STATE of Maine v. Bradley R. ATKINS
Docket No. Ken-15-77
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
Dec. 22, 2015
2015 ME 162
Argued: Dec. 9, 2015.
[¶ 23] For these reasons, although the issue is in dispute, the record on summary judgment could allow a reasonable jury to find that Currier had acquired knowledge of Cormier‘s complaints regarding the adequacy of staffing levels at the Pine Point Center facility and that those complaints constituted at least one substantial factor that motivated Currier to terminate Cormier from employment.
III. CONCLUSION
[¶ 24] We therefore conclude that the record on summary judgment is sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to reasonably find that Cormier‘s complaints constituted a protected activity under the WPA and that Genesis‘s decision to terminate her from employment was substantially motivated at least in part by those complaints. Accordingly, Cormier has presented a prima facie case of unlawful retaliation, and we must vacate the summary judgment entered in favor of Genesis.
The entry is:
Judgment vacated. Remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, and Frayla Schoenfeld, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District IV, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine.
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ.
ALEXANDER, J.
[¶ 1] To convict a person of operating under the influence (OUI)
[¶ 2] In this appeal we examine whether a law enforcement officer‘s testimony about statements by the accused and observations indicating his or her impairment must be excluded because the officer lacked sufficient training or expertise in drug impairment recognition and the officer could not perform certain evaluations that a drug recognition expert could have. See
I. CASE HISTORY
[¶ 3] On January 21, 2014, on Riverside Drive in Augusta, a police officer observed
[¶ 4] Atkins was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with OUI enhanced with one prior OUI conviction (Class D),
[¶ 5] The facts leading to the arrest and the OUI charge, discussed briefly above, are not in dispute. The issue is whether the evidence supporting those facts was admissible and sufficient to support the conviction.
[¶ 6] After Atkins waived his right to a jury trial, the court held a bench trial. Shortly before trial, Atkins filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude “evidence of alleged narcotic use or allegations of being under the influence of narcotics.” Atkins argued that the arresting officer‘s testimony should be excluded because the officer was not a drug recognition expert, and that only such a specially trained officer could testify to observations of impairment when the substance at issue was a drug other than alcohol. Atkins also sought to exclude the testimony of a drug recognition expert whom the arresting officer called that night to discuss the case, as the expert did not conduct an evaluation of Atkins. The court denied the motion with regard to the arresting officer‘s testimony, but it limited the drug recognition expert to testifying that, after speaking with the arresting officer on the night in question, the drug recognition expert did not come to the scene to evaluate Atkins.
[¶ 7] The court found Atkins guilty of operating under the influence for the second time in ten years. After making findings of fact based upon the arresting officer‘s testimony, the court stated: “The issue for me is whether the ingestion of drugs, in this case, impaired Mr. Atkins‘s physical and mental faculties however slightly or to any extent while he was operating a motor vehicle. And to me, the answer is—beyond all reasonable doubt, the answer is obviously yes.”
[¶ 8] The court sentenced Atkins to ninety days of imprisonment, all but seven days suspended, to be followed by one year of probation. The court also ordered that Atkins‘s driver‘s license be suspended for three years and ordered Atkins to pay a total of $890 in fines. Atkins timely appealed. See
[¶ 9] Atkins contends that the trial court erred by (A) refusing to strike his prior OUI conviction, entered after a plea, because it had been entered without proper waiver of his right to counsel; (B) allowing the arresting officer to testify about Atkins‘s statements and the officer‘s observations of impairment from drugs other than alcohol; and (C) finding him guilty of OUI, given that no drug recognition expert examined Atkins at the time of the arrest.
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS
[¶ 10] We address each of Atkins‘s arguments in turn.
[¶ 11] Atkins argues that the trial court erred by refusing to strike from the criminal complaint the allegation of a prior OUI conviction. In support of his motion to strike the allegation of the prior conviction, Atkins asserted that he did not remember much of the proceeding that led to his prior OUI plea. However, he did remember viewing a video. The pre-arraignment video used throughout the state describes criminal defendants’ fundamental rights. Among the rights described are the right to the assistance of counsel and the right to have counsel appointed if a defendant is facing a possible jail sentence and cannot afford to hire counsel.
[¶ 12] Atkins attempts to collaterally attack his prior conviction on the basis of a deprivation of the right to counsel or lack of a waiver of his right to counsel before entering his plea. See State v. Johnson, 2012 ME 39, ¶ 23, 38 A.3d 1270. Because, however, Atkins was not facing a term of imprisonment in the prior matter and because the sentence in fact did not include incarceration, he did not have a constitutional right to court-appointed counsel. See State v. Cook, 1998 ME 40, ¶ 6, 706 A.2d 603. The use of the uncounseled conviction therefore was not barred based on an alleged deprivation of the right to counsel because Atkins did not have such a right in that proceeding. Further, Atkins may not collaterally attack the prior conviction on any other ground. See Johnson, 2012 ME 39, ¶ 23, 38 A.3d 1270. The court therefore did not err in refusing to strike the allegation of the prior conviction.
B. Denial of Motion in Limine
[¶ 13] In an OUI trial, evidence that a driver was impaired, including reported observations that he or she showed symptoms of intoxication, is relevant to the crime charged. See
[¶ 14] Atkins argues that the statutes addressing drug recognition experts,
[¶ 15]
[¶ 16] Thus, sections 2525 and 2526 do not bar a nonexpert officer, or even a layperson, from testifying to his or her observations of a driver‘s impairment or the conduct and results of a field sobriety test. The various mandates of section 2525 do not apply here because the arresting officer was not presented as a drug recognition expert, and such an expert never examined Atkins.
[¶ 17] Although in some circumstances the testimony of a person not trained in drug recognition may arguably be entitled to less weight than the testimony of a person trained to recognize signs of impairment by drugs, “[d]eterminations of the weight and credibility to be afforded the evidence are within the fact-finder‘s exclusive province.” State v. Schmidt, 2008 ME 151, ¶ 19, 957 A.2d 80. Similarly, while there may be rare circumstances when a witness is demonstrably unqualified or sufficiently unreliable to be allowed to testify to apparently relevant evidence, see
[¶ 18] The trial court did not abuse its discretion or otherwise err when it denied Atkins‘s motion in limine and admitted the arresting officer‘s testimony regarding his observations and the results of the field sobriety tests, as the officer was qualified to testify as to his observations, that evidence was relevant to the OUI charge, and its admission was not otherwise barred. See
C. Sufficiency of the Evidence
[¶ 19] Atkins challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction in the absence of an examination by a drug recognition expert.
[¶ 20] “When determining whether the record contained enough evidence to support a criminal defendant‘s conviction, we view ‘the evidence in the light most favorable to the State to determine whether the fact-finder could rationally find every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.‘” State v. Sanchez, 2014 ME 50, ¶ 18, 89 A.3d 1084 (quoting State v. Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250).
[¶ 21] A person commits the crime of OUI when he or she “[o]perates a motor vehicle ... [w]hile under the influence of intoxicants.”5
proves that, while operating a motor vehicle, a defendant‘s mental or physical faculties were impaired however slightly, or to any extent, by alcohol, drugs, or other intoxicants, a defendant is guilty of operating under the influence.” Soucy, 2012 ME 16, ¶ 11, 36 A.3d 910. Further, “[i]n an OUI hearing, ‘testimony that the defendant exhibited symptoms of intoxication can be sufficient to support a finding that the defendant was under the influence.‘” Id. ¶ 10 (quoting McCurdy, 2002 ME 66, ¶ 10, 795 A.2d 84).
[¶ 22] Contrary to Atkins‘s contentions, there was, as the court found, sufficient evidence to support his OUI conviction “beyond all reasonable doubt.” Just as the drug recognition expert statutes do not bar the admission of other evidence of impairment by drugs in an OUI trial, those statutes do not affect the proof necessary to convict a defendant of OUI. Here, the court found that “the ingestion of drugs ... impaired Mr. Atkins[‘s] physical and mental faculties ... while he was operating a motor vehicle.” See
- Atkins drove through a red light;
- Atkins stated that, other than his taillight being out, he did not know why he had been stopped;
- Atkins admitted to the officer that he had smoked a concentrated form of THC multiple times that night;
- Atkins stated that he could not drive to Portland because he was “too stoned“;
- Atkins‘s eyes were bloodshot, glassy, and droopy;
- Atkins fumbled with his wallet and exited the car as though “everything was in slow motion“; and
- Atkins‘s observed performance on two out of three field sobriety tests “supported a conclusion that [he] was under the influence of something.”
This evidence—none of which requires any level of expertise—fully supports the court‘s determination that Atkins was exhibiting symptoms of intoxication. See McCurdy, 2002 ME 66, ¶ 10, 795 A.2d 84.
[¶ 23] For these reasons, the court did not err when it found Atkins guilty of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
A police officer‘s failure to strictly adhere to the specific procedures promulgated by [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] does not render evidence regarding those field sobriety tests inadmissible or without value in determining whether a suspect is under the influence of intoxicants. The use of alternative approaches might be relevant to the weight the jury places upon that evidence, but that is a matter that can be addressed through cross-examination.
State v. Fay, 2015 ME 160, ¶ 7, 130 A.3d 364.