Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted by jury of sexual assault. On appeal of that conviction, he argued: (1) the seating of two biased jurors deprived him of his right to an impartial jury; (2) the trial court committed prejudicial error by prohibiting him from using a prior conviction to impeach a witness; and (3) the prosecutor’s comments during closing argument violated his right to a fair trial. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Atherton a/k/a Melton" on Justia Law

Defendant was a citizen of the Dominican Republic who lived and worked legally in Massachusetts as a permanent resident of the United States. In June 2013, he pleaded guilty to one charge of felony domestic assault stemming from a May 2013 incident in which he attempted to strangle his girlfriend at her home in Rutland. Defendant signed a written plea agreement prior to a change-of-plea hearing. Shortly after defendant was released on probation, the federal government issued a detainer to place him into deportation proceedings upon completion of his sentence. Then, in late October 2013, Rutland police responded to two calls in which defendant’s girlfriend alleged that defendant battered or otherwise assaulted her. As a result of the latter two incidents, in August 2014 defendant pleaded guilty both to a charge of violation of probation and to a second, misdemeanor charge of domestic assault. Again, defendant signed a written plea agreement prior to the change-of-plea hearing. The language of this agreement concerning the possible collateral consequences of a conviction on his immigration status was identical to that of the prior written agreement. In January 2015, defendant filed a motion to withdraw both of his guilty pleas on the basis that the court had not properly advised him that deportation was a risk of pleading guilty. The court denied this motion, finding that there was no substantive difference between what the court advised defendant and specifically telling him that he could be “deported.” Defendant appealed the trial court’s denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas in his two domestic assault cases. Defendant argued that the court erred by not using the term “deportation” or “clearly equivalent language” to advise him that deportation was a possible consequence of pleading guilty. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Mendez" on Justia Law

Defendant Michael Rosenfield appealed the denial of his motion, which requested that the trial court “correct the record” by amending his third driving-under-the-influence (DUI) conviction to appear as a DUI-1. Defendant filed the motion with the ultimate goal of reducing his conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor to reduce its collateral consequences. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Rosenfield" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence and a special condition of probation imposed following a guilty plea for sexual assault of a minor. He argued that probation condition 43, which gave his probation officer unbridled authority over where defendant lived and worked, was overbroad. Furthermore, defendant argued the trial court erred as a matter of law in finding he would be in breach of his plea agreement if he elected to argue for a lighter prison sentence. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed defendant’s sentence apart from probation condition 43, which the Court held was imposed in plain error. The judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for the trial court to justify, make more specific, or strike. View "Vermont v. Careau" on Justia Law

Defendant Thomas Bryan appeals appealed the denial of his motion to withdraw counsel and order finding him in violation of his probation. The critical question in this case was whether sexually touching a minor violated a probation condition prohibiting violent or threatening behavior. After review, the Supreme Court held that defendant’s act constituted violent behavior, and affirmed the trial court’s rulings. View "Vermont v. Bryan" on Justia Law

Defendant Shamel Alexander appealed his conviction for trafficking heroin. He argued the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful seizure that was not supported by reasonable suspicion. Based on its review of the facts entered into evidence at trial, the Supreme Court agreed with defendant and reversed. View "Vermont v. Alexander" on Justia Law

Defendant Ivan Alcide was charged with possession of heroin and cocaine and sought to suppress all evidence of drugs seized from his vehicle after a police dog indicated the presence of drugs. The trial court found that the contraband was obtained through the illegal expansion of the scope of a vehicle violation stop into a criminal drug investigation, suppressed the evidence, and dismissed the charges. The State appealed the trial court’s grant of defendant’s motion to suppress and dismiss. On appeal, the State argued that a minimal delay following the completion of a traffic stop for a dog sniff was reasonable under federal and state law and, in the alternative, that the trial court committed plain error in excluding evidence based upon an illegal detention when the evidence was unrelated to the detention itself. Defendant moved to dismiss the State's appeal on grounds the State untimely filed its notice of appeal. After review, the Supreme Court rejected defendant’s argument and affirmed the trial court’s decision to dismiss the case against defendant. View "Vermont v. Alcide" on Justia Law

The issue this motion presented for the Supreme Court's consideration was whether it should have adopted the “prison mailbox rule” and hold that a notice of appeal was deemed filed for purposes of Vermont Rule of Appellate Procedure 4 when an unrepresented incarcerated inmate delivered it to the prison authorities for forwarding to the court clerk. The Supreme Court previously dismissed petitioner’s appeal in this case on the ground that he did not timely file his notice of appeal, and petitioner filed a motion to reconsider. "As many courts across the country have held in applying the prison mailbox rule under their own procedural rules, 'it would be unfair to hold . . . defendant accountable for the vagaries . . . of the prison mail system.' The Court adopted the prison mailbox rule and vacated the prior dismissal. View "In re Joseph Bruyette" on Justia Law

In 2013, defendant Peter Goewey, then age sixty-one, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated sexual assault for repeatedly performing oral sex on a young man. At a contested sentencing hearing, defendant was sentenced to twenty years to life. Defendant challenged this sentencing decision, alleging various constitutional and procedural errors. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Goewey" on Justia Law

The State appealed Superior Court decisions to seal certain portions of competency reports prepared in connection with court ordered competency evaluations of Anthony Gotavaskas and Grant Bercik, defendants in two separate criminal cases. Gotavaskas was charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling in one docket and providing false information and operation without the owner’s consent in a second docket. At his arraignment, Gotavaskas raised the issue of his competency and the trial court ordered a competency evaluation. A competency evaluation concluded that Gotavaskas was competent to stand trial. The State offered the competency evaluation into evidence, contending that the entire report should be admitted under 13 V.S.A. 4816(e). Gotavaskas did not contest the competency finding, but he objected to the admission of the entire report and offered a redacted version excluding portions he claimed were not relevant. The State disagreed, contending that because the evaluating doctor relied upon all of the information in the report as a basis for his opinion, the entire report should be admitted for its relevancy on the issue of Gotavaskas’ competency. The court redacted the competency report to include only information regarding the evaluator’s impressions of Gotavaskas and specific findings as to competence. Bercik was charged with simple assault. He was arraigned and pled not guilty. Several months after arraignment, Bercik filed a motion for competency and sanity evaluations, which the court granted. A competency evaluation concluded that Bercik was incompetent to stand trial. A competency hearing was held, at which time the State sought a finding of incompetency and the admission of the entirety of the evaluator’s report. Although Bercik agreed that there should be a lack of competency finding, he opposed the admittance of the entire report, requesting that the court temporarily seal the report. The court made a finding of incompetency and received the evaluator’s report under seal, deferring ruling on the admission of the report pending further briefing by the parties. Although not admitted in evidence, the court based its finding of incompetence upon the conclusions contained in the report. In review of these cases, the Supreme Court found that the trial court did not make specific findings on the record as to a threshold question: “the statute contemplates that some portions of a competency report might not be relevant, and thus not required to be admitted, it does not suggest that any other application of ‘relevance’ should be used in considering what portions of a competency report are relevant for competency purposes other than that which is set forth in V.R.E. 401, the test for relevancy in Vermont courts. Whatever standard the trial court used here, it did not apply a V.R.E. 401 analysis to its decision on what portions of the reports to admit and what portions to exclude. It should have done so.” The cases were remanded for the trial court to make findings pursuant to V.R.E. 401. View "Vermont v. Gotavaskas" on Justia Law