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AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A 72-year-old man committed to the state's mental health hospital more than four decades ago in connection with a Portland killing is now petitioning to be released.
Donald Beauchene is currently being held at the Riverview Psychiatric Center after he was found not guilty in the 1969 stabbing death of 30-year-old Bernardine Israelson due to mental disease or defect. He has also been convicted of rape.
Beauchene tells The Kennebec Journal (http://bit.ly/1g8IR2O ) he's being held unconstitutionally because he has no treatable diagnosis. He says a pretrial psychiatric evaluation in 1970 found he had no mental disease or defect. A psychiatrist testified he had an 'explosive personality.'
A judge ordered Beauchene to be held at Riverview in 2011 saying he did not prove that he was no longer dangerous.
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Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/
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