Justia Maine Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of the Class C charge of sexual abuse of a minor. On appeal, Defendant challenged the admission of testimony of the victim’s mother indicating when the victim told her what had happened and argued that the State committed prosecutorial misconduct in its closing arguments. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court properly applied the “first complaint” rule in determining that the mother’s statement was admissible; and (2) any error in the prosecutor’s closing arguments, either individually or cumulatively, did not deprive Defendant of a fair trial. View "State v. Fahnley" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of two counts of gross sexual assault. Defendant appealed, arguing that his due process rights were violated by the State’s failure to preserve a recording of a police interview of the victim and by the twenty-two-year delay between the alleged assaults and the indictment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the missing recording did not have any apparent exculpatory value at the time it was lost, and Defendant did not prove the elements necessary to establish a violation of his constitutional rights due to the State’s loss of evidence, and therefore, Defendant did not prove the elements necessary to establish a violation of his constitutional rights due to the loss of the evidence; and (2) Defendant failed to meet his burden of proving that he was prejudiced by the pre-indictment delay. View "State v. Cote" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of burglary and theft by unauthorized taking or transfer. Defendant was sentenced to two years and six months’ confinement on the burglary charge and a concurrent six-month sentence on the theft charge. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing a witness to testify regarding the witness’s previous identification of Defendant in a now-unavailable surveillance video recording because the video was of poor quality and that the witness’s identification testimony was speculative and unreliable. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court’s admission of the testimony was not an abuse of discretion, nor was it so unfairly prejudicial as to virtually deprive Defendant of a fair trial. View "State v. Robinson" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of murder. After a sentencing hearing, Defendant was sentenced to thirty-eight years’ incarceration and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $2,261. Defendant appealed from his judgment of conviction and applied to the Sentence Review Panel for the right to appeal his sentence to the Supreme Court. The Panel granted the application, but Defendant’s attorney for the appeals did not brief the sentencing issue. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction without mentioning the sentence appeal. Defendant filed a petition for post-conviction review, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel on the sentence appeal. The trial court granted the petition and ordered that Defendant’s right to seek review of his sentence be reinstated. The Supreme Court granted Defendant’s motion to reinstate his sentence appeal and affirmed the sentence, holding that Defendant failed to demonstrate any error in the court’s sentencing. View "State v. Butsitsi" on Justia Law

After a bench trial, Defendant was found guilty of attempted theft by deception and two counts of tampering with public records or information. Defendant appealed, arguing that her conduct did not constitute a violation of Me. Rev. Stat. 12-A 456(1)(A), as interpreted in State v. Spaulding, and that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed after overruling Spaulding in part, holding (1) the evidence supported the trial court’s finding that Defendant was guilty of attempted theft by deception; and (2) the evidence was sufficient to support Defendant’s conviction of tampering with public records or information. View "State v. Beckwith" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of tampering with a witness, and on that basis, of violating a condition of release. Defendant appealed, arguing that the indictment was insufficient to inform him of the tampering charge and the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction on that charge because he did not “expressly threaten the witness” and because the witness did not feel threatened by him. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) because the statute allows a conviction for tampering with a witness based only on a defendant’s attempt to induce the witness not to testify against him, Defendant’s first argument was without merit; and (2) the remainder of Defendant’s arguments were not persuasive. View "State v. Clarke" on Justia Law

In 2006, Appellant injured his left hand while working as a mechanic. Thereafter, the Maine Employers Mutual Insurance Company (MEMIC) began paying Appellant weekly workers’ compensation benefits. Appellant received checks from MEMIC for approximately six years, and Appellant stated that by signing the checks he regularly received he was agreeing that he was not working or receiving pay for work. In 2009, MEMIC discovered that Appellant was working full-time at a small-engine repair shop. In 2012, the Workers’ Compensation Board terminated Appellant’s benefits, after which MEMIC stopped issuing payments to Appellant. Appellant was subsequently found guilty of theft by deception in an amount exceeding $10,000. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err in (1) admitting certain testimony; (2) allowing the state to reopen its case after it had rested; and (3) failing to instruct the jury on an additional element of theft by deception. View "State v. Tucker" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of domestic violence assault. Defendant appealed, arguing that his right to confront witnesses against him under the Confrontation Clauses of the United States and Maine Constitutions was violated when the victim refused to testify and the court admitted hearsay statements from the victim in the form of an emergency 9-1-1 record and the victim’s statements to an EMT. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statements at issue that were admitted in evidence, including the 9-1-1 recording and the statements made to the EMT - were not testimonial in nature, and therefore, the trial court’s rulings did not exceed the bounds set by the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. View "State v. Kimball" on Justia Law

After a jury-waived trial, Defendant was convicted of elevated aggravated assault, 17-A Me. Rev. Stat. 208-B(1)(A); elevated aggravated assault, 17-A, Me. Rev. Stat. 208-B(1)(B); and aggravated assault, Me. Rev. Stat. 17-A 208(1)(A). The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment, holding (1) Defendant voluntarily and intentionally waived his constitutional right to testify; (2) the evidence did not compel a determination that Defendant was not criminally responsible for the assault by reason of insanity; but (3) because the court sentenced Defendant for a single incident, and not three separate assaultive acts, the court erred by failing to consolidate the duplicative counts prior to entering its judgment of conviction or its sentence. Remanded for consolidated of the three counts through entry of a single conviction and for entry of a sentence on the single charge. View "State v. Murphy" on Justia Law

A police officer certified to operate the Intoxilyzer, a self-contained breath-alcohol testing apparatus, used the device to test Defendant’s breath-alcohol content. Defendant was subsequently charged with criminal operating under the influence. Pursuant to Me. Rev. Stat. 29-A, 2431(2)(D), Defendant requested that the State produce a qualified witness to testify at his trial. The officer who administered the test was scheduled to testify at trial, but there was no other expert available. Before trial, Defendant filed a motion in limine to exclude the breath-alcohol test result from evidence. The trial court granted the motion, concluding that the State failed to produce a qualified witness. The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment, holding (1) the statute does not require the State to produce expert testimony in order to have the results of the Intoxilyzer admitted into evidence; and (2) the Confrontation Clause of the U.S. Constitution is not implicated when the declarant who administered the breath test is available to testify. View "State v. Tozier" on Justia Law