Vermont v. Baird

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Defendant Keith Baird and two others were charged with burglary, kidnapping, and first-degree murder for their involvement with the 2010 death of seventy-eight-year-old Mary O’Hagan at her home in Sheffield, Vermont. The basis for defendant’s murder charge was that the murder occurred during the commission of a burglary in which defendant participated and therefore constituted felony murder. Defendant filed a Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 12(d) motion to dismiss the first-degree murder charge, arguing that the State could not establish a prima facie case because it could not show that defendant killed the victim or that he had the necessary mental state for first-degree felony murder. A deposition of Richard Fletcher, one of the codefendants, provided most of the admissible evidence in support of the State’s opposition to the motion to dismiss; facts in the investigating police officer’s affidavit of which he had first-hand knowledge provided additional support for the State’s opposition. Following a hearing, the court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed, finding the evidence of wantonness was sufficient for the question of defendant’s mental state to survive a Rule 12(d) motion to dismiss. Because the State produced sufficient evidence that fairly and reasonably tended to show the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the Court reinstated the murder charge and remanded for further proceedings. View "Vermont v. Baird" on Justia Law