Opinion ID: 2828001
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tampering with a Victim

Text: [¶18] The State alleged that Gagnier committed the crime of tampering with a witness3 when, while Michael was incarcerated, she encouraged B.G. to lie to authorities. Gagnier argues that she did so because Michael told her to convey that message to B.G. and that because of Michael’s history of violence and abusive behavior, she perceived that she would be in danger if she did not comply. When Gagnier reportedly told B.G. not to be “hard” on Michael, however, Michael was in jail and did not have immediate access to Gagnier to carry out any threat. The evidence therefore is insufficient to support a reasonable hypothesis that Gagnier was faced with an “imminent” threat if she refused to convey Michael’s message to 3 Pursuant to 17-A M.R.S. § 454(1-B)(A)(1) (2014), “[a] person is guilty of tampering with a victim if, believing that an official proceeding . . . or an official criminal investigation is pending or will be instituted, the actor . . . [i]nduces or otherwise causes, or attempts to induce or cause, a victim . . . [t]o testify or inform falsely.” 10 B.G. Rather, at most, Michael’s statement to her constituted a “veiled threat of future unspecified harm” that, pursuant to Tomah, is legally insufficient to invoke duress as a defense. 1999 ME 109, ¶ 19, 736 A.2d 1047 (quotation marks omitted). Pursuant to Larrivee, 479 A.2d at 350-51, this forecloses the availability of the duress defense on the tampering charge. [¶19] We have long recognized that in cases involving domestic violence and abuse, competent evidence may be presented to explain the nature of an abused person’s perceptions of danger posed by an abusive partner. For example, in State v. Anaya, the defendant, charged with murder for the death of her abusive domestic partner, raised issues of self-defense and provocation. 438 A.2d 892, 893-94 (Me. 1981). There, the evidence recounted a history of violence inflicted by the decedent on the defendant, and specific evidence was presented that on the night of the homicide, the couple argued, and the decedent “pushed the defendant around.” Id. at 893. We held that in light of that evidence, the court erred by excluding expert testimony of “battered wife syndrome” to show that “abused women often continue to live with their abusers even though beatings continue, and that a certain substrata of abused women perceive suicide and/or homicide to be the only solutions to their problems.” Id. at 894. [¶20] Gagnier argues here, as she did in the trial court, that the pattern of physical abuse inflicted on her by Michael created a context in which her 11 apprehension of danger was heightened and that she felt compelled to comply with Michael’s instruction.4 Even in such circumstances, however, section 103-A requires a defendant who seeks to invoke the duress defense to produce some evidence that the threat in fact is imminent. Therefore, although Gagnier presented evidence of long-standing abuse that Michael perpetrated against her, the evidence nonetheless must be sufficient to allow a finding that she was faced with an actual threat of imminent harm originating with Michael, which irresistibly caused her to encourage B.G. to lie to investigators. No evidence of such a threat was presented during the trial, and the court therefore did not err in refusing to instruct the jury to consider duress as a defense to the tampering charge.