Raymond Lester was escorted out of Hancock County Superior Court in Ellsworth in February after being sentenced to 48 years in prison for the 2022 murder of his ex-girlfriend Nicole Mokeme in Acadia National Park. Gregory Registration/Staff Photographer

A Portland man is appealing his conviction after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend last year.

Nicole Mokeme Photo courtesy of Stephanie Kornegay

Raymond Lester (38), Found guilty of knowing or intentional murder in the death of Nicole Mokeme after a week-long trial last year. he was Sentenced to 48 years in prison.

Lester’s appellate attorney told the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday that the jury was not specifically instructed on whether Lester’s intoxication at the time meant he acted carelessly rather than deliberately (which would merit a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter). would).

This was a notable change from Lester’s defense at trial, in which his lawyers argued that the state could not even prove that he was the one who shot Mokeme.

According to trial testimony, Mokeme was found dead in Acadia National Park in the early morning hours of June 19, 2022. They were attending Mokeme’s Black Excellence retreat for Black, brown and Indigenous people to relax with friends and family at the scenic location.

After shooting Mokeme, Lester immediately fled to Mexico, police said. A month later, he showed up at the Red Cross station in Cancun, said he had been robbed, and admitted that he was wanted for arrest in the United States.

At trial, Lester’s attorneys argued that the state could not prove that Lester was definitely the one who shot Mokeme. There were no witnesses to the collision and police never found the car.

However, in his appeal, Lester admits to shooting Mokeme. Court-appointed appellate lawyer Rory McNamara argues his hearing was unfair because the judge did not include an “intoxication instruction.”

People from the retreat testified at the trial that they saw Lester drinking vodka from a bottle while driving in the hours leading up to Mokeme’s death.

“The evidence clearly establishes that Ray had been drinking all night,” McNamara said in court records. “There is not much evidence to suggest that Ray deliberately or knowingly struck Nicole with his vehicle rather than recklessly. … The jury, if properly trained, would have found that driving under the influence of alcohol – or even ‘chasing’ Nicole (rather than hitting her) to scare her – It is possible that Ray was of the opinion that it meant consciously ignoring the risk of hitting him.”

McNamara also objected to the judge’s instructions to prove Lester’s state of mind; Chief Judge Valerie Stanfill disagreed, saying the same instructions “have been around for a really long time.” He also questioned whether it was fair for Chief Justice Robert Murray, who presided over the trial, to take into account at sentencing Lester’s escape to Mexico after the murder, because it occurred after the crime.

Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin defended Murray’s actions and sentence. On Wednesday, he noted that Lester’s defense at the hearing and his current objections were contradictory.

“This appears to be a case where the trial attorney and the appellate court had different theories about the case,” Robbin said in court. He also noted that Murray decided to allow the jury to also consider involuntary manslaughter, even though Lester himself had not made such a request.

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