Case Title: State v. Bittues

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2019 ME 83

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2019-05-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2019 ME 83 
Docket: 
Ken-18-354 
Argued: 
May 7, 2019 
Decided: 
May 30, 2019 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM,* and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
STATE OF MAINE 
 
v. 
 
ARNO A. BITTUES 
 
 
HUMPHREY, J. 
[¶1]  Arno A. Bittues appeals from a judgment of conviction of operating 
under the influence (OUI) (Class D), in violation of 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(A) 
(2018), entered by the court (Kennebec County, Delahanty, J.) after a bench 
trial.  We affirm the judgment.   
I.  BACKGROUND 
 
[¶2]  The following facts are drawn from the court’s oral findings and 
from the trial record, viewed in the light most favorable to the State.  See State 
v. Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250.   
                                         
* Although not available at oral argument, Justice Hjelm participated in the development of this 
opinion.  See M.R. App. P. 12(a)(2) (“A qualified Justice may participate in a decision even though not 
present at oral argument.”). 
 
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[¶3]  Approximately ten minutes before midnight on February 3, 2018, a 
trooper from the Maine State Police responded to a phone call from a residence 
in Wayne reporting moaning and yelling coming from outside.  The trooper 
drove to the driveway at the address and observed a minivan with its front 
driver’s side tire stuck in the snowbank on the left side of the long driveway.  
The driveway was plowed; however, there was some residual snow on its 
surface and about two and a half feet of snow on either side of the driveway.  
After confirming that there was no one in the minivan, the trooper continued to 
drive towards the home.   
 
[¶4]  As he approached the house, the trooper observed one male 
standing close to the home, then heard moaning, looked to his left and saw 
another man, later identified as Bittues, kneeling face down in the snow about 
fifteen or twenty feet off the left side of the driveway.  The trooper left his 
vehicle, walked over to Bittues, and observed a single set of footprints leading 
from the driver’s side of the minivan running parallel to the driveway to the 
place where Bittues was kneeling.  The trooper detected a strong odor of 
alcohol on Bittues’s breath and noticed that his eyes were glassy and bloodshot.   
 
[¶5]  After a second trooper arrived and helped the first trooper assist 
Bittues to walk from the snow to the driveway, Bittues told the troopers that he 
 
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believed that he was in a parking lot outside a bar in another town—Winthrop.  
Bittues also confirmed that the minivan was his and that he was the only person 
who drives the vehicle, but he would neither confirm nor deny that he had 
driven that night.  The first trooper attempted to administer a field sobriety 
test—the horizontal gaze nystagmus test; however, Bittues was unable to 
follow the trooper’s directions for performing the test.  The trooper transported 
Bittues to the Winthrop Police Department, where he administered an 
intoxilyzer test.  Bittues had a blood-alcohol content of .25 grams of alcohol per 
210 liters of breath.  Meanwhile, the second trooper remained at the scene to 
wait for a tow truck and take photographs of the car and footprints.   
 
[¶6]  Bittues was charged with OUI, in violation of 29-A M.R.S. 
§ 2411(1-A)(A).  At the bench trial, Bittues conceded that he was under the 
influence of intoxicants and contested only the allegation that he had operated 
a motor vehicle.  The court found, based on the photographs and the troopers’ 
testimony, that Bittues had operated the minivan while under the influence and 
sentenced him to ninety-six hours in jail—to be satisfied by the two-day 
alternative sentencing program—and imposed a $500 fine and a 150-day 
license suspension.  Bittues timely appealed.  M.R. App. P. 2B(b)(1).   
 
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II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶7]  On appeal, Bittues argues that there was insufficient evidence for 
the court to have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he operated a motor 
vehicle while under the influence.  When a criminal defendant claims on appeal 
that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction, “we view the 
evidence in the light most favorable to the State to determine whether the 
fact-finder could rationally find every element of the offense beyond a 
reasonable doubt.”  Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250.  When the court 
makes specific factual findings in reaching its verdict, “we review those findings 
for clear error and will uphold them if supported by competent evidence in the 
record.”  State v. Wilson, 2015 ME 148, ¶ 13, 127 A.3d 1234.   
 
[¶8]  “In a nonjury trial, the court is free to determine which witnesses to 
believe and which evidence to accept or reject as trustworthy or untrustworthy 
as long as there is evidence by which a fact-finder could rationally conclude, 
beyond a reasonable doubt, that the crime was committed.”  Id. (quotation 
marks omitted).  “It is not necessary for the trial court to eliminate any possible 
alternative explanation of the evidence; the question is whether such 
alternative is sufficiently credible in light of the entire record that it necessarily 
raises a reasonable doubt.”  State v. Bowman, 611 A.2d 560, 562 (Me. 1992).   
 
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[¶9]  Contrary to Bittues’s argument, the court’s findings are supported 
by competent evidence in the record that was sufficient to allow a fact-finder to 
rationally conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bittues did, in fact, operate 
a motor vehicle while under the influence.1  See Wilson, 2015 ME 148, ¶ 13, 127 
A.3d 1234; Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250.  Bittues was found 
kneeling in the snow yards away from where the troopers discovered his 
minivan stuck in a snowbank; both troopers observed footprints deep in the 
snow leading from the driver’s side door; one trooper observed that the 
footprints led from the driver’s side of the vehicle to the place where Bittues 
was kneeling in the snow; and Bittues conceded that he was intoxicated and 
admitted to the troopers that no one else drives the vehicle.  Presented with 
this evidence, the court did not err in concluding, beyond a reasonable doubt, 
that Bittues had operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated in violation of 29-A 
M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(A).   
 
The entry is: 
 
Judgment affirmed.  
                                         
1  Bittues argues that the testimony of the second trooper and the photographs that the second 
trooper took after the first trooper and Bittues had left the scene require us to determine that the 
evidence was insufficient to permit the court to rationally find that Bittues was the operator of the 
minivan.  We disagree because competent evidence in the record, including the photographs and the 
testimony of the first trooper, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State, are sufficient to 
allow a fact-finder—here, the court—to rationally conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Bittues 
did, in fact, operate the vehicle.  See State v. Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250.   
 
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Caleb J. Gannon, Esq. (orally), Lipman & Katz, PA, Augusta, for appellant Arno A. 
Bittues 
 
Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, David M. Spencer, Asst. Dist. Atty., and 
Frayla Tarpinian, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Kennebec County District Attorney’s 
Office, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine 
 
 
Kennebec County Unified Criminal Docket docket number CR-2018-240 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY