Title: State v. Johnson

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

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, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 90-287


 State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

      v.                                      On Appeal from
                                              District Court of Vermont,
 Aaron E. Johnson                             Unit No. 2, Addison Circuit

                                              February Term, 1992


 Linda Levitt, J.

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Susan R. Harritt, Assistant
   Attorney General, Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellee

 Carlyle Shepperson, West Corinth, for defendant-appellant



 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.

      MORSE, J.   Defendant appeals from a jury conviction on six counts of
 lewd or lascivious conduct with a child, in violation of 13 V.S.A. { 2602.
 He argues that the trial court erred by (1) failing to instruct the jury
 on the effect of the statute of limitations; (2) instructing the jury that
 causing a child to touch the child's own body may constitute a lewd or
 lascivious act "upon or with the body" of a child; (3) not granting a
 mistrial in light of the prosecution's improper questioning of a witness and
 closing argument; and (4) denying his motion for severance.  We affirm.
      Defendant worked as a counselor during a summer camp session held from
 June 30, 1985 to July 13, 1985 for children with mental disabilities.  The
 State charged defendant with seven counts of lewd or lascivious behavior
 with a child based on his conduct toward four different boys during that
 two-week period.  The counts alleged that "on or about" July 1985 defendant
 fondled the genitals of three boys, rubbed his genitals against another boy,
 and had two boys masturbate while he and other juveniles looked on.  The
 jury found defendant guilty of six of the seven counts.
                                     I.
      Defendant first claims that the court erred by refusing to instruct the
 jury that he could not be found guilty of offenses committed before July 1,
 1985, because the three-year statute of limitations in effect on June 30,
 1985 had run when charges were brought against him in July of 1988.  We
 disagree.
      Until 1985, 13 V.S.A. { 4501 permitted prosecutions for unspecified
 crimes, including lewd or lascivious conduct with a child, only within three
 years after the commission of the offense.  Effective July 1, 1985,
 however, prosecutions for lewd or lascivious conduct with a child could be
 commenced "within the earlier of the date the victim attains the age of 24
 or six years from the date the offense is reported."  13 V.S.A. { 4501(c).
 Apparently, both the prosecution and the defense in this case proceeded
 under the assumption that the three-year statute of limitations was
 controlling with regard to conduct alleged to have occurred before July 1,
 1985.  At the charge conference, the trial court determined that the
 prosecution was within the three-year statute of limitations, and refused to
 instruct the jury, as requested by defendant, that time is an essential
 element of the crime in this instance.
      Approximately a year after the conviction here, we held in  State v.
 Petrucelli, ___ Vt. ___, ___, 592 A.2d 365, 365 (1991), that the 1985
 amendment lengthening the statute of limitations for sexual assault and lewd
 and lascivious conduct from three years to six years applied retroactively
 to conduct for which the prior statute of limitations had not run at the
 time of the amendment.  Under that holding, the current six-year statute of
 limitations governed the offenses charged in this case even if they occurred
 before July 1, 1985, and defendant's first claim of error is unavailing.
      We reject defendant's assertion, which he made for the first time in
 his reply brief, despite having filed his initial brief approximately seven
 months after Petrucelli was decided, that our holding in that case violates
 the federal constitutional bar against ex post facto laws.  See State v.
 Creekpaum,