Title: State v. Boivin

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, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
 
 
                                No. 87-577
 
 
State of Vermont                             Supreme Court
 
       v.                                    On Appeal from
                                             District Court of Vermont,
Carl M. Boivin                               Unit No. 2, Chittenden Circuit
 
                                             September Term, 1989
 
 
Edward J. Cashman, J.
 
Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and David Tartter, Assistant Attorney
  General, Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellee
 
Walter M. Morris, Jr., Defender General, William A. Nelson, Appellate
  Defender, and Ricardo Larks, Law Clerk (On the Brief), Montpelier, for
  defendant-appellant
 
 
PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Barney, C.J. (Ret.),
          Specially Assigned
 
 
     BARNEY, C.J. (Ret.)  The defendant contends that evidence relevant to
his defense was erroneously excluded, resulting in his conviction of
unlawful mischief for vandalizing a truck.  We reverse and remand for a new
trial.
     A witness for the State, nephew of the owner of the truck, testified
that at about three o'clock on a certain afternoon the defendant was seen
walking around and apparently touching the truck as it sat in the parking
lot of an apartment house in Winooski, Vermont.  Later that day, the owner
of the truck examined it and found scratches all over it, particularly on
the cab, and found that rocks had been thrown inside.  The damage was
estimated to be about $1,800.  A witness stated that sometime after 3:00
p.m. the defendant was seen entering a light blue car and driving away.
     The defendant lived in the apartment house and his quarters were no
more than thirty feet from the parking lot.  He offered testimony that he
walked through the lot at about the time he was said to have been seen
there, accompanied by witnesses who would state that he never touched the
truck.  He then proposed to prove, by his own testimony and that of others,
that he had gone to the apartment where he had remained all afternoon.
     This last evidence was held by the trial court to constitute an attempt
to prove an alibi within the terms of V.R.Cr.P. 12.1, and therefore was
excluded under V.R.Cr.P. 12.1(e) for failure to comply with the notice
requirements of V.R.Cr.P. 12.1(a).
     The immediate question, duly raised by the defendant, is whether such
evidence in fact constitutes "alibi" evidence.  In the law, "alibi"
evidence relates to defendant's claim that he was at a place so removed from
the scene of the crime that it rendered his participation improbable, if not
impossible.  State v. Ovitt, 126 Vt. 320, 327,