A Bangor man sentenced to 42 years in prison for a 2018 murder is petitioning his conviction on the basis of “ineffective” counsel.
F “Frank” Daly, 37, was found guilty in 2019 of intentional or knowing murder in the Jan. 7, 2018, death of 51-year-old Israel Lewis. Daly maintained his innocence during his trial but Superior Court Justice Ann Murray, who oversaw the case at the time, said Daly had shown no remorse for his crime while imposing the sentence.
Daly said Friday before Murray that his trial was not fairly conducted because of “ineffective assistance” from his attorney at the time.
Daly claimed that video evidence from his apartment, that his attorney did not question a witness who provided a statement to the police while allegedly under the influence of drugs, and the lack of evidence regarding a stain on a jacket in evidence all support his petition.
Evidence that was not included in the initial trial and a lack of cross examinations led to Daly’s conviction, he said.
During the 2020 trial, an officer who said there was a stain on Daly’s jacket when he took it as evidence was not questioned by Daly’s attorney at the time, John Pelletier, Daly’s attorney for the petition, said on Friday.
Pelletier introduced new evidence from laboratory reports that said the jacket did not have a red-brown stain on it nor any traces of blood. The evidence was not included in Daly’s trial in 2020.
The officer who said the jacket had a stain was actually talking about a pair of jeans that he said had red brown stains, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Bogue said during cross examination.
Daly said multiple witnesses lied when either taking the stand or in their depositions. The witnesses should have been called into question or brought to the stand to show that their depositions were incorrect, Daly said.
The witness who Daly said should’ve been called to the stand presented possibly harmful information in his deposition, Bogue said, calling into question why his attorney would’ve called him to the stand.
Recordings from Daly’s apartment on Ohio Street could’ve shown evidence of him coming and going regularly in ways that could’ve helped his trial, Daly said, but those also were not brought to court.
Similarly, Daly said his attorney did not call a video recording of a witness into question despite Daly saying that she was clearly under the influence of drugs.
Bogue did not make comments about either videos in her cross examination.
This evidentiary hearing is one of multiple steps in the case. Future court dates were not immediately available.
