State v. Jaime
| Citation | 2015 ME 22,111 A.3d 1050 |
| Decision Date | 10 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. Aro–14–31. |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. George JAIME. |
| Court | Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US) |
Hunter J. Tzovarras, Esq. (orally), Bangor, for appellant George Jamie.
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, Lara M. Nomani, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine.
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, and JABAR, JJ.*
[¶ 1] In the fall of 1998, thirty-nine-year-old Starlette Vining went missing. Her absence was not reported to authorities until 2006. On July 12, 2012, George Jaime was charged with Vining's murder. A jury found Jaime guilty, and he appeals from the resulting judgment of conviction of intentional or knowing murder, 17–A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A) (2014), entered by the trial court (R. Murray, J. ).
[¶ 2] Jaime raises several arguments on appeal. We focus on his arguments that the court erred in admitting prior consistent statements of Jaime's son, Ted Jaime, and that the court abused its discretion in preventing Jaime from presenting evidence that would have provided additional support implicating his son as an alternative suspect. Although we conclude that the court's application of alternative suspect jurisprudence reflected a misapprehension of the concept, we determine that the court's error was harmless. We affirm the judgment.
[¶ 3] The prosecution in this case presented a “cold case” charge of a murder committed fifteen years before the trial. “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the jury could rationally have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Haag, 2012 ME 94, ¶ 2, 48 A.3d 207.
[¶ 4] In 1998, George Jaime was a local businessman who owned a commercial building in Presque Isle that housed a pawnshop, a wine shop, and several apartments. Jaime was involved in a romantic relationship with Starlette Vining. During the late summer or early autumn of 1998, Jaime and Vining lived together in an apartment on the ground floor of the building.
[¶ 5] One night in October 1998, Jaime arrived distraught and intoxicated at the house of his adult son Ted Jaime.1 Ted observed that Jaime “had scratches and blood on him.” Jaime told Ted that “something bad had happened, he had done something bad.” Ted told his then-fiancée, Parise Voisine, whom he lived with at the time, that he was leaving, and he took Jaime back to Jaime's apartment. When Ted walked inside Jaime's apartment, he saw Vining's body on the floor. The body looked lifeless and appeared to have multiple stab wounds. Ted covered the body with a blanket, left Jaime's apartment, and walked to the house of his longtime friend James Campbell.
[¶ 6] When Ted arrived at Campbell's house, he had blood on his shirt. Campbell gave him a fresh shirt to change into. Thereafter, Ted disclosed to Campbell what he had seen at Jaime's apartment. Campbell agreed to go to Jaime's apartment the next day to help Ted “clean up the mess.” When Ted and Campbell arrived at Jaime's apartment the following day, they found that Jaime had wrapped Vining's body in a tarp and moved it into the basement of the building, which housed several boilers. Ted and Campbell then began cleaning the apartment. They cleaned blood off of the bathroom walls, removed the carpeting where Vining's body had first lain, removed some of the sub-flooring under the carpet, replaced ceiling tiles, and washed everything down with bleach and water.
[¶ 7] Jaime did not speak about what had happened until one day approximately a month later when he drove with Ted to a stream in Westfield, bringing with him a large container full of ashes. Jaime poured the ashes into the stream, telling Ted that they were Vining's ashes and that when he died he wanted to be cremated so that his remains could be scattered in the same spot. At some point, Jaime told Campbell that, after he had killed Vining, he had cut up her body and burned it.
[¶ 8] Over the following years, Jaime moved into a different apartment unit and continued to run his business as usual. Jaime eventually told Ted that on the night of the murder, Jaime and Vining had gotten into a fight because Vining had told him that she was going to leave him. Jaime then stabbed Vining with a Marine Corps Ka-bar knife and, when she started screaming, he hit her with the butt of the knife to knock her out. Over the years, Ted told several people—including his mother, Ethel Jaime; his two brothers and two sisters; Voisine; and Campbell—what Jaime had done.
[¶ 9] It was not until 2006 that Vining was reported missing by her family and the police initiated an investigation into her disappearance.2 The police could not find any record of Vining after October 1998. Between 2006 and 2012, the investigation was at an impasse.
[¶ 10] Sometime around March 2012, the police were contacted by someone who told them that Parise Voisine, Ted's former fiancée, may have information about Vining. After interviewing Voisine, who was by then Ted's ex-wife, the police attempted to track down both Ted and Campbell. In June 2012, Campbell disclosed what he knew about the circumstances surrounding Vining's murder. It took the police a longer time to track down Ted.
[¶ 11] While the investigation was underway and the police were starting to ask more questions in and around the Presque Isle area, Jaime called a family meeting with his three sons, including Ted, and his ex-wife, Ethel. At the meeting, Jaime told his children to “keep their mouths shut” and asked Ted to “disappear for awhile.” Ted left for the Southern Maine/New Hampshire area but soon returned. At some point during this time, Ted was charged with domestic violence assault in Aroostook County, and he was released on bail with conditions that included no contact with his girlfriend. In early July 2012, Ted was again charged with domestic violence assault and with violating the conditions of his release, and the police arrested him.
[¶ 12] On July 5, 2012, before placing Ted under arrest, the police questioned Ted about Vining's disappearance. He denied having any knowledge about Vining. Ted again denied any knowledge about the circumstances of Vining's disappearance when he was questioned by law enforcement on July 9, 2012, while he was in the Aroostook County Jail. Ted's attorney then advised him that he would receive more favorable treatment from the prosecution if he cooperated. On July 11, 2012, Ted disclosed what he knew about the murder.
[¶ 13] The police obtained and executed two search warrants—one for Jaime's current apartment and one for his old apartment.3 While executing the second search warrant, the Evidence Response Team used Hema-stix and Luminol, both chemical agents designed to test for the presence of latent bloodstains, to search for evidence of Vining's blood. Samples were collected from the places in the apartment where preliminary testing suggested the possible presence of blood. Further test results could neither confirm nor rule out the presence of human blood on any of the samples.
[¶ 14] On July 12, 2012, Jaime was arrested and a criminal complaint was filed. On September 6, 2012, the grand jury issued an indictment charging Jaime with the intentional or knowing murder of Starlette Vining between October 1 and October 20, 1998. See 17–A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A). Jaime entered a not guilty plea and proceeded to trial.
[¶ 15] At trial, Ted testified that he was at Jaime's apartment on the night of the murder, that he helped clean up evidence of the crime, and that he was present when Jaime dumped Vining's ashes in a stream. He also testified that he had used drugs with Vining, but he denied having had a sexual relationship with her.
[¶ 16] When cross-examining Ted, Jaime's counsel asked questions that suggested that Ted had implicated his father in the murder only after the State promised leniency in relation to his involvement with the murder and his pending criminal charges. To rebut this implied charge of recent fabrication or improper motive, the State offered Ted's prior consistent statements through the testimony of Campbell, Voisine, Ethel, and one of Ted's brothers. Those witnesses testified that, long before Ted was arrested for domestic violence assault and violating the conditions of his release, he had said that Jaime was to blame for killing Vining or for her disappearance. Jaime repeatedly objected to the testimony. The court gave a limiting instruction to the jury on these prior consistent statements, instructing the jury to consider the statements only for the purpose of rebutting the implied charge of recent falsification or improper motive to lie.
[¶ 17] While cross-examining Voisine at trial, Jaime's attorney asked her about Ted's alleged sexual relationship with Vining. The State objected to the proffered testimony as irrelevant hearsay. Jaime argued that it was relevant to support an alternative suspect defense,4 even though he anticipated that Voisine would say that she was unaware of any sexual relationship between Ted and Vining. After arguments of counsel, the court, citing State v. Dechaine, 572 A.2d 130 (Me.1990), sustained the State's objection, determining that the evidence of blood on Ted's shirt, Ted's drug use with Vining, and the disputed testimony about a sexual relationship with Vining did not meet the threshold for relevance necessary to offer facts regarding Ted as an alternative suspect. The court concluded that all of the facts taken together did not amount to “more than ... mere speculation.”
[¶ 18] Later, Jaime again offered evidence relating to an alternative suspect defense by asking Jaime's daughter (Ted's sister) about Ted's alleged sexual relationship with Vining. After the State objected, the court sustained the objection as it related to an alternative suspect defense but allowed the question to be asked and answered for impeachment purposes. Thereafter, Jaime's daughter...
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