Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant Mark Bergquist appealed after a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting his seven-year-old daughter, A.B. On appeal, defendant raised multiple arguments challenging the trial court’s: (1) admission of A.B.’s out-of-court statements pursuant to Vermont Rule of Evidence 804a; (2) exclusion of certain evidence concerning A.B.’s mother’s state of mind and conduct; (3) ruling allowing A.B. to testify out of defendant’s presence pursuant to Vermont Rule of Evidence 807(f); (4) denial of discovery of some of A.B.’s mental-health records; and (5) admission of expert testimony that he argues improperly “vouched” for A.B.’s credibility. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed defendant's conviction. View "Vermont v. Bergquist" on Justia Law

Defendant Timothy O'Keefe was tried by jury and convicted on two counts of violation of an abuse protection order (VAPO), second offense. The Vermont Supreme Court found the State failed to prove defendant was validly served with the order he was accused of violating, and reversed. View "Vermont v.O'Keefe" on Justia Law

Defendant Nichole Dubaniewicz appealed her conviction for one count of possession of one gram or more of heroin. A Vermont State Police officer pulled over a car for speeding along the interstate near the Town of Guildord. During the stop, the sergeant noticed that both defendant and J.S. appeared to be "dope sick." Although J.S. was the driver and registered owner of the car, defendant did most of the talking during the stop. Defendant told the sergeant that she and J.S. were driving to a grocery store in Massachusetts. The sergeant issued J.S. a written warning for speeding and for having one brake light out and released the car from the stop. The officer made a mental note of the distance and time it would take the pair to drive to the store and return; he also contacted another officer with whom he had conducted several previous drug investigations. The second officer was familiar with both J.S. and defendant, relaying that here were rumors that J.S. was involved in distributing heroin and that he believed that J.S. had recently been charged with a drug-related offense in New Hampshire. Around the estimated time the officer had calculated, he saw the same car traveling northbound on the interstate, and pulled it over for a second time for speeding and unsafe driving. This time, defendant was driving and J.S. was in the passenger seat. The sergeant observed that both parties appeared less "sick." After the second stop, additional officers and a canine unit were dispatched; a locked glove box was ultimately forced open containing bricks of heroin. Prior to trial, both J.S. and defendant filed motions to suppress the results of the search of the car and to dismiss, arguing that: (1) the sergeant’s exit order to defendant was unsupported by reasonable suspicion; (2) the forty-minute detention for the arrival of a canine unit was excessive; (3) the canine examination of the vehicle was unsupported by sufficient grounds; (4) the sergeant’s detention of the car while he sought a warrant was improper; (5) there were significant and misleading omissions and errors in the affidavits in support of the warrant application; and (6) the affidavit did not provide probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant. Because all evidence gathered after the sergeant determined that defendant was not operating under the influence should have been suppressed, including all of the heroin discovered, the Vermont Supreme Court reversed defendant’s conviction of one count of possession of one gram or more of heroin. View "Vermont v. Dubaniewicz" on Justia Law

In 2017, defendant Robert Scales was riding as a passenger in the back seat of a car pulled over for speeding. The officer was suspicious of criminal activity because he knew that the road was a regular drug- trafficking route between New York and Burlington, Vermont. The car had New York license plates, and the occupants said they were headed to Burlington. The officer detected a faint odor of burnt marijuana and asked who had been smoking. The front-seat passenger said he had smoked marijuana earlier in the day, but not in the car. The officer then asked for consent to search the car for illegal drugs. The officer explained that the occupants could deny consent, in which case he would walk around the car with his drug- detection dog. He described his dog as an “aggressive alert dog” that might scratch the car and damage it during the search. He informed them that he could also request a search warrant, which the court might or might not grant. The driver agreed to allow the search and signed a written consent form; the other occupants, including defendant, neither objected to the search nor gave affirmative consent. The occupants got out of the car prior to the search. The officer asked whether there was anything in the car that anyone did not want searched, and the occupants did not identify anything. The officer then searched the car, including a bag in the trunk. In the bag, the officer found white powder wrapped in a bag and several wax bundles, which he believed to be cocaine and heroin. The bag also contained a parking ticket associated with the driver, who was the only woman in the car, and female clothing. All three occupants denied that the items were theirs. They were all arrested and charged with possession of heroin and cocaine and heroin trafficking. At some point after arrest, a search warrant was obtained for the containers in the vehicle. Defendant appealed the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence found during the stop of the car, and he appealed denial of his motion to dismiss for lack of a prima facie case. Based on the evidence actually presented, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed with defendant that there was insufficient evidence to show he had any connection with the drugs except for his presence in the car. "If anything, the evidence presented at the hearing—which included testimony that the bag also contained female clothing and a parking ticket associated with the driver—tended to show that the bag and its contents did not belong to defendant. The permissive inference alone, or taken together with the court’s findings, were insufficient to establish guilt or an element of the offense." View "Vermont v. Scales" on Justia Law

Defendant Cory Jones appealed his conviction by jury for dispensing less than 200 milligrams of heroin. The trial court sentenced defendant to a minimum of 16 months and a maximum of 36 months in prison, with credit for 302 days in pre-trial detention. He appealed the denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal and his sentence. The Vermont Supreme Court determined the State’s case relied, to a degree, on circumstantial evidence. The Court determined the trial court record contained significant evidence that supported the inference defendant dispensed heroin to a police informant during a "controlled purchase," therefore the trial court did not err in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal. On appeal of his sentence, defendant argued the trial court did not account for the nature and circumstances of the crime. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Vermont v. Jones" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Gregory Zullo filed a civil rights action against the State of Vermont for alleged violations of his state constitutional rights arising from the stop, seizure and search of his vehicle. The civil division of the superior court granted summary judgment to the State, concluding that although damages may be obtained in an implied private right of action directly under Article 11, in this case neither the stop, the exit order, nor the seizure and search of plaintiff’s vehicle violated Article 11’s constraints against governmental searches and seizures. The issues this appeal presented for the Vermont Supreme Court's review were: (1) whether Article 11 provided a self-executing right of action for damages; (2) whether the Vermont Tort Claims Act (VTCA) governed any such action and, if not, whether the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity shielded the State from liability; (3) if the action is neither governed by the VTCA nor barred by sovereign immunity, whether the Supreme Court should impose any limitations on obtaining damages against the State; and (4) assuming a damage remedy exists and plaintiff can potentially overcome any other barriers to obtaining damages against the State, whether the stop, exit order, and/or seizure and search of plaintiff’s vehicle violated plaintiff’s rights under Article 11, thereby entitling him to seek such relief. The Supreme Court concluded an implied private right of action for damages was available directly under Article 11, that the VTCA did not apply to plaintiff’s suit alleging a constitutional tort, and that the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity did not bar such an action against the State, but that damages could be obtained only upon a showing that a law enforcement officer acting within the scope of the officer’s duties either acted with malice or knew or should have known that those actions violated clearly established law. Furthermore, the Court concluded that although the exit order would not have violated Article 11 had the initial stop been lawful, both the stop and the warrantless seizure and subsequent search of plaintiff’s vehicle violated Article 11. In light of these conclusions, the Supreme Court reversed the grant of summary judgment, and reversed dismissal of one of plaintiff’s counts in an earlier decision. The matter was remanded for further proceedings. View "Zullo v. Vermont" on Justia Law

Defendant Rein Kolts appealed his conviction by jury of the aggravated sexual assault of a child. On appeal, he argued: (1) his confession that he repeatedly had sex with his niece should have been suppressed because law enforcement obtained it by interrogating him in a custodial setting without advising him of his Miranda rights; (2) the confession was involuntary because he was coerced by police; (3) the trial court abused its discretion when it excluded testimony by his two expert witnesses; and (4) the trial court erred when it instructed the jury that it could decide that he confessed voluntarily even if it determined that the police’s use of psychological tactics contributed to his confession. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Kolts" on Justia Law

The Vermont Supreme Court withdrew its July 6, 2018 opinion in this matter, determining the State did not have a statutory right to appeal in this case. Defendant Liana Roy was charged with custodial interference for taking her four-year-old daughter, who was then in custody of the Department for Children and Families (DCF), on a two-day trip out of the state without DCF’s permission. After the State rested its evidence at trial, defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal, arguing the evidence failed to demonstrate that she interfered with DCF’s custody to the degree necessary for 13 V.S.A.2451 to apply. At most, defendant argued, this was just “a visit gone bad.” The court denied this motion, holding that the State established the essential elements of its case. After defendant presented her evidence and the State called a rebuttal witness, the State rested and defendant renewed her motion for a judgment of acquittal. The court again denied the motion. The jury convicted. Defendant subsequently moved to set aside the verdict, V.R.Cr.P. 29(c), or for a new trial, V.R.Cr.P. 33, arguing that nothing in the custody order specifically put defendant on notice that she was acting in violation of the authority of the legal custodian, so the State had failed to demonstrate the requisite intent to deprive or interfere with DCF’s custody. The trial court agreed and issued a written decision in July 2017 granting defendant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal. The court noted that “the jury’s verdict was reasonable” based on the instructions given during the trial. But the court explained that it had erred in not instructing the jury that, to prove custodial interference when DCF is the custodian, the State must produce evidence of “a court order . . . detail[ing] the parent-child contact parameters.” In this amended opinion, the Supreme Court considered whether the State had a statutory right to appeal the trial court’s post-guilty-verdict judgment of acquittal, and, if not, whether the Supreme Court should use its authority pursuant to Vermont Rule of Appellate Procedure 21 to grant the State the extraordinary remedy of reversing the trial court’s ruling and reinstating the guilty verdict. The Court concluded the State did not have a statutory right to appeal in this case, and declined to exercise its authority to grant extraordinary relief. View "Vermont v. Roy" on Justia Law

Defendant Kevin Cook conditionally pled guilty to driving under the influence. He appealed the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss, in which he argued his failure to signal a turn was not illegal under the circumstances and thus did not give officers a reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop him. Finding that because Vermont’s motor-vehicle statutes required defendant to signal before turning, the officer here had a reasonable, articulable suspicion of wrongdoing. The Vermont Supreme Court therefore affirmed Cook's conviction. View "Vermont v. Cook" on Justia Law

In 2015, defendant Norman McAllister was charged with one count of sexual assault and two counts of procuring a person for the purposes of prostitution, based on allegations that defendant entered into a sex-for-rent arrangement with S.L., the complaining witness, and arranged for a third person to have sex with S.L. in exchange for payment of her electric bill. After a jury trial, defendant was convicted of one count of procuring a person for the purposes of prostitution - the sex-for-electric bill arrangement - and acquitted of the other two charges. Defendant appealed that conviction. The Vermont Supreme Court found the trial court erred in: (1) admitting inadmissible evidence of prior bad acts involving defendant’s uncharged conduct with a deceased third party; and (2) instructing the jury, mid-deliberations, to disregard unstricken and admitted testimony. Accordingly, the conviction was reversed and the matter remanded for a new trial. View "Vermont v. McAllister" on Justia Law