The lawyer for a New York man sentenced to seven years in prison for drug trafficking in Augusta told the state’s highest court that months of delays in providing information on the lead officer investigating his case should result in the conviction being overturned and charges dismissed.

Rory McNamara, representing Donte Johnson, argued during his client’s appeal before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month that state prosecutors and Augusta police waited six months to release records of Officer Sebastian Guptill’s reprimands, even after a judge ordered them to comply. That information should have automatically been turned over to the defense by prosecutors, he said, even before the judge’s later order, some two years before it finally was.

That delay meant that information was not available for court hearings that preceded his trial, he said, which could have been enough additional evidence to sway the judge to dismiss the case.

Johnson, 30, was arrested June 5, 2021, by Augusta police, the day after Guptill said Johnson fled from a vehicle Guptill pulled over on Bridge Street for having a plate light out. Johnson escaped after running through thick woods. Police later found a backpack containing what they described as a large amount of illegal drugs, cash and a cellphone.

The next morning Guptill, thinking the suspect would return for the backpack, staked out the area. Through binoculars he saw a Black man, wearing clothing similar to what the man who fled from him the night before was wearing. With guns drawn, police pulled over the vehicle Johnson was in — different from the vehicle pulled over the previous night — on busy Civic Center Drive, something McNamara said was unjustified and dangerous.

After Guptill said he recognized the man as the suspect from the previous night, he arrested Johnson on two counts of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, failure to provide correct name, refusing to submit to arrest and/or detention and criminal forfeiture.

At a Jan. 11, 2023 suppression hearing his first lawyer sought to have the stop of Johnson deemed unconstitutional. Guptill’s ability to identify Johnson was questioned after seeing a man only briefly the night of the first interaction, then from a long distance the next day. However, the judge found Guptill’s stop was reasonable and declined to ban evidence gained in the stop from trial.

Johnson’s defense lawyer, at the suggestion of another lawyer, sought Guptill’s record of reprimands by his Augusta police supervisors. Under court rules, prosecutors are required to share with defense attorneys information about a case that may be used in their defense.

A judge ordered prosecutors and police to release the records on Aug. 30, 2023. After waiting six months, Johnson’s attorney followed up with the court on March 1, 2024, saying the state had not complied and sought to have the case dismissed as a sanction for the state’s rules violations.

At a hearing three months later, according to court records, Augusta Deputy Chief Jesse Brann testified the department had received the discovery order Sept. 27, 2023. The request was sent to Augusta’s city attorney, who reviewed it and approved the release around Jan. 1, 2024. At the time, the officer in charge of uploading the material to the online system used by the Kennebec and Somerset County District Attorney’s Office to share information with defense attorneys was not included in the email chain and did not know to upload the materials.

In response to the motion for sanctions, the district attorney’s office contacted Augusta police to inquire about the materials. They were sent the next day.

While McNamara said the reprimand files of Guptill were sealed so he could not share them with a reporter, court testimony shed some light on what they contained. Testimony before the Law Court indicated some reprimands were for minor issues such as failing to put on his cruiser lights while stopped on the roadside. Guptill also was reprimanded by a supervisor after apparently entering a home to conduct a search of a suspect; it was the wrong home and not the address listed on court paperwork.

McNamara said if the information about Guptill’s reprimands been provided to the defense when it should have been, it could have been used to question Guptill’s credibility. And that could have supplemented the defense’s argument that the case should have been dismissed. McNamara urged the court to take action and overturn Johnson’s conviction as a sanction for the state violating discovery rules. He said the case is part of a larger trend of prosecutors not sharing information they should with defense lawyers.

“This court’s rules of procedure have been bent and bent again, so much they’re beginning to resemble mere suggestions,” McNamara said. “A line needs to be drawn, respectfully. Evidence of bias is always relevant. This is an indication where the officer is not upholding the Fourth Amendment.”

Instead of dismissing the case, a judge decided to sanction the state for the discovery violations by not allowing the state to use evidence from a cellphone found on Johnson and not allowing an eyewitness to testify.

Prosecutor Tyler LeClair, an assistant district attorney in Kennebec and Somerset counties, said those were significant and appropriate sanctions for what he acknowledged was a failure in providing the materials in a timely manner. He also said the state was not required to turn over the reprimand documents until it was ordered to do so by a judge.

“From the state’s perspective, six months to produce these records was far too long, and it was an appropriate sanction,” LeClair said.

McNamara argued that if the justices don’t agree to overturn Johnson’s conviction, they should at least order that he be resentenced. He said Superior Court Justice Daniel Mitchell, who sentenced Johnson, improperly cited the large amount of drugsJohnson was trafficking in two steps of the sentencing process, while it should have been considered only once.

Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill said the judge citing the quantity of drugs as an aggravating factor indicates he viewed it as so and that could have resulted in a longer sentence, noting, “even if it’s just one or two days difference, that’s still one or two days.”

The court has taken the case under advisement and will issue a written decision.