State v. Woodbury, 2018-0118
| Decision Date | 11 July 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 2018-0118,2018-0118 |
| Parties | The STATE of New Hampshire v. Jonathan L. WOODBURY |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
172 N.H. 358
214 A.3d 147
The STATE of New Hampshire
v.
Jonathan L. WOODBURY
No. 2018-0118
Supreme Court of New Hampshire.
Argued: March 28, 2019
Opinion Issued: July 11, 2019
Gordon J. MacDonald, attorney general (Sean R. Locke, assistant attorney general, on the brief and orally), for the State.
Stephanie Hausman, deputy chief appellate defender, of Concord, on the brief and orally, for the defendant.
LYNN, C.J.
The defendant, Jonathan L. Woodbury, appeals his convictions and sentences following a jury trial in the Superior Court (Bornstein, J.) on one count of falsifying physical evidence, see RSA 641:6, I (2016), and two counts of assault by a prisoner, see RSA 642:9, I (2016). On appeal, the defendant challenges: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction of falsifying physical evidence; (2) the trial court's denial of his jury instruction interpreting language in RSA 641:6, I; (3) the trial court's imposition of multiple sentences on the assault convictions; and (4) the trial court's failure to sua sponte instruct the jury on the defense of mutual combat. We affirm.
I
The jury could have found the following facts. On December 8, 2016, the defendant, an inmate at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin, was involved in a physical altercation with Matthew Moriarty, another inmate at the facility. At the time of the incident, Moriarty was fighting with his cellmate, Terrence Hartley, and had sustained severe injuries. While most of the dispute between Hartley and Moriarty occurred within their cell, at one point during the fight, Moriarty was outside of the cell when the cell door closed, locking him outside. After attempting to get back inside, Moriarty, while bleeding from his face, spit at Hartley through an opening in the cell door. Immediately thereafter, the defendant, who was watching from the common area of the cellblock, came up behind Moriarty and struck him with his fist on the side of the face. Moriarty then swung at and struck the defendant, who continued the
altercation, twice more striking Moriarty with his fist. Following this exchange, the defendant, with the help of another inmate, mopped up Moriarty's blood from the floor and tables in the common area. Meanwhile, Moriarty went into the bathroom to clean blood from his face. Realizing that he was struggling to breathe, he exited the bathroom to press a button on a callbox located in the common area. This action alerted correctional officers that an incident had occurred and that a response team should be sent to the cellblock. The entire incident between the defendant and Moriarty was recorded by video surveillance, which was being monitored by correctional officers from a control room.
When the response team arrived at the scene, they restrained Moriarty, whose face was covered in blood, and removed him from the cellblock. An investigation ensued, resulting in disciplinary actions taken by the prison against the defendant, Moriarty, Hartley, and another inmate.
As a result of the events described above, the defendant was charged with three counts of assault by a prisoner and one count of falsifying physical evidence. Following a jury trial, he was convicted on all charges except for one count of assault. At sentencing, the trial court imposed concurrent sentences of two-and-a-half to five years stand committed on the falsifying physical evidence conviction and the first assault conviction. These sentences were ordered to be served consecutive to the
sentence the defendant was serving at the time of the incident. On the second assault conviction, the court imposed a sentence of three-and-a-half to seven years. This sentence was suspended for ten years and conditioned on good behavior and compliance with the court's order.1 This appeal followed.
II
The defendant first argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for falsifying physical evidence. He claims that, because witnesses at trial testified to facts contrary to the State's evidence regarding the mens rea elements of RSA 641:6, I, the State failed to meet its burden of proof. Although this argument was not raised by the defendant in the trial court, he has invoked plain error review on appeal. See Sup. Ct. R. 16-A. Under plain error review, we may consider arguments that were not previously raised in the trial court. See State v. Noucas, 165 N.H. 146, 160, 70 A.3d 476 (2013). "To find plain error: (1) there must be an error; (2) the error must be plain; (3) the error must affect substantial rights; and (4) the error must seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Noucas, 165 N.H. at 160, 70 A.3d 476 (quotation omitted). The
rule is used sparingly and is limited to those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result. Id.
As an initial matter, the defendant contends that the evidence at trial relevant to his intent was solely circumstantial. The State, on the other hand, asserts that the jury had both direct and circumstantial evidence to consider in determining the defendant's intent. Although our general rule is that we will uphold a jury's verdict unless no rational trier of fact could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, see State v. Kelley, 159 N.H. 449, 454-55, 986 A.2d 620 (2009), we employ a different test when the evidence is solely circumstantial, see State v. Ruiz, 170 N.H. 553, 568, 179 A.3d 333 (2018). In the latter circumstance, to be sufficient to sustain the verdict, the evidence must exclude all reasonable conclusions except guilt. Ruiz, 170 N.H. at 568, 179 A.3d 333. Here, the only evidence to support the mens rea elements of the crime was circumstantial. See State v. Newcomb, 140 N.H. 72, 80, 663 A.2d 613 (1995). While the defendant testified regarding his intent, his testimony was offered to negate the requisite intent elements, rather than to support them. When the evidence presented to prove an element of the offense is solely circumstantial, that evidence must exclude all reasonable conclusions except guilt. See State v. Duguay, 142 N.H. 221, 225, 698 A.2d 5 (1997). Under this standard, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, and examine each evidentiary item in the context of all the evidence, not in isolation. Id.
Pursuant to RSA 641:6, I, a person commits the crime of falsifying physical evidence when, "believing that an official proceeding ... or investigation is pending or about to be instituted," that person "[a]lters, destroys, conceals or removes any thing with a purpose to impair its verity or availability in such proceeding or investigation." RSA 641:6, I. The defendant contends that the evidence at trial was insufficient for the jury to find that he had the purpose to impair the verity or availability of the blood in an investigation
he believed was pending or about to be instituted. We disagree.
The defendant points to the following statements he made at trial to support his argument that there was insufficient evidence of the statute's mens rea requirements: (1) that he was aware that the common area — where the fight occurred and where he cleaned up the blood — was under video surveillance; (2) that if he had intended to hinder the investigation, he would have cleaned up the blood left by Moriarty in the bathroom, and hid or dumped the mop bucket, which was filled with bloody water from the cleanup; and (3) that his intent instead was to maintain the cleanliness of his living space, as he "took it upon [him]self to clean the blood" because the common area was his "home" and the place where he ate. Aside from his
own testimony, the defendant also relies on testimony from other witnesses to support his claim. Specifically, he argues that "[c]ircumstantial evidence from the State's institutional witnesses supported [his] testimony that not every prison assault is investigated, that inmates clean their living spaces, and that blood is seen by those in the prison system as being a potential health problem."
At its essence, however, the defendant's assertion is that, because there was evidence at trial that was contradictory to the State's case, the State failed to establish its burden of proof. This argument is unpersuasive. As we have stated in the past, matters such as weighing evidence, determining witness credibility, and resolving conflicts in witness testimony are left to the jury. See State v. Alwardt, 164 N.H. 52, 57, 53 A.3d 545 (2012). In determining witness credibility, the jury may accept some parts and reject other parts of testimony, and adopt one or the other of inconsistent statements by witnesses. State v. Thomas, 154 N.H. 189, 193, 908 A.2d 774 (2006). Moreover, when reviewing sufficiency claims, including those involving only circumstantial evidence, we view the record in the light most favorable to the State, Duguay, 142 N.H. at 225, 698 A.2d 5,...
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