Background
Richard Trueman was convicted after a jury trial of selling fentanyl to a victim who later died from fentanyl toxicity. On the day of the overdose, the victim repeatedly contacted Trueman through Facebook Messenger, arranged to meet near Trueman’s home, and returned to his driver’s car about 20 minutes later. The victim then snorted a substance, became unresponsive, and died two days later. Police found fentanyl in the victim’s wallet.
Before trial, the superior court excluded Facebook communications suggesting that Trueman had sold drugs to people other than the victim, finding their probative value low and their risk of unfair propensity prejudice extremely high. During trial, defense counsel highlighted investigative steps police had not taken regarding the driver and the driver’s car. The court then allowed a detective to testify generally that Trueman’s Facebook account contained communications with third parties about drug quantities, prices, and exchanges, reasoning that the defense had opened the door by suggesting an inadequate investigation.
The Court’s Holding
The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed and remanded. It held that the trial court misapplied the specific-contradiction form of the opening-the-door doctrine because the defense’s statement and cross-examination accurately established that police had not taken certain investigative steps; they did not create a misleading advantage requiring correction.
The other-drug-sales evidence also did not show why police initially focused on Trueman because police did not obtain those communications until more than two months after the victim’s death. The State had other admissible evidence—the victim’s September 29 communications with Trueman—to explain that focus. The error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt: the proof that Trueman supplied the fentanyl was circumstantial, the other-sales evidence was highly prejudicial, and the limiting instruction did not cure the risk that jurors would treat Trueman as a drug dealer who likely sold to the victim. The court nevertheless held the evidence sufficient to permit retrial.
Key Takeaways
- Accurate criticism of unperformed investigative steps does not, by itself, open the door to otherwise inadmissible evidence.
- Specific contradiction permits remedial evidence only to counter a genuine misleading advantage, not to introduce prejudicial propensity evidence.
- Although the conviction was reversed for evidentiary error, the circumstantial evidence was legally sufficient to support a guilty verdict, so double jeopardy does not bar a new trial.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the narrow limits on using the opening-the-door doctrine to admit Rule 404(b) evidence. Prosecutors cannot respond to an investigation-focused defense by presenting unrelated alleged drug transactions when admissible evidence can explain investigators’ decisions.
For criminal practitioners, the case also underscores that sufficiency review and harmless-error review ask different questions. Evidence may be enough to support a conviction when viewed favorably to the State, yet not be overwhelming enough to render prejudicial evidentiary error harmless.