State of New Hampshire v. Patrick McIntire ( 2015 )

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
SUPREME COURT
In Case No. 2013-0249, State of New Hampshire v. Patrick
McIntire, the court on January 22, 2015, issued the following
order:
Having considered the brief, memorandum of law, and record submitted
on appeal, we conclude that oral argument is unnecessary in this case. See
Sup. Ct. R. 18(1). We affirm.
The defendant, Patrick McIntire, appeals his conviction for possession of
a controlled substance, methadone. See RSA 318-B:2 (Supp. 2014). He argues
that the Superior Court (O’Neill, J.) erred in denying his request to instruct the
jury on the defense of nullification and by giving the jury other instructions
that contravened and undermined his nullification defense.
Specifically, the defendant argues that RSA 519:23-a (Supp. 2014),
which took effect on January 1, 2013, requires the trial court to instruct the
jury on the defense of nullification when the defendant requests such an
instruction. He also argues that when a defendant argues nullification, as the
trial court allowed the defendant to do in this case, the court may not in its
instructions contravene or undermine the nullification defense by giving the
standard Wentworth instruction, see State v. Wentworth, 118 N.H. 832, 838-39
(1978), or by instructing the jury that if the lawyers state the law differently
from the court’s instructions, the jury must follow the court’s instructions and
ignore the lawyer’s statements.
On June 20, 2014, the State filed an assented-to motion to stay this
appeal pending our decision in State v. Paul, No. 2013-0426. On June 25,
2014, we granted the State’s motion, and on October 24, 2014, we issued our
opinion in State v. Paul. In that case, we held that RSA 519:23-a is not a jury
nullification statute. Rather, we held, the statute merely codifies pre-existing
law regarding the function of the jury in criminal cases, see State v. Paul,
167 N.H. ___, ___ (decided October 24, 2014), including the well-established
principle that jury nullification is neither a right of the defendant nor a defense
recognized by law, see State v. Sanchez, 152 N.H. 625, 629 (2005). We further
held that the trial court did not err in that case by giving instructions that may
have contravened or undermined the defendant’s jury nullification argument
because RSA 519:23-a does not give the defendant the right to make such an
argument. See Paul, 167 N.H. at ___.
Following our decision in Paul, the State filed a memorandum of law
asserting that the defendant’s arguments in this case are identical to the
arguments we rejected in Paul. Based upon our review of the arguments in the
defendant’s brief, we agree with the State that State v. Paul is dispositive of this
case.
Affirmed.
Dalianis, C.J., and Hicks, Conboy, Lynn, and Bassett, JJ., concurred.
Eileen Fox,
Clerk
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