Case Title: In re Hunt

Citation: 163 Vt 383, 658 A.2d 919

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1995-01-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN_RE_HUNT.93-397; 163 Vt 383; 658 A.2d 919

[Filed 27-Jan-1995]

[Motion for Reargument Denied 16-Mar-1995]

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. 
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press. 

                                No. 93-397


In re Gordon Hunt                                Supreme Court

                                                 On Appeal from
                                                 Lamoille Superior Court
                                                 June Term, 1994


Dean B. Pineles, J.

Robert Appel, Defender General, and William A. Nelson, Appellate Defender,
 Montpelier, for petitioner-appellant 

Gary S. Kessler, Supervising Appellate Prosecutor, Montpelier, and Terry
 Trono, Washington County State's Attorney, Barre, for respondent-appellee 


PRESENT: Dooley and Johnson, JJ., and Valente and Jenkins, Sup. J., and
         Fisher, D.J., Specially Assigned 



    JOHNSON, J.   Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and
sentenced to a term of thirty years to life imprisonment.  He appeals from
the superior court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, in
which he argued that he was denied his due process right to an impartial
tribunal because former Associate Justice William Hill manipulated his case
on the basis of the justice's friendship with former Assistant Judge Jane
Wheel.  We affirm the dismissal of the petition, but on different grounds
than those relied on by the superior court. 

                                    I.

    The relevant facts, described more fully in In re Hill, 152 Vt. 548,
562-70, 568 A.2d 361, 369-373 (1989), are as follows.  Petitioner was charged with
first-degree murder in 1982. He negotiated a plea bargain in which he agreed
to plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a minimum term not to
exceed ten years to life imprisonment.  Although the presiding judge would
have accepted the plea bargain, both assistant judges wanted to reject the
agreement.  The presiding judge did not challenge the assistant judges'
authority to take part in the decision, and, accordingly, noted upon the
record that "the judgement of the Court is that the plea agreement as
proposed is rejected."  Petitioner took an interlocutory appeal to this
Court, arguing that lay assistant judges lack authority to overrule the
presiding judge on whether to accept or reject a plea bargain.  On May 11,
1984, Justice Hill voted with the majority of this Court in a 4-1 decision
that affirmed the order rejecting the plea agreement.  State v. Hunt, 145 Vt.
34,