Case Title: State v. Rickert

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1995-08-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
State v. Rickert  (94-197); 164 Vt 602; 665 A.2d 887

[Filed 29-Aug-1995]


                               ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 94-187

                              JUNE TERM, 1995


State of Vermont                     }     APPEALED FROM:
                                     }
                                     }
     v.                              }     District Court of Vermont,
                                     }     Unit No. 2, Franklin Circuit
William J. Rickert                   }
                                     }     DOCKET NOS.  1078-8-93FrCr
                                                        and 901-7-93FrCr

       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Petitioner appeals the trial court's revocation of his probation on
  the grounds that his refusal to admit to certain facts pertinent to charges
  on which he was convicted is protected by the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth
  Amendments to the United States Constitution and Chapter I, article 10 of
  the Vermont Constitution.  We affirm.

       During July and August of 1993, petitioner was arrested and arraigned
  on various charges that he assaulted and harassed his girlfriend, then
  violated conditions of his release and an abuse prevention order.  Pursuant
  to a plea negotiation, defendant pled nolo contendere to aggravated
  domestic assault, domestic abuse, violation of an abuse prevention order,
  simple assault, and unlawful trespass, and the State agreed not to bring
  additional charges arising from the same incidents.  The judge accepted the
  nolo plea, suspended petitioner's 21-day to three-year sentence, and
  conditioned petitioner's probation on several conditions.  The two
  conditions pertinent to this appeal were that he not contact his girlfriend
  and that he participate in and complete a Domestic Assault Education
  Program (DAEP).  Petitioner accepted the terms of his probation without
  objection.

       In October 1993, police arrested petitioner at his girlfriend's house
  for violating a condition of his probation.  A few days later, petitioner
  attended a DAEP orientation.  Following a forty-five-minute interview, the
  in-take counselor concluded that petitioner had "made himself unavailable
  for treatment" because he denied many of the underlying charges and refused
  to take responsibility for his conduct.  While petitioner admitted to both
  various incidents of abuse supporting the underlying convictions and a
  history of abuse, he refused to admit to certain facts relating to the
  charges for which he was convicted.  Petitioner's probation officer
  commenced revocation proceedings.  The trial court concluded that
  petitioner had violated two conditions of his parole and imposed the
  underlying sentence with credit for time served.

       On appeal, petitioner contends that his Fifth Amendment privilege to
  be free from self-incrimination was violated when the court revoked his
  probation because he refused to admit to certain elements of the underlying
  offenses.  Petitioner asserts that the privilege against self-
  incrimination forbids the State from imprisoning a probationer because "of
  his conscientious refusal to confess to the crime of which he was
  convicted."  For the same reason, he also argues that the coerced
  admissions would violate his First Amendment right to be free from coerced
  speech.  Finally, petitioner argues that if a probationer pleads nolo
  contendere to certain charges, due process requires clear and convincing
  evidence that the underlying allegations are true before probation can be
  revoked.

 

       Petitioner devotes the majority of his brief to tracing the origins of
  the Fifth Amendment's privilege from the medieval star chamber to the Salem
  witch trials of colonial America.  Beyond his policy argument, he makes no
  attempt to factually or legally distinguish his particular circumstances
  from those faced by the defendant in State v. Gleason, 154 Vt. 205, 576 A.2d 1246 (1990).  In Gleason, we held that the Fifth Amendment may not be
  invoked to protect a probationer who refuses to answer his rehabilitative
  therapist's questions relating to charges for which he has already been
  convicted, notwithstanding the fact that defendant pled nolo contendere. 
  Id. at 212, 576 A.2d  at 1250 (relying on Minnesota v. Murphy,