Title: In re JB

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. 91-223


 In re J.B., Juvenile                         Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
                                              Bennington Family Court

                                              September Term, 1992



 Paul F. Hudson, J.

 Theresa St. Helaire, Bennington County Deputy State's Attorney, Bennington,
    for appellee

 David Putter of Saxer, Anderson, Wolinsky and Sunshine, Montpelier, for
    appellants

 Charles S. Martin and Robert W. Katims (On the Brief) of Martin & Paolini,
    P.C., Barre, for juvenile



 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      MORSE, J.     This is an appeal from a decision of the family court
 denying a motion to reopen an adjudication of delinquency for sexual
 assault.  We hold that J.B. and his parents were given ineffective
 assistance of counsel when the police sought, and were granted, an interview
 with J.B. about the allegations of sexual assault.  Accordingly, we reverse
 and remand.
      In late June 1990, Officer Brickell of the Manchester Police
 Department received a report of sexual contact between J.B., who was twelve
 years old, and two five-year-old boys.  Brickell contacted J.B.'s father
 concerning the investigation and asked to talk with J.B. about it.  The
 father called attorney Gerald Cantini, who had previously served as counsel
 to J.B.'s parents but had little experience in criminal law, for advice.
 Right from the outset, Cantini advised J.B.'s parents that they should
 cooperate with the police, that "it would be very smart to, instead of
 fighting it, to work within the system and there is nothing to hide."
      J.B. and his parents, accompanied by Cantini, met with Officer Brickell
 at the Manchester Police Department.  Upon arrival at the station, Brickell
 presented them with a "Miranda Warnings and Public Defender Rights Form,"
 from which Brickell read the juvenile his rights.  The form was not
 explained in particularity by either Cantini or Brickell.  Brickell simply
 read from the form to J.B., waited for verbal responses, and gave no
 elaboration.  Brickell then gave the form to J.B.'s father to read.
 Although Cantini was present, he did not discuss the form in any detail.
 He testified:  "I didn't go through and explain word for word what the
 Miranda rights were.  I would have assumed that [the father], he was looking
 at it, was reading it, and if he had had any questions he would have said,
 'Gerry, what does this mean, what doesn't it mean.'"   Cantini's sole
 explanation of the Miranda form was that "it is normal, it is procedural, it
 protects your rights to have counsel, it is very standard."  When asked by
 Brickell whether he understood the Miranda statement, the father asked
 Cantini, "Should I sign this?" and Cantini responded, "I think it is fine
 for you to go ahead and sign it."  J.B.'s father then signed the Miranda
 waiver.
      Officer Brickell also explained the interview process to J.B. and his
 parents, and told them that J.B. might speak "without embarrassment" if his
 parents were not present during the interview.  Cantini testified at the
 motion-to-reopen hearing:

           Counsel:  [D]id you tell the [B. Family] that if they
           did not speak to the police that the police might not
           bring charges?

           Cantini:  It never came up.

           Counsel:  [D]id you explain to them . . . the type of
           pressure that could possibly be put on [J.B] if he were
           interviewed alone without his attorney or without his
           parents present?

           Cantini:  That is an assumption -- what pressure? . . .
           No, I told them that they had the option of being there,
           of not being there, of me being there, everyone being
           there.  It was up to them.

 Cantini summed up by saying that despite the fact that the police would have
 more evidence against J.B. if he were interviewed, "I advised the [B.
 Family] to have [J.B.] talk to the police."
      During the interview, J.B. did indeed cooperate with the police.
 Alone in the room with Officer Brickell, J.B. confessed to the delinquent
 acts that became the basis for the charges against him.  The State
 subsequently charged J.B. with being a delinquent child.
      J.B. entered pleas of nolo contendere at a merits hearing in October
 1990.  In November 1990, at the disposition hearing attended by J.B.,
 Cantini, and J.B.'s parents, as his guardians ad litem, the parties
 stipulated to the adjudication of delinquency based on the two counts of
 sexual assault.  J.B. was placed on probation, which included the condition
 that J.B. participate in a "psycho-sexual evaluation . . . and any treatment
 program which [the facility] might recommend."
      In December 1990, the parents, through their second attorney, David
 Putter, filed a Motion to Reopen the Adjudication of the Merits pursuant to
 V.R.F.P. 1 and 33 V.S.A. { 5532(a), on the grounds that J.B.'s counsel had
 ineffectively represented J.B. during the course of the proceedings and
 that J.B.'s procedural rights had been violated.  The crux of the motion
 was that Cantini had failed to advise appellants against a police interview
 and of meritorious defenses to the claims against J.B., all of which
 constituted ineffective assistance of counsel.
      At the hearing on the motion, appellants presented testimony by
 attorney Robert Sheil, Juvenile Defender in the Office of the Defender
 General.  Sheil testified that Cantini should have more aggressively
 counseled J.B. and his parents about the Miranda waiver and should have
 advised against allowing J.B. to speak with the police.  Sheil concluded
 that because of this omission, along with several others not pertinent to
 our decision, Cantini's representation fell short of the standard of that
 constituting effective assistance of counsel.
      The family court concluded that rather than malfeasance, counsel's
 representation of J.B. involved a deliberate choice of strategy.  Further,
 the court found that no prejudice resulted from Cantini's representation and
 that, although "unorthodox," it was "effective and beneficial."  The motion
 to reopen was denied.  It is from that decision the juvenile and his
 parents now appeal.
      Appellants claim a number of errors, but because we find that counsel
 did not adequately explain to J.B. and his parents J.B.'s right not to speak
 with the police and the consequences of a confession, we need not address
 the others.  We hold that Cantini's failure at that stage of the
 investigation was so unreasonable as to amount to ineffective assistance of
 counsel and that the family court's contrary assessment was clearly
 erroneous.
      The party seeking to establish a claim for ineffective assistance of
 counsel must show that counsel's representation was below an "objective
 standard of reasonableness informed by prevailing professional norms."
 State v. Bristol, 3 Vt. L.W. 280, 281 (Aug. 21, 1992); see Strickland v.
 Washington,