Maine’s high court upholds conviction of man who illegally killed 2nd deer

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s highest court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a man who illegally killed a second deer in 2019 and then claimed he faced a mistrial over evidence related to boot tracks in the snow.

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the $1,500 fine and three-day jail sentence given to Richard Peters after a Penobscot County jury found him guilty last year of violating several state laws, such as hunting a deer after having already killed one during the open season.

It was a more unusual case of hunting violations making it all the way to the top court in a state with rich sporting traditions after a years-long process that had an investigation, trial and appeal.

During the open deer hunting season in November 2019, a game warden went to Peters’ residence after receiving a call from a game registration station agent in Etna. The agent said Peters had registered a doe he killed and then returned two days later with a woman who was there to also register a buck she had purportedly killed.

But the woman gave the same phone number as Peters, and the agent “became suspicious when Peters did all the talking concerning the buck,” as the high court summarized in Tuesday’s opinion. Several wardens went to Peters’ home and noticed Peters and another man hanging a buck from the garage. Peters said the woman had shot it with a .30-06 rifle while they were together in the woods on the property.

When the wardens asked for explanation, Peters said he had “paunched” the deer by shooting it in the stomach, requiring him to chase it and then kill it with a neck shot. After one of the wardens pointed out Peters acknowledged shooting the buck and used the word “I” to say who killed it, Peters grew irritated and said he meant “we or them.”

The wardens examined various boot tracks, drag marks, ATV tracks, blood, deer tracks and a gut pile along a snowmobile trail on the property, and they discovered two bait sites — an apple pile and a foam fake tree stump containing bait, which was in front of a tree that had “a blood splatter and what appeared to be a bullet strike,” the justices wrote.

Wardens carried out a search warrant at Peters’ home and seized .30-06 and .300 caliber rifles, among other items. Peters was charged with hunting a deer after having killed one and unlawful possession of wild animals , with a jury finding him guilty of each count in May 2023. Peters was acquitted on two additional charges — exceeding the bag limit on deer and illegally baiting deer .

Peters was sentenced in Penobscot County to the minimum mandatory penalties: three days in jail, a $1,000 fine for the deer hunting violation and a $500 fine for the wild animal possession violation. Peters was allowed to serve the jail term through an alternative sentencing program.

But Peters appealed the sentencing decision after moving for a mistrial, arguing the court had prevented prosecutors from presenting evidence that would require expert testimony or show the size of boot tracks matched Peters’ rather than the woman’s foot size. Still, a warden under questioning from a prosecutor at one point said the woman had “relatively small feet.” The court responded by instructing the jury at Peters’ request to ignore inadmissible evidence references.

The Supreme Judicial Court said the lower court was not wrong to deny Peters’ mistrial motion because it had otherwise excluded evidence requiring expert testimony and gave the jury the instruction when requested by Peters.

Among other issues, the Supreme Judicial Court did side with Peters on a more technical claim. The trial court sought to require Peters to serve his three-day jail sentence in Penobscot County, but the high court essentially said it should have stuck with the original plan to let him report to an Androscoggin County sheriff’s alternative sentencing program following his appeal.