Court Opinion

ID: 9754064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:41:43.572218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:33.698255
License: Public Domain

SILVER, J.,
with whom MEAD, J., joins, dissenting.
[¶ 40] I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority. The court’s failure to give an accurate self-defense instruction in this case worked a manifest injustice affecting Pabon’s substantial rights because it denied the jury the opportunity to evaluate Pabon’s self-defense argument. For this reason, the self-defense instruction was obvious error, and the judgment should be vacated and remanded for a new trial.
[¶ 41] As the majority states, the use of deadly force is justified when the person reasonably believes it is necessary for self-defense and reasonably believes that the other person is about to use unlawful deadly force against him. 17-A M.R.S. § 108(2)(A)(1) (2010). A person is not justified in using deadly force if he knows that he can retreat with complete safety, “except that the person ... is not required to retreat if the person ... is in the person’s dwelling place and was not the initial aggressor.” Id. § 108(C)(3)(a). It is undisputed that the stabbing took place in Pabon’s home, and the parties agree that the dwelling-place exception to the duty to retreat rule applies in this case. See State v. Laverty, 495 A.2d 831, 833 (Me.1985) (holding that “the ‘dwelling place exception’ to the retreat rule is applicable even if the assailant is lawfully present” as in the case of a co-dweller). Therefore the court’s failure to include this exception in the instruction was error. Because Pabon did not object to the instruction on this basis at trial, we review it for obvious error.
[¶ 42] Here, both Pabon’s substantial rights and the fairness of the proceeding are implicated. We have held on many occasions that “where self-defense is an issue essential to the defendant’s case, a failure to so instruct amounts to obvious error because the instructions are crucial to defendant’s receiving a fair trial.” State v. Corbin, 1997 ME 41, ¶ 8, 691 A.2d 188 (quoting State v. Davis, 528 A.2d 1267, 1270 (Me.1987)). In many of those cases, we have found obvious error where only the defendant’s testimony supported self-defense. See, e.g., State v. Bard, 2002 ME 49, ¶ 6, 793 A.2d 509.
[¶ 43] In these cases, “in order to maintain the basic integrity of judicial proceedings, we will notice error, if error there be, that works substantial injustice, whether or not it is brought to the attention of the trial or appellate court. The rule may be called into play ... in order to avoid depriving the defendant of his *1157constitutional right to a fundamentally fair trial and thus prevent a miscarriage of justice.” State v. Bahre, 456 A.2d 860, 864 (Me.1983) (citations omitted). A complete and accurate self-defense instruction, when the issue is raised by the evidence, is a requirement of constitutional dimension. A failure to deliver that instruction is obvious error. See id. at 866.
[¶ 44] Here, Pabon admitted to stabbing Fusco, and therefore his entire case rested on his two defense theories, one of which was self-defense. “When the claimed error is the omission of a particular instruction, we will vacate the judgment only if ‘the record contains evidence that could rationally lead to a contrary finding with respect to the omitted element.”’ State v. Burdick, 2001 ME 143, ¶ 30, 782 A.2d 319 (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 19, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999)). Contrary to the majority’s assertion, this is not a case where there was “no evidence” supporting a finding that the victim was the initial aggressor in the struggle resulting in the stabbing. See State v. Winchenbach, 658 A.2d 1083, 1085 (Me.1995). Pabon’s statement on the tape recording heard by the jury, that Fusco “had a knife in her hand — she was screaming to me — she had a knife in her hand and I got one too,” was supported and made more credible by evidence that Fusco had threatened to stab Pabon only a few hours before. The jury could also have believed that Pabon felt threatened by Fusco, despite his size and gender, in light of that particular threat, the fact that Pabon called 911 twice that night to request police assistance with Fusco, Pabon’s testimony that he was concerned about going home because Fusco “gets physical,” and his testimony that Fusco had previously bragged to him about injuring people in fights.
[¶ 45] These facts went to the elements of a self-defense justification and generated an issue of self-defense for the State to disprove. It is for the jury to weigh the evidence presented and either accept or reject that defense. Bard, 2002 ME 49, ¶¶ 11, 16, 793 A.2d 509. The determination of whether Pabon or Fusco was the initial aggressor is a part of this jury question, and cannot be separated from the issue of self-defense generally, which the majority acknowledges was raised by the evidence. See State v. Michaud, 1998 ME 251, ¶ 17, 724 A.2d 1222 (stating that “[i]n determining whether the evidence is sufficient to raise the issue of self-defense, a trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant,” and that “[f]or the limited purpose of determining whether self-defense was in issue, the court should have suspended its disbelief and assumed that [the defendant’s] story was true” (quotation marks omitted)).
[¶ 46] The majority changes the established law, and takes the determination of whether a defendant acted in self-defense away from the jury. We should adhere to our past reasoning and remand for a new trial despite our own feelings on which story is more convincing. As we held in State v. Sprague, which involved a dispute regarding who was the initial aggressor:
Initially, we find that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, would rationally support the conclusion that [the defendant] is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime of aggravated assault. We hold, however, and the State concedes, that because the court’s instructions to the jury did not ensure its consideration of all the relevant defenses available to him, [the defendant] was denied a fair trial.
617 A.2d 564, 565 (Me.1992).
[¶ 47] The evaluation of the credibility of witnesses and the weight of the evi-*1158denee are the province of the fact-finder. See State v. Cook, 2010 ME 81, ¶ 7, 2 A.3d 313. An appellate court that did not hear and see the witnesses and exhibits firsthand cannot assess their probable effect on the jury. We do not know which witnesses, if any, the jury found credible, or how they evaluated the witnesses’ demean- or and testimony. In particular, the majority relies in large part on Fusco’s testimony, which the jury may have disbelieved because her account of the timing of events was contradicted by the first 911 call and by multiple witness accounts, and because her description of what transpired when Pabon first arrived home was contradicted by the testimony of the taxicab driver. As the Bard Court observed, “[wjhether the State meets its burden to disprove the defense of self-defense is for the jury to decide — it is within the jury’s purview to weigh the evidence presented and either accept or reject the defense. The jury should have had the means and the authority to do that with a self-defense instruction.” 2002 ME 49, ¶ 16, 793 A.2d 509 (citation omitted).
[¶ 48] This is not a case with a minor technical error. Rather, the court misstated the law on a central issue in the case, and that misstatement was repeated several times by the court and emphasized by the prosecutor, with clear impact on Pa-bon’s substantial right to have the jury consider his defense. As in many of our prior cases, “because the court’s instructions to the jury did not ensure its consideration of all the relevant defenses available to him, [the defendant] was denied a fair trial.” Sprague, 617 A.2d at 565. The effect of that error was compounded by the State’s emphasis in its closing on Pa-bon’s failure to retreat. “Since the jury never received correct instructions on the relevant law from the presiding justice, they may well have found [the defendant] guilty on just such reasoning as the prosecutor’s argument suggested. That is obvious error, as envisioned by Rule 52(b), compelling reversal.” Bahre, 456 A.2d at 865. A fair trial may produce the same result, but it is required nonetheless, and did not occur here.
[¶ 49] In conclusion, the error at issue here was manifest and worked a substantial injustice by denying Pabon’s right to a fair trial. I would therefore vacate the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial. For these reasons, I dissent from the opinion of the majority.