State v. Jette

174 N.H. 669

273 A.3d 929

STATE of New Hampshire

v.Daswan JETTE

No. 2020-0165

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Argued: October 20, 2021

Opinion Issued: December 14, 2021

John M. Formella, attorney general (Nicole M. Clay, assistant attorney general, on the brief, and Benjamin Agati, senior assistant attorney general, orally), for the State.

Thomas Barnard, senior assistant appellate defender, of Concord, on the brief and orally, for the defendant.

DONOVAN, J.

The defendant, Daswan Jette, appeals his conviction, following a jury trial in the Superior Court (Kissinger, J.), on one count of reckless manslaughter. See RSA 630:2, I(b) (2016). The defendant argues that the trial court: (1) erred by excluding evidence that, more than one month before her death, the victim sold drugs to an individual who paid her with counterfeit money; and (2) may have erred by failing to order the disclosure of certain records submitted for in camera review. We conclude that, even if the victim's prior drug sale was relevant to the defendant's self-defense claim, the trial court properly excluded evidence of the previous sale pursuant to New Hampshire Rule of Evidence 403. We further conclude that the trial court did not err by withholding certain records that it reviewed in camera. Accordingly, we affirm.

I. Facts

The jury could have found the following facts. In May 2017, the defendant, a Massachusetts resident, was staying with his girlfriend at her apartment in Concord. In late May, the defendant texted SC — one of the victim's friends — about purchasing marijuana. Because SC did not have enough marijuana to fulfill the defendant's request, he asked the victim if she could provide some of her own. The victim agreed and, over the course of several days, SC and the defendant negotiated the sale of the marijuana and scheduled the delivery of the drugs at the Concord apartment.

On the evening of the transaction, SC sent a text to the defendant stating that he was outside in a parked vehicle. When the defendant approached the vehicle, SC and the victim were seated in the back, and two of their friends were seated in the front. The defendant did not know anyone in the vehicle. After identifying SC as the person with whom he had been negotiating, the defendant entered the vehicle and sat next to SC. The defendant asked if he could weigh the marijuana, and SC agreed. Before completing the transaction, the defendant exited the vehicle with the bag of marijuana and ran toward the vestibule of the apartment building.

Believing that the defendant was attempting to steal the marijuana, SC, the victim, and the front seat passenger followed the defendant into the vestibule, while the driver remained in the vehicle. A physical altercation ensued. SC pushed the defendant into a wall and, along with the victim, cornered the defendant in the vestibule. SC and the victim then began demanding that the defendant return the bag of marijuana. The defendant brandished a knife and threatened to stab someone. SC responded by placing the defendant in a headlock, while the victim and the passenger restrained each of the defendant's arms. The victim recovered the bag of marijuana, disarmed the defendant, and discarded the knife. After pushing the defendant one last time, SC returned to the vehicle accompanied by the victim and the passenger.

At some point during the altercation, the victim sustained three stab wounds, one of which penetrated her heart and caused her death.¹ SC, the driver, and the passenger testified that the defendant followed the victim back to the vehicle, reached into the back seat, and stabbed her multiple times. The defendant denied returning to the vehicle, asserting that he ran to his girlfriend's apartment immediately after the altercation and that he did not know that anyone had been stabbed until the next day. Following an investigation, the defendant was indicted on one count of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder.

Prior to trial, the State moved to exclude evidence of the victim's prior drug activity and information recovered from her cell phone. The defendant objected, arguing that the evidence was relevant to his self-defense claim. Specifically, the defendant pointed to a series of text messages between SC and the victim indicating that, more than one month before the transaction with the defendant, an individual unrelated to this case purchased marijuana from the victim with counterfeit money. The individual had originally contacted SC to purchase marijuana, but because SC didn't have enough product, he referred the individual to the victim. The victim's text messages conveyed her frustration with the prior theft, stating, in part: "I'm just so sick of getting robbed. I don't understand like I've literally never robbed anyone before .... Yet it seems like these broke b*****s never want to pay me." Other text messages conveyed the victim's desire to slash the prior buyer's tires and "rob him back."

In his objection to the State's motion, the defendant argued that the prior drug sale and related text messages were "relevant to establish motive and bias for the reactions of [the victim] and [SC]" toward the defendant on the night of the altercation. According to the defendant, the evidence was "highly probative" because "the outcome of this prior drug deal angered [the victim], and ... may have influenced her behavior" toward the defendant on the night of the homicide. The defendant posited that the prior drug sale changed "the way [in which SC] and [the victim] did business, which led to heightened tensions, which led to the aggressive physical assault of [the defendant], from which he had to defend himself." The defendant further argued that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice because other evidence would reveal that the victim and her friends "ha[d] a history of selling drugs."

The trial court granted the State's motion to exclude evidence of the prior drug sale. Concluding that the evidence was irrelevant, the trial court noted that the prior drug sale was "wholly unrelated to [SC and the victim's] involvement with [the defendant]" and that the defendant "was unaware" that it had occurred. The court reasoned that "[i]t would be highly speculative to suggest that, because of prior issues remote in time from current events, [SC and the victim] had reason to be aggressive toward [the defendant]." Relying upon New Hampshire Rule of Evidence 403, the court further concluded that "[t]he danger of unfair prejudice and of misleading the jury is substantial because the connection of the evidence to the case relies on what amounts to little more than pure speculation."

Following his trial, the jury acquitted the defendant on the first and second degree murder indictments, but convicted him of the lesser included offense of reckless manslaughter. This appeal followed.

II. Analysis

On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court erred by ruling that evidence of the prior drug activity was irrelevant, and, therefore, inadmissible, pursuant to Rules of Evidence 401 and 402. Specifically, the defendant contends that the evidence "was relevant to show that [the victim] and [SC] had a motive to respond aggressively when they believed that [the defendant] was trying to steal drugs from them," thereby making it more likely that the defendant acted in self-defense when he stabbed the victim. The defendant also argues that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of the prior drug activity pursuant to Rule 403 because, in his view, the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice or of misleading the jury.

For the purposes of this appeal, we assume that the trial court erred by concluding that evidence of the prior drug activity was irrelevant under Rule 401. Nonetheless, we conclude that the trial court properly excluded the evidence pursuant to Rule 403.² Under Rule 403, relevant evidence may be excluded "if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence." N.H. R. Ev. 403.

In general, the trial court has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of evidence, and we will not upset its ruling absent an unsustainable exercise of discretion. State v. Milton, 169 N.H. 431, 435, 150 A.3d 926 (2016). To demonstrate an unsustainable exercise of discretion, the defendant must show that the trial court's ruling was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of his case. Id.

As an initial matter, the defendant argues that the trial court misconstrued Rule 403 by "fail[ing] to cite any distinct danger of unfair prejudice or of misleading the jury." Thus, the defendant argues that the trial court's ruling "should not be viewed with deference." We disagree. As stated above, the trial court found that the speculative nature of the evidence posed a distinct danger of unfair prejudice and of misleading the jury. The trial court further concluded that this danger substantially outweighed the probative value of the evidence. Accordingly, we reject the defendant's argument and apply our unsustainable exercise of discretion standard to the trial court's ruling. See id.

Turning to the trial court's Rule 403 ruling, we conclude that the court did not err in determining that the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the risk of misleading or confusing the jury. On the one hand, the probative value of the prior drug sale and related text messages was minimal. The defendant contends that the evidence was relevant to his self-defense claim because it showed that SC and the victim had a motive to act aggressively toward the defendant — thereby making it more likely that they did, in fact, act aggressively toward him on...