State of Maine v. Walter H. Renfro

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2017 ME 49 Docket: Ken-16-89
Argued: November 10, 2016
Decided: March 16, 2017
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
STATE OF MAINE
v.
WALTER H. RENFRO
SAUFLEY, C.J.
[¶1] Walter H. Renfro appeals from a judgment of conviction entered by
the trial court (Kennebec County, Benson, J.) after a jury found him guilty of
operating under the influence (Class B), 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(D)(2)
(2016).1 Renfro argues that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding,
pursuant to M.R. Evid. 403, the finding of an administrative hearing examiner
that Renfro’s Intoxilyzer test results were unreliable due to improper pre-test
observation by police.2 We conclude that the court did not abuse its
discretion and affirm the judgment.
1 Title 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(D)(2) (2016) includes a revision, made after the time of the
crime, that corrected a statutory cross-reference. See R.R. 2015, ch. 2, § 18.
2 Renfro also argues that the court abused its discretion in denying his motion for mistrial
through which he challenged prosecutorial closing arguments as impermissibly shifting the burden
of proof to him. We discern no abuse of discretion or prejudice to Renfro, especially given the
2
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] “When the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the
State, the jury was entitled to find the following facts beyond a reasonable
doubt.” State v. Kendall, 2016 ME 147, ¶ 2, 148 A.3d 1230. On November 1,
2013, at about 10:45 p.m., an officer of the Waterville Police Department and a
police trainee stopped a vehicle driven by Walter Renfro in a residential area
of Waterville after the tires of the vehicle squealed upon acceleration up a hill.
The vehicle almost struck the curb while making a right turn before pulling to
the side of the road.
[¶3] When observed after the stop, Renfro exhibited multiple indicia of
intoxication, which the officer further confirmed through field sobriety tests.
The officer and trainee took Renfro into custody and drove him to the
Waterville Police Department, where the officer administered an Intoxilyzer
test. The Intoxilyzer returned a result of 0.17 grams of alcohol per 210 liters
of breath.
[¶4] Renfro was ultimately charged by indictment with both operating
under the influence, 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(D)(2), and operating beyond a
court’s complete and accurate jury instructions. See State v. Frisbee, 2016 ME 83, ¶ 12, 140 A.3d
1230; State v. McBreairty, 2016 ME 61, ¶ 25, 137 A.3d 1012; State v. Lowe, 2015 ME 124, ¶ 20, 124
A.3d 156.
3
license condition or restriction (Class E), 29-A M.R.S. § 1251(1)(B) (2016).
Although he moved to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the traffic
stop and moved in limine to exclude the Intoxilyzer results as unreliable, the
court (Mullen, J.) denied the motions after an evidentiary hearing.
[¶5] The State moved in limine to exclude as irrelevant any evidence of
an administrative hearing held by a hearing examiner for the Department of
the Secretary of State, including the examiner’s decision to rescind Renfro’s
license suspension due to the arresting officer’s failure to observe Renfro
properly during the fifteen minutes before he administered the Intoxilyzer
test. See 29-A M.R.S. § 2485(1) (2016). Renfro moved in limine to admit the
hearing results. Those motions were not decided before trial.
[¶6] The court (Benson, J.) held a jury trial in December 2015 on the
OUI charge after Renfro waived his right to a jury trial on the count for
operating beyond a license condition or restriction. The State offered
testimony from the officer who arrested Renfro and showed the jury a video
recording of Renfro’s Intoxilyzer testing.
[¶7] In addition to other efforts to challenge the officer’s credibility,
Renfro sought to cross-examine the officer about the hearing examiner’s
decision rescinding Renfro’s license suspension. The court did not allow
4
Renfro to present evidence of the outcome of the administrative hearing
because it found that, although the evidence was relevant, the probative value
of the hearing examiner’s decision was substantially outweighed by the risk of
unfair prejudice. See M.R. Evid. 403. The trial court explicitly noted that the
jury would be tempted to substitute the judgment of the hearing examiner for
the jury’s own independent judgment. Renfro was allowed to cross-examine
the officer about how he had been “criticized” for his observation-period
practices in another proceeding, and Renfro was allowed to play a video of the
same officer, three or four days after he had been “criticized,” more closely
observing another test subject before she blew into the Intoxilyzer.
[¶8] The jury found Renfro guilty of OUI, and the court found him not
guilty of operating beyond a license condition or restriction. After a
sentencing hearing, and based on Renfro’s stipulation to his previous
conviction of “a Class B or Class C crime under this section,” 29-A M.R.S.
§ 2411(1-A)(D)(2), the court sentenced Renfro to five years in prison, with all
but 18 months suspended, and three years of probation. See id.
§ 2411(5)(D-2). The court ordered him to pay fines, surcharges, and
assessments totaling $2,585. See id. Renfro timely appealed. See 15 M.R.S.
§ 2115 (2016); M.R. App. P. 2.
5
II. DISCUSSION
[¶9] The Maine Rules of Evidence generally authorize the admission of
relevant evidence. See M.R. Evid. 402.3 The court determined that the hearing
examiner’s decision concerning the propriety of the breath testing procedures
was relevant. Although that determination could be subject to challenge, the
State does not dispute that ruling. Accordingly, we do not address relevance
further. See M.R. Evid. 401, 402.4 Instead, the question before us is whether
the court abused its discretion in excluding that evidence because “its
probative value [was] substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair
prejudice.” M.R. Evid. 403. “Prejudice, in this context, means an undue
tendency to move the fact finders to decide the issue on an improper basis
. . . .” State v. Dean, 589 A.2d 929, 934 (Me. 1991) (quotation marks omitted).
[¶10] “The trial court has broad discretion in determining whether the
probative value of evidence is outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice . . . .”
State v. Roman, 622 A.2d 96, 100 (Me. 1993) (quotation marks omitted); see
M.R. Evid. 403. The court did not abuse that discretion in balancing any
probative value of Renfro’s proffered evidence against the significant risk of
3 “Evidence is relevant if: (a) It has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it
would be without the evidence; and (b) The fact is of consequence in determining the action.” M.R.
Evid. 401.
4 Nor do we address the potential hearsay implications of the proposed evidence.
6
unfair prejudice. The court recognized the real potential for the jury to
substitute the decision of the hearing examiner—reached in a different
context, based on a different standard of proof, and applying a relaxed
evidentiary standard—for its own weighing of the evidence admitted in the
criminal trial to determine whether the State proved the elements of OUI
beyond a reasonable doubt. Compare 5 M.R.S. § 9057(2) (2016), and 29-A
M.R.S. §§ 111, 2484(3) (2016) (collectively providing that the standard of
proof for a license suspension hearing is proof by a preponderance of the
evidence and that the hearing is not governed by the Maine Rules of
Evidence), with 17-A M.R.S. § 32 (2016) (providing that the elements of a
crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt), and M.R. Evid. 101(a)
(providing that the Maine Rules of Evidence apply in court proceedings).
[¶11] Furthermore, the “extent and scope of impeachment testimony
lies within the limits of judicial discretion.” State v. Bennett, 658 A.2d 1058,
1062 (Me. 1995) (quotation marks omitted). The court allowed Renfro to
mount a thorough challenge to the officer’s administration of the breath test,
including by generously admitting a video of that officer’s later practices after
the officer was “criticized” for the way he had observed test subjects. Thus,
although the court allowed the jury to hear evidence that the officer had been
7
“criticized” and changed his practices, it excluded evidence of the decision that
generated that criticism to avert the risk that the jury would substitute the
hearing examiner’s decision for its own. For the same reasons that it did not
abuse its discretion in applying Rule 403, the court did not abuse its discretion
in limiting the scope of Renfro’s impeachment evidence.
[¶12] Finally, by statute, criminal and administrative proceedings are
insulated from each other: “The determination of facts by the Secretary of
State is independent of the determination of the same or similar facts in an
adjudication of civil or criminal charges arising out of the same occurrence.”
29-A M.R.S. § 2485(4) (2016). The court might therefore have abused its
discretion if it had admitted evidence of the hearing examiner’s decision with
such a strong potential to suggest to the jury that it should substitute another
decision-maker’s factual findings for its own. Cf. United States v. MacDonald,
688 F.2d 224, 229-30 (4th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1103 (1983)
(affirming the exclusion of a military investigation report as a public record
because the credibility determinations could undermine the exclusive
province of the jury to find the facts); State v. Huston, 825 N.W.2d 531, 539
(Iowa 2013) (vacating a judgment of conviction when the jury was given
evidence of substantiation of child abuse by the Department of Human
8
Services). The court properly determined that the probative value was
substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See M.R. Evid.
403.5
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Scott F. Hess, Esq., (orally), The Law Office of Scott F. Hess, LLC, Augusta, for
appellant Walter Renfro
Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, Francis J. Griffin, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty.
(orally), and Ali F. Farid, Stud. Atty., Office of the District Attorney, Augusta,
for appellee State of Maine
Kennebec County Superior Court docket number CR-2013-1039
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY
5 Renfro also contends that the evidence was admissible as evidence of subsequent remedial
measures. See M.R. Evid. 407. Rule 403, however, authorizes the exclusion of evidence that is
otherwise admissible, see State v. Dean, 589 A.2d 929, 934 (Me. 1991), and therefore our review of
the Rule 403 ruling is dispositive here.