Opinion ID: 1939540
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence in Support of the Theory of an Alternative Perpetrator.

Text: At trial, Dechaine attempted to introduce evidence that another person, Douglas Senecal, was responsible for the murder and for implicating Dechaine. The proffered evidence included testimony that Dechaine maintained would show that Senecal had murdered Sarah in order to prevent her from offering testimony against him at a trial scheduled for July, 1988. [6] A criminal defendant is entitled to present evidence in support of the contention that another is responsible for the crime with which he is charged. State v. Harnish, 560 A.2d 5, 9 (Me.1989); State v. LeClair, 425 A.2d 182, 187 (Me.1981); see M.R.Evid. 401. [7] The evidence must be admitted if it is of sufficient probative value to raise a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's culpability. State v. Conlogue, 474 A.2d 167, 172 (Me.1984); see M.R.Evid. 402. We have, however, upheld the exclusion of evidence that is too speculative or conjectural or too disconnected from the facts of a defendant's prosecution. LeClair, 425 A.2d at 187; see also Harnish, 560 A.2d at 9; State v. Giglio, 441 A.2d 303, 307 (Me.1982). The trial court heard Dechaine's offer of proof and reviewed in camera the confidential records of the Department of Human Services and concluded that the evidence Dechaine represented he could produce purporting to implicate Douglas Senecal in the kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder of Sarah Cherry did not provide a sufficient connection between Senecal and Sarah Cherry. See Harnish, 560 A.2d at 9. Dechaine's proffer demonstrated no reasonably plausible motive for Senecal to harm Sarah Cherry and no knowledge of an opportunity for him to abduct her from the Lewis Hill Road home. [8] For alternative perpetrator evidence to have sufficient probative value to raise a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's culpability, Conlogue, 474 A.2d at 172, it must be more than speculative and conjectural. The evidence incriminating another person must be competent and confined to substantive facts which create more than a mere suspicion that such other person committed the [crime].... Fortson v. State, 269 Ind. 161, 379 N.E.2d 147, 153 (1978). The connection between the alternative perpetrator and the crime must be reasonably established by the admissible evidence the defendant is prepared to offer. Without such evidence, a defendant cannot be allowed to use his trial to conduct an investigation that he hopes will convert what amounts to speculation into a connection between the other person and the crime. See State v. Williams, 462 A.2d 491, 492 (Me.1983); State v. White, 460 A.2d 1017, 1025 (Me.1983). Based on Dechaine's offer of proof, there was no clear error in the trial court's conclusion that Dechaine's evidence of an alternative perpetrator constituted nothing more than speculation and, therefore, was not relevant to the charges against Dechaine. [9]