State v. Lamar Scales

Summary

The Vermont Supreme Court reversed Lamar Scales's convictions for three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. The court held that evidence of Scales's use of an alternate name when arrested in Pennsylvania lacked sufficient probative connection to the charged offenses and was improperly admitted as consciousness-of-guilt evidence. The court also held that the trial court should have given a limiting instruction and that the prosecutor improperly made a golden-rule appeal by asking jurors to place themselves in the complainant's position.

Holdings

1. The trial court erred by admitting defendant's identification of himself as Shahid Nur as consciousness-of-guilt evidence because the conduct was highly ambiguous, remote from the charged offenses, and not shown to be connected to defendant's knowledge of or efforts to evade the Vermont charges.
2. When consciousness-of-guilt evidence is properly admitted, the jury must receive a limiting instruction explaining that the evidence has little probative value, cannot by itself support a conviction, and may be consistent with innocence.
3. The State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the admission of the consciousness-of-guilt evidence and refusal to give the requested limiting instruction were harmless.
4. The prosecutor's request that jurors put themselves in the position of the child complainant was improper and violated Vermont's rule requiring counsel to confine argument to the evidence and proper inferences rather than appeal to juror sympathy or personal bias.

Questions Presented

1. Whether defendant's use of the name Shahid Nur when confronted by a Pennsylvania trooper was admissible as consciousness-of-guilt evidence concerning the Vermont child-sexual-conduct charges.
2. Whether the trial court was required to give defendant's requested limiting instruction stating that consciousness-of-guilt evidence had little probative value and could not alone support a conviction.
3. Whether admission of the consciousness-of-guilt evidence and failure to give the limiting instruction were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
4. Whether the prosecutor's closing argument violated the rule against golden-rule arguments by asking jurors to place themselves in the position of the child complainant.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded