MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions Decision: 2026 ME 92
Docket: And-24-525
Argued: April 7, 2026
Decided: August 25, 2026
Panel: STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ.
STATE OF MAINE
v.
ROBERT J. HART
STANFILL, C.J.
[¶1] Robert J. Hart appeals from a judgment of conviction of tampering
with a victim (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 454(1-B)(A)(2) (2022); domestic violence
criminal threatening with a prior conviction for domestic violence (Class C),
17-A M.R.S. § 209-A(1)(B)(1) (2022); and possession of cocaine base (Class C),
17-A M.R.S. § 1107-A(1)(B)(3) (2022), 1 entered by the trial court
(Androscoggin County, Archer, J.) after a conditional guilty plea. Hart, through
counsel, argues that the trial court erred in denying his motions to dismiss the
superseding indictment for prosecutorial vindictiveness and to suppress
1 Several of the statutory provisions relevant to this appeal have been amended since Hart committed the offenses on November 6, 2022. We cite the 2022 Maine Revised Statutes throughout this opinion as the applicable version. See State v. Shepley, 2003 ME 70, ¶ 10, 822 A.2d 1147 (explaining that “[a] wrongdoer must be punished pursuant to the law in effect at the time of the offense” (quotation marks omitted)).
2
certain statements he made without any Miranda warnings. Hart personally
raises several additional claims of error. Discerning no error, we affirm the
judgment.
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] Because Hart pleaded guilty, we draw the following facts from the
record and the State’s recitation of the factual basis for the charges against him.
See, e.g., State v. Butterfield, 2025 ME 57, ¶ 2, 339 A.3d 808.
[¶3] In the early hours of November 6, 2022, the victim, Hart’s former
partner, called 9-1-1 to report that Hart had threatened to kill her and was
banging on the door to her hotel room. A few minutes later, police officers
found Hart in the parking lot of a nearby Walmart. While speaking to the
officers, Hart sent the victim a series of Facebook messages imploring her to,
among other things, tell the police that she had overreacted. The interaction in
the parking lot was recorded by the officers’ body-worn cameras.
[¶4] Hart was arrested and transported to the Androscoggin County Jail.
While Hart was being processed, jail officials found a baggie between his
buttocks that contained various drugs, including several grams of cocaine base.
3
[¶5] On November 7, 2022, the State filed a seven-count complaint
against Hart, and in January 2023, an Androscoggin County Grand Jury returned
an indictment charging Hart with the following seven counts:
• Count 1: tampering with a victim (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 454(1-B)(A)(2);
• Count 2: domestic violence aggravated assault (Class B), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 208-D(1)(D) (2022);
• Count 3: domestic violence assault (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 207-A(1)(B)(1) (2022);
• Count 4: domestic violence terrorizing (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§§ 210-B(1)(A), 1604(5)(B) (2022);
• Count 5: possession of methamphetamine (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 1107-A(1)(B)(7);
• Count 6: possession of cocaine base (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 1107-A(1)(B)(3);
• Count 7: possession of cocaine (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 1107-A(1)(C).
Hart pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in February 2023.
[¶6] Hart moved to suppress statements he made to law enforcement,
the drugs found on him at the county jail, and evidence obtained from his
cellphone. At the motion hearing in July 2023, the State agreed to exclude from
its case-in-chief all statements that Hart made to law enforcement after the first
twelve minutes and five seconds of their interaction in the parking lot. The
State also agreed to exclude all evidence from Hart’s cellphone. Following the 4
hearing, the court (Stewart, J.) denied Hart’s motions “[e]xcept to the extent that
[they had] been partially granted by the State’s conceding.”
[¶7] With trial set to begin on January 22, 2024, the parties selected a
jury on January 4, but the panel was not administered the trial oath at that
time.2 See 15 M.R.S. § 1254 (2022) (juror’s oath or affirmation).
[¶8] The trial was continued from January 22 because Hart’s attorney
became ill. The following week, the State informed Hart and the court that it
intended to obtain a superseding indictment because it had recently learned
that the assault alleged in Counts 2 and 3 occurred outside of Androscoggin
County. See 15 M.R.S. § 1255-A (2022); State v. Coffill, 2026 ME 18, ¶¶ 14-15 &
n.5, 354 A.3d 355.
[¶9] On February 6, 2024, the State filed a superseding Androscoggin
County indictment charging Hart with the following:
• Count 1: tampering with a victim (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 454(1-B)(A)(2);
• Count 2: tampering with a victim (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 454(1-B)(A)(1);
• Count 3: domestic violence criminal threatening (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 209-A(1)(B)(1);
• Count 4: possession of methamphetamine (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 1107-A(1)(B)(7);
2 Because the jury was not sworn, jeopardy did not attach. See, e.g., State v. Shirey, 2020 ME 136,
¶ 7, 242 A.3d 1103; Martinez v. Illinois, 572 U.S. 833, 839 (2014).
5
• Count 5: possession of cocaine base (Class C), 17-A M.R.S.
§ 1107-A(1)(B)(3);
• Count 6: possession of cocaine (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 1107-A(1)(C).
The superseding indictment no longer charged Hart with domestic violence
aggravated assault or domestic violence assault. It contained a charge of
domestic violence threatening instead of domestic violence terrorizing, and it
added a second, alternative charge of tampering with a victim.
[¶10] In March 2024, Hart filed two motions to dismiss the superseding
indictment. One of the motions claimed a violation of Hart’s right against
double jeopardy, and the other alleged prosecutorial vindictiveness in the
State’s decision to obtain the superseding indictment. Hart also requested
discovery and an evidentiary hearing on the claim of prosecutorial
vindictiveness. After a hearing, the court (Archer, J.) denied Hart’s requests for
discovery and an evidentiary hearing and each of his motions to dismiss.
[¶11] On October 9, 2024, Hart entered a conditional plea of guilty, with
the State’s agreement, to Counts 1, 3, and 5 of the superseding indictment. See
M.R.U. Crim. P. 11(a)(2), 11A. The plea preserved Hart’s right to appeal the
denial of his motions to suppress and to dismiss the superseding indictment.
The State dismissed the remaining charges in exchange for the plea. The court
accepted Hart’s plea, sentenced him in accordance with the parties’ agreement, 6
and entered judgment accordingly. 3 Hart timely appealed. See M.R. App. P.
2B(b)(1).
II. DISCUSSION
[¶12] Hart, through counsel, raises two claims of error. With our
permission, Hart also personally filed a separate supplemental brief asserting
several claims beyond those raised by counsel. We address each argument.
A. Vindictive Prosecution
[¶13] Hart first claims that the court erred in denying his motion to
dismiss the superseding indictment for prosecutorial vindictiveness.
Specifically, he argues that the State’s filing of the superseding indictment was
presumptively vindictive because it followed his exercise of “numerous”
pretrial rights, occurred “late in the game” after a jury had been selected, and
increased the severity of the charges against him.4 Because those
3 On Count 1, the court sentenced Hart to ten years of incarceration, all suspended, and three
years of probation. On each of Counts 2 and 3, Hart was sentenced to twenty-seven months of incarceration. The sentence on Count 1 runs consecutively to Hart’s sentence in a Penobscot County case (for which he was on probation when he committed the offenses in this case), while the sentences on Counts 2 and 3 run concurrently with one another and with the Penobscot sentence. The court also imposed a $400 fine.
4Hart’s supplemental brief lists a series of grievances with the State’s conduct in this case. Because none of them suggest that the State obtained the superseding indictment to retaliate against Hart for exercising a legal right, they do not affect our analysis of his prosecutorial-vindictiveness claim. See, e.g., United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 381-84 (1982); United States v. Bout, 731 F.3d 233, 239 (2d Cir. 2013) (explaining that a prosecutor’s “enthusiastic or energetic pursuit” of a criminal suspect “does not demonstrate vindictive, or even inappropriate, government conduct”).
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circumstances did not give rise to a reasonable likelihood of prosecutorial
vindictiveness, we conclude that the trial court properly declined to presume
any prosecutorial vindictiveness and thus did not err by denying Hart’s motion
to dismiss.
[¶14] The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits
the government from acting “vindictively” by punishing a criminal defendant
for exercising a legal right.5 See e.g., North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711,
723-25 (1969) (“Due process of law . . . requires that vindictiveness against a
defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part
in the sentence he receives after a new trial.”), overruled in part on other
grounds by, Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794, 802-03 (1989); Blackledge v. Perry,
417 U.S. 21, 24-29 (1974) (holding that when state law permits a misdemeanor
defendant to have a trial de novo in a court of general jurisdiction, a prosecutor
may not punish the defendant for exercising that right by “substituting a more
serious charge for the original one”).
5 Because Hart has not developed any vindictive-prosecution arguments under the Maine Constitution, this opinion addresses only the U.S. Constitution. See, e.g., State v. Ellis, 2025 ME 56, ¶ 7 n.3, 339 A.3d 794; cf. State v. Violette, 576 A.2d 1359, 1360-61 (Me. 1990) (addressing a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness under the state constitution); Thomas C. Bradley, Note, State v. Violette: Harsher Resentencing Encounters a Bolder Presumption of Vindictiveness, 43 Me. L. Rev. 523, 530-43 (1991) (discussing Violette).
8
[¶15] Because motives are “complex and difficult to prove,” the U.S.
Supreme Court has held that courts should apply a rebuttable presumption of
vindictiveness when “action detrimental to the defendant has been taken after
the exercise of a legal right” and the circumstances are such that “a reasonable
likelihood of vindictiveness exists.”6 United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 373
(1982); see Pearce, 395 U.S. at 725-26, overruled in part by, Smith, 490 U.S. at
802-03; Blackledge, 417 U.S. at 25-28. When a presumption of vindictiveness
is triggered, the government may rebut the presumption by pointing to
“objective information” that justifies its action. Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 374; see,
e.g., United States v. Villa, 70 F.4th 704, 710 (4th Cir. 2023); United States v.
Jenkins, 537 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2008).
6 Hart, quoting the First Circuit’s decision in United States v. Peterson, 233 F.3d 101, 105 (1st Cir. 2000), asserts that a presumption of vindictiveness arises when a defendant “rais[es] a reasonable doubt about the propriety of the prosecution’s motive.” But the Peterson decision concerned a claim of selective prosecution, not prosecutorial vindictiveness. Id. (citing United States v. Gary, 74 F.3d 304, 313 (1st Cir. 1996)). The First Circuit’s vindictive-prosecution decisions indicate that it, like the other federal courts of appeals, requires a defendant to show a “reasonable” or “realistic” likelihood of vindictiveness. E.g., United States v. Rolfsema, 468 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir. 2006); United States v. Ward, 732 F.3d 175, 184 (3d Cir. 2013); United States v. Villa, 70 F.4th 704, 710 (4th Cir. 2023); United States v. Cluff, 857 F.3d 292, 302 (5th Cir. 2017); United States v. Robinson, 809 F.3d 991, 1000-01 (8th Cir. 2016); United States v. Meadows, 867 F.3d 1305, 1311 (D.C. Cir. 2017). In any event, “[w]e are not required to follow any lower federal court decision,” Nadeau v. Twin Rivers Paper Co., 2021 ME 16, ¶ 35, 247 A.3d 717, and we independently conclude that the reasonable-likelihood standard best reflects the Supreme Court’s decision in Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 373-75, 384.
Hart also suggests that he was entitled to discovery and an evidentiary hearing regarding prosecutorial vindictiveness because he “c[a]me forth with ‘some’ objective evidence tending to show the existence of prosecutorial vindictiveness.” United States v. Bucci, 582 F.3d 108, 113 (1st Cir. 2009). Because the facts of this case do not suggest any possibility of prosecutorial vindictiveness, see infra ¶¶ 17-20, the court did not err by denying Hart’s evidentiary requests, see Bucci, 582 F.3d at 113-14.
9
[¶16] In Goodwin, the Supreme Court drew a distinction between claims
of vindictiveness that arise before trial and those that arise after trial and
explained that a presumption of vindictiveness will rarely be appropriate in the
pretrial context. Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 372-84; see also Bordenkircher v. Hayes,
434 U.S. 357, 362-65 (1978) (explaining that when a prosecutor “openly
presented the defendant with the unpleasant alternatives of forgoing trial or
facing charges on which he was plainly subject to prosecution,” there was no
due process violation). Before a trial, the prosecutor’s “assessment of the
proper extent of prosecution may not have crystallized,” and in preparing for
trial, “the prosecutor may uncover additional information that suggests a basis
for further prosecution or he simply may come to realize that information
possessed by the State has a broader significance.” Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 381.
Moreover, “a defendant before trial is expected to invoke procedural rights that
inevitably impose some ‘burden’ on the prosecutor”—such as motions to
suppress evidence, to dismiss an indictment, and to be tried by a jury—and “[i]t
is unrealistic to assume that a prosecutor’s probable response to such motions
is to seek to penalize and to deter.” Id. Accordingly, “a change in [a] charging
decision made after an initial trial is completed is much more likely to be
improperly motivated than is a pretrial decision.” Id. (emphasis added).
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[¶17] The Court in Goodwin held that a presumption of vindictiveness
did not arise when a defendant who had been charged with misdemeanor
offenses asserted his right to a jury trial and the prosecutor then filed a
superseding indictment charging him with a felony. See id. at 370-71, 382-84.
“The timing of the indictment alone . . . is insufficient” and “vindictiveness
cannot be inferred simply because the prosecutor’s actions followed the
exercise of a right.” United States v. Brown, 875 F.3d 1235, 1240 (9th Cir. 2017)
(quotation marks omitted). Instead, a defendant seeking to establish a
reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness in the pretrial context “must point to
‘something more’ than an increase in charges that followed the exercise of his
constitutional or statutory rights.” United States v. Allgood, 610 F. Supp. 3d 239,
249 (D.D.C. 2022) (quoting United States v. Meadows, 867 F.3d 1305, 1313 (D.C.
Cir. 2017)); accord, e.g., United States v. Falcon, 347 F.3d 1000, 1005 (7th Cir.
2003) (“When the government brings additional charges before trial, but after
the defendant exercises a procedural right, evidence of suspicious timing alone
does not indicate prosecutorial animus.”); United States v. Barner, 441 F.3d
1310, 1316 (11th Cir. 2006).
[¶18] Contrary to Hart’s arguments, the circumstances here do not
suggest any likelihood of pretrial prosecutorial vindictiveness. Hart did not
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exercise any rights that would have been likely to prompt retaliation from the
State. Although Hart filed a variety of motions in advance of the scheduled trial,
each of them was a ‘routine’ pretrial motion of the kind described in Goodwin,
and Hart has not provided any reason why the State would have responded to
those motions by “seek[ing] to penalize and to deter.” Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 381.
Moreover, although the State obtained the superseding indictment after Hart
had exercised some pretrial rights, nothing suggests that the State obtained the
indictment because Hart had exercised those rights. See, e.g., Falcon, 347 F.3d
at 1005 (reiterating that in the pretrial context, “suspicious timing alone does
not indicate prosecutorial animus”). In other words, Hart has identified no
more than an “increase in charges that followed the exercise of his
constitutional or statutory rights,”7 and the trial court properly concluded that
there was not a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness. Allgood, 610 F. Supp.
3d at 249; see Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 381-84.
[¶19] Hart argues that Goodwin and its progeny are distinguishable
because here the jury had been selected and the trial was just days away when
7 Moreover, it is not clear that there was in fact an “increase in charges.” The superseding indictment omitted two charges that were in the original indictment, a Class B domestic violence aggravated assault and a Class C domestic violence assault. Although a Class B victim tampering charge was added, it apparently charged the same act of tampering with a victim under an alternative theory.
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the State obtained the superseding indictment, and therefore the State’s action
was not truly pretrial. This distinction, however, does not make a meaningful
difference. Although the Goodwin Court referred to “pretrial” action, the
distinction it drew was between pre- and post-conviction claims of
vindictiveness. See Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 373-82. The Court emphasized that a
defendant’s exercise of a pretrial right—as opposed to a postconviction right—
neither “require[s] duplicative expenditures of prosecutorial resources” nor
asks any party “to do over what it thought it had already done correctly.” Id. at
383 (quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 378 (“[T]he due process violation
in Pearce and Blackledge lay not in the possibility that a defendant might be
deterred from the exercise of a legal right but rather in the danger that the State
might be retaliating against the accused for lawfully attacking his conviction.”
(alteration and quotation marks omitted)). Thus, although the State’s action
here came later than the prosecutor’s action in Goodwin, the Court’s rationale
in Goodwin applies with equal force here. 8
8 Hart cites two cases for the proposition that late timing is “objectively indicative of vindictiveness.” See United States v. Johnson, 299 F. Supp. 3d 909, 918 (M.D. Tenn. 2018); Hampton v. Dist. Ct., 605 P.2d 54, 57 (Colo. 1980). Neither of those cases supports Hart’s position. In Johnson, although the court described the timing of a late-filed superseding indictment as “a bit suspect” in light of specific past history, the court did not apply a presumption because there was nothing—other than the timing—to suggest vindictiveness. Johnson, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 918-20. In Hampton, the court explained that in the circumstances of that case, the prosecutor’s addition of new charges immediately before trial appeared to be a “last minute ploy to circumvent the requirements of the speedy trial provisions,” and that the defendant had thus established a “prima facie case of prosecutorial bad faith.” Hampton, 605 P.2d at 57. But the court made that determination in the
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[¶20] The trial court determined that the circumstances here did not
“establish a sufficient likelihood of vindictiveness to warrant imposition of [a]
presumption.” (Quotation marks omitted.) We agree. Reviewing the court’s
legal determinations de novo, see, e.g., State v. Felch, 2007 ME 88, ¶ 9, 928 A.2d
1252, we conclude that the court did not err by declining to apply a
presumption of vindictiveness or by denying Hart’s motion to dismiss.9 See,
e.g., Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 380-84; Villa, 70 F.4th at 710-13; Barner, 441 F.3d at
1315-21; Falcon, 347 F.3d at 1004-06.
B. Hart’s Statements to Jail Officials
[¶21] Hart also argues that the court erred by “apparently denying [his]
motion to suppress [his] statements to jail officials that were made without
context of a speedy trial claim—i.e., a claim that the defendant had forfeited his right to a speedy trial only because of bad-faith conduct on the part of the prosecutor—not a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness. See id. at 56-57.
9 Moreover, as the trial court explained, “[e]ven if [Hart] had triggered [a] presumption, . . . the
State has rebutted the presumption by showing objective reasons for its actions and the charges.” The court noted that the State had learned only shortly before obtaining the superseding indictment that it could not have sustained Counts 2 and 3 of the original indictment because the alleged assault occurred outside of Androscoggin County. See supra ¶¶ 8-9. The court further explained that the State had added the domestic violence threatening charge to the superseding indictment and removed the domestic violence terrorizing charge from the original indictment because recent decisions by this Court and the U.S. Supreme Court had rendered the latter charge constitutionally suspect. See State v. Labbe, 2024 ME 15, ¶ 57 n.24, 314 A.3d 162; Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, 72-82 (2023). Thus, even if Hart had pointed to circumstances that reflected a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness in the State’s decision to obtain the superseding indictment, there was “objective information” in the record justifying the State’s action. See, e.g., Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 374; United States v. Santana, 352 F. App’x 867, 871 (4th Cir. 2009).
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Miranda warnings.” The State asserts that all of those statements were in fact
suppressed and that Hart’s claim is misplaced. We agree with the State.
[¶22] At the hearing on Hart’s motions to suppress, the State conceded
that “after the 12 minute and 5 second mark [of the body-worn-camera
footage], any subsequent conversations with law enforcement . . . should be
excluded from the State’s case-in-chief.” The court, both at the hearing and in
its written order, denied Hart’s motions “[e]xcept to the extent that [they had]
been partially granted by the State’s conceding.” All of Hart’s statements to the
jail officials occurred well after the twelve-minute mark of the footage and were
thus included in the State’s concession. 10 Because those statements were
suppressed, there was no error.
C. Hart’s Additional Arguments
[¶23] Hart personally argues that the superseding indictment should
have been dismissed as violating his right against double jeopardy. The federal
double jeopardy clause prohibits multiple punishments for the same offense,
but it permits the State to “charge[] multiple counts as alternative theories for
10Hart seems to argue that the court “apparently” did not suppress his statements to the jail officials because the State briefly referenced some of those statements in its recitation of the factual basis for the charges against him. See M.R.U. Crim. P. 11(e). Nothing the State said at the Rule 11 hearing altered the court’s ruling on the suppression motion, and Hart makes no suggestion that the State’s references rendered his plea invalid or otherwise caused him prejudice.
15
the same criminal act” as long as any multiplicitous counts are merged before
judgment is entered. State v. Hayward, 2017 ME 33, ¶ 16, 156 A.3d 734; accord
State v. Armstrong, 2020 ME 97, ¶¶ 7-11 & n.2, 237 A.3d 185. Thus, even
assuming that Hart could not have been convicted of both tampering charges in
the superseding indictment, but see State v. Ali, 2025 ME 30, ¶¶ 17-24, 334 A.3d
657, there would have been no basis to dismiss the indictment.
[¶24] Hart also argues that the court erred in failing to suppress certain
statements that he made in the parking lot after the police asked him to get out
of his car. Because the evidence in the record at the suppression hearing
supported the court’s determination that Hart was not “in custody” at that time,
we discern no error in the court’s partial denial of Hart’s motion to suppress.
See, e.g., State v. Farley, 2024 ME 52, ¶¶ 21-23 & n.20, 319 A.3d 1080; State v.
Perry, 2017 ME 74, ¶ 16, 159 A.3d 840; United States v. Turner,
No. 18-CR-00176, 2019 WL 2870802, at *2, 5-6 (D. Me. July 3, 2019) (Levy, C.J.)
(concluding that “merely asking the [d]efendants to exit their vehicle did not
automatically render them ‘in custody’ for purposes of Miranda” and that the
defendants, despite having been patted down and questioned, “were not in
custody before they were handcuffed and arrested”).
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The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Rory A. McNamara, Esq. (orally), Drake Law LLC, York, for appellant Robert J.
Hart
Neil E. McLean Jr., District Attorney, and Katherine M. Hudson-MacRae, Asst.
Dist. Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District III, Lewiston, for appellee State of Maine
Androscoggin County Unified Criminal Docket docket number CR-2022-2559
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY