State v. Tieman

207 A.3d 618
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedApril 23, 2019
DocketDocket: Som-18-194
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 207 A.3d 618 (State v. Tieman) 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. Tieman, 207 A.3d 618 (Me. 2019).

Opinion

JABAR, J.

[¶1] Luc W. Tieman appeals from a judgment of conviction of murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A) (2018), entered by the court (Somerset County, Mullen, J. ) following a jury trial. Tieman contends that the court abused its discretion by admitting Facebook Messenger records in evidence, and he challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's verdict. We affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶2] "Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the jury rationally could have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Perkins , 2019 ME 6, ¶ 3, 199 A.3d 1174 (quotation marks omitted).

[¶3] In August 2016, Tieman and his wife, the victim in this case, returned to Maine after visiting the victim's family in South Carolina. At that time, Tieman and the victim were living at Tieman's mother and father's home in Fairfield, Maine. On August 24, 2016, Tieman was seen by several people with another woman with whom he had begun communicating on Facebook a week earlier. On the night of August 24, 2016, Tieman had sex with her. On that same night, the victim called Tieman thirty-one times between 5:46 p.m. and 10:22 p.m.

[¶4] The following day, August 25, 2016, a friend of both Tieman and the victim contacted the victim using Facebook's messaging platform, "Facebook Messenger." The friend informed the victim that Tieman was "getting caught up in other women and saying [that] they were separated." The victim responded to the friend, stating in several messages that Tieman had "broke[n] [her] heart," but that "it [would] all work out [because] God has a plan," and that Tieman would "never find a better woman than [her]" and he had "lost [her]."

*621[¶5] On August 26, 2016, Tieman moved into the home of the woman with whom he was having an affair and informed her that the victim had run off with another man. The same day, the victim's parents became concerned about the victim because she was not responding to their calls, text messages, or Facebook messages. In an attempt to communicate with the victim, the parents reached out to Tieman and asked how he and the victim were doing. Tieman responded the following day, stating: "We are good. Thank you. Love her so much ...."

[¶6] On September 8, 2016, the parents of the victim had still not heard from her, so they called Tieman's father, who informed them that the victim was missing. The victim's parents then called Tieman, asking why he had not told them that the victim was missing. Tieman stated: "I was waiting for her to contact you because I still would never bad mouth her. I still love you all."

[¶7] The following day, September 9, 2016, the victim's father filed a missing person report with the Fairfield Police Department. Tieman explained to the victim's father, to Fairfield police, and to Maine State Police detectives that he had driven to Wal-Mart with the victim, had gone into the store alone, and when he had returned to the vehicle the victim had been gone.1

[¶8] On September 20, 2016, a search warrant was executed at the Tieman family home in Fairfield. Police dogs trained to detect human remains were employed at the scene and approximately five minutes into the search a police dog discovered a burial site behind the Tieman family home. The victim's body was in the burial site; she was wrapped in a blanket and buried with an assortment of items. Among those items was a note written to "Joy-Joy" from "LUC-e-DA-Bear" which stated, in part: "forever I love you for always.... Rest in peace .... I can't wait to be with you and see you and hold you again."

[¶9] Around the same time that the victim's body was exhumed, detectives questioned Tieman about the body. Tieman stated that the victim had died of an overdose and he had buried her in the backyard with a note and some flowers. Tieman also stated that the victim had suffered no physical injuries. However, an autopsy performed on September 21, 2016, revealed that the cause of the victim's death was gunshot wounds of the head and neck. Fragments and a portion of the jacket of a .45 caliber bullet were discovered in the victim's head during the autopsy, and a .45 caliber handgun had been seized from the Tieman residence during the execution of the search warrant on September 20, 2016.2

[¶10] Tieman was arrested on September 21, 2016, and indicted on October 27, 2016, for the murder of the victim. Following a six-day trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on April 9, 2018. Tieman was sentenced to a term of fifty-five years' imprisonment with the Department of Corrections. This timely appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Facebook Messenger Records

[¶11] Tieman raises two challenges to the court's admission of the Facebook *622Messenger records, which were offered and admitted as State's Exhibit 74A over Tieman's objection. First, he contends that the court clearly erred or abused its discretion in finding that the Facebook Messenger records were authenticated pursuant to M.R. Evid. 901. Second, he asserts that the court abused its discretion by admitting the Facebook Messenger records pursuant to the hearsay exception that allows for the admission of a declarant's statement of his or her then-existing state of mind. See M.R. Evid. 803(3).

[¶12] We review a trial court's ruling on the admissibility of evidence for clear error or abuse of discretion. See State v. Berke , 2010 ME 34, ¶ 10, 992 A.2d 1290. "We review a trial court's ruling to admit or exclude alleged hearsay evidence for an abuse of discretion" and "will find an abuse of discretion if a party can demonstrate that the trial court exceeded the bounds of the reasonable choices available to it." Guardianship of David P. , 2018 ME 151, ¶ 6, 196 A.3d 896 (quotation marks omitted); see also State v. Watson , 2016 ME 176, ¶¶ 10-11, 152 A.3d 152. We afford broad discretion to the trial court in its determination on the admissibility of evidence. Guardianship of David P. , 2018 ME 151, ¶ 6, 196 A.3d 896.

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Bluebook (online)
207 A.3d 618, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-tieman-me-2019.