Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant James Mello appealed his conviction on four counts of delivering child pornography. On appeal to the Supreme Court, he argued that the Superior Court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence derived from a search warrant issued by the district court which authorized a search for information held by his Internet service provider. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Defendant argued that the district court exceeded the scope of its jurisdiction by issuing the warrant. Furthermore, he argued that the warrant violated his state and federal constitutional rights. The Supreme Court found that the district court did not exceed its jurisdiction, and that Defendant had no expectation of privacy in the Internet information. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court's decision.

In July 2009, a grand jury indicted Defendant Richard MacDonald on one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault for having sex with a person whom he knew to be âmentally defective.â At trial, Defendant filed a motion seeking in camera review of the victimâs medical and mental health records. The State did not object. The court received over two thousand pages of the victimâs medical records. The court assumed without review, that the records were probably relevant, and allowed the documents to be produced âfor Counselâs eyes only.â The State objected to the courtâs lack-of-review, arguing that the point of in camera review was for the court to decide which documents were appropriate. Defendant objected, and the State applied for a writ of certiorari to compel the trial court to determine the disclosure of the appropriate records. The Supreme Court granted the writ, and held that the lower courtâs failure to review the records was an error. The Court remanded the case to the trial court for an in camera review of the medical records.

Defendant Marilyn Demond-Surace appealed her conviction on two counts of vehicular assault. Defendantâs convictions stem from a 2005 motor vehicle accident that killed two people. The trial court granted Defendantâs motion to exclude all evidence related to blood alcohol tests because those tests were taken without Defendantâs consent, but denied Defendantâs motion to preclude the State from introducing evidence regarding her alcohol consumption. During the motion hearing the State said it did not have any witnesses that would testify to Defendantâs impairment. In ruling on the motions, the court said, âas far as the jury is going to know, [Defendant] was sober.â On appeal, Defendantâs arguments largely focused on the courtâs order to the State to âstay away from impairment.â Defendant argued that the trial court erred by failing to grant a mistrial for statements made by the State in its closing argument on the impairment issue. The Supreme Court found that â[i]n allowing evidence that the Defendant consumed alcohol despite having excluded all evidence that the Defendant was impaired by alcohol, the court made a distinction unsupported by our case law.â The Court reversed the lower court and remanded Defendantâs case for a new trial.

Defendant Todd Peters appealed his convictions on first-degree murder. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial court erred when it denied his motions in limine to introduce evidence of alternative perpetrators, and to exclude phone record evidence at trial. On review of the lower courtâs record, the Supreme Court concluded that even if the trial court erred in these respects, the State met its burden of proving that these errors were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court affirmed the lower courtâs decision, and upheld Defendantâs convictions.