State v. Saucier

• Citation: 776 A.2d 621,2001 ME 107
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Joe-Pete SAUCIER.
• Decision Date: 18 July 2001
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

776 A.2d 621

2001 ME 107

STATE of Maine v. Joe-Pete SAUCIER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued May 15, 2001.

Decided July 18, 2001.

Stephanie Anderson, District Attorney, Julia Sheridan, Asst. Dist. Atty., Portland, ME, for State.

Clifford B. Strike, Strike & Gordon, Portland, ME, for defendant.

Panel: WATHEN, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, SAUFLEY, ALEXANDER, and CALKINS, JJ.

CALKINS, J.

[¶ 1] Joe-Pete Saucier appeals from the judgment entered in the Superior Court (Cumberland County, Delahanty, J.) following a jury trial in which Saucier was found guilty of manslaughter (Class A), 17-A M.R.S.A. § 203(1)(A) (Supp.2000).¹ Saucier argues the court should have granted his motion for a change of venue and that the court erred in its jury reinstructions on the presumption of innocence and on manslaughter. He further argues that evidence of causation was insufficient. We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS

[¶ 2] Brandi Butterfield died on December 12, 1999, from drowning in the None-such River in Scarborough. Her body was located under the bed of a pick-up truck which had been driven off an embankment and which was found overturned in the river. Earlier that evening Butterfield met Saucier for the first time. Saucier was with Butterfield's friends when Butterfield joined the group at a restaurant. After leaving the restaurant, the group stopped at a residence in Old Orchard Beach where Saucier's pick-up truck was parked, and Butterfield then accompanied Saucier in his truck.

[¶ 3] Saucier drove his truck with Butterfield in the passenger seat. An Old Orchard Beach police officer began following the truck because it exceeded the speed limit. The police officer turned on his blue lights and siren for the purpose of stopping Saucier's truck, but Saucier did not stop, and a high speed chase ensued. At times the truck's speed was eighty miles-per-hour. The truck momentarily stopped when it became stuck near railroad tracks. Before the officer could reach it, the truck was backed out of its location. The truck continued traveling down a railroad bed, and the police officer lost sight of it. Moments later, however, a Scarborough police officer, whose dispatcher had alerted him about the chase, saw Saucier's truck after it turned from the railroad tracks onto a road. The Scarborough officer followed the truck on a paved road, and he saw it crash through a gate which separated the paved portion of the road from the dirt portion. After breaking through the gate, the truck continued down the rough dirt road. The Scarborough officer saw the truck drive up an earthen barrier, become airborne, and disappear. The truck had gone into the Nonesuch River where it landed upside down.

[¶ 4] Saucier was able to get out of the truck, and he yelled for help. As the Scarborough officer reached the point where the truck had gone into the river, Saucier said that someone was still in the truck. When the officer asked where in the truck the other person was, Saucier replied: "Well, she was driving."

[¶ 5] Butterfield's body was retrieved from under the truck. Resuscitation efforts failed. The medical examiner later determined that the cause of death was drowning. Saucier was charged with manslaughter, operating a motor vehicle after having been declared an habitual offender, and eluding a police officer.

[¶ 6] At trial, the State's theory was that Saucier had been driving throughout the high speed chase including at the time the truck went into the river. The forensic evidence supported this theory in that fibers consistent with Saucier's shirt were imprinted on the steering wheel, and fibers consistent with Butterfield's jacket were found on the passenger side of the windshield. Photos of Saucier taken two days after the incident showed a large bruise on his chest consistent with having slammed into a steering wheel. [¶ 7] Saucier's version was that after the chase started he and Butterfield traded positions in the truck, and she was driving at the time the truck went into the river. Saucier gave a statement to the police after the incident, which was read into evidence. According to Saucier's statement, he told Butterfield he would be arrested because he did not have a license, and she offered to switch places with him. Somewhere near the railroad tracks, they changed places, and Butterfield began driving. He asked her to keep going because he was afraid he would get arrested anyway. Butterfield asked him what to do when they encountered a gate at a dirt road, and Saucier told her to drive through it.

[¶ 8] After four days of trial and several hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts.²

II. DENIAL OF MOTION FOR CHANGE OF VENUE

A. The Pretrial Publicity

[¶ 9] Two months before trial, the State and Saucier reached a plea agreement. The court (Cole. J.) rejected the agreement on June 22, 2000. The local television stations and print media covered the plea proceeding. Saucier then moved to change venue to another county on the ground that an impartial jury could not be ensured because of the pretrial publicity. The motion was supported by copies of five articles and one editorial from the Portland Press Herald; four articles from the Biddeford Journal Tribune; and three articles from the Lewiston Sun Journal. No affidavits accompanied the motion, but the motion alleged that four local television stations broadcast stories about the failed plea agreement on both the evening and late night newscasts on June 22. In addition, two stations carried the news on their early morning news programs on June 23.

[¶ 10] Of the twelve newspaper articles, seven are dated mid-December 1999, and cover the death of Butterfield. They are straight forward accounts of the incident. They emphasize that Butterfield had not known Saucier previously and that Saucier was driving even though his license had been suspended previously several times. The editorial from the Portland paper is dated December 15, 1999, and it urges Maine judges to jail habitual offenders "to keep dangerous people like Joe Pete Saucier from driving." A month later, a brief account of Saucier's indictment appeared in the Portland paper.

[¶ 11] Another brief article in the Portland paper, dated June 3, 2000, reports that the State and Saucier had reached an agreement which would be presented to the court on June 22. The remaining three articles, one from each of the three newspapers, are dated June 23 and 24 and concern the failed plea agreement. Only the Biddeford paper printed this development on the front page. The gist of the three articles is that Saucier was to enter a guilty plea in exchange for a recommendation from the State that he be sentenced to seven years, but when the judge indicated that seven years was not sufficient, the deal collapsed. These June news stories briefly summarize the incident and quote or paraphrase both the prosecutor and Saucier's counsel.

B. Jury Selection

[¶ 12] Jury selection took place on August 25, 2000. Ninety-one potential jurors appeared for voir dire. The members of the jury panel were asked if they had seen or read any publicity concerning the case the previous December or January. Those who answered affirmatively were asked individually whether they recalled any of the details of the news stories and whether they had formed an opinion about the case from the publicity. The court denied Saucier's request to excuse all members of the jury panel who indicated they had seen or read the news stories. The twelve members of the panel who indicated they had formed an opinion on the basis of the publicity were excused for cause. Other members of the panel were excused for cause on other grounds. The court informed the remaining members of the panel that there had been news accounts of the court proceedings in the case as recently as a month ago, and the court inquired if anyone had heard or read about the case through news accounts published or broadcast after the initial news stories. None of the members of the jury panel responded in the affirmative.

[¶ 13] Following additional voir dire and challenges for cause, the panel was narrowed to forty-three members from which thirty-two names were drawn to obtain a jury of twelve members and two alternates. Before the names were drawn, Saucier renewed his motion for a change of venue which the court denied. Of the fourteen people selected for the jury, including the alternates, only three had responded affirmatively when asked about the December and January publicity. These three had read about the matter in the Portland newspaper and two had seen something on television. When asked individually if they had formed an opinion about the case, they all responded that they had not. When asked individually if they could be impartial, they all said that they could. When asked individually if they would be able to base their decision only upon the evidence presented at trial, they all answered affirmatively.

C. Motion for Change of Venue

[¶ 14] We review a trial court's denial of a motion for a change of venue for an abuse of discretion. State v. Chesnel, 1999 ME 120, ¶ 6, 734 A.2d 1131, 1134. A change of venue based upon pretrial publicity is required in two circumstances. The first is a situation of presumed prejudice, and the second is actual prejudice.

1. Presumed Prejudice

[¶ 15] Where the publicity is so extensive and pervasive or so taints the atmosphere of the trial we will presume that an impartial jury in that location is not possible. Id. at ¶ 5. "Prejudice is presumed when the defendant demonstrates that the pretrial publicity has the `immediacy, the intensity, or the invidiousness sufficient to arouse general ill will and vindictiveness against the accused at the time of jury selection.'" State v. Cochran, 2000 ME 78, ¶ 21, 749 A.2d 1274, 1280 (quoting Chesnel, 1999 ME 120, ¶ 7, 734 A.2d at 1134-35).

[¶ 16] Saucier did not request an...