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State of Maine v. Amanda Bennett-Roberson, 2019 ME 49

The legitimacy of an investigatory seizure is a two-part inquiry: whether the stop was justified at its inception, and whether the officer's actions after the stop were 'reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.' The Law Court VACATED an order suppressing evidence, holding the motion court erred by confining its analysis to what the trooper knew up to the moment the original basis for the stop dissipated. Even after the reason for the stop evaporates, a valid seizure has already occurred; a license and registration check is a minimal further intrusion, and where the officer 'discovers additional evidence of possible wrongdoing, he may expand his inquiry as suggested by this new information' — here, slurred speech, a droopy facial appearance, no license in hand, and an admission of having taken unidentified prescription medication, observed by a certified drug recognition expert. Whether ordering the driver out for field sobriety tests was justified must be judged on that fuller record, balancing the public interest served against the severity of the intrusion.

Cited on: Contesting a Maine Marijuana OUI After Passing Most Field Tests

State of Maine v. Gerald B. Kennedy, 2016 ME 53, 136 A.3d 357

On a COLLATERAL attack on a prior conviction entered after an apparently uncounseled guilty plea, the defendant — not the State — bears the burden of proving that he did not competently and intelligently waive his right to the assistance of counsel. A plea transcript that is merely silent about the right to counsel does not carry that burden. The Law Court AFFIRMED the denial of Kennedy's motion to strike his prior uncounseled OUI conviction, where he conceded he knew of his right to counsel, told the arraignment court he intended to hire a lawyer, and offered no evidence about what happened between arraignment and the plea; the Court expressly distinguished this posture from a DIRECT attack, in which the court does determine whether the right was expressly or impliedly waived.

Cited on: Challenging a Maine Guilty Plea Entered Without a Lawyer

State of Maine v. Lyanne LeMeunier-Fitzgerald, 2018 ME 85, 188 A.3d 183

A warrantless blood-alcohol draw taken on probable cause of OUI is lawful only if it falls within an exception to the warrant requirement; where the State relies on consent, the question is whether the driver's agreement was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances. The Law Court held that reading Maine's standard implied-consent warnings — including the warning that a refusal will be an aggravating factor at sentencing carrying a mandatory minimum period of incarceration if the person is convicted — does not render the ensuing consent involuntary, because the driver did not submit 'on pain of committing a criminal offense' as in Birchfield v. North Dakota. The Court concluded the operator consented and AFFIRMED the denial of her motion to suppress.

Cited on: Challenging a Warrantless Blood Draw in a Maine Marijuana OUI

State of Maine v. Seth J. Hill, 2014 ME 16, 86 A.3d 628

A waiver of the right to counsel is valid only if voluntary, knowing and intelligent, and 'every reasonable presumption must be indulged against waiver.' Under State v. Watson, 2006 ME 80, the trial court must address three elements on the record in some fashion: the right to counsel and to court-appointed counsel if indigent; that the defendant will be held to the same standards as a lawyer and the court will not aid his defense; and that self-representation is risky for a person untrained in the law. Reviewing a defendant's OUI conviction on DIRECT appeal, the Law Court VACATED the judgment because the record showed only the first Watson element, and the defendant's own answer that he understood how a trial works 'but not — not exactly' showed he did not. Denial of the right to counsel is structural error for which harm is presumed.

Cited on: Challenging a Maine Guilty Plea Entered Without a Lawyer

State v. Boyd, 2017 ME 36, 156 A.3d 748

Where the State seeks to justify a warrantless OUI blood draw as consensual, it must prove by a preponderance 'that an objective manifestation of consent was given by word or gesture'; mere acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority is not consent. The Law Court AFFIRMED suppression of a blood-alcohol result where the officer never asked for consent, never read the § 2521(3) refusal warnings, never sought a warrant, and never told the driver he could ask that a physician perform the draw — and the only evidence was that the driver did not object and was 'very cooperative.' The current implied-consent statute does not supply the missing consent, because it no longer allows consent to be implied from the act of driving.

Cited on: Challenging a Warrantless Blood Draw in a Maine Marijuana OUI