Case Title: State v. Steinhour

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1992-02-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
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, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
 that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 91-096


 State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

      v.                                      On Appeal from
                                              District Court of Vermont,
 Linwood Steinhour                            Unit No. 2, Franklin Circuit

                                              February Term, 1992


 George T. Costes, J.

 James A. Hughes, Franklin County Deputy State's Attorney, St. Albans, for
   plaintiff-appellee

 E.M. Allen, Defender General, and William A. Nelson, Appellate Defender,
   Montpelier, for defendant-appellant


 PRESENT:   Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      MORSE, J.   Defendant appeals a judgment revoking his probation based
 on admissions of drug use he made to his probation officer.  He claims these
 statements should not have been used against him because they were compelled
 in violation of his privilege against self-incrimination.  We affirm.
      Defendant was convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child,
 sentenced to 1-5 years, suspended, and placed on probation with conditions.
 The conditions included requirements that defendant report to his probation
 officer as the officer required, that he participate in any program to which
 his probation officer referred him, and that he not "purchase, possess or
 consume regulated drugs."  The probation form advised that if he violated
 any of the conditions, he could "be brought before the court to be further
 dealt with according to law."
      During a routine meeting to review his probationary status, the
 probation officer asked defendant if he had been abstaining from drugs and
 "would [he] come clean" if given a urinanalysis test.  Defendant responded
 by admitting he had smoked marijuana.  At a subsequent meeting, defendant
 told the probation officer that he had been using marijuana "once a week to
 once a month," and at a later meeting when asked about his drug use, he told
 his probation officer that he had been smoking between one and two joints a
 day.  The court revoked defendant's probation on this evidence.
      Defendant does not claim a failure to warn him of his privilege
 against self-incrimination under Miranda.  Rather, he maintains that the
 circumstances supported a reasonable belief that an assertion of the
 privilege would itself be a ground to revoke probation, which rendered his
 confessions involuntary.  Assuming defendant's probationary status required
 him to answer the officer's questions and a refusal to answer them under a
 claim of privilege against self-incrimination could be a ground to revoke
 probation, we conclude defendant's answers did not violate his privilege
 against self-incrimination under either the Fifth Amendment (FN1) or the 
 Vermont Constitution. (FN2)
      We recognize that the existence of the privilege in these circumstances
 compels a defendant to choose between three alternatives: answering truth-
 fully or falsely or remaining silent.  If defendant is guilty of conduct
 which is a violation of probation, whether it is the conduct admitted in his
 answers to the probation officer's questions or other conduct, his answers
 are relevant and may be used against him in the revocation hearing.  That is
 because defendant is not being compelled to give statements to be used
 against him in a criminal proceeding.
      Defendant relies on a case decided by the United States Supreme Court,
 Minnesota v. Murphy, for the proposition that:
           The general rule that the privilege must be claimed
         when self-incrimination is threatened has . . . been
         deemed inapplicable in cases where the assertion of the
         privilege is penalized so as to "foreclos[e] a free
         choice to remain silent, and . . . compe[l] . . .
         incriminating testimony."