Case Title: State v. Davis

Citation: 

Docket Number: 89-573

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1991-04-01T00:00:00Z

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. 89-573


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
     v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                             Unit No. 1, Windham Circuit

John Davis                                   April Term, 1991


Theodore S. Mandeville, Jr., J.

Dan Davis, Windham County State's Attorney, Brattleboro, and Pamela Hall
  Johnson, State's Attorneys and Sheriffs Department, Montpelier, for
  plaintiff-appellee

E.M. Allen, Defender General, and Kerry B. DeWolfe and William Nelson,
  Appellate Attorneys, Montpelier, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


     ALLEN, C.J.   Defendant appeals his conviction of attempted voluntary
manslaughter following a trial by jury.  We affirm.
     On the evening of September 6, 1988, defendant became involved in an
argument with his friends, Tim O'Neil, Kevin O'Neil, and Brian Petrowicz,
over a small debt and for their having abandoned him on the side of a road
while he was riding with them into town.  Defendant had been drinking
heavily and became infuriated.  He walked to his home and obtained from a
gun cabinet a pistol that he and a friend had loaded with a single bullet
the previous night.  He then drove off in search of his friends.  He stopped
first at the O'Neil house where he forced his hand through a window in the
front door.  He eventually found his friends at the Petrowicz house.
Hostility arose, and defendant became belligerent.  He retrieved his gun
from the car, pointed it at Petrowicz's head and pulled the trigger about
three times.  When the gun did not fire, defendant returned to his car and
drove home.
     Lieutenant Dennis Johnson, of the Vernon Police Department, located
defendant at his house.  Finding defendant's hand in need of medical
attention, Lt. Johnson summoned an ambulance.  Defendant agreed with the
officer's suggestion that the two travel to the hospital together in the
ambulance.  During the ride, Lt. Johnson administered a Miranda warning to
defendant and proceeded to ask him some questions.  Defendant told the
officer that he was out for revenge and had intended to kill the victim and
the others.
     Defendant was charged with attempted first degree murder.   Prior to
trial, he unsuccessfully sought to suppress the statements made to Lt.
Johnson.  He renewed this motion at trial, but after testimony was taken in
camera, the trial judge admitted the statements.  The jury returned a
verdict of guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
     The defendant raises four claims of error:  (1) the Miranda warning was
defective; (2) the trial court erred in failing to give a requested
instruction on defendant's theory of the case; (3) the court incorrectly
instructed the jury as to the intent required for attempted voluntary
manslaughter; and (4) the court failed to properly instruct on diminished
capacity.
                                    I.
     Defendant moved prior to trial, and again at trial, to suppress
statements made to Lt. Johnson on the grounds that defendant's waiver of his
Miranda rights was not knowing and intelligent and that his statements were
not voluntary because of the degree of his intoxication and injuries.  On
both occasions, the court ruled against defendant on these grounds, and he
does not reassert them on appeal.  Rather, he asserts, for the first time,
that the Miranda warnings were incomplete.
     At trial, Officer Johnson testified that he administered the following
Miranda warnings to defendant:

          I advised John Davis that he did have a right to remain
          silent.  That I was about to ask him some questions.
          That he had a right to have an attorney.  If he could
          not afford an attorney, one would be appointed for him,
          free of charge.  That he could stop answering questions
          at any time.  And that he did not have to answer my
          questions, until he had an attorney.

This recitation does not explicitly apprise defendant of his right to have
counsel present during interrogation.  Defendant contends that, under our
holding in State v. Kilborn, 143 Vt. 360, 363,