State of Maine v. Jonathan Limary, 235 A.3d 860

Late Oct. 2017 fight in a parking lot: Limary approached the victim and forcefully kicked him in the face, causing multiple facial fractures.
Victim received hospital care, underwent reconstruction surgeries (including a temporary tracheostomy), and was released Nov. 17 with a healing tracheostomy incision.
That evening the victim bled profusely from his neck/incision and sinuses; EMTs attempted resuscitation but he died. Autopsy attributed death to hemorrhagic complications from facial fractures and trauma.
Limary was indicted for Class A manslaughter and Class B aggravated assault; he pleaded not guilty, claimed he acted in defense of another, and offered expert testimony challenging the source of post-release bleeding.
Before trial the court declined to include three self-defense/defense-of-another questions Limary proposed for the juror questionnaire; it did, however, ask general questions about impartiality and ability to follow the law and later instructed the jury on self-defense.
A jury convicted Limary of manslaughter and aggravated assault; he appealed, challenging (1) voir dire/questionnaire rulings and (2) sufficiency of causation evidence connecting his kick to the victim’s death.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Adequacy of juror questionnaire re: self-defense/defense-of-another	State: court’s general jury questions and individual voir dire were adequate to detect bias; specific proposed questions were not required.	Limary: exclusion of specific self-defense questions prevented identification of jurors biased against that defense and deprived him of a fair trial.	Court: no abuse of discretion; proposed questions were inaccurate/advocative, general questions and follow-up voir dire were sufficient, and no evidence of juror bias.
Sufficiency of evidence of causation for manslaughter	State: evidence established facial fractures from Limary’s kick led to hemorrhagic complications; surgeries and treatment were foreseeable and not sole/intervening cause.	Limary: death occurred 18 days later after elective surgeries; medical treatment (or tracheostomy) was the intervening cause breaking the causal chain.	Court: evidence was sufficient; under §33 the death would not have occurred but for the kick, medical care was not shown to be sole or grossly negligent, and the kick was not clearly insufficient to cause death.

Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U.S. 415 (1991) (voir dire questions required only where failure to ask renders trial fundamentally unfair)
Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28 (1986) (race-bias voir dire may be constitutionally required in capital cases)
State v. Burton, 198 A.3d 195 (Me. 2018) (trial court’s self-defense voir dire adequate where it described law and allowed individual voir dire)
State v. Roby, 171 A.3d 1157 (Me. 2017) (scope of voir dire lies within trial court’s discretion; questions that advocate a party’s position may be excluded)
State v. Snow, 464 A.2d 958 (Me. 1983) (§33 imposes proximate-cause-like limits on causation; concurrent causes analysis)
State v. Hachey, 278 A.2d 397 (Me. 1971) (medical treatment after injury did not necessarily break causal chain to homicide conviction)
People v. Calvaresi, 534 P.2d 316 (Colo. 1975) (medical gross negligence may be an intervening cause; ordinary negligence usually is not)
State v. Morelli, 493 A.2d 336 (Me. 1985) (jury may find causation when wound would have been fatal if untreated)