Opinion ID: 4244584
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: oui

Text: [¶33] We are not persuaded by Nobles’s argument that the jury should have been instructed on the justification of competing harms with respect to the OUI charge. To establish the elements of OUI, the State was required to 18 prove that Nobles “[o]perate[d] a motor vehicle [w]hile under the influence of intoxicants.” 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(A)(1) (2017). Unlike the crime of operating after revocation, the crime of OUI does not require operation on a public way. Compare id. with 29-A M.R.S. § 2557-A(1)(A) (2017). Because Nobles, who denied having consumed alcohol at all on July 6, 2016, admitted that he was operating the vehicle before he encountered the witness and her husband, even viewing the facts most favorably to him, he has admitted that he operated his vehicle at a time when no cause to evade them had yet arisen. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it determined that a competing harms instruction was not generated for the OUI charge.