State v. Boilard: Are Jury Instructions on Statutory Defenses Essential to a Fair Trial?

In State v. Boilard, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, recently addressed the question of when the failure to instruct the jury regarding a defense available under the Maine Criminal Code constitutes error. The court held that the trial court's failure to give an instruction on the defense of justification did not rise to the level of obvious error. The court reasoned that because the instruction conflicted with the defendant's theory of defense, and because counsel for the defendant did not claim error at trial or on appeal, any argument that the defendant had been prejudiced by the omission of the justification instruction was waived. Because the court's reasoning is inconsistent with other decisions of the court that have required jury instructions on statutory defenses if the defense was generated by the evidence admitted at trial, this Note analyzes the rationale and result in Boilard in light of the legislative directive of section 101 of the Maine Criminal Code—which provides that the state must disprove the existence of a defense if evidence is admitted sufficient to place the existence of the defense in issue—and examines the impact of the standard of review articulated by the court in Boilard on the defendant's right to a fair trial.