State of Maine v. Jesse P. Marquis

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2017 ME 104
Docket: Aro-16-351
Argued: April 13, 2017
Decided: May 25, 2017

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.

STATE OF MAINE

v.

JESSE P. MARQUIS

MEAD, J.

[¶1] Jesse P. Marquis appeals from a judgment of conviction of murder,

17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A) (2016), entered by the trial court

(Aroostook County, Hunter, J.) following a jury trial. Marquis contends that the

court erred by admitting in evidence text messages found in the victim’s cell

phone and three photographs of the crime scene in which the victim’s body was

visible, and by giving the jury an allegedly confusing and legally-flawed

self-defense instruction. We disagree and affirm the judgment.1

1
Marquis also contends that the court abused its discretion in allowing a law enforcement officer
to testify briefly concerning the capabilities of the bloodhound that located him in the woods at the
time he was arrested. We discern no error and do not discuss that issue further.
2

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURE

[¶2] “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s

verdict, the trial record supports the following facts.” State v. Weaver,

2016 ME 12, ¶ 2, 130 A.3d 972. On May 30, 2014, the victim had been in a

relationship with Jesse Marquis for nearly two years; Marquis was living with

her at her house. That evening, the victim went with her sister and two friends

to a camp in St. Francis where Marquis was present with his young son to

retrieve her car from Marquis and end the relationship. During a car ride with

the two friends earlier that afternoon, the victim told them that Marquis “was

being a baby,” and that she had “had enough of his childish acts,” as he sent her

text messages from 6:24 p.m. to 8:05 p.m. saying that he loved her and pleading

for her to come to the camp and spend time with him.

[¶3] Arriving at the camp as it was getting dark, the victim and her sister

got out of their vehicle and the victim talked to Marquis. Marquis was

“fidgeting” and “was obviously drinking.” The victim asked for her car keys and

Marquis gave them to her; Marquis then asked for money and the victim gave

him some. After Marquis retrieved clothing and beer from the car, the victim’s

sister told Marquis to “stay away from the house and stay away from my sister.”

The victim’s friend saw Marquis run up to the car and “almost jump[] . . . on the
 3

side” as the victim prepared to leave. The victim, her sister, and her friends

returned to the victim’s house. Texts from Marquis found on the victim’s phone

sent at 8:50 p.m. and 8:51 p.m., forty-five minutes after the earlier texts, said “I

never hit you or never was aggressive to you,” and “I want my gun.” Although

they had planned to return to their residence in Fort Kent, the victim’s friends

decided to spend the night with her; one slept on the couch, and the other in a

recliner.

[¶4] Marquis’s ex-wife had dropped their son off with Marquis at

5:00 p.m. that day for his regular weekend visitation. Between 8:00 and

8:30 p.m., Marquis sent her a text message telling her to come get the boy.

When she responded that she was at work and would have to find a

replacement to take the remainder of her shift, Marquis sent another message,

twenty to thirty minutes after the first, telling her to “[c]ome get [the boy] now.”

Assuming that her son was at the victim’s house, she went there, only to find

that the victim and the victim’s two friends were there, but Marquis and her son

were not. Because she did not know where the camp was, the victim and her

friends accompanied her back to the camp in a separate vehicle in order to

retrieve her son.
4

[¶5] At close to 9:00 p.m., Marquis’s ex-wife knocked on the door of the

camp and Marquis answered; their son was there as well. When she said that

she was there to pick up the boy, Marquis “stumbl[ed] back in” to the camp

trying to find the boy’s belongings. Marquis was “intoxicated” and “upset”;

when the boy and his mother left, Marquis was on the floor of the camp crying.

Because she had been informed about the status of the victim’s relationship

with Marquis, Marquis’s ex-wife returned to the victim’s house to gather her

son’s things that were there. While she was on the way, Marquis texted her,

saying, “I want to be with you and [the boy], I’m tired of being out in the cold”;

she did not respond. She had a friendly conversation with the victim and never

saw her again. Between 9:00 and 9:30 p.m., Marquis texted his ex-wife to say

that he wanted his son back that night; she responded, “no.”

[¶6] At 9:32 p.m., Marquis resumed sending text messages to the victim,

asking what he had done wrong; saying “I fed you, made your life easy,” and

“you told me all week you loved me”; asking her to come get him; and saying,

“I had plans for us.” The last message, “Come get me,” was sent at 11:23 p.m.

[¶7] At daybreak on May 31, the victim’s friend who was sleeping in the

recliner woke to see the victim moving around in the house; he then dozed back

off. When he again awoke, he saw Marquis running into the living room with a
 5

knife in his hand. As he tried to get out of the chair, he told Marquis to leave

and Marquis swung the knife at him. While he and the friend who had been

sleeping on the couch called 9-1-1, he heard yelling and the victim screaming,

and “something like a smash” coming from the bedroom; Marquis then emerged

from the bedroom carrying a rifle. As Marquis left the house, he was fumbling

with the rifle in an apparent attempt to reload it. When the friend went into the

bedroom with its adjoining bathroom, he saw the victim lying on the floor with

“blood everywhere.”

[¶8] The victim’s friend who had been sleeping on the couch woke to “a

big thud and a scream.” She went into the bedroom and saw the victim on the

floor, with Marquis “holding her but hitting her at the same time”; she also saw

a gun. At about 5:45 a.m., as she made the call to 9-1-1, she saw Marquis holding

the gun. Marquis followed her into the kitchen and pointed the gun at her, then

left the house. She went to the victim and performed CPR on her until a

paramedic arrived some twenty minutes later. The paramedic found the victim

dead in a large pool of blood with her friend still attempting to resuscitate her.

[¶9] The Deputy Chief Medical Examiner performed an autopsy. She

determined that the victim died from a contact gunshot wound to the chest

consistent with high-velocity hunting rifle ammunition, as well as stab wounds
6

to the chest. The victim had suffered numerous stab and cut wounds, including

a stab wound to the top of her head in which the medical examiner found

embedded in her skull a piece of metal consistent with a knifepoint. The victim

had cuts on her fingers that were typical of defensive wounds. During the

autopsy, the medical examiner recovered a deformed bullet fragment from the

victim’s clothing that had fallen out of the exit wound.

[¶10] On June 6, 2014, following an extensive manhunt, Marquis was

arrested in the woods near St. Francis after being tracked by a bloodhound

brought in from New Hampshire; he had cuts on his hand and a rifle was lying

on the ground next to him. A forensic specialist with the Maine State Police

testified that a spent 30-06 cartridge found on the floor in the victim’s bedroom

was fired from Marquis’s rifle, and that the bullet fragment found during the

autopsy had the same general rifling characteristics as test rounds fired from

Marquis’s rifle and therefore could have come from that weapon, although the

specialist could not say definitively that it did. Other forensic evidence

established that blood on a knife found in the victim’s bedroom was hers; the

knifepoint found during the autopsy came from that knife; blood found in an

open rifle case that was partially under the victim’s bed was Marquis’s; and a
 7

boot print in the bedroom that was developed by using a chemical that reacts

with blood was made by a boot Marquis was wearing when he was arrested.

[¶11] On July 11, 2014, the Aroostook County Grand Jury indicted

Marquis for intentional or knowing murder with the use of a firearm,

17-A M.R.S. §§ 201(1)(A), 1158-A(1)(B) (2016). Counsel was appointed and

Marquis entered a plea of not guilty. Prior to trial, Marquis moved in limine to

exclude, pursuant to M.R. Evid. 403, any photographs the State might seek to

admit that would “inflame the passions of the jury.” He also moved to exclude,

pursuant to M.R. Evid. 401, evidence of the text messages that the State

contended Marquis sent to the victim the night before she was killed on the

ground that they were irrelevant. Concerning the text messages, the court ruled

that they were relevant to prove Marquis’s state of mind, and were therefore

admissible subject to the State laying a proper foundation at trial.

[¶12] A jury trial was held on June 14-17, 2016. During the trial the court

admitted the text messages over Marquis’s objection, and also admitted three

crime scene photographs in which the victim’s body could be seen, two over

Marquis’s objection and one without objection. The jury returned a verdict of

guilty. At the sentencing hearing, the court entered judgment and imposed a

life sentence. Marquis appealed the judgment of conviction and filed an
8

application to allow an appeal of sentence. By order dated October 20, 2016,

the Sentence Review Panel denied leave to appeal from the sentence.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Text Messages

[¶13] Marquis first asserts that the court erred in admitting the text

messages found in the victim’s phone because they were irrelevant, and

because there was an insufficient foundation supporting their admission. Our

standard of review is multifaceted:

When . . . a party has preserved an objection to the admissibility of
evidence, we review the court’s determination of relevance for
clear error and . . . the admission of evidence over an objection for
lack of foundation for an abuse of discretion, but review underlying
factual findings for clear error. A trial court commits clear error on
evidence questions when its findings regarding the foundation for
admitting or excluding evidence are not supported by facts in the
record.

State v. Gurney, 2012 ME 14, ¶ 36, 36 A.3d 893 (citations and quotation marks

omitted).

1. Relevance

[¶14] Marquis contends that text messages exchanged with the victim

less than twelve hours before her murder were “not temporally relevant to the

events of her death.” Maine Rule of Evidence 401 provides that evidence is

relevant if it makes a material fact “more or less probable.” The indictment
 9

charged that Marquis intentionally or knowingly caused the victim’s death. As

the court found, text messages suggesting that Marquis was distraught and

upset with the victim concerning their relationship on the evening of

May 30, 2014, made it more probable that he acted intentionally or knowingly

only a few hours later. Accordingly, the texts were relevant. See Gurney,

2012 ME 14, ¶ 40, 36 A.3d 893 (concluding that evidence was properly

admitted “as a piece of circumstantial evidence concerning [the defendant’s]

state of mind”).

2. Foundation

[¶15] Maine Rule of Evidence 901(a) required the State, as the party

offering the text messages, to “produce evidence sufficient to support a finding”

that Marquis was the person who sent them. Over Marquis’s objection, the

court ruled that the State had met that burden, finding that “there is a rational

basis upon which the jury could conclude these text messages came from [the

victim’s] phone and they are what the State contends . . . . [U]ltimately, it’s for

the jury to decide whether they are what’s been represented.”

[¶16] There was ample evidence to support the court’s finding that the

State had satisfied Rule 901’s threshold requirement. See State v. Thompson,

503 A.2d 689, 691 (Me. 1986) (referring to “the threshold requirement for
10

admissibility under M.R. Evid. 901(a)”). First, the phone containing the

messages was identified at trial as belonging to the victim. Second, the victim’s

phone labeled the incoming messages with a header of “Jesse M,” and Marquis’s

ex-wife, although she did not remember Marquis’s entire phone number,

recalled several digits that matched the contact information in the victim’s

phone. Finally, events described in the messages very closely corresponded to

events testified to by witnesses: twice the sender texted that he was at “Benny

camp”;2 the victim sent a message saying that “[C.] is coming to get [A.] . . .

u must have called her”;3 and the sender later texted, after the victim had

retrieved her car at the camp, “I need a ride back home.”

[¶17] From that evidence the jury could rationally conclude that it was

Marquis who sent the text messages found in the victim’s phone. Accordingly,

the court did not clearly err or abuse its discretion in admitting the messages

over Marquis’s lack of foundation objection. See Gurney, 2012 ME 14, ¶ 36,

36 A.3d 893.

2
A witness whose first name is Benny testified that on the evening of May 30, 2014, Marquis and
his son were at his camp in St. Francis.

3
Although we do not do so here, the message used the names of Marquis’s ex-wife and son.
 11

B. Self-Defense Instruction

[¶18] In its charge to the jury, the court gave a lengthy instruction

concerning self-defense and imperfect self-defense. Marquis did not object to

the instruction, and did not offer any clarifications or corrections even though

the court invited him to do so twice: immediately after the instruction was

given and again before the jury retired to deliberate. Accordingly, his

contention that the self-defense instruction (1) was “erroneous and confusing

and, as such, deprived Mr. Marquis of a fair trial,” and (2) contained the

structural problem that we identified in State v. Baker, is reviewed only for

obvious error, “which occurs in this context when jury instructions, viewed as

a whole, are affected by highly prejudicial error tending to produce manifest

injustice.” State v. Baker, 2015 ME 39, ¶ 11, 114 A.3d 214 (quotation marks

omitted); see Weaver, 2016 ME 12, ¶ 11, 130 A.3d 972.

[¶19] Concerning Marquis’s first assertion, that the court’s instruction

was “convoluted, confusing and hard to follow,” the instruction was complex,

but a complex instruction is not per se an erroneous one, particularly when it

concerns a multi-part legal analysis such as that required here, where the jury

was asked to first consider the charge of murder and the lesser-included crime
12

of manslaughter, followed by the statutory justifications of self-defense4 and

imperfect self-defense.5 See Alexander, Maine Jury Instruction Manual § 6-61

at 6-121 to 6-122 (2016 ed.) (setting out a sample instruction on self-defense

using deadly force and imperfect self-defense). Here, reviewing the

instructions as a whole, see State v. Hanscom, 2016 ME 184, ¶ 10, 152 A.3d 632,

we conclude that the court “informed the jury correctly and fairly in all

necessary respects of the governing law,” id. (quotation marks omitted), and

thus we discern no error.

[¶20] Concerning Marquis’s second contention, that the instructions

contained a fatal structural flaw, the instructions were given in two parts. In

the first part, the court explained the elements of the crime of murder, and told

the jury that

[i]f you find that the State has proven [the elements] beyond a
reasonable doubt, then you must find that the defendant is guilty of
murder as alleged in the indictment. If you conclude that the State
has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any of [the
elements], then you must find the defendant not guilty of murder.

4
17-A M.R.S. § 108 (2016).

5 17-A M.R.S. § 101(3) (2016).

 13

The court then instructed the jury on the lesser-included charge of

manslaughter,6 concluding with a similar directive.

[¶21] Viewed in isolation, because the statutory justification of

self-defense was at issue in the case,7 the initial instructions regarding the

charge of murder and the lesser-included crime of manslaughter were incorrect

“[b]ecause the roadmap of the jury’s analytical path described in the court’s

charge authorized the jury to find the defendant guilty without any

consideration of self-defense.” Baker, 2015 ME 39, ¶ 14, 114 A.3d 214. We do

not view the instructions in isolation, however. See id. ¶ 10 (“We review jury

instructions as a whole . . . .” (quotation marks omitted)).

[¶22] Immediately following its instruction on the crimes of murder and

manslaughter, the court turned to the second part of the instructions at issue,

telling the jury that

[u]pon the basis of my instructions provided to you up to this point,
if you are to determine that Mr. Marquis had committed either
intentional or knowing murder or reckless or criminally negligent
manslaughter, you must next consider the law relating to
self-defense.

6 17-A M.R.S. § 203 (2016).

7
In his closing argument, Marquis pointed to a wound on his hand, his blood in the rifle case, and
the absence of any eyewitness testimony concerning what occurred when he and the victim were in
the bedroom as evidence consistent with an act of self-defense.
14

The court stressed that

[a]t the very outset, I must emphasize . . . relative to self-defense . . .
Mr. Marquis does not have the burden of proving that he acted in
self-defense. Instead, the State has the burden of proving beyond a
reasonable doubt that the intentional or knowing murder or the
reckless or criminally negligent manslaughter was not done in
self-defense.

The court then concluded its thorough instructions on self-defense and

imperfect self-defense by very clearly telling the jury what it must do in the

event that the State failed to meet its burden:

If . . . the State has failed to meet its burden of proving beyond a
reasonable doubt the absence of self-defense . . . you must find
Mr. Marquis not guilty of all charges, even if you had earlier
determined that Mr. Marquis had committed either intentional or
knowing murder or reckless or criminally negligent manslaughter.

[¶23] Contrary to Marquis’s contention, our decision in Baker does not

compel a conclusion that the court’s instructions deprived him of a fair trial. In

that case, we identified “two structural flaws that, taken together, rise to the

level of obvious error.” Id. ¶ 13 (emphasis added); see Weaver, 2016 ME 12,

¶ 12, 130 A.3d 972 (“In Baker . . . we concluded that a defendant had met [the]

high burden [of showing obvious error] based on the combined effect of two

structural flaws.” (emphasis added) (quotation marks omitted)). The first was

that the trial court’s instructions concerning the elements of the crime ended,

as in this case, with a directive that the jury should find the defendant guilty if
 15

the State had proved the elements beyond a reasonable doubt, “suggest[ing]

that the jury could bypass [the] issue” of self-defense. Baker, 2015 ME 39, ¶¶ 4,

14, 114 A.3d 214. It is that “structural flaw[]” that Marquis points to here. Id.

¶ 13.

[¶24] The second structural problem identified in Baker, which Marquis

acknowledges is not present in this case, was a critical one, namely that “the

court [in Baker] did not instruct the jury that it was required to acquit [the

defendant] if the State failed to meet its burden of proof on [the] issue [of

self-defense],” and thus the court “fail[ed] to state that self defense is, in fact, a

defense.” Id. ¶¶ 16-17 (quotation marks omitted). As a result, “the jury was left

without guidance about the exculpatory consequences of the State’s failure to

prove that [the defendant’s] conduct was not justified. . . . [The court’s]

instructions . . . fell short of informing the jury of its duty to acquit [the

defendant] if it found that the State had not disproved [his] contention that he

acted in self-defense.” Id. ¶ 22.

[¶25] Here, “[u]nlike the court in Baker, the court . . . made clear that

even if the jury found that the State had proved the elements of [murder or

manslaughter], the jury still could not find [Marquis] guilty without first

resolving the issue of self-defense.” Weaver, 2016 ME 12, ¶ 13, 130 A.3d 972.
16

In Weaver, we concluded that the court’s instructions did not rise to the level of

obvious error even though the court “did not explicitly instruct the jury that it

was required to find [the defendant] not guilty if it found that the State had not

disproved his self-defense theory beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. In this case,

the court did explicitly tell the jury that if it determined that “the State has failed

to meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of

self-defense . . . you must find Mr. Marquis not guilty of all charges.”

[¶26] We therefore conclude, as we did in Weaver, that “[v]iewed as a

whole, in contrast to those in Baker, the court’s instructions here were

internally consistent and legally accurate.” Id.

C. Photographs

[¶27] Finally, Marquis contends that the court’s admission in evidence

of three color crime scene photographs was error because their prejudicial

effect outweighed their probative value. See M.R. Evid. 403. Two of the

photographs—State’s Exhibit #22, a full-body photograph of the victim lying in

a large amount of blood; and State’s Exhibit #27, a photograph centered on the

victim’s bedroom in which her body from the waist up is visible on the

bathroom floor in the background—were admitted over Marquis’s objection.

Marquis did not object to the admission of State’s Exhibit #24, a photograph
 17

centered on blood spatter on the wall behind the victim, in which her head is

visible in the foreground. Accordingly, we review the admission of Exhibits #22

and #27 for an abuse of discretion, and the admission of Exhibit #24 for obvious

error. State v. Allen, 2006 ME 21, ¶ 9 n.3, 892 A.2d 456.

[¶28] At trial, Marquis argued, “I think the State’s entitled to some

leeway. It strikes me that between . . . State’s 27 and State’s 24, the State has

what it needs. And then State’s . . . 22 is simply highly inflammatory.” The State

argued that Exhibit #27 was offered to “show the condition of the bedroom . . .

and the gun case . . . and the position of that and also the red-brown stain on the

floor. . . . [T]he fact she’s in the picture is just the fact she’s there.” The court,

noting that evidence had been admitted concerning the gun case and the

“explosive force of these high-velocity rounds” that would produce blood

spatter, ruled that, “clearly, 22 I think is admissible and the State’s entitled to

present that . . . I’m going to allow admission of all three photographs.”

[¶29] We have said that

photographs are admissible if they are (1) accurate depictions;
(2) relevant; and (3) if their probative value is not outweighed by
any tendency toward unfair prejudice.

. . . .

The third determination . . . is a Rule 403 inquiry: whether the
“probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of
18

unfair prejudice.” M.R. Evid. 403. To sustain a Rule 403 objection,
the prejudice must be more than simply damage to the opponent’s
cause. It must be evidence that has an undue tendency to move the
tribunal to decide on an improper basis, commonly, though not
always, an emotional one.

Id. ¶¶ 10, 13 (citation and quotation marks omitted).

[¶30] We have no difficulty in concluding that on this record the court

could find that the three photographs were accurate depictions of the victim

and the scene, and that they were relevant to the State’s case-in-chief; Marquis’s

real contention is that the danger of unfair prejudice that they posed

substantially outweighed their probative value. We disagree.

[¶31] In Allen, we discussed the photographs that were at issue in State

v. Crocker, 435 A.2d 58 (Me. 1981), which was the case that gave rise to the

three-part test; the discussion is equally applicable here:

[T]he photographs [in Crocker] were not merely cumulative of the
medical testimony because they conveyed relevant information to
the jury in a much more complete and meaningful form than could
the almost clinical words of the [medical experts]. Although the
photographs could be considered "gruesome," that fact did not
make them inadmissible, because the salient issue was whether
their probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger
of unfair prejudice.

Allen, 2006 ME 21, ¶ 10, 892 A.2d 456 (quotation marks omitted). Here,

although the photographs are disturbing, they are not overly or unnecessarily

gruesome given the nature of the case. Furthermore, as in Allen, the jury was
 19

already well aware of the extensive injuries that the victim suffered because it

had heard the testimony of the medical examiner; accordingly, “[b]ecause these

facts were already before the jury, the depiction in the full-body photograph . . .

would not have unduly caused the jury to decide the case on an emotional or

other improper basis.” Id. ¶ 15.

[¶32] We conclude that the trial court did not obviously err or abuse its

discretion in admitting the three photographs, one primarily showing the

deceased victim—a central element of the murder charge that the State was

required to prove—and the others primarily depicting relevant evidence in the

case.

The entry is:

Judgment affirmed.

Jeremy Pratt, Esq. (orally), and Ellen Simmons, Esq., Camden, for appellant Jesse
P. Marquis

Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Lara M. Nomani, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally),
Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine

Aroostook County Superior Court docket number CR-2014-261
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY