PER CURIAM

[¶1] Bradley Williams appeals from a judgment of conviction of two counts of stalking (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 210-A(1)(A)(1) (2018), and two counts of harassment (Class E), 17-A M.R.S. § 506-A(1)(A) (2018), entered by the trial court (Waldo County, Billings, J.) after a jury trial. He challenges the fairness of the trial and argues1 that the court made two erroneous evidentiary

* Although not available at oral argument, Justice Gorman participated in the development of this opinion. See M.R. App. P. 12(a)(2) (“A qualified Justice may participate in a decision even though not present at oral argument.”). ** Although Justice Hjelm participated in the appeal, he retired before this opinion was certified. ^[1] Williams also argues that his standby counsel was constitutionally ineffective in failing to request a Title 15 examination to determine competency and in failing to make objections at trial. We decline to depart from the bright-line rule we have consistently applied for over two decades that we will not consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims on direct appeal. See Petgrave v. State, 2019 ME 72, ¶ 10, 208 A.3d 371; see also 15 M.R.S. §§ 2121-2132 (2018). 2 rulings and erred in denying his first motion for a judgment of acquittal, in amending the complaint sua sponte to conform to the evidence after his second motion for a judgment of acquittal, and in failing to give certain jury instructions. We affirm the judgment. I. BACKGROUND [¶2] When the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the jury rationally could have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Woodard, 2013 ME 36, ¶ 19, 68 A.3d 1250. Williams first met the victims—a married couple—shortly after they moved to Lincolnville in 2006, when he appeared at their home unsolicited and offered to clean their chimneys. The victims initially hired him, but his presence in their home made them uncomfortable, so they requested that he not return to complete the work. Williams showed up at the victims’ home uninvited at least one other time and was told to leave. Other than periodic, incidental interactions, the victims had no further significant contact with Williams until August 2014, when he appeared uninvited at a private sale at the victims’ store. The victims repeatedly asked him to leave them alone. [¶3] In August or early September 2014, Williams sent a letter to the victims’ home describing a “series of three visions” about one of the victims, including one in which he “witnessed [her] death” and another in which he “saw [her] after [her] death.” The victims and others who read the letter found it disturbing and threatening. The victims sought and obtained cease harassment notices against Williams, and Williams was served with those notices on September 3, 2014.

[¶4] On September 4, 2014, Williams sent another letter to the victims, this time articulating his belief that the cease harassment notices were “fraudulent.” The following day, Williams sent a third letter to the victims, in which he acknowledged that the victims wished to be left alone but nevertheless accused them of filing a false report against him.

[¶5] After receiving the third letter, the victims did not hear from Williams again until January 2016. Around this time, Williams sent an angry and threatening letter to the victims’ attorney. Williams also began posting fliers around Belfast accusing one of the victims of being a dangerous unprosecuted criminal. The victims sought and obtained two new cease harassment notices, which were issued on January 9, 2016. On June 3, 2016, the victims received another letter from Williams that made various threats and demands. They brought this letter to the attention of law enforcement.

Williams’s behavior led the victims to take extensive safety precautions and caused one of the victims to seek treatment for anxiety.

[¶6] In August 2016, Williams was charged by criminal complaint with two counts of stalking (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 210-A(1)(A)(1), and two counts of harassment (Class E), 17-A M.R.S. § 506-A(1)(A). At his arraignment, Williams entered a plea of not guilty on all four counts. Williams requested and was appointed counsel, but he filed a request to proceed pro se shortly before the original trial date.

[¶7] Prior to trial, the court met with Williams, his attorney, and the attorney for the State to discuss Williams’s reasons for wanting to represent himself. Williams felt that his trial counsel was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the underlying facts of the case and the history between him and the victims. The court then conducted an extensive and careful colloquy with Williams, during which the court warned him of the many risks of representing himself at trial. The court periodically confirmed with Williams that he understood these risks, and he repeatedly stated that he did. At the end of this exchange, Williams said that he still wished to represent himself at trial, but he agreed to have his appointed attorney serve as standby counsel. Later, prior to jury selection, Williams also agreed that, during the trial, standby counsel would be permitted to make objections on his behalf and to conduct the direct examination of him.

[¶8] At trial, after the close of the State’s evidence, Williams moved for a judgment of acquittal, M.R.U. Crim. P. 29, on one of the harassment counts on the ground that the State was required to prove two acts of harassment against the victims but had established only one—the June 3, 2016, letter. The court denied this motion, concluding that the jury could make a reasonable inference that the fliers Williams posted in January 2016 were intended to harass both victims and that posting the fliers could be found to constitute a second act of harassment.

[¶9] Williams then made a second motion for a judgment of acquittal on both harassment counts on the ground that the complaint alleged he had engaged in a course of conduct constituting harassment “beginning on or about January 9, 2016, and ending on or about June 6, 2016, in Lincolnville, Waldo County, Maine,” but the evidence at trial showed that some of the acts forming the basis of the harassment charges occurred in Belfast, a different municipality in Waldo County. The State opposed the motion, arguing that a course of conduct can take place in multiple locations, and the complaint merely specifies the location where the course of conduct ended and does not list each municipality or jurisdiction where any part of the course of conduct occurred. The following exchange took place:

THE COURT: What about—Mr. Woodbury, what about the other issue that Mr. McLean is arguing, that is sort of by the nature of harassment charges that the course of conduct can be a broader—

MR. WOODBURY: It can. He should have said in Waldo County.

MR. MCLEAN: It does say Waldo, it says Lincolnville, Waldo County. But again, it could cross jurisdictional lines.

MR. WOODBURY: Well, Belfast and Lincolnville, I mean he should have been more specific I think. I hate to argue a technical point, but it’s—it’s there. Although no formal motion, written or oral, was presented to the court, the court, over Williams’s objection and based on the parties’ arguments, permitted the amendment of Counts 2 and 4 of the complaint to allege “in Waldo County,” and denied the second motion for a judgment of acquittal. M.R.U. Crim. P. 3(d); M.R.U. Crim. P. 29. The court stated that it did not perceive any prejudice to Williams because the discovery put him on notice that some of the acts alleged to form part of the course of conduct constituting harassment occurred in Belfast.

[¶10] The jury returned verdicts of guilty on all four counts. On the first stalking charge, the court sentenced Williams to 364 days in jail, all but ninety days suspended, and a one-year term of probation. The court imposed concurrent jail sentences of ninety days on the second stalking charge and forty-eight hours on each harassment charge.^[2] Finally, the court imposed an additional concurrent sentence of thirty days for contempt based on Williams’s conduct during the trial. Williams timely appealed, and the court stayed execution of the sentences pending appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Court’s Conduct During the Trial

[¶11] Williams argues that the trial court created a “prejudicial trial environment” and thereby violated his right to a fair trial.3 The record, however, tells a different story.

[¶12] Williams chose to proceed without counsel and was a difficult and at times combative litigant who repeatedly disregarded the court’s rulings and instructions, badgered witnesses, and asked inappropriate questions during his examination of them. Despite this, the court was patient with Williams and often paused to explain the legal basis of its rulings to him. During a chambers of the victims because that hearing resulted in a judgment in Williams’s favor and was entitled to res judicata effect.

[¶16] Collateral estoppel, the prong of res judicata that prevents the re-litigation of factual issues previously decided, applies when “(1) the identical factual issue was decided by a prior final judgment, and (2) the party to be estopped had an opportunity and an incentive to litigate the issue at the prior proceeding.” State v. Hughes, 2004 ME 141, ¶ 5, 863 A.2d 266. “A party has a fair opportunity to litigate an issue if that party either controls the litigation, substantially participates in that litigation, or could have participated in the litigation had they chosen to do so.” Id. ¶ 5 (emphasis in original). “The party who asserts collateral estoppel bears the burden of establishing that the party to be estopped had a fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior proceeding.” Id. ¶ 6.

[¶17] The record does not clearly establish that the issues litigated at the prior PFH hearing were the same as the issues litigated at the trial here, and the State had neither a fair opportunity nor an incentive to litigate any issues at the PFH hearing. At trial, to support the criminal harassment charges, the State presented evidence that Williams had sent a threatening letter to the victims on June 3, 2016, in violation of an active cease harassment order issued in January 2016. His act of sending that letter had not yet occurred on April 25, 2016, when the PFH hearing took place. Although both the PFH hearing and the criminal trial focused on whether Williams had engaged in harassment of the victims, the PFH hearing did not address the issue of whether, considering the June 3, 2016, letter, there was sufficient evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams violated 17-A M.R.S. § 506-A. What is truly fatal to Williams’s res judicata argument, however, is that the State was not a party to the PFH hearing, and Williams has not established that the State “control[led] the litigation, substantially participate[d] in that litigation, or could have participated in the litigation had [it] chosen to do so.” See Hughes, 2004 ME 141, ¶¶ 2, 5-6, 863 A.2d 266 (rejecting claim of collateral estoppel where defendant was convicted of assault against a victim who had previously sought and was denied a protection from harassment order based on the same incident). Even if the issues presented in the two proceedings were identical, the fact that the State did not have a “fair opportunity to litigate [any issues] in the prior proceeding,” id. ¶ 6, nullifies Williams’s claim that the judgment in his favor following the PFH hearing was entitled to res judicata effect.

amendment of the complaint for an abuse of discretion. See State v. Johnson, 585 A.2d 825, 826 (Me. 1991).

[¶22] Rule 3(d) of the Maine Rules of Unified Criminal Procedure provides that “[t]he court may permit a complaint to be amended at any time before verdict or finding if no additional or different crime is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced.” Neither Williams nor the State formally moved to amend the complaint;4 however, in arguing their positions on the motion, the defense agreed with the State that a course of conduct can occur in more than one place and even across jurisdictions, and stated, on the record, “He should have said in Waldo County.” Therefore, although no formal motion to amend the complaint was made, both sides had the opportunity to argue their positions regarding the amendment, and agreed that the relevant course of conduct occurred in Waldo County.

[¶23] As already discussed, the amendment itself merely changed the location alleged in the complaint from “Lincolnville, Waldo County” to “Waldo County.” The amendment did not charge any additional or different crimes. Location is not an element of the crime of harassment, and the State was not Jury instructions must inform the jury correctly and fairly in all necessary respects of the governing law. State v. Tucker, 2015 ME 68, ¶ 11, 117 A.3d 595. Contrary to Williams’s argument, we conclude that the trial court committed no obvious error in its instructions to the jury.7

E. Ethical Considerations

[¶25] Although Williams is represented by counsel in this appeal, he argues, purportedly in a self-represented capacity, that the bail commissioner’s fee, paid directly to the bail commissioner, not to the court, and explicitly provided for in 15 M.R.S. § 1023(5) (2018), constitutes extortion in violation of his constitutional due process rights. The argument relies on specious claims to attack the integrity of Maine’s state courts. The argument is without merit, and we address it no further.

assertion should not be incorporated into the brief drafted and submitted by the attorney. Rather, it is incumbent upon the attorney to advise the client to obtain leave of the Court to independently present the argument or assertion in a separate brief or writing signed by the client only.

The entry is:

Judgment affirmed.