Vermont v. Lumumba

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The conviction in this case stemmed from an incident that occurred in the summer of 2010. Defendant, who was attending the University of Vermont (UVM) at that time, met with complainant, another UVM student, to go to a Burlington beach. Complainant later reported that defendant had compelled her to engage in nonconsensual oral sex. In 2012, defendant was convicted of felony sexual assault and sentenced to eight years to life in prison. Defendant appealed, arguing his sentence violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment because his immigration status interacted with the to-serve sentence to make him unable to get sex-offender treatment, which meant that he would not be eligible for release under the Department of Corrections’ internal procedures. Without reaching the constitutional question, the Vermont Supreme Court reversed and remanded for resentencing, directing the trial court to consider the consequences that defendant’s immigration status had on his sentence. At the sentencing hearing, the court approved nine of the special conditions suggested in the PSI, but amended the proposed language of several. There was not, however, a disclosure of any other conditions that might be imposed on defendant. The probation order, which issued after the hearing, included not only the special conditions discussed on the record and imposed at the sentencing hearing, but also nineteen additional “standard” conditions. Defendant challenged the probation conditions before the Supreme Court, arguing many of the conditions were not orally pronounced during the sentencing hearing and were not sufficiently connected to his crime or rehabilitation. He also argued the sex-offender condition prohibiting defendant from purchasing, possessing, or using pornography or erotica and from going to “adult bookstores, sex shops, topless bars, etc.” was unrelated to his offense and unconstitutionally vague. The Vermont Supreme Court concluded defendant failed to properly preserve his objections to the standard conditions and reviewed them for plain error. Based on the particular provisions and the State’s concessions, the Court struck some conditions, remanded some conditions, and affirmed the remaining. The Supreme Court struck the challenged special condition as unsupported by the record. View "Vermont v. Lumumba" on Justia Law