Newcastle resident Morrison Bonpasse is well known around Maine for his determined support of convicted murder Dennis Dechaine, but he could also be known as a man who is single handedly trying to save the world’s economic system by encouraging the global adoption of a single monetary unit.
He is, in short, a man apart. “Call me an idealist,” Bonpasse once told LCN. “Call me Don Quixote… I am trying to change the world for justice and truth.”
Bonpasse’s determined idealism is a throwback to the heady days of the 1960s when the Baby Boomer generation came of age under such role models as Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and, in Bonpasse’s case, legal legend F. Lee Bailey.
If his impassioned work for what he believes in makes Bonpasse an intense interview, we have great respect for his putting his ideals into action. More people should be so committed to their beliefs.
Bonpasse believes in the value of a single world currency so much, he has a founded an organization dedicated to bringing it about. Bonpasse also believes in Dechaine’s innocence so strongly he was willing to make himself the public face of a case that Maine’s law enforcement establishment wishes would just go away.
Embracing the cause of convicted murderers is hardly a popular profession, but Bonpasse is right when he states people all across the country are wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Scarcely a week goes by without some pardon coming down somewhere for someone who has lost years of his or her life to the misguided might of the judicial system.
Most recently, Bonpasse’s efforts have resulted in an official reexamination of investigation that led to the conviction of Alfred Trenkler, a Boston man who is currently serving time in a federal prison for building a bomb that killed one Boston police officer and severely wounded another in 1991.
Reexamination is a far cry from determining a mistake was made, but there is nothing wrong with taking a moment to ensure the job was done right. Real lives are at stake.
As with Dechaine, enough questions remain outstanding in the Trenkler case that it is too easy to find reason to believe a miscarriage of justice may have occurred. Addressing issues like these may be Bonpasse’s finest work.
We need to be vigilant and insist our legal system finds and tries the right individual for the right crime every single time. Close enough isn’t good enough in the courts because when the innocent go to jail, the guilty go free and justice is denied for all.
When justice is denied, what becomes the difference between one innocent person and another?
Luck.
