State v. Fischer

WEBBER, Justice

(dissenting).

I would sustain the appeal in all three cases. “The evidence was not sufficient to enable a jury to legally find the respondent guilty of the offense(s) charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Sullivan, (1951) 146 Me. 381, 386, 82 A.2d 629, 631. In my view no dispassionate jury, unless unduly influenced by the disgusting nature of the acts charged and the youthfulness of the complainants, could fail to entertain very real and serious doubts as to the truthfulness of the accusations. My brother Dufresne has carefully examined the manifest and fatal weaknesses in the evidence relied upon by the State in Case #1134. I find in the cases involving the two female complainants a welter of confusion and contradiction which will not suffice to satisfy the State’s burden of proof. No useful purpose will be served by enumerating here the instances in which these children contradicted themselves and each other. Doubts which will not be swept away are engendered by the fact that these youthful witnesses had made accusations against two other men, accusation identical to those now made against the respondent, accusations which they now assert were false. The evidence, of course, is of such a nature as to stimulate conjecture and arouse grave suspicion as to the possible guilt of the respondent. But mere conjecture, however accurate, and deep suspicion, however justified, will not alone suffice under our system of law to overcome the presumption of innocence vouchsafed to a respondent in every criminal case. As a matter of law the quality of proof must rise to a higher level than is present here.