State of Maine v. Sharon Carrillo

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2018 ME 84Docket: Wal-18-149
Argued: June 12, 2018
Decided: July 3, 2018
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
STATE OF MAINE
v.
SHARON CARRILLO
GORMAN, J.
[¶1] Sharon Carrillo appeals from an order entered by the trial court
(Waldo County, R. Murray, J.) denying her motion to disqualify the State’s
attorneys from further participation in her prosecution for murder, 17-A M.R.S.
§ 201(1)(B) (2017). Carrillo contends that the two Assistant Attorneys General
representing the State should have been disqualified based on their access to
privileged or confidential information obtained by the State’s violation of the
subpoena process. We dismiss the appeal as interlocutory.
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] On March 15, 2018, Carrillo was indicted for depraved indifference
murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(B), in connection with the death of her
ten-year-old daughter. Soon after, the State subpoenaed records relating to
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Carrillo from Carrillo’s former school and former employer in New York. After
concluding that the State had obtained the records through a violation of the
subpoena process set out in M.R.U. Crim. P. 17A, the court granted Carrillo’s
request for a protective order and required that all documents produced in
response to the subpoenas be surrendered to the court to be placed under seal.
[¶3] Carrillo also moved to disqualify the State’s attorneys from
participating further in her prosecution on the ground that the prosecutors
committed “serious and ethical violations” in obtaining the subpoenaed
information. After a hearing, by order dated April 12, 2018, the court denied
the motion to disqualify, stating that “disqualification . . . is reserved for
situations of prior representation, conflicts of interest, prosecutorial
misconduct, and other unethical attorney behavior,” and that it was not
persuaded that the prosecutors’ error rose “to that level of behavior which
would warrant the rather extraordinary remedy of disqualification.”
(Quotation marks omitted.) Carrillo instituted this appeal to challenge the
court’s denial of her motion to disqualify.
II. DISCUSSION
[¶4] We first consider the State’s motion to dismiss the appeal as
interlocutory. “It is well settled that appeals, in order to be cognizable, must be
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from a final judgment.” State v. Lemay, 611 A.2d 67, 68 (Me. 1992). There is no
dispute that Carrillo’s case is far from a final judgment. See Bond v. Bond, 2011
ME 105, ¶ 5, 30 A.3d 816 (“A judgment is final only if it disposes of all the
pending claims in the action, leaving no questions for the future consideration
of the court.” (quotation marks omitted)). Carrillo contends, however, that the
matter qualifies for immediate review pursuant to the death knell exception to
the final judgment rule, which applies “when substantial rights of a party will
be irreparably lost if review is delayed until final judgment.” Estate of
Markheim v. Markheim, 2008 ME 138, ¶ 13, 957 A.2d 56 (quotation marks
omitted). It is Carrillo’s burden, as the appellant seeking immediate review, to
demonstrate that the exception to the final judgment rule applies. See Sanborn
v. Sanborn, 2005 ME 95, ¶ 6, 877 A.2d 1075.
[¶5] We have categorically held that the grant of a motion to disqualify
is immediately appealable because “[t]he disqualification of an attorney will
involve a disadvantage and expense that cannot be remedied after the
conclusion of the case.” Tungate v. MacLean-Stevens Studios, Inc., 1997 ME 113,
¶ 5, 695 A.2d 564. “[T]he question of whether a party is entitled to be
represented by counsel of the party’s choosing must be determined early in the
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case, or that right is lost.” Irving Oil Ltd. v. ACE INA Ins., 2014 ME 62, ¶ 14, 91
A.3d 594.
[¶6] The denial of a motion to disqualify implicates no such concerns,
however, Tungate, 1997 ME 113, ¶¶ 4-5, 695 A.2d 564, because “if we
determine on review following the entry of a final judgment that
disqualification is required, then that action can occur prior to a new trial, and
both parties would be put in the same position that they would have been in if
disqualification occurred following an interlocutory appeal,” Fiber Materials,
Inc. v. Subilia, 2009 ME 71, ¶ 21, 974 A.2d 918. We have also warned that “a
blanket exception to the final judgment rule allowing the denial of a motion to
disqualify to be immediately appealed would allow any appellant to force us to
prematurely review issues that would otherwise have to wait for the complete
record that accompanies a final judgment.” Id. ¶ 22. Such a practice would at
once “eviscerate” the final judgment rule, id. ¶ 23, and allow motions for
disqualification to be “abused for tactical purposes,” Morin v. Me. Educ. Ass’n,
2010 ME 36, ¶ 8, 993 A.2d 1097.
[¶7] In Markheim, an isolated case involving a civil claim, we considered
the merits of a denial of a motion to disqualify in an interlocutory appeal after
determining that the death knell exception to the final judgment rule applied.
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2008 ME 138, ¶¶ 1, 13, 20-22, 957 A.2d 56. In that case, the trial court denied
a motion to disqualify the attorney for the opposing party in which the moving
parties argued that the attorney was “privy to confidential information” when
he previously represented them in a “substantially similar” prior litigation. Id.
¶¶ 1, 4, 10, 21. We agreed to review the appeal on the merits because the
moving parties had identified “specific examples” of the confidential
information the attorney had from his prior representation that could harm
them in the pending matter. Id. ¶¶ 20-21. Otherwise, we held, “the confidences
and privileged information revealed in the course of the proceedings would
become part of the record.” Id. ¶ 20; see Butler v. Romanova, 2008 ME 99,
¶¶ 5-10, 953 A.2d 748 (considering the merits of the court’s denial of a motion
to disqualify in a divorce matter after concluding, without elaborating, that the
moving party otherwise “[stood] to irreparably lose substantial rights”).
[¶8] Even if we were to apply Markheim’s analysis to Carrillo’s appeal,
we would have to conclude that Carrillo has not met her burden of establishing
the application of the death knell exception to the final judgment rule. Unlike
the moving party in Markheim, 2008 ME 138, ¶ 20, 957 A.2d 56, Carrillo has
failed to articulate any irreparable loss of a right that she stands to suffer by
allowing these prosecutors to continue to represent the State. She has argued
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that the prosecutors’ knowledge of the records “interferes with [her] right to
testify at trial” and “taints the process” because, “[i]f she testifies at trial, . . . she
will know that these prosecutors have read private and sensitive personal
information about her which she thought was confidential and secret.” Carrillo
has also argued that “[e]ven if the prosecution was prohibited from using the
information [obtained from the records] directly, they would be able to push
and explore on cross examination – or through their own expert presentation
further develop – aspects of different psychological background and cognitive
functioning that they have learned about through the acquisition” of the
records at issue. Such general assertions, however, do not constitute the
specific demonstration of irreparable loss that is required to abandon our
otherwise well-settled application of the final judgment rule to denials of
motions to disqualify. See Subilia, 2009 ME 71, ¶ 21, 974 A.2d 918;
cf. Markheim, 2008 ME 138, ¶¶ 20-21, 957 A.2d 56. We note also that the trial
court has already issued an appropriate protective order and required that all
documents produced in response to the subpoenas be placed under seal with
the court. Given the circumstances presented by this case, we decline to apply
the death knell exception to the final judgment rule, and we therefore dismiss
the appeal as interlocutory.
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The entry is:
Appeal dismissed.
Christopher K. MacLean, Esq. (orally), and Laura P. Shaw, Esq., Camden Law
LLP, Camden, for appellant Sharon Carrillo
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General and Leanne Robbin, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally),
Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine
Waldo County Unified Criminal Docket docket number CR-2018-146
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY