A man found guilty of assaulting a Pittsfield police officer during a traffic stop in 2022 will get a new trial after Maine’s highest court overturned his conviction due to issues with how a judge instructed the jury.
In a decision issued Thursday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court threw out the conviction of Michael Kilgore, 49, for assault on an officer, a Class C offense.
In doing so, the panel of justices also vacated Kilgore’s sentence of 42 months in prison, with all but nine months suspended, and two years of probation.
A Somerset County jury, which found Kilgore not guilty of several other counts following a two-day trial in Skowhegan in June 2024, also found Kilgore guilty of a lesser charge of Class D assault. That conviction was merged with the assault on an officer conviction, so it was effectively overturned in the high court’s decision, too.
His sentence was stayed, pending appeal.
District Attorney Maeghan Maloney, the top prosecutor for Kennebec and Somerset counties, said via text message she was busy in court Monday and could not answer whether her office intends to proceed with a new trial.
The Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the law court, took issue with District Court Judge Andrew Benson’s instructions to the jury.
The panel of justices ruled that while Benson explained to the jury the elements that prosecutors had to prove for the jury to return a guilty verdict, he did not inform the jury that prosecutors had to disprove the existence of three possible justification defenses for Kilgore’s actions — self-defense, competing harms and duress — in the evidence presented.
Benson also “failed to advise the jury to acquit Kilgore if the state did not disprove the existence of the defenses of duress and competing harms beyond a reasonable doubt,” Associate Justice Andrew M. Horton wrote in the court’s decision.
Such instructions are necessary based on case law from 2015, according to the court’s decision.
Kilgore’s appellate attorney, Scott Hess, who has an Augusta law firm, raised additional issues on appeal that the court did not analyze in its decision.
Kilgore, who had addresses previously listed in Newport and Norridgewock, was arrested Sept. 30, 2022, according to court records.
Officer Chelsea Merry, formerly of the Pittsfield Police Department, stopped Kilgore after seeing his vehicle speeding on Phillips Corner Road.
At one point during the stop, while Merry was standing next to the vehicle, Kilgore drove away and ran over her foot. Merry got back in her cruiser, pursued Kilgore and stopped him again.
When Kilgore refused to get out of the vehicle, Merry reached inside, and Kilgore then trapped Merry’s arms in his window while starting to drive multiple times. Merry was ultimately able to free herself.
She pursued Kilgore again, at speeds exceeding 100 mph, before calling off the chase. Merry later saw Kilgore’s vehicle in the area, and the two had a physical altercation as she tried to arrest him.
On the most severe count, Class B aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon, the jury found Kilgore guilty of a lesser included offense of misdemeanor assault.
The jury found Kilgore not guilty of Class C eluding an officer, Class E driving to endanger, Class E criminal speed, Class E refusing to submit to arrest and Class E failure to sign violation summons and complaint.
At sentencing in July 2024, Judge Benson and Kilgore’s trial attorney, Darrick Banda, of the Augusta law firm Bourget & Banda, disagreed over how to make sense of the split jury verdict.
Banda argued the assault for which the jury found Kilgore guilty was when he tried to push Merry’s arms away from him while she reached into his vehicle.
But Benson determined the assault was when Kilgore ran over Merry’s foot — citing elements of his jury instructions, now deemed insufficient.
During the hearing, Benson called the case “strange” and characterized Kilgore’s conduct as “outrageous.”
The injuries Merry suffered in the incident ultimately ended her law enforcement career, according to prosecutors. As of last year’s sentencing, Merry reported still feeling pain and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Legally, I could have killed him,” Merry said in a sharply worded impact statement she read during Kilgore’s sentencing. “But, instead, I managed to arrest him.”
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