Summary
The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed Jason Mead’s conviction for attempted second-degree murder. The court rejected challenges involving an alleged improper contact between a juror and a State’s witness, admission of uncounseled testimony from a relief-from-abuse proceeding, admission of prior-bad-acts evidence, and the jury instructions concerning the gunshots. The court held that any potential errors were either not preserved, within the trial court’s discretion, or harmless.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether out-of-court contact between a State witness and a juror created an extraneous influence warranting a new trial.
- Whether admission of excerpts from Mead's uncounseled testimony in a related relief-from-abuse proceeding violated constitutional or statutory protections or required reversal.
- Whether evidence of Mead's prior controlling and abusive conduct toward his former girlfriend was admissible under Vermont Rule of Evidence 404(b) and Rule 403 to prove motive and intent.
- Whether the jury instructions were plainly erroneous because they did not require the jury to unanimously identify the specific gunshot supporting the attempted-murder conviction.
Holdings
- A defendant seeking a mistrial or new trial based on an extraneous influence on a juror must show that an irregularity occurred and that it had the capacity to affect the jury's result. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the brief, noninflammatory conversation between the juror and the State witness lacked that capacity.
- The claimed constitutional and statutory violations arising from admission of Mead's prior uncounseled testimony did not constitute plain error, and any error in admitting the family court's skeptical questioning was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Evidence of Mead's prior controlling and abusive conduct toward Wildasin was admissible under V.R.E. 404(b) for the non-prohibited purposes of showing motive and intent, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion under V.R.E. 403.
- When multiple criminal acts are so closely related that they constitute a single transaction or offense, the State need not elect one act as the basis for conviction. The jury instruction was therefore not plainly erroneous even though it did not identify a specific gunshot.
Key quotations
“In order to show that an extraneous influence on a juror warrants a mistrial, a defendant must show “that an irregularity occurred” and that it “had the capacity to affect the jury’s result.”” (¶ 13)
“However, no such election is required when “numerous acts are so related as to constitute a single transaction or offense.”” (¶ 43)
Factual background
At a party in Burlington, Mead carried a loaded nine-millimeter handgun after retrieving it from his car. Following conflict involving his former girlfriend and her new romantic interest, Tim Nunes, Mead pointed the gun at Nunes and fired multiple shots during a continuous confrontation, including shots after Nunes was tackled and while Nunes was striking Mead. Mead claimed the gun fired accidentally during an unprovoked attack, making his intent a central issue at trial.
Procedural history
The State charged Mead with attempted first-degree murder. Following a jury trial in the Superior Court, Chittenden Unit, Criminal Division, the jury convicted him of the lesser-included offense of attempted second-degree murder. The trial court denied his motion for a new trial concerning contact between a juror and a State witness, and the Supreme Court of Vermont affirmed.