Case Name: STATE of Maine v. Patricia CASWELL
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 2001-01-30
Citations: 771 A.2d 375
Docket Number: 
Parties: STATE of Maine v. Patricia CASWELL.
Judges: Before: WATHEN, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, SAUFLEY, ALEXANDER, and CALKINS, JJ.
Reporter: West's Atlantic Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 771
Pages: 375–383

Head Matter:
2001 ME 23
STATE of Maine v. Patricia CASWELL.
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.
Submitted on Briefs Oct. 6, 2000.
Decided Jan. 30, 2001.
David W. Crook, District Attorney, Janice Stuver, Asst. Dist. Atty., Augusta, for State.
David M. Sanders, Esq., Livermore Falls, for defendant.
Before: WATHEN, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, SAUFLEY, ALEXANDER, and CALKINS, JJ.

Opinion:
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. Cas-well contends that the court erred in (1) ruling that a competing harms justification, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 103(1) (1983) was not generated by the evidence, and (2) excluding 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. Caswell was summonsed for operating under the influence.
[¶ 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, 495 A.2d 335, 338 (Me.1985); State v. Glidden, 487 A.2d 642, 644 (Me. 1985); State v. Greenwald, 454 A.2d 827, 830 (Me.1982).
[¶ 12] We have held that the competing harms justification is not generated because a defendant claims to subjectively believe that a threat of imminent physical harm exists. See Poole, 568 A.2d at 830; State v. Kee, 398 A.2d 384, 385-86 (Me.1979). Instead, we require that for the competing harms justification to be generated, the evidence, viewed most favorably to the defense, must demonstrate "as a fact" that physical harm was imminently threatened. Poole, 568 A.2d at 830; Kee, 398 A.2d at 385-86.
[¶ 13] On this record, there is no evidence that Caswell was imminently threatened with physical harm. When she left her attacker, Caswell testified that he was lying on a 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. Beyond Caswell's testimony, the record contains absolutely no evidence that the person who Caswell asserted had attacked and degraded her was chasing her. Further, on the particular facts of this case, any justification for driving while under the influence in order to flee from the attacker's residence evaporated when Caswell stopped for cigarettes and observed the Augusta police officers.
[¶ 14] Caswell's argument would have us change the law regarding competing harms to (1) eliminate the requirement that the evidence demonstrate, as a fact, that physical harm was imminently threatened, and (2) allow a subjective belief that one is being pursued, without more, to become an excuse for operating under the influence or any other crime that may be subject to a competing harms justification.
[¶ 15] We decline Caswell's invitation to change the law to allow subjective beliefs alone to generate the competing harms justification. Based on our prior precedent, the trial court correctly ruled that the competing harms justification would be excluded because there was no evidence which, even construed most favorably to Caswell, suggested that physical harm to her was imminently threatened.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
. Upon conviction, the Superior Court sentenced Caswell to six months in the county jail, all but thirty days suspended with probation for one year, a fine of $1000, and a four-year suspension of her driver's license and registration privileges. Pursuant to 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411(5)(C), the thirty days' jail time, the $1000 fine, and the four-year suspension of driving privileges were mandatoiy mínimums for conviction of a third offense of operating under the influence.
. 17-A M.R.S.A. § 103(1) reads as follows:
§ 103 Competing harms
1. Conduct which the actor believes to be necessary to avoid imminent physical harm to himself or another is justifiable if the desirability and urgency of avoiding such harm outweigh, according to ordinary standards of reasonableness, the harm sought to be prevented by the statute defining the crime charged. The desirability and urgency of such conduct may not rest upon considerations pertaining to the morality and advisability of such statute.
. 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411(1)(B) prohibits operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcoholic beverages or while having a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or higher.