MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions Decision: 2024 ME 37 Docket: Wal-23-13 Argued: November 8, 2023 Decided: May 16, 2024
Panel: STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, HORTON, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ.*
STATE OF MAINE
v.
JESSICA A. WILLIAMS
MEAD, J.
[¶1] Jessica A. Williams appeals from a judgment of conviction for
depraved indifference murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(B) (2024), entered by the
trial court (Waldo County, R. Murray, J.) following a jury trial. Williams
challenges the admission of evidence related to a prior bad act and testimony
and arguments regarding her lack of communication with police officers.
Williams further contends that the trial court erred in denying her motion for a
judgment of acquittal at the close of the evidence. Williams finally argues that
if none of these issues is individually sufficient to warrant reversal, the
cumulative effect of all three is a violation of her due process rights. We
* Although Justice Jabar participated in the appeal, he retired before this opinion was certified. 2
disagree with her contentions and affirm the judgment.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
[¶2] “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the
jury could have rationally found the following facts beyond a reasonable
doubt.” State v. Plummer, 2020 ME 106, ¶ 2, 238 A.3d 241.
[¶3] The victim, Maddox Williams, was born to Jessica Williams and
Maddox’s father on January 9, 2018. Initially Maddox lived with Williams, then
he lived with his father and paternal grandmother from March 23, 2018, until
February 12, 2020, when his father was arrested and Maddox returned to living
with Williams.
[¶4] In October 2020, Williams and Maddox’s father began sharing
custody of Maddox, each having Maddox on alternating weeks, but by
December 2020 Williams was preventing Maddox from visiting with his father.
Between October and December 2020, Maddox would occasionally have
bruises on his body, primarily on his face or forehead, when he came from
Williams’s care.
[¶5] Maddox’s father brought the custody matter to court, and as a result,
his visits with Maddox recommenced February 26, 2021. When Maddox
resumed visitation with his father in February 2021, his father and his paternal 3
grandmother noticed that Maddox had a faded bruise on his forehead. On
March 7, 2021, Maddox’s father was arrested for reasons unrelated to this
matter and Williams assumed what amounted to sole custody of Maddox. At
that time, Williams was living with her boyfriend, along with their three other
children.
[¶6] When Williams took sole custody of Maddox, Maddox was not
missing any teeth and did not have any visible bruises. Although Maddox was
not particularly clumsy before returning to live with Williams, while he was in
her custody Williams messaged multiple acquaintances about instances where
Maddox had been injured due to his clumsiness, which she said had caused
visible bruises.
[¶7] In the Spring of 2021, Williams, her boyfriend, and their children
went on a trip to New Hampshire. At some point on the trip Maddox was
thrown out of a bathroom by Williams and landed on a hard, non-carpeted floor.
Maddox had skinned knees and elbows, a scratch on his face, and a bruise on
his forehead when he returned from New Hampshire.
[¶8] While living with Williams, Maddox sometimes had bruises on his
legs, arms, and forehead, which Williams would cover with make-up and
temporary tattoos. Williams would slap and hit Maddox in the mouth and tell 4
him to turn away from her, saying that she did not want to look at his “ugly face”
because it reminded her of his father. Williams and her boyfriend called
Maddox offensive names. Williams’s other children were rough with each other
and with Maddox. Williams was aware that her other children hit Maddox but
did nothing to prevent it. Maddox occasionally played on a trampoline at
Williams’s house under her boyfriend’s supervision.
[¶9] In May or June 2021, Williams’s mother, Sherry Johnson, noticed
that Maddox had lost a front tooth while living with Williams. When she asked
Williams about it, Williams explained that Maddox had fallen over and knocked
the tooth out. Sometime after noticing Maddox’s first missing tooth, Johnson
noticed that Maddox was missing another tooth, which Williams explained as
having been knocked out when Maddox fell again.
[¶10] Williams called Johnson on June 20, 2021, and told her that
Maddox did not feel well and that she thought he should be taken to the
hospital, but that she would like Johnson’s opinion. When Johnson arrived at
Williams’s house about ten minutes after the call, she saw that Maddox was pale
and gray; the three went to the hospital. As they arrived at the hospital, Maddox
lost consciousness. Arriving at the emergency room at about 1 p.m., Williams
informed ER staff that Maddox had been caught in her puppy’s leash and been 5
dragged by the puppy, hitting a boulder, after which his sister had kicked him
in the belly. The puppy in question weighed fifteen pounds.
[¶11] ER staff and police made the following observations about
Maddox:
• His head was misshapen.
• He had a very large bruise and bump on his forehead.
• He had a temporary tattoo on his forehead as well as on other parts of his body.
• He had numerous bruises at various stages of healing all over his body.
• He had a grayish clear liquid coming out of a nostril and an ear.
• His neck and central joints were floppy, but his extremities were stiff.
• He appeared pale and thin, and his stomach was distended.
[¶12] At some point, Maddox’s heart stopped beating and, although ER
staff attempted to resuscitate Maddox for about an hour, he was pronounced
dead at the hospital. Williams did not appear to react strongly to Maddox’s
death, and Williams and Johnson left the ER shortly after his death.
[¶13] At around this time, an informant told the police that Williams’s
boyfriend had texted him that Williams had been abusing her son and that the
son was on the way to the hospital. 6
[¶14] While still in the hospital parking lot, Williams received a call from
the police on her cellphone; Johnson answered it, and police informed her that
they would like her to keep Williams in the parking lot so that they could
interview her. When Johnson relayed this information, Williams said that she
was not ready to speak to anyone yet and immediately drove away from the
hospital. Williams drove the two of them back to Johnson’s house and stayed
there while Johnson went to Williams’s house. Williams asked Johnson to lie to
police and say that she had dropped Williams off at the pier in Searsport, and
Johnson told this to police at Williams’s house. Williams’s boyfriend told police
that Maddox and the other kids had been outside alone when Maddox was
injured. Police were dispatched shortly after Maddox’s death to locate
Williams, but they were unable to find her.
[¶15] While the police were looking for her, Williams was contacting
friends from phone numbers that were not her own. Williams appeared to be
hiding from police and, for example, informed one of her friends that “[t]he cops
are trying to charge me . . . and I need a place to hide out, saying I killed
[Maddox],” and “police [are] at my house, DHHS, everyone. I’m not going home
to deal with that . . . . Keep this between us, please.” Williams and her boyfriend
both created alternate email accounts and phone numbers, under pseudonyms, 7
from which they could text and call. Williams also did not use her phone or
debit and credit cards because she knew that they could be used to track her.
On June 21, a friend of Williams picked her up from Johnson’s house and drove
her to the house of one of Williams’s other friends.
[¶16] Late on June 22 or early on June 23, Williams returned to Johnson’s
house. In a conversation with police on June 23, Johnson revealed that Williams
was in Johnson’s house and allowed police inside to interview Williams.
Williams told police the following:
• Maddox had fallen off the trampoline the week prior.
• She believed that the puppy had caused Maddox’s injuries.
• Maddox had been complaining that his stomach hurt.
• Maddox had had no injuries in the days preceding his death.
• Maddox was missing two teeth after returning from a stay with his father, and she noticed a third missing tooth in the hospital.
• She never put her hands on her children.
• She was missing $1,600 in cash, which she claimed she had lost.
• She did not expect anything in her house to test positive for Maddox’s blood.
[¶17] After interviewing Williams, police arrested her and found $1,600
in cash on her person. 8
[¶18] Upon searching Williams's house, the police found several stained
items that tested presumptively positive for blood and were submitted to the
crime lab. When tested, these items contained DNA that matched a profile
taken from Maddox.
[¶19] The autopsy of Maddox’s body found the following:
• Multiple contusions and abrasions on his head and body, and a laceration of his ear.
• Injuries covered with temporary tattoos.
• Lacerations of the mouth consistent with blunt-force injury to the lips.
• Three missing teeth, with one tooth’s socket fractured.
• Hemorrhages in his skull.
• Hemorrhages and lacerations in the abdomen and internal organs.
• The transection of his pancreas.
• Fractures in two vertebrae of his spine.
[¶20] The medical examiner drew the following conclusions:
• The internal organ injuries were recent, having occurred just hours before his death, and they had led directly to Maddox’s death.
• The internal organ injuries were not consistent with injuries sustained while playing or jumping on a trampoline, but rather with a more violent event, like a car crash or fall from a great height.
• The internal organ injuries could not have been caused by a child’s kick or adult’s punch, but a stomp from an adult could have caused them. 9
• One tooth had been lost within a day of Maddox’s death, and the other two less recently. This loss of teeth was not consistent with normal loss of baby teeth, which usually occurs several years later in a child’s development, but instead was consistent with blunt-force trauma.
[¶21] The medical examiner’s opinion was that Maddox’s death was a
result of battered child syndrome with recent and old blunt-force injuries, and
that the injuries were consistent with non-accidental trauma. The medical
examiner further opined that the potential reasons for Maddox’s injuries given
by Williams at the hospital could not have produced those injuries.
II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
[¶22] On June 24, 2021, the State charged Williams by criminal
complaint with depraved indifference murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(B), and on
July 26, 2021, a grand jury indicted Williams for that charge. After Williams
entered a plea of not guilty on October 21, 2021, the court held a six-day jury
trial in October 2022.
[¶23] During the first day of the trial, the court heard argument on the
State’s motion in limine seeking to introduce evidence of prior bad acts. The
State sought to offer testimony concerning the incident in New Hampshire
where Williams had thrown Maddox out of a bathroom. Over Williams’s
objection, the court granted the motion, but it indicated that the testimony 10
would need to be accompanied by a limiting instruction. The court specifically
found that the evidence was admissible under M.R. Evid. 403 and 404 for the
purpose of demonstrating the relationship between Williams and Maddox and
that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by
its prejudicial effect. The court stated that the limiting instruction would
“instruct the jury . . . that evidence of a prior bad act is generally not admissible
for the purpose of allowing . . . the jury, to infer that the defendant acted in
conformity with that prior bad act or even had a propensity to act in conformity
with that prior bad act” and that the evidence “may be considered” by the jurors
if they “find it persuasive as to the relationship between the defendant and the
alleged victim at the time of the incident testified about.”
[¶24] Immediately before the testimony was presented to the jury,
Williams requested that the instruction be given, at which point the court
instructed the jury:
[G]enerally evidence about some prior bad act by the defendant is not admissible for the purposes of allowing you to make an inference that the defendant acted in conformity with that prior bad act, or even had a propensity to act in conformity with that prior bad act. That’s—that would be improper for you to make that kind of an [inference]. This evidence as it’s going to be described to you, however, from this witness, may be considered by you, if you find it persuasive, as to the relationship between the defendant and the alleged victim at the time of this incident. Again, for the relationship, not that it’s an inference that the defendant acted in 11
conformity with that prior action sometime in the future. That’s the purpose for which you can accept that evidence.
[¶25] During the trial, the State repeatedly elicited testimony
establishing, and in closing made reference to, the fact that Williams appeared
to have fled from the police. Williams did not object to this testimony or
address it in her argument at trial, nor did the court address it.
[¶26] At the close of the evidence, Williams moved for a judgment of
acquittal. The court denied the motion, ruling:
Again the Court at this stage, which it must, takes the evidence in the light most favorable to the State. There has been presented evidence through various witnesses as well as experts regarding the cause of death being a battered child syndrome diagnosis with regard to a non-accidental force that resulted in death of this particular [victim]. The inferences that can be drawn from the testimony with respect to the defendant could lead this Court to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that she was the cause of that infliction of the death-producing incident. And given that, as well as the numerous other incidents of injury demonstrated to the defendant—excuse me, to the victim, any jury could also conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that they represented depraved indifference necessary to support a charge before the Court. Accordingly the motion is denied.
The jury subsequently returned a verdict of guilty. On December 20, 2022,
Williams was sentenced to the Department of Corrections for a term of forty-
seven years. Williams timely appealed to this Court. M.R. App. P. 2B(b)(1); 15
M.R.S. § 2115 (2024). 12
III. DISCUSSION
[¶27] On appeal, Williams argues that the trial court erred in
(1) admitting evidence related to a prior bad act, (2) admitting evidence
regarding her lack of communication with police officers, and (3) denying her
motion for a judgment of acquittal made after the close of the
evidence. Williams also argues that if none of these errors sufficiently warrant
reversal on their own, the cumulative effect of all three constitutes a violation
of her due process rights. We review Williams’s four arguments in that order.
A. The Trial Court’s Admission of Evidence of a Prior Bad Act
[¶28] Williams first argues that the trial court erred by admitting
evidence concerning her having thrown Maddox out of a bathroom during a trip
to New Hampshire. “[W]e review [a] trial court’s decision to admit . . . evidence
pursuant to Rule 404(b) for clear error and its determination pursuant to
Rule 403 for an abuse of discretion.” Steadman v. Pagels, 2015 ME 122, ¶ 18,
125 A.3d 713 (quotation marks omitted).
1. Rule 404(b)
[¶29] Maine Rule of Evidence 404(b) provides, “Evidence of a crime,
wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to
show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the 13
character.” However, “evidence of prior bad acts is admissible for limited
purposes other than to prove propensity,” including, inter alia, “identity” and
“the relationship of the parties.” State v. Pratt, 2015 ME 167, ¶¶ 24-25,
130 A.3d 381 (quotation marks omitted).
[¶30] The State offered evidence of Williams’s having thrown Maddox
onto a hard floor to illustrate her attitude toward him and her willingness to
use violence against him, both of which were relevant to the identity and motive
of the person who inflicted the injuries that caused Maddox’s death, as well as
to the credibility of her explanation for the injuries. We have traditionally
permitted the admission of evidence for such a purpose in cases of assault or
abuse of a child. See Pratt, 2015 ME 167, ¶ 24, 130 A.3d 381; State v. Allen,
2006 ME 20, ¶ 19, 892 A.2d 447. In Pratt, we held that evidence that the
defendant had assaulted the victim fifteen hours before the victim was killed
“was relevant, and therefore admissible, concerning . . . identity . . . and the
relationship of the parties.” 2015 ME 167, ¶ 25, 130 A.3d 381. In another
similar case, we concluded that evidence that a father had spanked his son the
day before the son was killed was admissible as “relevant and probative to
negate pretrial statements made by [the defendant] that [the victim’s] injuries
may have been the result of falls [the victim] suffered.” Allen, 2006 ME 20, ¶ 19, 14
892 A.2d 447. In Allen we held that the evidence “was also relevant to show
that [the defendant] did not object to the spanking and that she was complicit
in physically disciplining [the victim]” and was “relevant and probative of the
relationship between [the defendant] and [the victim].” Id. The evidence in this
case was admitted for similar purposes and was probative as to similar issues.
Thus, its admission under Rule 404 was not clear error.
2. Rule 403
[¶31] Rule 403 provides that a “court may exclude evidence if its
probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice.”
In some circumstances, a court may also alleviate the prejudice of probative
evidence that is admitted by giving a limiting instruction to the jury. See Allen,
2006 ME 20, ¶ 20, 892 A.2d 447 (holding that a limiting instruction can help to
alleviate prejudice); State v. Hunt, 2023 ME 26, ¶ 30, 293 A.3d 423 (“A jury is
presumed to follow the court’s instructions.”).
[¶32] Although the evidence establishing that Williams threw Maddox
was prejudicial to her because it provided evidence of her prior violence
toward Maddox, the trial court limited any unfair prejudicial effect by providing
a limiting instruction informing the jury that the evidence could not be used to
infer that Williams had acted in conformity with that prior bad act. 15
Furthermore, as discussed above, the evidence was highly relevant and
probative to a central issue at trial. See, e.g., Pratt, 2015 ME 167, ¶ 26,
130 A.3d 381. Therefore, the court did not abuse its discretion in determining
that the evidence was not unfairly prejudicial and did not err in declining to
exclude the evidence under Rule 403.
B. The Admission of Evidence About Williams’s Silence
[¶33] Williams’s second argument is that the State improperly elicited
evidence and made arguments in closing regarding her lack of communication
with police in the days immediately following Maddox’s death. Williams
concedes that she did not raise this issue at trial.
[¶34] Because Williams did not raise the issue at trial, the trial court did
not have an opportunity to address it, and, accordingly, our review is for
obvious error. See State v. Reeves, 2022 ME 10, ¶ 35, 268 A.3d 281. To vacate a
conviction based on obvious error, there must be (1) an error, (2) that is plain,
(3) that affects substantial rights, and (4) that seriously affects the fairness and
integrity of judicial proceedings. See State v. Bilynsky, 2021 ME 56, ¶ 4,
263 A.3d 163. An error is plain if it is “so clear under current law that the trial
judge and prosecutor were derelict in countenancing it.” Reeves, 2022 ME 10,
¶ 37, 268 A.3d 281 (quotation marks and alteration omitted). 16
[¶35] Although in most cases the State cannot rely on a defendant’s
silence as evidence of guilt, “[n]ontestimonial actions such as flight, hiding, or
resisting arrest may be admissible as evidence of consciousness of guilt.” State
v. Lovejoy, 2014 ME 48, ¶ 20 n.6, 89 A.3d 1066 (citing Doe v. United States,
487 U.S. 201, 207 (1988); United States v. Francois, 715 F.3d 21, 32
(1st Cir. 2013); State v. Hassan, 2013 ME 98, ¶¶ 20-27, 82 A.3d 86). Indeed, we
have explicitly held that “[e]vidence of flight permits the jury to infer a
consciousness of guilt or that the defendant was motivated by a desire to avoid
prosecution for the underlying charges.” State v. Haji-Hassan, 2018 ME 42, ¶ 27,
182 A.3d 145 (quotation marks and alteration omitted); see also State v. Barnes,
2004 ME 38, ¶ 5, 845 A.2d 575 (“[E]vidence of flight, concealment, or analogous
conduct is probative to establish a consciousness of guilt.” (quotation marks
omitted)).
[¶36] Williams’s argument accordingly fails on the first prong of the
obvious error test—there was no error. Williams characterizes the State’s
references to her lack of communication with the police as a comment on her
invocation of her constitutional right to silence, but this is a mischaracterization
of the focus of the State’s evidence. The evidence elicited by the State at trial
was not a comment on Williams’s silence, but rather concerned what the jury 17
could rationally have found to be Williams’s attempts to flee from and evade
police. The State’s closing argument also focused on Williams’s flight and not
her silence, as the State argued that Williams “fled the emergency room”;
“concocted” a story; “hid out . . . to avoid detection”; and “was trying to hide
from the police to avoid arrest.” The admission of the evidence concerning
Williams’s flight was not obvious error.
C. The Trial Court’s Denial of Williams’s Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal
[¶37] Third, Williams argues that there was insufficient evidence that
she had caused Maddox’s injuries, and that therefore the trial court’s denial of
her motion for a judgment of acquittal was error. “We review the denial of a
motion for judgment of acquittal by viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the State to determine whether a jury could rationally have found
each element of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v.
Abdullahi, 2023 ME 41, ¶ 41, 298 A.3d 815 (quotation marks omitted).
[¶38] “A person is guilty of murder if the person . . . [e]ngages in conduct
that manifests a depraved indifference to the value of human life and that in
fact causes the death of another human being.” 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(B).
Furthermore, “when causing a result is an element of a crime, causation may be
found when the result would not have occurred but for the conduct of the 18
defendant, operating either alone or concurrently with another cause.”
17-A M.R.S. § 33(1) (2024).
[¶39] Williams’s argument is largely focused on the fact that there is no
direct evidence that she inflicted the injuries that led to Maddox’s death.
However, we have long held that a lack of direct evidence is not fatal to the
prosecution, because “[c]ircumstantial evidence alone is sufficient to support
a conviction as long as the evidence as a whole supports each element of the
crime.” State v. Brown, 2017 ME 59, ¶ 9, 158 A.2d 501 (quotation marks
omitted); State v. Cheney, 2012 ME 119, ¶ 42, 55 A.3d 473; see also State v.
Moores, 2009 ME 102, ¶ 10, 982 A.2d 318; State v. Stinson, 2000 ME 87, ¶ 8,
751 A.2d 1011 (“Circumstantial evidence is not, as a matter of law, inherently
inferior evidence; factual findings may be supported by reasonable inferences
drawn from all the circumstances even if those inferences are contradicted by
parts of the direct evidence.” (emphasis added)); State v. Ardolino,
1997 ME 141, ¶ 20, 697 A.2d 73 (“A conviction may be grounded on
circumstantial evidence and is not for that reason less conclusive.”); State v.
LeClair, 425 A.2d 182, 184 (Me. 1981); State v. Liberty, 280 A.2d 805, 807
(Me. 1971); State v. Allen, 151 Me. 486, 489, 121 A.2d 342, 345 (1956) (“[A]ny
crime may be proven by circumstantial evidence.”); State v. Ward, 119 Me. 482, 19
494, 111 A. 805, 809 (1921); State v. Benner, 64 Me. 267, 289 (1874) (“Crime
is ordinarily proved by circumstantial evidence.”); State v. Knight, 43 Me. 11,
141-43 (1857) (holding that “[c]ircumstantial evidence is composed of facts
equally with that which is denominated direct” and affirming a jury instruction
that stated that if “the circumstances are all consistent with [the defendant’s]
guilt, if they conclusively tend to prove his guilt, and are of a character to
exclude all reasonable doubt that the crime could have been committed by any
other person, . . . the government . . . have done all that they were required to
do, and are entitled to a verdict” (quotation marks omitted)). In assessing
circumstantial evidence, “[a] factfinder may draw all reasonable inferences
from the circumstantial evidence.” State v. Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 23,
68 A.3d 1250 (quotation marks omitted).
[¶40] When viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the jury could
have rationally found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt: Maddox
was killed by the internal organ injuries that he sustained just hours prior to
his death. The force that was required to cause his injuries could not have
resulted from the accidental causes Williams offered in her explanation at the
hospital. The injuries were not accidental and were a result of battered child
syndrome. Williams had previously injured Maddox, permitted her children to 20
injure Maddox, and attempted to conceal the injuries that Maddox suffered in
her care. Williams would verbally abuse Maddox because he reminded her of
his father. Williams and her boyfriend would call Maddox offensive names. The
injuries to Maddox’s mouth were consistent with Williams hitting Maddox in
the mouth. Williams’s statement to police that she noticed that Maddox was
missing teeth after returning from a stay with his father was controverted by
evidence to the contrary, including a picture showing him not missing any teeth
after the date she claimed to have noticed missing teeth, as well as by Williams’s
own explanations to Johnson. There was no evidence that Williams’s boyfriend
hit Maddox.
[¶41] In light of these facts, the jury could have rationally found beyond
a reasonable doubt that Williams’s conduct caused the non-accidental injuries
to Maddox’s internal organs that directly led to his death. See, e.g., Ardolino,
1997 ME 141, ¶ 21, 697 A.2d 73 (“[T]he jury properly could have found that the
circumstances, viewed in relation to each other and together with the rational
inferences that could be d[r]awn from them, satisfied the State’s burden of
proof that every element of the charged offense had been proven beyond a
reasonable doubt.”). The evidence of Williams’s constant physical and verbal 21
abuse of Maddox1 for no reason other than that he was the son of her former
partner could have permitted a jury to rationally find beyond a reasonable
doubt that the conduct that led to Maddox’s death manifested Williams’s
depraved indifference to the value of Maddox’s life.
[¶42] The facts surrounding cases of assault or abuse of a child by an
adult often present similar records, where there is little direct evidence and the
State’s case must be built on circumstantial evidence. For example, in Ardolino,
we considered a record that did not contain direct evidence of the injury that
caused the death of a battered child victim but supported a circumstantial
inference that the defendant had caused the injury that led to the victim’s death.
Id. ¶¶ 2, 19-21. There, we ultimately concluded that the lack of direct evidence
did not prevent the trial court from denying the defendant’s motion for a
judgment of acquittal. Id. ¶ 21.
[¶43] Moreover, the law in Ardolino was not new, as even before the
adoption of the Maine Rules of Evidence in 1976, we held the same way in a
similar case. See State v. Silva, 153 Me. 89, 134 A.2d 628 (1957); see also M.R.
Evid., Me. Rptr., 336-343 A.2d XL-LXXVIII (promulgating the Maine Rules of
It is worth noting there was no issue raised regarding the evidence of Williams’s prior abuse of 1
Maddox with the exception of the New Hampshire bathroom incident. 22
Evidence); State v. Williams, 388 A.2d 500, 506 (Me. 1978) (Nichols, J.,
concurring) (“[I]n 1976 the Maine Rules of Evidence, modeled after the Federal
Rules of Evidence, were promulgated.”). In Silva, a mother brought her child,
who was in a state of shock and suffering trauma to his head, to a doctor.
153 Me. at 90-91, 134 A.2d at 629. The child’s mother explained that the child
had suffered an accidental fall and she had been the only person present at the
time of the accident. Id. at 91-92, 134 A.2d at 629. The child subsequently died
and an autopsy revealed that the child had had “an almost unparalleled
succession of traumatic experiences” over the course of his short life. Id. at
91-93, 134 A.2d at 629-30. Although there was no direct evidence that the
child’s mother had inflicted the fatal trauma, we said:
In determining whether or not the respondent was the person whose unlawful acts caused the death of this child, the jury had before it evidence of the relationship between the respondent and her adopted child. Admittedly she assumed all the care of the child and was its constant companion. She was in the best position to know and observe whether it had apparently received severe injury at any time. She was alone with the child much of the time and had the best opportunity to commit the acts which necessarily occurred. During her brief absences from the child, it was cared for by her husband or a baby sitter. There was no suggestion by the respondent or elsewhere in the evidence that the child had ever been injured by either of them or by anyone else.
Id. at 100, 134 A.2d at 633-34. We then held that “the chain of circumstantial
evidence which the jury is entitled to consider” could, “if believed, forge[] an 23
unbroken chain of circumstances, all pointing to the guilt of this respondent,”
and affirmed the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion for a new trial.
Id. at 100, 102, 134 A.2d at 634.
[¶44] In light of our longstanding rule that circumstantial evidence alone
may support a conviction, and noting that circumstantial evidence is often,
unavoidably, the only evidence the State can present in cases of abuse of a very
young child by a parent or other adult, we conclude that there was no error in
the trial court’s denial of Williams’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.
D. Cumulative Error
[¶45] Williams’s fourth and final argument is that if none of her three
other arguments alone justifies vacating her conviction, then collectively they
should under the “cumulative-error doctrine.” We have yet to clearly define the
parameters of a test for the cumulative-error doctrine, and instead review
allegations of multiple errors “cumulatively and in context to determine
whether the defendant received an unfair trial that deprived him or her of due
process.” State v. Daluz, 2016 ME 102, ¶¶ 52, 67-69, 143 A.3d 800 (quotation
marks and alterations omitted); Hassan, 2013 ME 98, ¶¶ 37-62, 82 A.3d 86
(Jabar, J., dissenting) (noting that the Law Court has “not . . . adopted the federal
cumulative error analysis”); State v. Dolloff, 2012 ME 130, ¶¶ 74-76, 24
58 A.3d 1032.
[¶46] In any event, because Williams’s three other arguments on appeal
fail, her cumulative-error argument cannot succeed.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Rory A. McNamara, Esq. (orally), Drake Law LLC, York, for appellant Jessica A. Williams
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Donald W. Macomber, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine
Waldo County Unified Criminal Docket docket number CR-2021-424 FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY