Case Title: State v. Lockwood

Citation: 160 Vt. 547, 632 A.2d 655

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1992-03-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
STATE_V_LOCKWOOD.90-067; 160 Vt. 547; 632 A.2d 655


    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. 90-067

    State of Vermont                        Supreme Court

                                            On Appeal from
         v.                                 District Court of Vermont,
                                            Unit No. 1, Rutland Circuit

    Gerald A. Lockwood                      March Term, 1992


    Paul F. Hudson, J.

    Peter R. Neary, Rutland County Deputy State's Attorney, Rutland, for
      plaintiff-appellee

    E.M. Allen, Defender General, and Anna Saxman, Appellate Attorney,
      Montpelier, for defendant-appellant


    PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


         ALLEN, C.J.   Defendant, a mildly retarded adult, appeals from an
    order of the district court revoking his probation.  He claims that (1)
    his probation warrant should be declared void because he lacked the
    capacity to sign it, or that it not be enforced because of the doctrine
    of impossibility, (2) the court erred by revoking probation without
    holding an additional competency hearing and without notifying
    defendant's protective services guardian, (3) warrantless searches of
    his living quarters and person by probation officers violated his
    constitutional privacy rights, and (4) a probation condition
    prohibiting possession of photographs of children violated his freedoms
    of speech and religion.  We affirm.

 

         In 1986, defendant was charged with sexually assaulting a four-
    year-old girl.  In February 1987, after evaluation and hearing, he was
    found competent to stand trial.  After additional evaluation and a
    hearing in December 1987, the court again found defendant competent to
    stand trial.  The court concluded that defendant had a firm knowledge
    of the facts concerning his actions and whereabouts, that he was able
    to assist his attorney in locating and examining witnesses, that he was
    able to discern distortions and misstatements in testimony, that he
    could make decisions in response to carefully explained alternatives
    concerning his defense, that his comprehension improved with
    explanation, and that there was no indication that his condition would
    worsen under the stress of trial.
         Prior to the second competency proceeding, the court granted
    defendant's petition for protective services pursuant to 18 V.S.A. {{
    9301-9317.  The court found that he was unable to provide for his own
    needs and appointed a protective services worker.  The court further
    found that defendant had "no understanding of the concept of a contract
    or any of the implications involved in entering into a contract."
         In January 1988, pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant pled nolo
    contendere and was sentenced to serve three-to-eight years.  The court
    suspended all but 153 days and placed defendant on probation with
    special conditions that prohibited him from possessing dolls, dolls' or
    children's clothing, and pictures of children.  In February 1989,
    probation officers and a state police officer searched defendant's room
    and workshop at his supervised residence and found a knife, dolls,
    children's clothing, and hundreds of pictures of children.  In March

  

    1989, while the resulting violation of probation was pending, defendant
    pled nolo contendere to a charge of lewd and lascivious conduct for
    exposing himself to young girls.  For that offense, he received a
    sentence of zero-to-four years, all suspended.  For the violation of
    probation, he was sentenced to serve the original underlying term of
    three-to-eight years, all suspended but 161 days with credit awarded
    for 153 days already served.  New conditions were added to defendant's
    probation warrant, including that he not possess any firearm or other
    deadly weapon and that he submit to a "body, clothing, [and]
    residential search as required."
         Defendant signed his probation warrants after both sentencings and
    initialed each condition following explanation by a probation officer.
    His protective services worker was not present when he signed the
    warrant.  The court found that defendant understood his probation
    conditions when imposed and that those conditions were given
    significant attention during the pendency of his probation.  For
    example, at all weekly meetings with defendant, his probation officers
    read each special condition, explained its meaning, and discussed it
    with him.  On each visit, they required him to write out his "rules"
    until they were committed to memory.  Once defendant was placed in a
    private residential setting in early 1989, his supervisor, who has a
    master's degree in education and counseling, reviewed defendant's
    special conditions with him daily and emphasized that his living
    quarters and workshop area were subject to frequent, unannounced
    searches.
         After defendant displayed symptoms similar to those exhibited

  

    prior to his earlier violation of probation -- refusing to perform
    tasks, complaining about restrictions, and displaying general agitation
    -- his supervisor searched defendant's workshop area looking for
    pictures of children.  In defendant's file cabinet, the supervisor
    found a fully operational pistol with clips and ammunition, which had
    been left elsewhere in the residence a year earlier by an acquaintance
    of the supervisor.  Probation officers then searched defendant's living
    quarters and workshop area.  They found photographs of female children,
    magazines and newspapers with pictures of young children, a child's T-
    shirt, a doll's cap, children's records, a wrench, a chain, a hand
    gardening tool, a ten-inch drill bit, a plastic covered braided wire,
    and single-edged razor blades.  A probation officer strip-searched
    defendant but found nothing.
         In connection with his revocation hearing, defendant moved to
    suppress introduction of physical evidence, arguing that the
    warrantless searches violated his constitutional privacy rights.  He
    also moved to suppress statements he made, arguing that he had not
    waived his right to remain silent and to consult with an attorney.  The
    court denied these motions, concluding that the state's interest in
    protecting the community permitted a degree of encroachment on
    defendant's privacy rights, that defendant had consented to the search
    when he signed his probation warrant, and that he had not been in
    custody when the statements were made.  In December 1989, the court
    found that defendant had violated three conditions of his probation and
    later sentenced him to serve both underlying sentences of three-to-
    eight and zero-to-four years consecutively.


 
                                      I.
         Defendant raises two contract-based challenges to the validity of
    his probation warrant.  Defendant first argues that a probation warrant
    is a contract, which in this case was void and unenforceable because it
    was not signed by the protective services worker to whom the court had
    delegated defendant's power to contract.  We disagree.
         The provisions of 18 V.S.A { 9310(a)(2), which grant a guardian
    "power to approve or withhold approval of any contract . . . which the
    retarded person wishes to make," do not require the guardian's
    signature on a defendant's probation warrant.  Although we have termed
    probation warrants "contracts," State v. Whitchurch, 155 Vt. 134, 139,
    577 A.2d 690, 693 (1990), the purposes of a probation warrant
    illustrate its difference from an ordinary contract.  A probation
    warrant serves to give a defendant fair notice of what conduct may
    constitute a probation violation, thereby resulting in defendant's loss
    of liberty.  State v. Peck, 149 Vt. 617, 619,