The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Monday will consider the appeal of a man convicted of murder in a 2020 stabbing at a Bangor nightclub beset by violence.
Rayshaun Moore, 37, of Bangor is serving a 32-year sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren for the February 2020 death of Demetrius Snow. His earliest possible release date is Sept. 12, 2047, when he is 62.
The justices will hear arguments in Moore’s appeal as they convene in Bangor at the Penobscot Judicial Center. Justices that day also will hear appeals in four civil cases. The court last convened in the Queen City in August 2021.
Moore denied slaying 25-year-old Snow, whom he knew, in the parking lot of the Half Acre Nightclub on Harlow Street. Moore said that another man who was in the parking lot that night took a knife away from Moore and stabbed Snow to death.
A Penobscot County jury deliberated for three hours over two days before finding Moore guilty of murder in May 2021.
The killing was the most serious episode of violence that has taken place at the popular Harlow Street nightspot that has also seen two shootings within the past year as well as numerous complaints about noise and fighting over the years.
In his appeal, Moore’s attorney, Rory McNamaraof York, argues that Moore is entitled to a new trial because of mistakes made by Superior Court Justice William Anderson before and during the trial.
The judge illegally denied Moore access to grand jury transcripts as part of the defendant’s trial preparation, McNamara argued.
The judge also prejudiced jurors against Moore when he told residents called for jury duty that the only way to “‘get [criminal] cases to trial’” is to “‘inconvenience people,’” potentially influencing their view of jury service, the lawyer argued.
Anderson also should not have allowed a Bangor police detective to identify Moore on surveillance footage or considered his decision to go to trial rather than enter into a plea agreement as an aggravating factor at Moore’s sentencing. An aggravating factor is one that leads a judge to lengthen a defendant’s sentence.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber argues that Moore is not entitled to a new trial because the judge followed the law.
In recent years, Maine’s highest court has granted new trials in murder cases only twice.
In June 2020, justices threw out murder and robbery convictions against Marcus Asante, a Massachusetts man who was arrested in 2016 following a marijuana deal gone awry in which an Oakfield man was shot to death. An Androscoggin County jury found him guilty of both charges last fall in a retrial moved from Aroostook County to Auburn.
Last year, justices overturned a Limington man’s murder conviction after he argued that police had illegally searched his property to obtain evidence.
Bruce Akers was sentenced to 38 years in prison last November for murdering his neighbor, Douglas Flint, with whom he had been in a longstanding feud over property boundaries and whom he had accused of stealing a six-pack of alcohol.
A new trial date has not been set. Akers remains at the York County Jail unable to post $200,000 cash bail.