State v. Caswell

2001 ME 23, 771 A.2d 375, 2001 Me. LEXIS 21
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedJanuary 30, 2001
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 2001 ME 23 (State v. Caswell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Caswell, 2001 ME 23, 771 A.2d 375, 2001 Me. LEXIS 21 (Me. 2001).

Opinions

ALEXANDER, J.

[¶ 1] Patricia Caswell appeals from a judgment entered in the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Atwood, J.) following a jury trial convicting her of a third offense of operating under the influence. The operating under the influence charge was a Class D offense pursuant to 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411 (1996 & Supp.2000) with two prior convictions as aggravating factors.1 Cas-well contends that the court erred in (1) ruling that a competing harms justification, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 103(1) (1983)2 was not generated by the evidence, and (2) [377]*377excluding expert testimony in support of her competing harms justification. We affirm.

I. CASE HISTORY

[¶ 2] On August 1, 1996, Caswell and a man "with whom she had had a prior intimate relationship spent the evening drinking alcoholic beverages at bars in the Augusta area. Although the couple was using Caswell’s vehicle, the man was driving because Caswell had just regained her driving privileges and did not want to drive after consuming alcohol.

[¶ 3] As the evening progressed, Caswell testified that she began asking the man to take her home because she had to work the next day. Caswell testified that the man was drunk and angry and that he refused to take her home, ultimately taking her to his residence instead. Once at the residence, Caswell testified that she began to walk away. However, her companion followed her in her vehicle and demanded that she get in and return to the residence. Caswell testified that she consented to get in and return to the residence because she was afraid. Caswell testified that she then agreed to have sexual intercourse with the man because she believed that she was not going to get home until she did. During the course of the sexual encounter, Caswell testified that she was forced to engage in several degrading sexual acts which she resisted. Ultimately, she pushed the man off her and left the residence.

[¶ 4] Caswell testified that when she left, her attacker was lying on the bed, that she did not know whether or not he was passed out, and that she did not recall him saying anything to her as she left. Cas-well also testified that she did not know whether or not the man would follow her, but that she was afraid he was going to “get ahold” of her again.

[¶5] After leaving the residence, Cas-well drove her vehicle to an Irving station in Augusta. There she stopped, entered the station, and purchased a package of cigarettes. Although she stopped, Caswell testified at trial that she thought that her attacker was following her. When she stopped, Caswell also saw two Augusta police officers parked at the Irving station. She did not approach the officers. Caswell testified that she was not about to tell two strange officers what had happened to her and that she would have approached the officers only if she had seen her attacker coming toward her while she was at the Irving station.

[¶ 6] Officer Struk of the Augusta Police Department was one of the officers in the Irving parking lot. He saw Caswell’s pickup truck pull rapidly into the parking lot and shortly thereafter leave at a high rate of speed. He followed Caswell’s truck in his cruiser and estimated that it was trav-elling at approximately sixty-five miles-per-hour in a forty-five mile-per-hour zone. He signaled Caswell to stop and she did. When Officer Struk approached. Caswell and requested her license and registration, he saw that she was crying, and he detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverages. Caswell informed Struk that she had just broken up with her boyfriend and admitted that she had been drinking. Caswell slipped on the truck running board when she exited and performed poorly on field sobriety tests. Struk took Caswell to the Augusta police station where a breathalyzer test indicated a blood-alcohol level of .12 percent.3 Caswell was summonsed for operating under the influence.

[378]*378[¶ 7] At her District Court arraignment, Caswell entered a not guilty plea and transferred the matter to Superior Court for a jury trial. See M.R.Crim. P. 22(a). Prior to trial, the State sought to obtain pretrial rulings excluding (1) Caswell’s competing harms justification, and (2) an expert Caswell proposed to offer in support of her justification. Ruling on those issues was deferred to trial.

[¶ 8] At trial, after the State rested and out of the presence of the jury, Caswell offered the testimony of a psychologist, Dr. Brian Riñes, concerning the effects of the sexual attack which Caswell had told him had occurred. He asserted that because of the sexual attack, Caswell felt an “overwhelming need to escape,” that her judgment was impaired, that it was rational for her to fear further assault, and that her emotions overrode her thought processes. Riñes also testified that Caswell’s unwillingness to report the sexual assault to the police officers at the Irving station was consistent with behavior of other sexual assault victims and that she was driven by a irantie need to get home. Riñes indicated that Caswell viewed her home as a place of refuge, although from the evidence presented at trial it was apparent that the man who Caswell testified had attacked her knew where her residence was located. Riñes also testified that Cas-well told him that she continued to fear further attack even after she left the Irving station and that, in Rines’s experience, Caswell’s fear was reasonable and consistent with that of other victims of sexual assault.

[¶ 9] Following the testimony of Riñes and Caswell, the court ruled that the facts presented did not generate the competing harms justification because there was no evidence of imminent harm to Caswell. Accordingly, Riñes did not testify. The eourt permitted Caswell to testify to all of the events of the evening, including the sexual attacks. Although requested by the defense, the jury was not instructed on the competing harms justification. After the jury returned a guilty verdict and the court entered judgment. Caswell filed this appeal.

II. COMPETING HARMS JUSTIFICATION

[¶ 10] The principal issue on appeal is whether the evidence was sufficient to generate the competing harms justification. There is a subsidiary issue of whether the court should have excluded the psychologist’s testimony offered in support of the competing harms justification. Caswell argues that her subjective belief that a person who had attacked her might be chasing her is sufficient to generate a competing .harms justification for her continuing to operate her motor vehicle in violation of 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411, even after she had stopped for cigarettes at the Irving station and observed the police officers.

[¶ 11] In deciding whether a justification issue is generated, the evidence presented in support of the justification must be viewed in the light most favorable to the defendant. See State v. Wilder, 2000 ME 32, ¶ 23, 748 A.2d 444, 450. However, in competing harms cases, we also require that the evidence, construed most favorably to the defendant, must be sufficient to make the existence of all facts constituting the competing harms justification a reasonable hypothesis for the fact-finder to entertain. See State v. Poole, 568 A.2d 830, 831 (Me.1990); State v. Crocker, 506 A.2d 209, 211 (Me.1986); State v. Knowles,

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Bluebook (online)
2001 ME 23, 771 A.2d 375, 2001 Me. LEXIS 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-caswell-me-2001.