Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Police arrested defendant Stephen Howard for driving under the influence (DUI). The State appealed the granting of defendant’s motion to exclude evidence collected from a traffic violation stop of his car. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the case because it concluded that the trooper who conducted the stop did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that defendant committed a traffic violation. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court reversed: once "defendant crossed the center line, the trooper had a reasonable suspicion that defendant committed a traffic violation as soon as this crossing occurred." View "Vermont v. Howard" on Justia Law

Defendant James Anderson appealed a trial court’s decision finding he violated two conditions of probation for his failure to complete sex offender programming to the satisfaction of his probation officer during the unsuspended portion of his sentence. Defendant was convicted in 2003 and sentenced nineteen to twenty years, all suspended except eleven years. The sentencing court indicated that the split sentence was intended to deliver a “severe sanction” while giving defendant an option to make good on what he claimed was remorse and what he claimed to admit doing. For this reason, the trial court explained at sentencing that the split sentence was contingent on defendant completing sex offender treatment programming during the to-serve portion of his sentence. In 2014, while serving the unsuspended portion of his sentence, defendant entered the Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Abusers, a six-month sex offender treatment program. On June 10, 2014, defendant was suspended from the treatment program for ninety days for his failure to admit responsibility for the sexual assault underlying his conviction. At that time, defendant was advised that readmission to the treatment program required that he answer and submit to his caseworker five standard questions no later than one week prior to the end of the ninety-day suspension period. In July, defendant’s probation officer filed a complaint, alleging that defendant had violated the terms of his probation for failing to participate fully in and complete the Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Offenders. The trial court dismissed the complaint, finding no probable cause for a violation of probation because the affidavit in support of the complaint did not include an allegation that defendant had received written notice of the conditions of his release. Consistent with V.R.Cr.P. 36, the trial court subsequently directed its clerk to prepare a probation warrant placing defendant on probation with the standard conditions, specifically including special conditions "K" and "31." Two months later, defendant's probation officer again filed a complaint that he violated the special conditions of his probation. At a merits hearing, the trial court found defendant violated the special conditions. After review of defendant's arguments on appeal of the trial court's findings, the Supreme Court concluded that defendant failed to meet his burden of persuasion that he did not violate his probation. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Vermont v. Anderson" on Justia Law

Convicted sex offender, defendant Owen Cornell, appealed the imposition of six probation conditions ordered by the sentencing court. He argued four of the conditions, that he reside or work where his probation officer approves, attend counseling programs ordered by his probation officer, refrain from violent and threatening behavior, and avoid areas where children congregate, had already been deemed unlawful by the Vermont Supreme Court and should have been struck down. He further argued that the remaining two conditions, giving his probation officer warrantless search and seizure privileges and banning home computer and internet usage, imposed unduly restrictive and invasive terms that infringe upon defendant’s liberty, privacy, and autonomy rights. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with defendant as to the residence and employment, counseling, search and seizure, and home computer and internet use conditions, and remanded to the sentencing court for further justification, amendment, or elimination. The Court affirmed the imposition of the conditions prohibiting violent or threatening behavior and restricting access to areas where children congregate. View "Vermont v. Cornell" on Justia Law

Defendant Leo Reynolds was charged with four felony counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and one felony count of aggravated sexual assault on a victim younger than thirteen. Defendant was sixty-seven years old at the time of the charged conduct, and the alleged victim, defendant’s neighbor Z.Z., was seven years old. Defendant filed a motion to suppress in October 2014, arguing that the incriminating statements he made were the product of police coercion and thus taken in violation of his constitutional rights. In an interlocutory appeal, the State challenged the trial court’s suppression of defendant’s pre-arrest confession to police. The State argued that the court erred in concluding that the confession was involuntarily made. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's suppression order, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Reynolds" on Justia Law

Defendant Thomas Gauthier appealed a trial court’s order revoking his probation. In May 2009, defendant was charged with one count of engaging in a sexual act with a person under the age of sixteen, a felony, and one count of furnishing alcohol to a person under the age of twenty-one. The charges arose from an April 2009 incident in which defendant, then age twenty, had intercourse with a fifteen-year-old girl in the back of a car after a night of drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. In June 2010, the State filed a violation-of-probation complaint against defendant, alleging that he had been out of state without permission in violation of one of the conditions in his deferred-sentence agreement. On appeal, defendant argued that the probation conditions that the trial court determined he had violated are unenforceable because he claims the conditions were not part of “a certificate explicitly setting forth the conditions” of probation, as required by 28 V.S.A. 252(c). Defendant also raised challenges to specific conditions, arguing that they are contradictory or vague and not enforceable. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Gauthier" on Justia Law

In December 2014, defendant Jeremy Gates was charged with felony extortion, domestic assault, and unlawful mischief in the amount of $250 or less following an incident involving his mother. Defendant appealed a 2016 superior court ruling revoking his right to bail under 13 V.S.A. 7575 after repeated violations of conditions of release (VCRs). Defendant argued that the trial court ruled on inadequate grounds, without making the necessary findings, and based on probable cause affidavits, rather than on an independent determination by a preponderance of direct evidence required for bail revocation. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court could not conclude that the trial court’s findings were sufficient to support its conclusion that defendant had violated section 7575(1) so as to revoke his conditions of release. The Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Vermont v. Gates" on Justia Law

Defendant Tisa Farrow was arraigned on charges of driving under the influence (DUI). Before trial, defendant filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude from evidence the arresting officer’s testimony about his observations and opinion regarding defendant’s performance of the “Modified Rhomberg Test” (MRT), as well as the videotape of the event. Defendant had previously declined to perform field sobriety tests. Thereafter, at the officer’s request, defendant began the exercise in question, which involved closing her eyes, leaning her head back, and counting thirty seconds. She stopped five to eight seconds later, indicating that she did not want to do the exercise. Defendant’s written motion stated that the MRT evidence was irrelevant because the exercise was never completed and was thus unreliable, and that even if the evidence was marginally relevant, any probative value it had was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. The issue this case presented for the Vermont Supreme Court's review centered on the admissibility of evidence of defendant’s decision not to complete a field sobriety exercise as requested by a police officer in the context of an answer to a question the Court left open in a prior decision: Under the Vermont Constitution, is a defendant’s refusal or failure to perform voluntary field sobriety exercises admissible if the defendant was not advised at the time of the refusal that evidence of a refusal to perform the exercises may be admissible in court? The Court concluded that the refusal evidence was admissible without regard to whether police advised the individual that a refusal to perform the exercises could be admitted as evidence in court. Because the Court rejected defendant’s argument to the contrary on this point, as well as her arguments that on the record in this case the evidence in question was irrelevant and unduly prejudicial, the Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Farrow" on Justia Law

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