State v. Cyr
| Decision Date | 03 August 1978 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Aline P. CYR. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Joseph M. Jabar, Dist. Atty., J. William Batten, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Augusta, for plaintiff.
Burton G. Shiro (orally), Ronald L. Bishop, Waterville, for defendant.
Before McKUSICK, C. J., and POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD, DELAHANTY and NICHOLS, JJ.
Charged with having committed the offenses of criminal mischief (17-A M.R.S.A. § 806) and harassment by telephone (17-A M.R.S.A. § 506) (two charges), defendant Aline P. Cyr waived trial by jury in the Superior Court (Kennebec County). Tried by the court in November, 1977, defendant was found guilty as charged. She has appealed from the judgments of conviction.
We deny the appeal.
As her first point of appeal, defendant contends that the evidence failed to support the convictions.
The criminal mischief accusation was that on May 8, 1977, defendant intentionally damaged the flower garden of Joyce Michaud by walking in the flower garden and pulling up flowers from the ground. The evidence revealed that sometime in May 1977, Jill Michaud, the daughter of Joyce Michaud, was awakened at 3:00 a. m. by the sound of a dog barking in front of her house. She looked out the front window and observed defendant on the front lawn of the Michaud property. Defendant, who lived next door to the Michauds, then started to leave the front lawn of the Michauds, carrying something long extending from her hand. Defendant ran around the corner of the fence separating her house from the Michaud house. At approximately 6:00 a. m. Joyce Michaud discovered that her flowers on both sides of the front porch had been dug up, torn apart and scattered all over the front lawn. This was sufficient circumstantial evidence to justify a fact-finding conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant
"intentionally . . . damage(d) or destroy(ed) the property of another, having no reasonable ground to believe that he has a right to do so . . . ." (17-A M.R.S.A. § 806)
The accusations of telephone harassment were that on March 7, 1977 and March 9, 1977, defendant telephoned the number of Joyce Michaud and, without disclosing her identity and with the intent to annoy any person at the Michaud number, refused to say anything and hung up when the telephone was answered.
The evidence showed that for two years the Michauds had received telephone calls between 11:00 p. m. and 6:00 a. m. in which the caller refused to speak when the telephone was answered. On one occasion prior to the incidents of March 1977, however, the caller did speak and said: "You'd better get your . . . damned pigs off the phone, or there'll be more damage done." Jill Michaud recognized the caller's voice as that of defendant.
In March 1977, the Michauds received telephone calls on the 7th, 8th and 9th in which the caller did not speak. The calls on the 8th and 9th were traced by a telephone company employee to a telephone having the number 873-2450 which, the employee testified, he found listed "in the book" to an Aline Cyr.
Since it is common knowledge that a telephone book listing is "generally used and relied upon by the public", the telephone listing was not excluded by the hearsay rule for the purposes here involved. Hence, the presiding Justice did not violate the hearsay rule by admitting as evidence the testimony that the harassing telephone calls made on March 8th and 9th, 1977 were traced to the telephone number listed in the telephone book to an Aline Cyr. 1
With the evidence supporting a finding that the calls on March 8th and 9th were made from defendant's telephone, the presiding Justice was justified in concluding that defendant was guilty as charged that is, that defendant made the telephone calls on March 7th and 9th
". . . without disclosing . . . (her) identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person at the called number." (17-A M.R.S.A. § 506)
As to the call on March 9th, the conclusion that it was defendant who made the call was warranted by her legal control of the telephone as well as the evidence of her other acts of harassing the Michauds: the prior threatening telephone call and the subsequent...
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State v. Ayers
...he cannot give assurance that such a good faith dispute exists, any deviation from the rule should be harmless error." State v. Cyr, 389 A.2d 834, 836 n. 1 (Me.1978), quoting Advisor's Note to M.R.Evid. 1004). The final issue raised by defendant on appeal is totally lacking in merit and req......
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State Of Me. v. Cook., Docket No. Han-08-46.
...was recovered from the same culvert. 5 Although circumstantial evidence can support a conviction for criminal mischief, see State v. Cyr, 389 A.2d 834, 835 (Me.1978), the evidence connecting Cook to these crimes is too tenuous for a rational fact-finder to determine that it is almost certai......
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State v. Pierce
...defendant's "bad character" is properly admissible at trial. See Pierce v. State, 463 A.2d 756, 761 and n. 1 (Me.1983); State v. Cyr, 389 A.2d 834, 837 n. 2 (Me.1978); M.R.Evid. 404(b) adviser's notes. For example, evidence of another crime may come in as proof of motive, intent, opportunit......
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State v. Reed, Pen–12–183.
...and “circumstantial evidence can support a conviction for criminal mischief,” Cook, 2010 ME 85, ¶ 16, 2 A.3d 333 (citing State v. Cyr, 389 A.2d 834, 835 (Me.1978)). [¶ 14] In this instance, the State argued that Reed committed criminal mischief by chopping down trees owned by the Maine Fore......