State of Maine v. Robert Burton, 198 A.3d 195

In June 2015 Robert Burton entered his former girlfriend’s home, shot her three times in the back, and killed her; he fled and was arrested 68 days later after turning himself in.
Burton was charged with intentional or knowing murder and, separately, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person; he was tried by jury on the murder charge and by the court on the firearms charge.
Pretrial, Burton proposed a written juror questionnaire of 21 voir dire questions with answer choices “yes,” “no,” and “not sure”; the court excluded six specific questions and declined to include the “not sure” option.
After the State identified multiple prior convictions it sought to use to impeach Burton if he testified, the court excluded several convictions but ruled that evidence of two burglary convictions and two theft convictions would be admissible under M.R. Evid. 609; Burton reserved the issue for appeal.
Burton testified at trial; the defense itself elicited the convictions on direct. The jury convicted Burton of murder; the court convicted him on the firearms charge and imposed concurrent sentences.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to include six proposed voir dire questions and a “not sure” answer on the written juror questionnaire	The court’s exclusions prevented adequate probing for juror bias on matters specific to the case and limited ability to detect partiality	The court’s questionnaire and follow-up individual voir dire sufficiently covered presumption of innocence, burden of proof, and self-defense; two answer choices were adequate	No abuse of discretion; questionnaire and individual voir dire adequately revealed bias and court may craft voir dire method and wording
Whether admission of two prior burglary convictions to impeach Burton’s credibility (M.R. Evid. 609) was an abuse of discretion	The prior burglary convictions were similar to the facts of the charged offense (entry into the victim’s house) and risked misuse by the jury as propensity evidence, so they should have been excluded	The convictions were probative of credibility (burglary/theft involve dishonesty), were not too remote (released 5 years before trial), the court limited the number and prohibited detailing burglary elements, and gave a limiting instruction	No abuse of discretion; the court performed the Rule 609 balancing, limited number and details of convictions, and gave limiting instruction

State v. Fortune, 34 A.3d 1115 (Me. 2011) (standard for viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the State on sufficiency review)
State v. Roby, 171 A.3d 1157 (Me. 2017) (trial court has considerable discretion in crafting voir dire and need not adopt defendant’s exact format)
State v. Lowry, 819 A.2d 331 (Me. 2003) (purpose of voir dire is to detect juror bias and court must balance competing considerations)
State v. Gray, 755 A.2d 540 (Me. 2000) (Rule 609 issues reviewed for abuse of discretion; defendant must testify to preserve claim)
State v. Braley, 834 A.2d 140 (Me. 2003) (similarity of prior conviction to charged offense increases risk of misuse under Rule 609)
State v. Hall, 172 A.3d 467 (Me. 2017) (jury is presumed to follow limiting instructions regarding the purpose of impeachment evidence)