State v. Michaud, 168 A.3d 802

On August 6, 2015, Yvonne Michaud attempted to pass several cars on Route 302, crossed into oncoming traffic, and collided head-on with a Ford Focus; the driver and passenger suffered serious injuries.
Michaud was indicted on two counts of aggravated assault (Class B) and two counts of aggravated driving to endanger (Class C); she pleaded not guilty and offered before trial to stipulate that the victims suffered serious bodily injury.
The State declined the pretrial stipulation, presented testimony and photographs of the victims’ injuries (but the court excluded some duplicative/inflammatory photos), and later accepted Michaud’s stipulation during trial so it would not call two planned medical witnesses.
Michaud testified in her defense; the prosecution presented crash-reconstruction and forensic-mapping testimony and argued in rebuttal that "science doesn’t lie," a remark Michaud did not object to at trial.
A jury convicted Michaud on all counts; the trial court denied her motion for a new trial (raising the evidentiary ruling and prosecutorial misconduct) and imposed concurrent sentences with most time suspended.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of victims’ injury evidence	State: may present full case despite defendant’s offer to stipulate	Michaud: injury evidence was cumulative, inflammatory, and should be excluded under M.R. Evid. 403 when she would stipulate	Court: State not required to accept stipulation; trial court did proper 403 balancing, excluded some photos, and did not abuse discretion in admitting other injury evidence
Prosecutorial misconduct for closing remark "science doesn’t lie"	Michaud: remark invited verdict on improper basis and amounted to impermissible vouching/prosecutorial misconduct	State: remark was isolated, not vouching for a witness, and part of arguing inconsistencies and scientific evidence	Court: No obvious error; remark was isolated, not vouching, did not affect substantial rights, and denial of new trial was not an abuse of discretion

Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (U.S. 1997) (prosecution not required to accept defendant's stipulation to elements; court must balance probative value and prejudice)
State v. Renfro, 157 A.3d 775 (Me. 2017) (definition of unfair prejudice under Rule 403)
State v. Conner, 434 A.2d 509 (Me. 1981) (close scrutiny required when evidence is cumulative or probative only of uncontroverted facts)
State v. Sexton, 159 A.3d 335 (Me. 2017) (abuse-of-discretion review for Rule 403 balancing)
State v. Kendall, 148 A.3d 1230 (Me. 2016) (relevance review standard)
State v. Daluz, 143 A.3d 800 (Me. 2016) (standard for reviewing unpreserved prosecutorial misconduct claims and obvious-error framework)
State v. Dolloff, 58 A.3d 1032 (Me. 2012) (prosecutor must avoid vouching and inviting impermissible bases for jury decision)
State v. Hassan, 82 A.3d 86 (Me. 2013) (prosecutor may not express personal belief in witness credibility)
State v. Skarbinski, 21 A.3d 86 (Me. 2011) (permissible closing argument can focus on evidence inconsistencies and credibility)
State v. Smith, 456 A.2d 16 (Me. 1983) (examples where prosecutorial assertions that defendant was lying constituted improper argument)

Judgment affirmed.