Opinion ID: 2173131
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence Regarding Blood Stains Found in Defendant's Car

Text: At trial, Marlene Roderick, the registered owner of the tan Oldsmobile driven by defendant, testified that two days before the search of the car Morton had returned the car to her with the assurance that he had vacuumed the car thoroughly and had made sure it was very clean. Anticipating correctly that the prosecution would argue to the jury that Morton had cleaned the car in an attempt to destroy all evidence which might link him to the Bettencourt murders, [10] defendant tried unsuccessfully to introduce evidence showing that an F.B.I. laboratory analysis of blood-stained items found in the car revealed the presence of deer blood. Drawing upon the fact that Marlene Roderick testified, both on direct and on cross-examination, that her husband had been engaged in illegal night hunting, defense counsel argued that the F.B.I. blood analysis would forcefully support the contention that Morton cleaned out the car in an attempt to destroy evidence which might incriminate his friend, Mr. Roderick. The trial justice refused, however, to allow defense counsel to question State Police Officer Ronald Eccles on the subject of the F.B.I. blood analysis. The justice concluded that the fact that someone used this car and may have engaged in other crimes is not particularly relevant to this matter. Later in the course of the trial, defense counsel again raised the issue of the admissibility of the F.B.I. blood analysis, stating the rationale for the relevancy of the evidence with greater clarity than before. [11] Defendant made a complete offer of proof. The prosecuting attorney, while reasserting his objection to the evidence on relevancy grounds, stated he was willing to stipulate that if the evidence was allowed it would show the presence of both ruminant animal blood and other unidentifiable blood in defendant's car. Defense counsel contended it would show more specifically that the ruminant blood was actually deer blood. The prosecuting attorney then agreed to stipulate that the evidence, if admitted, would show the presence of both deer blood and blood of an unknown origin. The defense was denied the opportunity to get this stipulated evidence before the jury. On this record we are compelled to find that the presiding justice's exclusion of defendant's offered evidence was erroneous. The prosecutor initially presented evidence showing that defendant thoroughly cleaned out the car before returning it to Mrs. Roderick. This testimony was clearly relevant. It supported the inference that defendant had attempted to conceal evidence linking him to the Bettencourt murders. Defendant merely sought to rebut this inference. If the prosecution's explanation of defendant's conduct was relevant as tending to support the inference of defendant's guilt, then the defense's alternative explanation of the same conduct in an effort to demonstrate defendant's innocence must be equally relevant. See State v. Clark, Me., 394 A.2d 779, 782 (1978). The trial court erred in denying defendant the opportunity of showing that some of the blood stains in his car were of deer blood. That error, however, does not justify reversal of the jury's finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Morton participated in murdering the Bettencourts. First, defense counsel was not prevented from arguing to the jury his explanation of defendant's car-cleaning conduct. [12] Furthermore, if the blood analysis results had been admitted, the jury would have been apprised that Morton's car contained not only deer blood but also other blood of an unknown origin, which the jury might have inferred to be the blood of one or both of the murder victims. Thus, admission of the blood analysis would have both helped and hurt defendant's case. Even if the blood analysis had been admitted in evidence, the rest of the evidence amply supported the jury's finding of defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. At most, the asserted exculpatory explanation for Morton's thorough cleaning of the car before turning it over to Mrs. Roderick goes to only one, relatively minor thread in the solid fabric of the State's case. The fact that defendant's car may have been used for night hunting by Mr. Roderick would not in any way detract from the evidence that showed that defendant admitted his participation in the Bettencourt murders to Judith Harvey. The presence of candle wax in defendant's car similar in chemical composition to the wax found in the Bettencourt home raised a strong inference of guilt that the blood analysis would not have explained away. In addition, the jury heard Smith's testimony that defendant had participated in the aborted robbery attempt of November 1973, which bore many similarities to the operative facts of the December murders. Finally, defendant's November statement that it would be at least a month before the heat died down, his attempts to prevent his car from being searched, and his departure from the State of Maine to Florida shortly after the car was seized, all point inescapably to the conclusion that Morton was involved in the crimes for which he was tried. Given the strong evidence of guilt adduced by the State, we conclude that any error in excluding the blood analysis evidence did not constitute prejudicial error.