Cookson v. State, Docket No. Pen–12–351.

• Decision Date: 18 February 2014
• Docket Number: Docket No. Pen–12–351.
• Citation: 86 A.3d 1186,2014 ME 24
• Parties: Jeffrey A. COOKSON v. STATE of Maine.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

86 A.3d 1186

2014 ME 24

Jeffrey A. COOKSON

v.STATE of Maine.

Docket No. Pen–12–351.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: May 15, 2013.

Decided: Feb. 18, 2014.

Richard L. Hartley, Esq.(orally), Law Office of Richard L. Hartley, P.C., Bangor, on the briefs, for appellantJeffrey Cookson.

Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Donald W. Macomber, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of Attorney General, Augusta, on the briefs, for appelleeState of Maine.

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, GORMAN, and, JABAR, JJ.

Majority: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, and GORMAN, JJ.

Dissent: JABAR, J.

GORMAN, J.

[¶ 1] In this third appeal stemming from Jeffrey A. Cookson's 2002 conviction of two counts of intentional or knowing murder, 17–A M.R.S.A. § 201(1)(A)(1983),¹ Cookson challenges a decision of the court( Cole, J.) denying, for the second time, his motion for post-conviction DNA analysis of certain evidence.Cookson contends that the court held him to a higher standard of proof than is required pursuant to the post-conviction DNA statute, 15 M.R.S. §§ 2136– 2138(2010),² and that the court erred in finding that Cookson did not establish the requisite elements to obtain such testing.We affirm the judgment.

I.BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] In 2001, a jury found Cookson guilty of the intentional or knowing murder of Mindy Gould and the young child she was babysitting at the time.³See17–A M.R.S.A. § 207(1)(A).The court( Cole, J.) imposed two consecutive life sentences.

[¶ 3] Among the arguments Cookson made in his direct appeal of the judgment of conviction was his contention that the court erred in denying his motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discoveredevidence.State v. Cookson (Cookson I),2003 ME 136, ¶¶ 7–13, 27–36, 837 A.2d 101;seeM.R.Crim. P. 33.We affirmed the judgment after determining that the evidence was not “newly discovered” within the meaning of Rule 33, and that even if it were, it would not have changed the outcome of Cookson's trial.⁴Cookson I,2003 ME 136, ¶¶ 28–29, 32, 33–34, 837 A.2d 101.

[¶ 4] In 2004, and again in 2008, Cookson filed motions seeking post-conviction DNA analysis of some of the evidentiary items that were the subject of his motion for a new trial.See15 M.R.S. §§ 2137,2138.The court denied the motions, and Cookson then commenced a second appeal related to his conviction, which resulted in our decision in Cookson v. State (Cookson II),2011 ME 53, 17 A.3d 1208;see15 M.R.S. § 2138(6);M.R.App. P. 19.

[¶ 5] In Cookson II,we interpreted the post-conviction DNA statute, which requires the moving party to present prima facie evidence of five criteria:

A.A sample of the evidence is available for DNA analysis;

B.The evidence to be tested has been subject to a chain of custody sufficient to establish that the evidence has not been substituted, tampered with, replaced or altered in a material way;

C.The evidence was not previously subjected to DNA analysis or, if previously analyzed, will be subject to DNA analysis technology that was not available when the person was convicted;

D.The identity of the person as the perpetrator of the crime that resulted in the conviction was at issue during the person's trial; and

E.The evidence sought to be analyzed, or the additional information that the new technology is capable of providing regarding evidence sought to be reanalyzed, is material to the issue of whether the person is the perpetrator of, or accomplice to, the crime that resulted in the conviction.

15 M.R.S. § 2138(4–A);see2011 ME 53, ¶ 7, 17 A.3d 1208.We also noted that 15 M.R.S. § 2138(5) requires the motion court to issue written findings of fact in granting or denying a request for post-conviction DNA analysis.Cookson II,2011 ME 53, ¶ 9, 17 A.3d 1208.Because the court had not made the required findings, we vacated and remanded the matter to the Superior Court for it to do so.Id.¶¶ 9, 18.

[¶ 6]We also clarified one of the five requirements for post-conviction DNA analysis, and the only requirement that was truly in dispute—chain of custody.⁵Id.¶¶ 10–18;see15 M.R.S. § 2138(4–A)(B).We noted that “[t]he central point of the chain of custody requirement is to assure that the evidence is what it purports to be—that is, related to the crime—and that it has not been contaminated or tampered with such that testing of it will yield unreliable (and therefore irrelevant) results.”Cookson II,2011 ME 53, ¶ 17, 17 A.3d 1208.We held that a chain of custody consideration must account for any period of time in which the evidence could have been contaminated or tampered with, which in Cookson's case begins with the day of the murders.Id.¶¶ 17–18.

[¶ 7] On remand, the trial court conducted a second testimonial hearing on Cookson's motion for DNA analysis.By agreement of the parties, the court also considered all of the evidence from the hearing on Cookson's initial motion for a new trial and the first hearing on his post-conviction DNA motion.The extensive findings issued by the court after its consideration of the entire record illustrate the unusual sequence of events preceding Cookson's motion for post-conviction DNA analysis.

[¶ 8] Before he went to trial for the murders, Cookson was aware that one of his acquaintances, David Vantol, had confessed to the private investigator retained by Cookson's attorney that he, rather than Cookson, had killed the victims.In Vantol's first confession, he asserted that he had killed them in self-defense.Cookson's attorney did not find Vantol's self-defense confession credible.As Cookson's trial was being heard, Cookson's private investigator spoke to Vantol again; Vantol changed his story from one of self-defense to one of murder-for-hire committed at Cookson's request.Cookson and his attorneys were aware of both versions of Vantol's confession.Despite their knowledge of Vantol's revised story, or perhaps because of it, Cookson and his attorneys decided not to call Vantol as a witness during the trial.In addition, they decided not to tell the prosecution or the trial court of either version of Vantol's confession until after the verdict was rendered in Cookson's trial.

[¶ 9] As a result of these decisions by Cookson, neither the prosecutors nor the investigating Maine State Police detectives were aware of any version of Vantol's confession while the trial was being heard.Rather, it was not until December 6, 2001, after the jury returned its verdict finding Cookson guilty of two counts of murder, that Cookson's attorneys finally notified the prosecutors and the trial court that Vantol was claiming to have been involved in the murders.

[¶ 10] Detectives immediately met with Vantol.Among the first versions of the story Vantol gave was one—which he later recanted—in which he stated that Cookson approached him in 1999 to kill Gould in exchange for $10,000.Vantol explained that he agreed to Cookson's proposal, and further explained how he carried out his part of the bargain.Vantol stated that on the morning of December 3, 1999, Cookson drove him to a convenience store where Cookson bought him a pair of brown gloves; Cookson then gave Vantol a gun and eventually dropped him off at Gould's home.When Gould answered the door, Vantol followed her into the home and shot her.Vantol explained that he shot the child just because the child was present.

[¶ 11] To corroborate his confession, Vantol offered to provide the detectives with the gun he used to commit the murders and the clothing he wore at the time of the murders; he first claimed to have been wearing sneakers, flannel pants, a flannel jacket, an Adidas hat, and the brown gloves, but later claimed he wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a flannel shirt along with the sneakers and gloves.Vantol stated that he had buried those items, as well as the gun ⁶ and a wig that Cookson wore that day, on property owned by Scott Cookson, Cookson's brother.

[¶ 12] That very night, December 6, 2001, Vantol led detectives to a location in the woods on Scott Cookson's property where he quickly unearthed a gun that turned out to be the murder weapon.SeeCookson II,2011 ME 53, ¶ 3, 17 A.3d 1208;Cookson I,2003 ME 136, ¶ 9, 837 A.2d 101.Vantol repeatedly refused to lead the detectivesto where the other items were buried, but two days later, on December 8, 2001, he did provide them with a green plastic trash bag containing various items of clothing that he stated he had dug up on Scott Cookson's property.The bag contained only a pair of blue sneakers, a size XL jean jacket with pink stains that appeared to be bleach stains, a plaid flannel insulated shirt, a black wig, and a fluorescent orange knit hat.The police noted that the items were “very wet and brittle” and had roots and grass mixed in.

[¶ 13] Vantol, who has limited cognitive functioning, was admitted to Acadia Hospital soon afterward.After being treated at the hospital, Vantol recanted his earlier confessions and informed the detectives that he had not been involved with the murders, had pulled the clothing items out of a junk car, and knew where the gun was based on Cookson's directions.Vantol stated that he had fabricated his involvement with the murders at Cookson's specific request.

[¶ 14] Cookson is now attempting to obtain post-conviction DNA testing of the clothing that Vantol gave the detectives in 2001.On remand, the trial court concluded that Cookson failed to present his prima facie evidence that the clothing had not been substituted, tampered with, replaced, or altered between the time of the murders and the time Vantol gave the items to the police, for two reasons.First, the court found that there was a two-year gap in the chain of custody in that Cookson offered no evidence “as to the condition and circumstances that existed at the Scott Cookson trailer and junkyard [from] the date of the homicides on December 3, 1999[,] to the time David Vantol turned over the items to [detectives] on...