Opinion ID: 2295634
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Armstrong's Motion

Text: In Armstrong's case, the victim, Jeannette Moore, was beaten and strangled in defendant's motel room in Bangor late in the afternoon of February 13, 1973. During the autopsy, a piece of human skin was found imbedded in the victim's hair and was latter identified through fingerprint comparison as coming from Armstrong's left index finger. The testimony at trial showed that Armstrong and Jeannette Moore had been seen leaving a restaurant in Hampden at 4:30 p. m. that afternoon. About 6:30 p. m. the tenant in the motel room next door to defendant observed the latter with a towel wrapped around him, headed for the showers, and shortly thereafter saw defendant return to his room from the showers. Within half an hour, defendant entered a restaurant in Bangor where he used the public telephone. A cashier who knew defendant overheard portions of his conversation with his father and quoted him as saying, I have done something bad. . . . Will you meet me with a minister. At trial, in an effort to prove that his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect, 15 M.R.S.A. § 102 (1965), [6] defendant offered the testimony of three experts  one psychologist and two psychiatrists  to the effect that he had been suffering from an acute psychotic reaction. In anticipation of that defense and in order to show Armstrong's presence of mind at the time of the crime, the prosecution offered five bloodstained towels, found at the crime scene, inferentially used by defendant in an attempt to clean up his motel room after the murder. The sole relevance of Curran's testimony was to identify the stains as human blood of a type consistent with the victim's. [7] On appeal defendant concedes that he committed the act of killing but insists that without the evidence rebutting his evidence of insanity the jury would not have rejected the expert psychiatric testimony. The full probative force of the towels as evidence against defendant was available to the prosecution even if Curran's testimony had not been in the case. Other testimony established that the towels had been found, bloodsoaked, on and around the profusely bleeding body of the homicide victim. The jury could naturally have drawn the inference that the stains were the blood of the victim, and it would indeed be surprising if they had concluded otherwise. Moreover, aside from the bloodstained towels, there was other significant evidence from which the jury could infer that Armstrong's act was not the product of mental disease or defect, [8] including the fact that shortly after the crime defendant took a shower, shampooed his hair, and changed into clean clothing and then went to a public restaurant, and the evidence of defendant's statements to his father, in a telephone call from the restaurant, that he had done something bad and to meet him with a minister. As in Ruybal's case we believe the jury would just as certainly have convicted Armstrong even if Curran's credibility had been impeached. The entry in each case will be: Appeal denied. Denial of motion for new trial affirmed. ARCHIBALD, J., did not sit.