Such frequent use might have caused jurors to substitute it for the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required for a criminal conviction.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber disagreed. He said that Dube’s then girlfriend, two former co-workers and his father were necessary witnesses because shortly before the trial began, Scott Ford, the inmate to whom Dube gave the confession, refused to testify at a hearing.
“We needed the confession to be admitted,” Macomber told the justices Wednesday. “A confession is the most compelling piece of evidence [during a trial].”
Macomber also said that Zainea’s use of the words “common sense” was appropriate, “whether she said it once or 12 times.”
There is no timetable under which the justices must issue their decision.
Dube is incarcerated at an unnamed New Hampshire facility as a boarder from the Maine State Prison in Warren, according to information on the Department of Corrections’ website. Jody Breton, deputy commissioner for the DOC, said Wednesday in an email that information about why Dube was in New Hampshire was confidential under Maine law.
Defense attorney Stephen Smith of Augusta, who represented Dube during his trial, declined to comment on where his client is being held.