State v. Eaton
| Decision Date | 11 September 1973 |
| Citation | 309 A.2d 334 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. David M. EATON. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
David W. Kee, County Atty., Samuel Nesbitt, Jr., Asst. County Atty., Ellsworth, for plaintiff.
Hale & Hamlin by Barry K. Mills, Blue Hill, for defendant.
Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK and ARCHIBALD, JJ.
The defendant, David M. Eaton, at the September term of the Superior Court in and for the County of Hancock was charged by indictment dated September 2, 1971 with the crime of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill one James D. Haines under 17 M.R.S.A. § 2656. 1 Tried by jury, he was convicted of the offense charged and on October 1, 1971 the presiding Justice sentenced him to serve a term of not less than ten years and not more than twenty years in Maine State Prison. Eaton appeals from this conviction. We deny the appeal.
James D. Haines was in his third year of medical school at the University of Michigan. He left Ann Arbor, Michigan on a vacation trip with his wife, Sherri, intending to visit the State of Maine. They left Boston, Massachusetts in the late morning or early afternoon of July 17, 1971. Mrs. Haines testified:
That spot in Maine fingered on that map was Stonington, where events stranger than fiction were about to happen which, unknown to the Haines, would change the scenario from the restful atmosphere of a small town in the wilds of Maine to the most frantic scene of an ancient wild-west movie.
Indeed, in the evening of July 17, 1971 the defendant was attending a dance in Stonington. He had been brought up in that town and his family lived there. It was to be expected that, following his service of a minimum sentence in Maine State Prison, he would return to the place of his childhood, which he did some few weeks previously when he was released on parole from that institution.
Eaton was drinking that evening, contrary to the terms of his parole. Aggressive and cantankerous, he got himself involved in a fight with another man at the dance.
Eaton had been in trouble in the past because of liquor. At the time of his previous sentence to prison, his relationship with one Starr Dorr had become strained because of his excessive drinking and the bond of affection which had marked their prior acquaintance had reached the breaking point. The dissolution was formalized when Miss Dorr dispatched a letter from Stonington to the prison informing the appellant she would not see him again. Eaton did not take this rejection seriously and his feelings for Miss Dorr intensified during the remainder of his prison term, so much so that at the time of his release on parole he harbored the though that he could convince her to renew their former relationship.
However, in the meantime Miss Dorr had been actively engaged in a new friendship, and, in the evening of July 17, 1971 her fiance was at her mother's house on Indian Point Road in Stonington where she and many friends were attending a party. Eaton knew this and, following his alteraction at the dance, decided that he better have a talk with Starr Dorr.
After breaking into a local store to arm himself with a 30-30 rifle and several boxes of ammunition, he visited the trailer home of Mrs. Arlene Jones, from which point in the town he telephoned the Haskell residence. He reached Mrs. Haskell, Miss Dorr's mother, and, in the presence of Mrs. Jones and one Norman Joyce, Eaton's closest friends, he made threats over the phone to Mrs. Haskell and Miss Dorr. The clock was about to strike 12:00 o'clock midnight when Eaton made these threats. They were admitted in evidence, over objection, and their contents were described as follows:
'I've got a 30-30 here.'-'He said that he had a 30-30 and he was going to blow the house apart.'-'He said (to Miss Dorr) I have a 30-30, are you going for a walk?'
Dropping the telephone, Eaton left the Jones' home for the Haskell residence, which fronted on Indian Point Road. Jerome Shepard, a guest at the party, was the first one to encounter the appellant, who pointed the end of the barrel of the gun at his head while ordering him to 'go in and get Starr.' When Shepard grabbed the gun, he was warned:
Edgar Ray, another guest, came out later to talk to Eaton, but he was rebuked in the same manner. Pointing the rifle at Ray's stomach, Eaton told Ray that he should go in and get Starr and send her out or that he'd start shooting.
Ronald Hutchinson, a guest at the Haskell residence, who wanted to talk Eaton out of his treatening mood, was told to keep his distance, that he had come far enough. Stopping some 10 feet away from the rifle pointed at his stomach, Hutchinson, who had known Eaton in the past, heard him blurt out that he loved Starr Dorr, that she was tearing his heart apart, that he wanted to talk with her first, but then was going to kill her. Several volleys of bullets riddled the building and convinced the merrymakers that this party-crasher was not bluffing. Some 'hit the floor,' while others hid in closets or exited from the house to reach the safety of the woods.
Archie Hutchinson, Jr. was no more successful in persuading Eaton to desist from his intended plan to get Starr Dorr out of the Haskell residence than the other guests had been. He was warned that he better go in the house and bring Starr out or they would be going to his funeral on the morrow.
The Haines' car then appeared on the scene. Eaton fired a shot toward the vehicle as it came up in the distance. The car, however, continued on and when it reached a point in the road directly abreast of the position where Eaton was standing, he again fired at the automobile which then slowed down uncontrolled with Mr. Haines falling out of the car to the street screaming 'I've been hit.' Mrs. Haines stopped the automobile by putting on the emergency brake and ran out to her husband's side. Eaton then told Mrs. Haines that he just meant to blow the air out of the tires, but did not want anybody on the street, adding something about his girl friend that Mrs. Haines could not remember. Eaton's second shot at the car had hit Mr. Haines in the stomach, seriously injuring him.
The defendant contends that the Justice below committed reversible error when he ruled relevant and admissible the numerous threats made by Eaton to a number of persons other than Mr. Haines prior to the time when the Haines automobile came into view. The State argues that all these threats were relevant evidence to show that Eaton at the time of the shooting at the Haines' car was harboring the actual subjective specific intent to kill, which is a constitutent of the crime of assault with intent to kill and which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before conviction can be had. Bessey v. State, 1972, Me., 297 A.2d 373, 376.
It is a general canon of evidence that any fact tending to elucidate a fact in issue is admissible into evidence unless its admissibility is precluded by some specific rule of exclusion. State v. Fitzherbert, 1969, Me., 249 A.2d 760. Evidence, however, is inadmissible if its sole relevancy is to establish bad character or propensity to commit crime on the part of the accused.
The general character of the accused for wrongdoing is not is issue in a criminal prosecution against him for the commission of a specific crime unless and until he...
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