Court Opinion

ID: 9750376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:55:08.144683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:07.013301
License: Public Domain

BRODY, Justice,
with whom GOLLINS, Justice joins, dissenting.
Because I believe that the trial court acted well within the bounds of its discretion in limiting evidence of the accident in which Dean’s children were killed, I respectfully dissent.
The Court is persuaded that the trial justice’s ruling impermissibly denied Dean *934the latitude to present the defense to which he was entitled by restricting evidence of the circumstances under which he made inculpatory statements to Detective De-long. Relying on State v. Curtis, 399 A.2d 1330 (Me.1979), the Court opines that Dean, in attempting to persuade the jury that his confession should be given little or no weight, was entitled to “ ‘show all the circumstances tending to destroy or weaken its probative power.’ ” Id. at 1333 (quoting State v. Collins, 297 A.2d 620, 632 (Me.1972)).
The Court’s reliance on Curtis is misplaced. In Curtis, we held it constitutional error to deny defense counsel a pretrial transcript of suppression hearing testimony at public expense because it prevented the defendant from impeaching witnesses against him at trial through prior inconsistent statements. We vacated and remanded in that case because the trial court’s error revolved around the disability that was placed on the indigent defendant to properly cross-examine the State’s witnesses.
Contrary to Dean’s contentions, the record does not demonstrate that he too was impermissibly denied his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him. Defense counsel was allowed to cross-examine Detective Delong about the fact that the accident was discussed as part of the conversation in which Dean made the inculpatory statements. Although counsel was not allowed to inquire into all of the details of the conversation and the accident, he was allowed to explore Dean’s emotional state at the time of the interview with Detective Delong. In addition, other witnesses repeatedly alluded to the accident throughout the trial.
Furthermore, the reversible error that we found in Curtis resulted from the trial court’s denial of the pretrial transcript and not from a discretionary ruling made pursuant to M.R.Evid. 403. Rule 403 provides in pertinent part that otherwise admissible evidence may be excluded “if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.” Prejudice, in this context, means “an undue tendency to move the fact finders to decide the issue on an improper basis, commonly, although not invariably, an emotional one.” State v. Linnell, 408 A.2d 698, 695 n. 2 (Me.1979).
The trial court granted the State’s motion in limine to exclude the details of the accident because the sympathy that the evidence might evoke in the jurors would be unfairly prejudicial to the State’s case. The Court concedes that the trial justice’s decision on this issue is discretionary. As we reiterated only recently, Rule 403 “gives the trial court wide discretion to balance the considerations of the probative value of proffered evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice, and such an evidentiary ruling will be overturned only when the trial court commits a clear abuse of discretion.” State v. Ifill, 574 A.2d 889, 891 (Me.1990).
The trial court’s ruling was well within the bounds of its discretion. The proffered evidence was only marginally relevant; the probative value of further details of the accident, minimal at best; the danger of unfair prejudice, significant. I would affirm the judgment.