Case Title: State v. Verrinder

Citation: 161 Vt. 250, 637 A.2d 1382

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1993-12-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
STATE_V_VERRINDER.92-484; 161 Vt. 250; 637 A.2d 1382

[Filed 27-Dec-1993]

 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. 92-484


 State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                              Unit No. 2, Addison Circuit

 William Verrinder                            October Term, 1993


 David A. Jenkins, J.

 John T. Quinn, Addison County State's Attorney, Middlebury, for plaintiff-
   appellee

 Charles S. Martin of Martin & Paolini, Barre, for defendant-appellant


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


      ALLEN, C.J.   Defendant William Verrinder appeals his conviction for
 second degree murder and sentence to a term of twenty years to life.  We
 affirm.
      At around 6:30 in the evening of July 29, 1991, defendant shot and
 killed Kenneth Bullock.  Defendant is a Vietnam veteran who has experienced
 the symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).  He also suffers from
 severely impaired heart function that limits his ability to engage in
 activities taxing to his cardiovascular system.  In the fall of 1990, while
 working as a bartender at the Middlebury chapter of the Veterans of Foreign
 Wars (VFW), defendant developed a close friendship and spent considerable
 time with Debra Bullock, the wife of the victim.

 

      Kenneth Bullock was a physically imposing figure who drank heavily and
 regularly, and often became aggressive and confrontational when intoxicated.
 Bullock's wife, stepdaughter and son testified in graphic detail to physical
 abuse that he had inflicted on them.  Sometime in late 1990 or early 1991,
 Debra Bullock obtained a relief-from-abuse order which forbade him to
 approach his family or their house.  Bullock became aware of defendant's
 relationship with Debra, and at least twice threatened to kill defendant.
 Debra warned defendant that she thought Bullock carried a pistol.
      Late in the afternoon of July 29, 1991, defendant and Debra Bullock
 arrived at her Bridport home and found Bullock, who had come by to retrieve
 some belongings, standing across the street from the house.  At Bullock's
 request, she agreed to accompany him as he tried to sell several ceramic
 figurines.  Before leaving, she told defendant that her husband still wanted
 to kill him and requested that defendant meet her at the house when she
 returned within the half hour.
      The trip was fairly peaceful at the outset, but when Debra rebuffed
 Bullock's pleas for reconciliation, he became agitated, screamed at her, and
 accused her of sleeping with defendant.  They made several stops during the
 trip.  At one stop Debra called the VFW looking for defendant; she
 testified that she never spoke to him, but the VFW bartender testified that
 defendant took the call and left immediately thereafter.  When the trip
 resumed, Bullock started driving erratically and struck Debra several times.
 By the time the car passed Debra's house, defendant had returned and was
 waiting by his truck.  He saw Bullock's car speed past, Debra and Bullock
 struggling violently inside.  Defendant pursued them in his truck.
      Bullock's car came to a stop on a nearby road and Debra crawled out the
 passenger-side window.  Bullock continued down the road for 300 to 500 feet,

 

 made a U-turn and stopped.  According to defendant and Debra, defendant
 slowed to a stop to check on Debra, who said that Bullock was going to kill
 her.  A witness who had stopped to help Debra testified that defendant never
 stopped, but instead sped down the road toward Bullock's car.  Defendant
 crossed over into the opposite lane and the vehicles collided.
      Defendant testified that Bullock emerged from his car enraged, swearing
 he would kill him.  Defendant got out of his truck and stood by the door.
 The men were separated by their vehicles.  Defendant took his .45 caliber
 pistol, which he had left in the truck some time before to be repaired, and
 testified that he warned Bullock to stay away.  Bullock started toward
 defendant, defendant shot him, and Bullock dropped to the ground not far
 from the driver-side door of his car.  Defendant then went to the back of
 his truck and sat down in an effort to reduce his heart rate.  There was
 testimony that only a couple of seconds elapsed between the time of the
 collision and the shot.  Defendant believed that his heart condition
 prevented him from fleeing and would have killed him had he engaged in
 physical combat with Bullock.
      Defendant was charged with first-degree murder and claimed self-defense
 and defense of Debra Bullock.  At trial, defendant's version of events was
 contradicted by evidence given by other witnesses at the scene.  He was
 convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty years to life in
 prison.
      On appeal, defendant alleges six errors:  (1) the trial court
 improperly excluded evidence of an earlier alleged assault on a third person
 by the victim; (2) defendant allegedly made a statement to Debra Bullock
 just after the shooting that should have been admitted under an exception
 to the hearsay rule; (3) the trial court abused its discretion by not

 

 permitting an expert witness on battered woman syndrome to express an
 opinion that Debra Bullock suffered from the condition; (4) the State
 engaged in prosecutorial misconduct at trial during the taking of evidence
 and in closing argument; (5) the trial court should have specifically
 instructed the jury that evidence of specific incidents of violence on the
 part of the victim could be used in determining whether the victim was the
 first aggressor; and (6) in sentencing him, the trial court did not make
 written findings on all mitigating factors offered by defendant, made a
 finding of an aggravating factor not mentioned in the sentencing hearing,
 and abused its discretion by not imposing a sentence reduced from the
 presumptive term in light of alleged mitigating factors.  We examine each
 point in order.
                                     I.
      Defendant first claims that the trial court erroneously prevented a
 witness from testifying because of a pretrial ruling limiting evidence of
 the victim's character to specific acts of violence known to defendant and
 resulting in bodily harm.  He maintains that as a result of this ruling, a
 Dr. Stein could not testify to an incident in which he allegedly was
 assaulted by Kenneth Bullock.  In the motions hearing, the State moved to
 exclude Stein as a defense witness because defense counsel had provided
 notice of the witness only four days before.  The State had no prior notice
 of Stein as a witness or his proposed testimony, and Stein would have been
 available only for a telephone deposition until sometime during the period
 scheduled for trial.
      Defendant represented that this incident demonstrated Bullock's
 aggressive nature, and was probative on the issue of whether Bullock was the
 first aggressor in his confrontation with defendant on the day he was

 

 killed.  As such, the proffered evidence would be admissible under the
 V.R.E. 404(a)(2) exception to the rule excluding character evidence to prove
 action in conformity therewith. (FN1)
      The court granted the State's motion to exclude Stein as a witness, for
 two reasons:  (1) the State had insufficient notice of the witness, and (2)
 defendant did not witness the alleged assault, and as a result Stein's
 recounting of the incident itself was collateral and would lead to confusion
 of the issues.  The court went on to say that defendant could testify to the
 incident if he had learned of it through Debra Bullock before the shooting.
 Defense counsel acknowledged that defendant was aware of this allegedly
 aggressive conduct at little league games, but defendant never testified to
 it at trial.
      The trial court has broad discretion to sanction violations of
 discovery rules, and we limit review to an abuse of that discretion.  State
 v. Hugo, 156 Vt. 339, 344, 592 A.2d 875, 879 (1991); see also V.R.Cr.P.
 16.2(g).  Rule 16.1(c) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure requires the
 defendant, upon timely request by the prosecution, to disclose witnesses the
 defendant plans to call at trial.  The rule is intended to assist the
 prosecution in preparing for trial, State v. Meyers, 153 Vt. 219, 224, 569 A.2d 1081, 1085 (1989), and to provide an adequate opportunity to depose or
 interview prospective defense witnesses.  Thus, if a witness is not timely
 revealed to the State, the trial court may limit the witness' testimony or

 

 exclude the witness altogether.  See V.R.Cr.P. 16.2(g); State v. Edwards,
 153 Vt. 649, 649, 569 A.2d 1075, 1076 (1989).
      In Hugo, this Court upheld the trial court's exclusion of a defense
 witness who was disclosed to the State on the first day of trial, well after
 the jury drawing and discovery deadline.  156 Vt. at 344, 592 A.2d  at 879.
 The exclusion order was valid because the witness, the defendant's father,
 could have been disclosed earlier, and because the court had a reasonable
 belief that the proposed testimony would be cumulative and repetitious.  Id.
 at 344-45, 592 A.2d  at 879.
      In this case, defendant concedes that notice of Dr. Stein as a witness
 was late, but argues that the State had adequate opportunity to depose Stein
 by telephone prior to his testifying at the trial.  The record does not
 disclose why defense counsel did not discover the Stein incident sooner than
 one week before trial; in that respect this situation differs from Hugo, in
 which the late notice was attributed to the fault of defense counsel.  The
 result in Hugo, however, also turned on the fact that the proposed witness'
 testimony would not have substantially assisted the jury.  Analogously, here
 the court noted that the Stein incident was a collateral matter, and that
 putting Stein himself on the stand would confuse the issues and would not
 assist the jury in its deliberations.  More importantly, the court allowed
 the defense to introduce the substance of Stein's proposed testimony by
 ruling that defendant could testify to the alleged incident and how he
 became aware of it.  Therefore, the exclusion of Stein himself as a witness
 was a reasonable exercise of discretion.
      Defendant also raises for the first time on appeal the argument that
 the testimony should have been admitted under V.R.E. 404(b), as evidence
 that Bullock had the motive, opportunity and plan to kill defendant.

 

 However, "[i]f a specific ground for admission is claimed in the offer of
 proof but is not applicable, and the trial court excludes the evidence, the
 proponent cannot complain on appeal if there was another ground for
 admission."  Dean v. Arena, 141 Vt. 647, 650,