BIDDEFORD — In an opinion published Thursday, Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Rory Holland’s murder conviction of two brothers from Biddeford. It also affirmed the two concurrent life sentences Holland received in relation to those crimes.

On Dec. 13, the court heard oral arguments in the Portland courthouse by Holland’s attorney, Amanda Doherty, appealing Holland’s conviction and sentence on seven grounds.

The court found no merit in any of the grounds for Holland’s appeal.

In November 2010, at Penobscot Superior Court in Bangor, Holland was found guilty of the shooting deaths of Derek and Gage Greene on June 30, 2009 in front of his South Street home.

At his trial, Holland claimed he shot the brothers in self-defense.

There had been a history of conflict for about a month between Holland and the older brother, Derek Greene.

In the early morning hours of June 30, the brothers were walking toward Gage Greene’s Williams Court apartment. Holland was standing in his driveway, and after an exchange of words with Gage Greene, Holland pulled a gun from his waistband and shot the younger brother. When Derek Greene, who was across the street, ran toward his brother, Holland shot him. Both brothers died shortly after.

Holland retreated to his home and after a several-hour standoff with police, he emerged from his home and was arrested. He has been incarcerated ever since.

The basis of Holland’s appeal was that the court erred: When denying Holland’s motion that evidence of the victims’ violent reputation should not have been excluded, even if the defendant didn’t know about; in allowing a 2002 copy of the Maine Criminal Code into evidence; in determining there was sufficient evidence to disprove Holland’s self-defense claim; when denying the admission of evidence from a previous trial providing context for Holland’s reaction; in allowing the state to reopen the case to identify Holland; in failing to declare a mistrial in relation to a question by the state regarding the victims’ funerals; and in its sentence.

During the oral arguments, Doherty argued that Holland should be granted a new trial because the court erroneously prohibited testimony regarding the victims’ “aggressive character.”

Testimony regarding the victims threatening neighbors and others on social media, their familiarity with weapons, and their membership with the group Ride or Die, that Doherty described as a gang, should have been allowed during the trial, she said.

By seeking to enter into evidence information about the victims’ character, the defense “wants to put the victims on trial,” said Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber.

“The only person on trial here was Rory Holland,”

he said.

The court opined that “reputation evidence not known to the accused is omitted because it has slight probative value and is likely to be highly prejudicial, so as to divert attention from what actually occurred.”

Regarding the issue of whether there was sufficient evidence to disprove Holland’s self-defense claim, the court stated, “there is no evidence that either of the victims or anyone associated with them used or threatened deadly force that would justify Holland’s deadly response on June 30, 2009.

In relation to Holland’s sentence, the court opined, “The court placed Holland’s offense in the category of the most serious, setting the basic sentence at life imprisonment, because there was sufficient evidence to infer that Holland acted with premeditation-in-fact, intended to cause multiple deaths at the time of the shootings, and anticipated serious consequences for his acts because he had previously been convicted of a crime, attempted murder of his fifteen-month-old daughter, involving the use of deadly force against a person.”

Following the opinion, Doherty said in an email this morning she was “disappointed but not surprised in the affirmation of the verdict and sentence, as that is not unusual in criminal appeals.

“The surprise I had was in the content of the written opinion, as it did not seem to address the heart of some of our more significant arguments, including those the justices themselves asked numerous questions about during the oral argument,” she wrote.

 — Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.