State of New Hampshire v. Mitchell Tennison

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case No. 2022-0711, State of New Hampshire v. Mitchell
Tennison, the court on June 28, 2024, issued the following
order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, and has determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See
Sup. Ct. R. 20(2). The defendant, Mitchell Tennison, appeals his convictions,
following a jury trial in the Superior Court (Schulman, J.), on charges of second
degree assault-domestic violence, see RSA 631:2, I(f) (Supp. 2023), simple
assault-domestic violence, see RSA 631:2-b, I(a) (2016), violating protective
orders, see RSA 173-B:9 (2022), and obstructing the report of a crime or injury,
see RSA 642:10 (2016). The defendant argues that the trial court erred in
failing to strike testimony that he assaulted the victim on a previous occasion.
We affirm.

We review the trial court’s evidentiary rulings for an unsustainable
exercise of discretion and reverse only if the court’s decision was clearly
untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of the defendant’s case. State v.
Clark, 174 N.H. 586, 589 (2021). We consider whether the record establishes
an objective basis sufficient to sustain the discretionary decision made. Id.
The defendant bears the burden of demonstrating that the trial court’s ruling
was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the prejudice of his case. Id.

The defendant argues that the trial court erred in failing to strike
testimony that he assaulted the victim on a previous occasion. The witness
testified that he did not begin an intimate relationship with the victim until
about three months after the victim separated from the defendant. Defense
counsel, seeking clarification, asked the witness if his intimate relationship
with the victim began three months after she and the defendant moved out of
the defendant’s mother’s house. The witness testified that the defendant
moved twice, once when he and the victim moved out of his mother’s house
together, and once from the house that he and the victim had moved into,
when the victim “kicked him out of the house” because “he had beaten her.”
Defense counsel moved to strike “the last three or four words” as “gratuitous
and not responsive.” The trial court ruled that the testimony was “pretty much
responsive,” and that the witness “can explain his answer.”

The defendant argues that the witness’s answer was non-responsive
because he was seeking only to establish when he and the victim began an
intimate relationship, and not why the victim and the defendant separated.
Even if the trial court had erred in its ruling, we conclude that any error would
have been harmless. See State v. Boudreau, 175 N.H. 806, 816-17 (2023)
(identifying non-exhaustive list of factors for determining whether an error
affected the verdict). The witness did not testify that he observed the conduct
that caused the victim to “kick [the defendant] out of the house,” and there was
no other evidence that such conduct occurred. By contrast, there was strong
evidence of the defendant’s guilt relating to the charged conduct. Accordingly,
we conclude that the error, if any, did not affect the verdict. See id.

Affirmed.

MacDonald, C.J., and Bassett, Donovan, and Countway, JJ., concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk

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