Opinion ID: 2292323
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Testimony of James Lindahl

Text: In his next point on appeal, defendant attacks the admission in evidence of the testimony of one James Lindahl. Defendant asserts that the presiding justice should have stricken Lindahl's testimony because the State failed to have Lindahl specifically identify defendant as the driver with whom Lindahl hitchhiked a ride on the night of the crime. Without that specific identification, defendant contends, Lindahl's testimony is irrelevant and therefore inadmissible under M.R.Evid. 402. At trial Lindahl testified that during the fall of 1983 he had hitchhiked on Route 9 between his girlfriend's home in Berwick and his home in North Berwick between three and five times a week. He would visit his girlfriend in the evening and leave her house at around 9:00 p.m., hitchhiking back to North Berwick. Lindahl never was able to testify that he had been hitchhiking on the specific date of October 12, 1983. He did testify that when a police officer contacted him during the winter of 1984 and asked if Lindahl had been hitchhiking on a mid-October night, he had replied affirmatively. When asked about a particular October night, Lindahl testified that he remembered hitchhiking on a night when it was raining relatively hard. He had left his girlfriend's house at the usual time and started walking on Route 9 toward North Berwick. He walked some four or five miles before he got a ride. He testified that at around 10:20 p.m. he was picked up within two miles of Wick's service station by the driver of a small to mid-sized car. The driver was alone. Lindahl described the driver as a male Caucasian with dark hair, medium build, and average to six feet in height. He testified that the man was drinking beer and complained of a headache. Lindahl gave him two Tylenol tablets. He rode in the car for two or three miles; then the driver dropped him off on Portland Street in North Berwick. Lindahl testified that the driver appeared intoxicated and that he expressed great interest in sex. Lindahl's testimony was offered to show defendant's state of mind in the hours preceding the alleged rape. His testimony was important to the State's case in rebutting defendant's insanity defense. The description of the driver given by Lindahl fitted defendant. The description of the car was reasonably close; defendant was driving a mid-sized car. There was heavy rainfall on the night of October 12, 1983, as the victim and others testified. There was testimony that defendant had left the home of some friends, across the street from Wick's garage, at around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. In addition, a key identifying factor was brought out in testimony that defendant, in an interview with police, had stated that a hitchhiker he had picked up on the night of the rape had given defendant a pill that the hitchhiker had represented to be Tylenol. The issue is whether, given these connecting pieces of evidence, Lindahl's testimony is relevant to show defendant's state of mind at the time of the crime. His testimony was relevant only if Lindahl was in fact the hitchhiker picked up by defendant on the night of October 12, 1983. Thus, it is an example of conditionally relevant evidence, which under M.R.Evid. 104(b) the court shall admit upon the introduction of evidence sufficient to support a finding that the condition has been fulfilled. See Field & Murray, Maine Evidence § 104.3 (1976); 21 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5054, at 268-69 (1977). On the basis of the evidence summarized above, a jury could reasonably find that Lindahl was the hitchhiker that defendant had picked up on the critical October night of 1983. Therefore, the presiding justice did not err by allowing Lindahl's testimony to stand.