State of New Hampshire v. Armando Barron

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case Nos. 2022-0353 and 2022-0415, State of New
Hampshire v. Armando Barron, the court on April 2, 2025,
issued the following order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, has considered the oral arguments of the parties, and has
determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See Sup. Ct. R. 20(3). The
defendant, Armando Barron, appeals his convictions after a jury trial in
Superior Court (Leonard, J.) for, among other charges, first-degree murder.
See RSA 630:1-a, I(a) (2016). We affirm.

The jury could have found the following facts. Shortly after the
defendant’s wife (the Wife) told him that she wanted a divorce, the defendant
discovered that the Wife had been communicating with the victim. The
defendant then used the Wife’s phone to lure the victim to a park, where the
defendant assaulted and killed him.

The defendant then told the Wife to drive the victim’s car — with the
victim’s body in it — to a remote location in northern New Hampshire. The
defendant got in the car he had driven to the park and followed the Wife as she
drove north in the victim’s car.

The Wife called her employer and stated that she could no longer work
there. When the Wife’s co-worker told her that the victim was missing and
asked her if she had seen him, the Wife responded “no.” When the Wife
received text messages from co-workers asking if she knew where the victim
was, she responded that she “didn’t know.” The defendant departed, directing
the Wife to camp in the woods and dispose of the victim’s body. Two Fish and
Game officers encountered the Wife at the campsite, and informed her that it
was illegal to camp in that location. The Wife explained to the officers that she
had had a fight with a female friend and that she was “clearing [her] head.”
The officers brought the Wife to the police station. She subsequently told the
police about her involvement in the victim’s murder. Shortly thereafter, the
police apprehended the defendant.

The defendant was charged with, among other charges, first-degree
murder. See RSA 630:1-a, I(a). Prior to trial, the State submitted proposed
jury instructions, which included a false exculpatory statement instruction
regarding the defendant’s statements. The defendant objected, arguing that if
the trial court provided the requested instruction with regard to the defendant’s
statements, it should also “provide the jury with a similar instruction regarding
the statements of [the Wife].” The State additionally moved for in camera
review of the Wife’s Violence Risk Assessment, which was prepared as part of a
separate criminal proceeding against her. The trial court granted the State’s
motion for in camera review, reviewed the record, and declined to disclose any
part of it to the defendant. The defendant moved for reconsideration. The trial
court granted the defendant’s motion and disclosed a redacted version of the
record.

During jury selection the defendant moved to strike one of the potential
jurors for cause. The trial court denied the motion and sat the potential juror
as juror number 1. After a seven-day jury trial, the trial court gave the State’s
requested false exculpatory statement instruction with respect to the
defendant’s statements but not with respect to the Wife’s. The jury found the
defendant guilty of, among other charges, first-degree murder. See RSA 630:1-
a, I(a). Juror number 1 was one of the jurors who returned the guilty verdicts
against the defendant. This appeal followed.

The defendant raises three issues on appeal: (1) whether the trial court
erred when it denied the defendant’s motion to strike juror number 1 for cause;
(2) whether the trial court erred by giving a false exculpatory statement jury
instruction with respect to the defendant but not with respect to the Wife; and
(3) whether the trial court erred when it redacted portions of the Wife’s Violence
Risk Assessment prior to disclosing it to the defendant. We conclude that the
trial court did not err.

We review the challenged trial court rulings for an unsustainable
exercise of discretion. See, e.g., State v. Dana, 175 N.H. 27, 37 (2022); State v.
Soulia, 174 N.H. 225, 228, 239 (2021). An exercise of discretion is
unsustainable if it was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of
the defendant’s case. See Soulia, 174 N.H. at 228. With regard to the trial
court’s denial of the defendant’s for-cause challenge to juror number 1, we
additionally consider whether the trial court’s decision was against the weight
of the evidence. See id.

The defendant first argues that the trial court violated his right to a fair
and impartial jury under the State and Federal Constitutions and New
Hampshire law when it denied his motion to strike juror number 1 for cause.
N.H. CONST. pt. I, arts. 15, 21, 35; U.S. CONST. amend. VI, XIV; RSA 500-
A:12, II (2010). Specifically, the defendant asserts that the trial court’s
determination that juror number 1 was qualified — after juror number 1
refused to state during individual voir dire that, if she had a reasonable doubt
as to the defendant’s guilt, she would acquit — prejudiced his case. The State
counters that the trial court did not err when it declined to strike juror number
1 for cause because the juror provided adequate assurance to the trial court
that she could be fair and impartial. We agree with the State.

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 Juror number 1 did not demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to
apply the correct constitutional standard as set forth in the trial court’s jury
instructions, and therefore her disqualification was not required. See State v.
Cross, 128 N.H. 732, 737 (1986) (concluding that even when a prospective
juror states that a criminal defendant must prove his innocence it is not an
unsustainable exercise of discretion for the trial court to seat the juror if the
prospective juror states she will apply the trial court’s reasonable doubt
instruction). Although juror number 1 was initially unable to provide a
definitive response to defense counsel’s questions and seemed to
misunderstand the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, when the trial court
asked the juror if she would have any reservations about applying the
definition of reasonable doubt in the jury instructions, she responded “[n]o.”
We cannot say that the trial court unsustainably exercised its discretion when
it denied the defendant’s motion to strike and found juror number 1 qualified.
See Soulia, 174 N.H. at 228 (noting that trial court’s juror impartiality
determination is entitled to special deference).

The defendant next argues that the trial court erred when it gave a false
exculpatory statement jury instruction with respect to the defendant but not
with respect to the Wife. The defendant asserts that “[w]hen a trial court
makes multiple discretionary rulings, it is not enough that each ruling was not
‘clearly untenable or unreasonable’; viewed together, the rulings must be
evenhanded.” The defendant specifically points to the Wife’s false statements
that she did not know where the victim was and that she was in the woods
because she had had a fight with a female friend. We are not persuaded that
the trial court’s failure to give a false exculpatory statement instruction
regarding the Wife’s statements was error.

A false exculpatory evidence instruction “merely informs the jury that it
may infer consciousness of guilt from an exculpatory statement if, in the light
of other evidence produced at trial, the jury determines that the defendant
knew the statement was false when it was made.” State v. Fischer, 143 N.H.
311, 319 (1999) (quotation omitted)). The defendant has cited no binding
authority requiring that a trial court’s discretionary decision to give a false
exculpatory statement instruction be “evenhanded.” Nor have we held that it is
appropriate or necessary to give an exculpatory statement instruction for a
witness, and we are not persuaded that we should do so under these
circumstances. See State v. Evans, 150 N.H. 416, 418-19, 422 (2003)
(rejecting defendant’s argument that trial court should have applied the same
false exculpatory statement instruction regarding the defendant to one of the
witnesses, in part, because exculpatory statements of other witnesses
constitute a “theory of the case” on which the trial court is not required to
instruct). Accordingly, the trial court’s ruling was not an unsustainable
exercise of discretion. See Evans, 150 N.H. at 422-24.

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 Finally, the defendant asserts that the trial court may have erred when it
redacted portions of the Wife’s Violence Risk Assessment prior to disclosing it
to the defendant. We have reviewed the unredacted version of the records that
the defendant challenges and have concluded that they were neither material
nor relevant to the defendant’s case. See State v. Girard, 173 N.H. 619, 628-29
(2020). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court sustainably exercised its
discretion when it disclosed only a redacted version of the records to the
defendant. See id. at 627.

We have considered the defendant’s remaining arguments, and have
concluded that they do not warrant further discussion. See Vogel v. Vogel, 137
N.H. 321, 322 (1993). Accordingly, we affirm.

Affirmed.

BASSETT, DONOVAN, and COUNTWAY, JJ., concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk

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