Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant Shane Casey appealed his conviction of two counts of aggravated sexual assault, alleging that the trial court erred in: (1) denying defendant’s motion to sever a joint trial; (2) refusing to grant a new trial after codefendant pled no contest midtrial; and (3) admitting the victim’s diary as evidence of her sexual abuse. The Supreme Court found no error, and affirmed Defendant's convictions. View "Vermont v. Casey" on Justia Law

Defendant Mark Snow appealed his conviction for sexual assault. He contended that the trial court gave an improper jury instruction, mischaracterizing the law and eliminating the State’s burden to prove each and every element of the crime as charged. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the jury instruction accurately reflected the law as applied to the circumstances of this case and that the instruction did not compromise defendant’s ability to contest the charges against him. View "Vermont v. Snow" on Justia Law

Defendant ex-husband appealed a superior court - family division order which found him in contempt for failure to pay spousal maintenance as ordered. He claimed that the court lacked jurisdiction to find him in contempt because he was not personally served with the underlying order upon which the finding of contempt was based, as required by statute and our case law. Finding defendant's argument to be without merit, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Welch v. Welch" on Justia Law

In consolidated cases, the Supreme Court addressed disputes over child support. The disputes were described as "so stale that the parties' children are in and approaching their thirties." The basic questions were whether father could register and enforce a child support order obtained in Oklahoma against mother and, inversely, whether mother could register and enforce an earlier child support order obtained in Georgia against father. Upon review, the Court concluded that mother's various jurisdictional challenges to the Oklahoma order were without merit and precluded by the unappealed adjudication in Oklahoma. Furthermore, the Court concluded that the Vermont court had personal jurisdiction over father with respect to mother's child support claims against him and a statutory immunity provision in the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) did not apply. As a result, the Court affirmed the superior court's dismissal of mother's enforcement action, affirmed the superior court's jurisdictional holdings with regard to the Oklahoma order. The Court remanded the adjudication of father's enforcement action for consideration of counterclaims raised by mother. View "OCS/Pappas v. O'Brien" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether a police officer's visual estimate of defendant's speed can support a reasonable suspicion to warrant a traffic stop. Defendants Todd Dunham and Heidi Tatham argued that a visual estimate amounts to nothing more than a mere hunch or guess, and fails to provide objective grounds for a traffic stop. The Court disagreed and affirmed the denial of defendants' motions to suppress. View "Vermont v. Dunham" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case involved the interplay between rulings and requirements relating to zoning in connection with a planned development and enforcement of restrictive covenants and deed restrictions applicable to property within the development. Plaintiff obtained municipal zoning approval to reconfigure the lot lines in her two-lot farmstead parcel within the Quechee Lakes subdivision, as well as to construct a dwelling on the second, yet-to-be-developed lot. The Environmental Division affirmed the zoning board's award of the latter permit. Notwithstanding that order, in a declaratory judgment action also initiated by plaintiff, the civil division concluded that plaintiff's proposed construction violated the applicable restrictive covenants and deed restrictions. On appeal, plaintiff argued that the Environmental Division's decision resolved the dispute, that the civil division improperly considered extrinsic evidence when the disputed deed restrictions were clear on their face, that defendants' challenge to plaintiff's right to build the proposed dwelling was time-barred, and that the character of the development had changed so much that the disputed deed restrictions are no longer valid. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that Plaintiff's theory of the case was that the deed language was ambiguous; plaintiff was instrumental in framing the trial court's task as one of construing ambiguous deed language; and plaintiff led the way in introducing extrinsic evidence in support of plaintiff's own interpretation. "Given this record, plaintiff cannot now challenge the trial court's consideration of extrinsic evidence to interpret the documents." The Court concluded that plaintiff suffered no prejudice from the trial court's decision to consider the testimony about the context surrounding the disputed deed language - both that offered by plaintiff and by defendants. Finding no error in the trial court's decision to deny the motion for declaratory judgment, the Court reached no other issues plaintiff raised in her appeal and affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Marsh Inter Vivos Trust v. McGillvray, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Jeffrey Gentes, who entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge of driving while intoxicated (DWI), argued on appeal that the superior court’s criminal division erred by denying his motion to dismiss both the criminal charge and the civil suspension of his license. Defendant argued for dismissal based his claim that the Vermont Department of Health's negligence deprived him of his statutory right to obtain an independent blood test result. Having weighed the "Bailey" factors, the Supreme Court found no constitutional violation and agreed with the trial court that dismissal of the charge against defendant was not an appropriate remedy for mistakenly destroyed evidence in the context of this particular case. View "Vermont v. Gentes" on Justia Law

In 2005, defendant Thomas Bogert, Jr. pled guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography and no contest to one count of aggravated sexual assault and one count of sexual assault. He was sentenced to a total of three to twenty-three years, eight years to serve, with the balance suspended. Defendant signed a probation order that included thirty-five conditions. The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court was the permissibility, under the Vermont Constitution, of a warrantless and suspicionless search of a convicted offender furloughed to his home and subject to a standard condition of a conditional reentry agreement that provides for such searches. Upon review, the Court concluded that the search in this case satisfied the requirements of the Vermont Constitution applicable to offenders on a conditional reentry status and, accordingly, affirmed. View "Vermont v. Bogert" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the hypothetical question "What are the chances?" could be considered a valid legal inference. Defendant Mark Vuley was convicted of arson after several unexplained fires at his rented house took place within an eight-week period. The trial court relied upon the fact that fires are rare occurrences in order to infer that defendant willfully started the fires, and so instructed the jury to rely upon the same inference. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed that there ware potentially valid inferences that could be drawn from multiple fires within a relatively short time frame, the Court could not approve of the trial court's instruction to the jury. However, because the error did not rise to the level of plain error, the Supreme Court affirmed defendant's convictions. View "Vermont v. Vuley" on Justia Law

In this medical malpractice action, plaintiff appealed the trial court's entry of judgment in defendants' favor following the court's discovery sanction, which precluded plaintiff from offering expert testimony or evidence regarding defendants' negligence due to plaintiff's repeated failure to adequately reply to interrogatories. On appeal, plaintiff argued that the discovery response was sufficient and the court abused its discretion in concluding that more detailed factual information was required. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the sanctions were within the trial court's power and were not "untenable" or "unreasonable," and that the sanctions precluded plaintiff from offering certain evidence "but was not a dismissal." As such, no special findings were required. The Court affirmed the trial court's decision. View "Stella v. Spaulding" on Justia Law