State v. Tripp

314 A.3d 101

2024 ME 12

STATE of Maine

v.Ralph A. TRIPP Jr.

Docket: Pen-22-257

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: April 6, 2023

Decided: January 30, 2024

Jeremy Pratt, Esq. (orally), and Ellen Simmons, Esq., Camden, for appellant Ralph A. Tripp, Jr.

Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Jason Horn, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine

Panel: STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, JABAR, HORTON, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ.

LAWRENCE, J.

[¶1] Ralph A. Tripp Jr. appeals from a judgment of conviction, entered by the trial court (Penobscot County, Anderson, J.), for several drug-trafficking offenses, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and criminal forfeiture of property. Tripp argues that he should be immune from prosecution for his drug-related offenses, that the State’s conduct during its opening statement and closing argument constituted error, and that the trial court erred by not providing the jury with clear instructions. We conclude that Maine’s immunity statutes do not apply in this case, that any prosecutorial error did not affect Tripp’s substantial rights, and that the trial court sufficiently corrected any potential confusion stemming from its initial jury instructions. We therefore affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

[¶2] "Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the record supports the following facts." State v. McLaughlin, 2018 ME 97, ¶ 2, 189 A.3d 262. Tripp and his wife, Amanda Tripp, resided in a room at a rooming house located in Bangor. After the Tripps moved into the rooming house, residents of the building noticed an increase in the number of visitors to the building, both during the day and at night, with the most traffic occurring on the weekends. Residents found hypodermic needles outside the building and in one of the shared bathrooms. Residents also frequently observed the Tripps letting visitors into the building; the visitors typically stayed at the rooming house for less than fifteen minutes. On multiple occasions, two prior residents of the rooming house received or purchased scheduled drugs from Amanda or Tripp.

[¶3] On the morning of April 17, 2021, Tripp called 9-1-1 to report that a person was unconscious in one of the shared bath- rooms of the rooming house. Soon thereafter, the Bangor Fire Department arrived on the scene, and Tripp let them into the rooming house and then directed them upstairs. Once the Bangor Fire Department was upstairs, the Tripps went into their room, denied knowing the person, and refused to answer the paramedic’s questions about the person. The paramedics found the person in the shared bathroom with his head under the sink and his feet extending into the hallway, unconscious, not breathing, and without a pulse. Because the person’s core body temperature was still warm, the paramedics attempted to revive him. After their attempts to revive the person failed, the paramedics pronounced him dead. The decedent’s cause of death was later determined to be acute intoxication from the combined effects of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, ethanol, methylphenidate, sertraline, hydroxyzine, alprazolam, clonazepam, and buprenorphine.

[¶4] Bangor Police arrived on the scene while the paramedics were still treating the decedent, Tripp exited his room after a police officer knocked, and he was arrested under an outstanding warrant. Because Tripp appeared intoxicated, he was transported to the hospital. At the hospital, he was questioned by a police officer. Tripp disclosed the decedent’s first name to the officer and said that the decedent had been in Tripp’s room on a few occasions.

[¶5] While executing a search warrant for Tripp’s room, the police seized a handgun with ammunition; approximately twenty-two grams of a fentanyl-heroin blend; thirty grams of cocaine; three grams of methamphetamine; various drug paraphernalia, including previously used Narcan packaging and hypodermic needles; and baggies with powdery substances in them, The police also seized Amanda’s phone, which contained several text messages regarding drug transactions that either were intended for Tripp or referenced Tripp. In addition, while Tripp was being admitted to the hospital, the police seized $1,138 in cash and an unknown number of small bags of cocaine from Tripp’s person.

B. Procedural History

[¶6] The State charged Tripp by complaint on April 20, 2021, with various offenses, and a grand jury indicted him on July 30, 2021. The State later filed two superseding indictments, one on September 29, 2021, and the other on November 24, 2021. The last indictment charged Tripp with one count of aggravated trafficking of a scheduled drug that in fact caused the death of a person (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 1105-A(1)(K) (2023); three counts of aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs: fentanyl powder, cocaine, and methamphetamine (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 1105-A(1)(B)(1), (M) (2023); one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person (Class C), 15 M.R.S. § 393(1)(A-1)(1) (2023); and two counts of criminal forfeiture, 15 M.R.S. § 5826 (2023).¹

1. Motion to Dismiss

[¶7] Tripp filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on September 24, 2021, and the trial court (A. Murray, J.) held a hearing on October 20, 2021. In his motion, Tripp argued that 17-A M.R.S. § 1111-B (2021)² barred prosecution of the State’s aggravated trafficking charges. Specifically, Tripp argued that the aggravated trafficking charges were "possession-based conduct," and therefore he was immune from prosecution under section 1111-B, because the indictment based the charges only on the quantity of drugs seized and did not allege that he manufactured, transferred, or sold any scheduled drugs, The trial court denied Tripp’s motion to dismiss on November 1, 2021, and reasoned,

The exemption from criminal liability statute clearly identifies the four crimes for which a defendant may not be prosecuted if the grounds for the charge were obtained as a result of the person seeking medical assistance. The legislature did not include [a]ggravated [t]rafficking or any drug trafficking charge in the statutory provision exempting a defendant from criminal liability. Nor did the legislature use any broad language about possession of drugs in the [e]xemption from criminal liability statute.

2. Jury Trial

[¶8] The trial court (Anderson, J.) conducted a jury trial on April 13-15 and 19-21, 2022. During its opening statement, the State commented on the events that occurred prior to Tripp calling 9-1-1, as well as Tripp’s decision to enter his room and his refusal to answer the paramedics’ questions.³ During closing argument, the State again commented on Tripp’s refusal to answer the paramedics’ questions.⁴ At a later stage of the State’s argument, the trial court sustained Tripp’s objection to the prosecution’s comment, "And I’m going to ask you, when you are deliberating, don’t compromise on [the decedent’s] life," and issued a curative instruction.⁵

[¶9] At the close of evidence on April 20, 2022, the trial court denied Tripp’s motion for a judgment of acquittal. The trial court proceeded to orally instruct the jurors and then gave the jurors a written version of its instructions. At one point during the oral jury instructions, the trial court stated that it was not reading aloud a portion of the instructions because the instructions were "exactly the same" as those it gave earlier for the other possession charges. The trial court, however, clarified that the jurors could read the skipped instructions later if they felt that they needed to do so. The oral and written instructions also referenced the attorneys’ explanations of the statutory terms "contributing factor" and "cause." In addition, the oral and written instructions directed the jurors to decide the aggravated trafficking charge first and only address lesser included offenses if necessary; to skip consideration of the charge of aggravated trafficking in fentanyl powder; and to decide the charge of trafficking in cocaine. The trial court later issued further instructions to the jury to clarify the order of the jury’s analysis.

[¶10] As to the count charging Tripp with trafficking in scheduled drugs that contributed to the death of the decedent, the jury returned a not guilty verdict, but the jury found Tripp guilty of the lesser included offense of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 1105-A(1)(M). The jury also found Tripp guilty of trafficking in fentanyl powder, cocaine, and methamphetamine, and of illegal possession of a firearm. The trial court separately found that the $1,138 seized from Tripp was subject to criminal forfeiture.

3. Sentencing

[¶11] The trial court held a sentencing hearing on July 18, 2022. With respect to the charge of aggravated trafficking in fentanyl, the trial court sentenced Tripp to incarceration for a term of twenty years with all but twelve years suspended and four years of probation. The trial court sentenced Tripp to incarceration for terms of twelve years each for the charges of aggravated trafficking in cocaine and methamphetamine, for a term of ten years for the lesser included offense of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, and for a term of three years for illegal possession of a firearm, with each sentence to run concurrently with his twenty-year sentence for aggravated trafficking in fentanyl powder. Tripp timely appealed. M.R. App. P. 2B(b)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

A. Title 17-A M.R.S. § 1111-B (2023) does not retroactively apply and the appropriate version of the immunity statute to be applied in this case is 17-A M.R.S. § 1111-B (2021), which was the version of the statute in effect at the time that Tripp’s crimes were committed.

[¶12] Tripp argues that 17-A M.R.S. § 1111-B (2023) should retroactively apply to this case—rather than 17-A M.R.S. § 1111-B (2021) applying—and that the more recently amended...