Opinion ID: 2759151
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Degree Murder Conviction

Text: Only one of the defendant’s appellate arguments remains. The defendant asserts that the issue of whether he attempted to rob Gosselin was necessarily litigated and decided in his favor in his first trial. He argues that the trial court violated the collateral estoppel doctrine as encompassed within the State and Federal Double Jeopardy Clauses when it instructed the jury that it could presume the requisite mens rea for second degree murder if it found that he was guilty of attempted armed robbery. See N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 16; U.S. CONST. amends. V, XIV; RSA 630:1-b, I(b); see also Glenn, 160 N.H. at 491. The issue of double jeopardy presents a question of constitutional law, which we review de novo. State v. Fischer, 165 N.H. 706, 715 (2013). We first address the defendant’s double jeopardy claim under the State Constitution and rely upon federal law only to aid our analysis. See State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 231–33 (1983). “In the criminal context, collateral estoppel mandates that an issue of ultimate fact that has been fully tried and determined cannot again be litigated between the parties in a future prosecution.” State v. Hutchins, 144 N.H. 669, 671 (2000). Thus, “if an essential element of [a] second prosecution was necessarily determined in the defendant’s favor at the first trial,” the second prosecution is barred. Id. (quotation omitted). “The burden is on the defendant to establish that such an issue was decided in his favor.” Id. (quotation omitted). When the jury returns a general verdict of acquittal, “it is difficult to determine how the fact finder in the first trial decided any particular issue.” Id. (quotation and ellipsis omitted). Accordingly, we must “examine the record of the prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational finder of fact could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.” Id. (quotation and brackets omitted). 7 The defendant argues that the jury in his first trial, by acquitting him of first degree felony murder, necessarily found that he neither engaged in nor attempted to commit armed robbery. Thus, he contends that the issue of whether he committed or attempted to commit armed robbery could not be relitigated in the instant case. The defendant acknowledges that we rejected a similar argument in his interlocutory appeal. Glenn, 160 N.H. at 487-89. There, we rejected his assertion that “by acquitting him of first-degree felony murder, [the jury] necessarily found that he did not shoot and kill the victim.” Id. at 488. After reviewing the relevant material, we concluded that the jury “could have based its acquittal . . . on other grounds, such as [that] the defendant did not attempt to rob the victim at the time of the shooting.” Id. Although we used the phrase “such as,” which indicates that what followed was only an example, the defendant construes our conclusion as a holding that the jury necessarily based its acquittal upon its finding that he did not commit or attempt to commit armed robbery. See Derosia v. Warden, N.H. State Prison, 149 N.H. 579, 580 (2003) (“The words ‘such as’ render the list . . . merely illustrative rather than exhaustive.” (quotation omitted)). To the contrary, we held that the jury could have acquitted the defendant based upon its finding that the State failed to prove an element of the first degree felony murder charge. For instance, it could have acquitted the defendant because it found that he did not “knowingly cause the death of Leonard Gosselin.” Glenn, 160 N.H. at 484 (quotation omitted). In another part of our opinion, we assumed, without deciding, that the jury based its acquittal upon its finding that the defendant did not commit or attempt to commit robbery. Id. at 492. The defendant contends that despite our language, we did, in fact, decide that the jury’s acquittal was so based. We did not. Based upon our review of the relevant material, including the first degree felony murder charge and the record from the defendant’s first trial, we conclude that a rational finder of fact could have grounded its acquittal upon an issue other than the alleged attempted robbery. See Hutchins, 144 N.H. at 671. Accordingly, the collateral estoppel doctrine, as encompassed in the State Double Jeopardy Clause, did not bar the trial court’s instruction. Because the Federal Constitution provides no greater protection than the State Constitution under these circumstances, we reach the same result under the Federal Constitution as we do under the State Constitution. See Glenn, 160 N.H. at 488-89. Therefore, we affirm the defendant’s conviction of second degree murder. Affirmed in part; and vacated in part. DALIANIS, C.J., and CONBOY, LYNN, and BASSETT, JJ., concurred. 8