State v. Townes
| Decision Date | 28 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | Docket: Ken-18-56 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Terrence N. TOWNES |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Marina L. Sideris, Esq. (orally), Camden, for appellant Terrence N. Townes
Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, and Tyler J. LeClair, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District IV, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
[¶1] In this appeal we examine assertions that sanctions imposed against the State for discovery violations and for failing to comply with court orders were insufficient and that the defendant was deprived of his fundamental right to an impartial jury that represented a fair cross section of his community.
[¶2] Terrence N. Townes appeals from a judgment of conviction entered by the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Murphy, J. ), as a result of a jury verdict, for aggravated assault (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 208(1)(A-1) (2018), and violating a condition of release (Class E), 15 M.R.S. § 1092(1)(A) (2018). Townes was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, with all but twelve years suspended, followed by four years of probation. We affirm the judgment.
[¶3] "Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the jury rationally could have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Burton , 2018 ME 162, ¶ 2, 198 A.3d 195 (quotation marks omitted).
[¶4] On October 24, 2016, the manager of the residential complex where Townes lived ordered Townes to leave the premises because Townes had threatened another tenant. Townes then struck the manager, knocked her to the floor, kicked her, got on top of her, and punched her in the face several times. The owner of the complex tried to stop Townes by hitting him in the back with a fire extinguisher, injuring his own shoulder in the process. Townes gained control of the fire extinguisher and struck the manager in the face with it, causing her permanent blindness in one eye.
[¶5] One of the Augusta police officers who responded to the scene observed Townes shouting at two women as he followed them out of the complex. When that officer approached Townes, he observed blood on Townes's shirt, saw Townes place his hands behind his head and drop to his knees, and heard him state "I've done something." Townes was taken into custody, and as he was being placed in the cruiser, he kicked another officer in the chest. Townes also made inculpatory statements after he was restrained and placed in the police cruiser.
[¶6] On December 21, 2016, a grand jury returned a six-count indictment, which included the two counts for which Townes was subsequently convicted—aggravated assault (Count 2) and violating a condition of release (Count 6).1
[¶7] Townes filed a motion for a bill of particulars in March 2017 seeking clarification of the allegations in Counts 1 through 3 of the indictment and copies of medical records compiled by the medical first responders that had not been provided to him. He also filed a motion for sanctions alleging that the State committed a series of discovery violations and failed to comply with several court orders. Townes withdrew his motion for a bill of particulars on May 18, 2017, and, on the same date, the court (Billings, J. ) granted Townes's motion for sanctions and ordered the State to furnish the requested records.
[¶8] In November 2017, Townes filed a second motion for a bill of particulars, again seeking clarification of Counts 1 through 3. In addition, he filed a motion to dismiss those counts as a sanction for the State's discovery violations. The State finally provided the requested medical records on December 5, 2017, three days before the beginning of the trial term that included Townes's case, and sent an email to defense counsel stating that Counts 1 and 2 were charged in the alternative; the State's response made no mention of Count 3. The jury was selected on December 8, 2017, and the trial began on December 19, 2017. On the first day of trial, Townes filed a motion in limine with regard to Count 4, seeking to exclude the testimony of the officer who had allegedly been kicked, and arguing that the State had not provided any information about the bodily injuries that it alleged that Townes caused.
[¶9] The court denied Townes's motion to dismiss Counts 1 and 2, but did sanction the State for its failure to comply with the discovery order by dismissing Count 3 of the indictment. The court also prohibited the State from introducing the testimony and records of the medical first responders regarding injuries they treated as a result of the incident, as well as the testimony of the officer who was allegedly kicked, and prohibited the State—but not Townes—from calling a witness who had disclosed to the State that she was vision-impaired.2
[¶10] On the first day of trial, Townes raised two issues of jury impartiality. First, Townes filed a motion for a new jury venire, arguing that, by having informed the jurors that the defense attorneys were "from Portland," the court had caused prejudice to him. The court denied the motion.
[¶11] Second, Townes—who identifies as African-American—moved to dismiss the indictment,3 arguing that he would "not be tried before a jury of his peers as is constitutionally required." Citing our decision in State v. Holland, 2009 ME 72, 976 A.2d 227, and applying the test articulated in Duren v. Missouri , 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), the trial court denied the motion, concluding that Townes had not established a prima facie case that the jury selection process violated the Sixth Amendment's requirement that jurors represent a fair cross section of the community.
[¶12] Townes now challenges the sufficiency of the sanctions imposed on the State and the court's decision not to investigate the jurors' impartiality or grant his motion for a new jury venire.
[¶13] Townes argues that the sanctions imposed on the State were insufficient to remedy the prejudice caused by the discovery violations. We have consistently recognized that a trial court confronted with a discovery violation has broad discretion in determining what sanction, if any, is appropriate. State v. Poulin , 2016 ME 110, ¶¶ 27-28, 144 A.3d 574. We review such determinations for an abuse of discretion and will order a new trial only where the discovery violation prejudices the defendant to the extent that it deprived him of a fair trial. State v. Cruthirds , 2014 ME 86, ¶ 37, 96 A.3d 80 (quotation marks omitted).
[¶14] The trial court did not abuse its broad discretion to impose sanctions for the State's discovery violations. It dismissed Count 3 (aggravated assault); excluded evidence relevant to Counts 1, 2, and 5; and, as to Count 4, barred any testimony from the officer whom Townes allegedly kicked. Further, Townes conceded that the court's decision to bar the witness who disclosed she was blind from testifying was sufficient to "resolve [his] concerns" about the unreliability of her testimony or her potential influence on the testimony of other witnesses. Under these circumstances, the court did not abuse its discretion when it granted these, but not other, requested sanctions, nor did the court's decision deprive Townes of a fair trial. Cf. id. ¶¶ 34, 37-38.
[¶15] Townes also contends that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to "an impartial jury of the State and district" where the crimes were alleged to have been committed because the court injected a geographic bias against him and because he could not determine whether the jury represented a fair cross section of the surrounding community. U.S. Const. amend. VI, XIV ; see also Me. Const. art. I, § 6 ; Taylor v. Louisiana , 419 U.S. 522, 526, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975) ; Holland , 2009 ME 72, ¶ 22, 976 A.2d 227.
[¶16] Townes first argues that he was deprived of his right to an impartial jury when the court introduced his attorneys to the jury pool as being "from Portland" because that information "created an immediate divide between the jurors, drawn from the local area [Kennebec County] and the defense, which was from ‘away.’ " As the trial court correctly noted, the purpose of identifying attorneys at the outset of the jury selection process is to "allow the jurors to know who the attorneys were and to be able to tell [the court] if they knew the attorneys." The First Circuit has characterized inquiries into whether any juror knows an attorney or witness as "stock questions," suggesting that disclosure of such information is routine and to be expected at any jury trial. Jewell v. Arctic Enters., Inc. , 801 F.2d 11, 12 (1st Cir. 1986) (per curiam); see also United States v. Gordon , 634 F.2d 639, 641 (1st Cir. 1980) (). We conclude that the court did not prejudice the jury against Townes when it identified his attorneys and stated that they were from Portland.4
[¶17] Second, Townes argues that he was effectively precluded from making a meaningful inquiry into whether the jury venire was comprised of a fair and reasonable cross section of the community. The Sixth Amendment guarantees every criminal defendant the absolute right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. In order to ensure that defendants have the opportunity to exercise this inviolable constitutional right, courts are charged with assembling a pool of prospective jurors from the surrounding community who are then selected and empaneled to hear the evidence and cast judgment on cases pending before the court.5 The United States Supreme Court has "unambiguously declared that the American concept of the jury trial contemplates a jury drawn...
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