Opinion ID: 2178950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Obvious errors at trial

Text: The defendant, in his second point of appeal, relies on Rule 52(b) that the Supreme Court will note and act on the obvious errors or defects affecting the substantial rights of the Appellant as noted under point 1. dealing with inadequate representation be regarded as adequate or inadequate by the Supreme Court thereunder. Rule 52(b) M.R.Crim.P. reads: (b) Obvious Error. Obvious errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court. The rule is applicable where, and only where, manifest error in law has occurred in the trial of cases and injustice would otherwise inevitably result,    State v. White, Me., 217 A.2d 212, 213; State v. Boisvert, Me., 236 A.2d 419; 3 Maine Pract.Rules (Glassman) § 52.3. The obvious errors of which defendant complains are stated in the first point of appeal in terms of inadequacy of counsel at trial. We are forced therefore to restate the complaints in terms of obvious error. For example, as inadequate representation, the complaint is the failure to object to a hypothetical question on voir dire. As obvious error, it becomes the admission of the question and answer. Similarly, the other complaints must be cast in different terms. It is unnecessary, in our view, to rehearse in detail the thirty-five complaints of obvious error at trial. We have carefully reviewed the record and here do no more than discuss the complaints in summary fashion. The State inquired of each prospective juror on voir dire in substance whether assuming circumstantial evidence of the commission of murder by the defendant sufficient under instructions of the judge to convict, the juror would be deterred from convicting the defendant in the absence of eye-witness evidence. The State sought by the question to ascertain the bias, if any, of the juror against a particular type of evidence. Obviously in the question the State made it apparent that the State's case might rest on circumstantial evidence. The question was unobjectionable. The defendant could not be harmed by an inquiry which might disclose an unwillingness to take the law from the presiding Justice. A deputy sheriff testified in substance that the defendant complained of a shooting at his camp, and that at defendant's request in company with another officer he made an investigation. The complaint and request were made before the authorities had knowledge of the death of Jane Lund, and before suspicion of any criminal act attached to the defendant. Surely it would be a strange rule that on a request of X to the police for investigation of an incident at his home, the police must notify X of his right to refuse permission to make the investigation, and X must be shown to have waived counsel. Failure to object to the evidence on these grounds is precisely the basis of defendant's charge of incompetency, and so likewise is the basis of the complaint of obvious error. Cases cited by the defendant in which the police sought consent of the suspect are not in point. Schoepflin v. United States (9 Cir. 1968), 391 F.2d 390 (bank robbery stolen goods); United States v. Barton (D.C.D.Mass.1967), 282 F.Supp. 785 (automobile trunk). The defendant asserts obvious error in the admission in evidence: (1) of the testimony of Mr. Haines, a detective on the State Police force, in support of his application for a search warrant; (2) of the testimony of two law enforcement officers for reasons applicable to Mr. Haines' testimony; (3) of the rifle and aluminum foil insulation as exhibits; (4) of certain testimony bearing on the establishment of the corpus delicti; (5) of the testimony of an expert pathologist on the ground of lack of qualification; (6) of a .22 bullet, a red sweater and a blue blouse taken from the body of Jane Lund; (7) of tests by a ballistics expert; (8) of exhibits taken from the premises of the defendant. The questions of evidence present no obvious error under the rule. The defendant further complains of a statement by the Court in the absence of the jury during a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence to the effect that custody of the defendant on an unrelated civil matter on June 18 before he was charged with murder had no bearing on the issue before the Court. Many of the complaints of inadequate representation by counsel cannot, in our view, be turned into charges of obvious error. The defendant complains: (1) that counsel failed to move to suppress evidence before trial, although it appears that he did so with approval of the Court during trial, and (2) that counsel failed to argue and to develop evidence of lack of permission to search, of waiver, and of defendant's mental capacity to waive rights. Later in the opinion we discuss search and seizure, and hold there was no error. Complaints of counsel's failure to rest after motion for verdict of acquittal at the close of the State's case, to renew the motion at the close of the case, and to have had recorded the opening and closing arguments of counsel for the State and the defendant require no comment. Plainly, they do not constitute obvious error under our trial practice. The complaint against counsel for failure to keep the defendant from the witness stand cannot be stretched and turned into an obvious error, chargeable to the Court. It cannot be said to be a manifest wrong resulting in a miscarriage of justice for a jury to hear the defendant. Whether it was the wiser course for the defendant to testify is another matter. We are not here concerned with the Fifth Amendment. The obvious error rule was designed to ferret out error, and not to limit the search for truth. Complaints of inadequate preparation by trial counsel are no more than particular complaints of inadequate representation. They are reached in post-conviction habeas corpus, and not in this appeal. The Court below did not err in refusing to consider competency or incompetency of counsel at trial on defendant's motion for a new trial for newly discovered evidence. Lastly, failure of trial counsel to move for a new trial on the usual grounds is turned into an obvious error requiring a new trial. There is no relief under the rule. As we stated earlier in the opinion, the jury was justified in returning the verdict of guilty of murder. In pointing out that post-conviction habeas corpus is the road open for determination of many of the complaints of the defendant, we nevertheless recognize that there may be errors so plainly established that they may be reached on appeal. We do not bar the way for consideration of such complaints which, however, we do not find before us. There were no obvious errors at trial from which injustice would otherwise inevitably result in the absence of a new trial.