Title: State v. Petrucelli

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. 88-479


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

     v.                                      On Appeal from
                                             District Court of Vermont,
Steven J. Petrucelli                         Unit No. 1, Windsor Circuit

                                             October Term, 1990


George F. Ellison, J.

Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Susan R. Harritt, Assistant
   Attorney General, Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellee

Walter M. Morris, Jr., Defender General, and Henry Hinton, Appellate
   Defender, Montpelier, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Peck, J. (Ret.),
          Specially Assigned


     MORSE, J.  The sole issue in this interlocutory appeal is whether 1
V.S.A. { 214(b)(2) prohibits retroactive application of an amendment to 13
V.S.A. { 4501(c), which lengthened the statute of limitations for sexual
assault from three years to six years.  We hold that it does not and remand
for trial.
     On March 27, 1987, the State filed an information charging defendant
with two counts of sexual assault of a minor.  The alleged offenses
occurred in 1983, four years before the information was filed.  In 1983, the
statute of limitations for sexual assault, then found in 13 V.S.A. { 4501,
was three years.  In 1985, the statute of limitations was amended, extending
the limitation period to six years.  13 V.S.A. { 4501(c).  Thus, at the time
the limitation period was extended, the original three-year limitation had
not yet run out on defendant's alleged offenses.
     Defendant filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that 1 V.S.A. {
214(b)(2), prohibiting retroactive application of a statutory amendment,
barred his prosecution because the original limitations period of three
years had run.  The trial court denied defendant's motion to dismiss but
granted his motion for permission to file this interlocutory appeal.
     1 V.S.A. { 214(b)(2) provides that
              The amendment or repeal of an act or statutory
         provision, [except where a penalty is reduced], shall
         not . . . [a]ffect any right, privilege, obligation or
         liability acquired, accrued or incurred prior to the
         effective date of the amendment or repeal . . . .

The issue is whether a criminal defendant acquires a "right, privilege,
obligation, or liability" under the statute of limitations in effect at the
time of the offense.
     Other states examining the issue have declined to find that criminal
defendants acquire, at the time of an alleged offense, a right to the
statute of limitations then in effect.  See, e.g., State v. Nagle, 226 N.J.
Super. 513,