## Facts

- Kenny L. Ouellette was charged with assault, reckless conduct, and criminal mischief arising from a roadside altercation with Mike Nadeau.
- Nadeau learned Ouellette had been driving with a 15-year-old girl known to Nadeau, called the girl’s phone, spoke with Ouellette, and threatened to find and hurt him.
- After Ouellette dropped the girl off and drove away, Nadeau turned around, followed closely, and both vehicles stopped at a red light.
- Nadeau and a passenger exited their truck and approached Ouellette’s vehicle.
- Feeling threatened, Ouellette exited holding a baseball bat, swung it, struck Nadeau’s wrist, and damaged Nadeau’s taillight, then drove away.
- Ouellette later reported the incident to police and asserted he acted in self-defense.
- Before trial, the State dismissed the criminal-mischief count after an out-of-court accord and satisfaction between Ouellette and Nadeau.
- At trial, the court instructed on self-defense for assault but told the jury self-defense was not available for reckless conduct and refused to inform the jury about the accord-and-satisfaction dismissal.
- The jury acquitted Ouellette of assault and convicted him of reckless conduct.

## Issues

1. Whether self-defense is legally available as a justification to a charge of reckless conduct under Maine law, and whether the trial court erred by instructing the jury it could not consider self-defense on that count.
2. Whether the trial court erred by excluding evidence that a related criminal-mischief count had been dismissed following an accord and satisfaction.

## Decision

- The Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated the reckless-conduct conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held the trial court erred by categorically precluding self-defense as a justification to reckless conduct.
- The court held the instructional error was not harmless because self-defense was the central defense and the verdict pattern (acquittal on assault, conviction on reckless conduct) showed a substantial likelihood the error affected the outcome.
- The court held the accord-and-satisfaction dismissal was not relevant to guilt on reckless conduct and was properly excluded.

## Legal Principles

- Maine justification defenses, including self-defense, are not limited to offenses requiring intentional or knowing conduct; they may apply to offenses defined by a reckless mental state.
- When evidence fairly generates self-defense, the jury must be instructed that it may consider the justification for each charge to which it can apply, including reckless conduct.
- An instructional error that removes a supported justification defense from the jury’s consideration is reversible when it likely affected the verdict.
- A dismissal of a separate charge by accord and satisfaction is not an adjudication on the merits and may be excluded as irrelevant where it risks confusing the jury about the elements of the charged offense.

## Conclusion

Because self-defense can legally justify reckless conduct and the evidence generated that defense, the instruction barring self-defense on the reckless-conduct count required vacatur and a new trial; the court separately approved exclusion of the accord-and-satisfaction dismissal as irrelevant to guilt on reckless conduct.


State v. Ouellette, 37 A.3d 921 (Me. 2012)