After a trial in Superior Court (Cumberland County), a jury convicted the defendant of violation of 17-A M.R.S.A. § 755 (1983), Escape. On appeal, the defendant argues that the presiding justice committed reversible error by excluding testimony relating to a previous Rule 11 proceeding in which the defendant pleaded guilty to prior charges of burglary and theft. Trial counsel’s apparent intention was to establish through the excluded testimony that, even though the defendant had pleaded guilty to the charge, he had expected his attorney to appeal the burglary conviction. According to the defense theory at trial, when the defendant on April 25,1981, learned that no appeal was pending, “something had to happen in his mind” and the defendant, without authorization, left the Maine Correctional Center, where he was serving his five-year sentence for the burglary and theft convictions.
On direct examination, counsel for the defendant Williams asked him to describe what had occurred at the prior Rule 11 proceeding. The State objected on the basis of irrelevance and a bench conference
Under M.R.Evid. 103(a)(2), unless apparent from the context of the questioning, the substance of the excluded evidence must be made known to the court by an offer of proof. Defense counsel’s assertions at the bench conference in support of the admissibility of the proffered evidence merely informed the presiding justice that the defendant was upset when he learned that his burglary conviction, for which he was then incarcerated, would not be appealed. That purported offer of proof did not disclose what the defendant’s response would have been to the pending question regarding the Rule 11 proceeding.
An offer of proof must not only detail the proposed testimony but must also support the admissibility of that testimony.
State v. Mahaney,
Indeed, even given an adequate offer of proof it is difficult to determine what relevance, if any, Williams’ potential testimony would have had in casting any doubt respecting Williams’ conscious awareness of his leaving official custody or the voluntariness of his departure from the Maine Correction Center where he was being detained under his burglary conviction. Whatever may have transpired at the Rule 11 proceeding held in connection with the burglary charge and whatever mental frustration may have developed from receiving the information that no appeal had been taken from that conviction, such evidence carried no potential to generate any doubt that Williams consciously knew and intended the consequences of his action. As stated in
State v. Mishne,
The entry will be:
Judgment affirmed.
All concurring.
