State v. L'Heureux

Summary

The New Hampshire Supreme Court held that the trial court applied the wrong legal standard in determining whether the defendant could invoke the competing-harms defense to a charge of operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration of .08 or more. The court ruled that the relevant inquiry is whether reasonable, lawful alternatives existed that would cause less, if any, harm than the otherwise illegal conduct. The conviction was vacated and the case remanded for application of the correct standard.

Holdings

1. A lawful alternative is not unavailable merely because some lawful alternative exists; the alternative must be reasonable and must cause less, if any, harm than the otherwise illegal conduct. The trial court therefore applied an overly demanding legal standard when it asked whether any lawful alternative existed.
2. When the competing-harms defense is not precluded as a matter of law and the defendant has sufficiently brought it into play, the defense must be submitted to the trier of fact; after the defense is established as available, the State bears the burden of disproving it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court applied the correct legal standard in determining whether the competing-harms defense was available.
2. Whether the competing-harms defense requires the defendant to show that no lawful alternative whatsoever existed, or instead that no reasonable lawful alternative existed that would cause less harm.
3. Whether, once the defense is sufficiently brought into play, the issue must be submitted to the trier of fact and the State must disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Disposition

vacated