Title: State v. Lawton

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

STATE_V_LAWTON.93-098; 164 Vt 179; 667 A.2d 50

[Filed 01-Sep-1995]

       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. 93-098


State of Vermont                                  Supreme Court

                                                  On Appeal from
    v.                                            District Court of Vermont,
                                                  Unit No. 2, Chittenden Circuit

Robert Lawton                                      September Term, 1994



George T. Costes, J.

       Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Susan R. Harritt, Assistant
  Attorney General, Montpelier, appellate counsel for plaintiff-appellee

       James W. Murdoch, Kurt M. Hughes and Heather Rylant, Legal Assistant
  (On the Brief), of Murdoch & Hughes, Burlington, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


       JOHNSON, J.  Rarely are we compelled to reverse a verdict of guilty
  because the trial judge failed to control an overzealous prosecutor, but
  this is such a case.  The improper admission of numerous bad acts allegedly
  committed by defendant, punctuated with improper prosecutorial comments
  about defendant's character, were potentially so damaging that we cannot
  conclude that the verdict against defendant was untainted by such evidence.

       Defendant was charged with three counts of sexual assault on his three
  sons, G.L., aged seven years, D.L., aged five years, and B.L., aged three
  years.  The State alleged the offenses took place between January 1990 and
  February 1991 while defendant lived with his family in Williston, Vermont. 
  All three boys testified at trial, but B.L., the youngest, was unwilling to
  talk about what had happened to him.  B.L.'s story was told through his
  mother and the police officer who interviewed him.  Although B.L.'s story
  was less specific than the older children's description, the gist of the
  children's stories was that defendant had sodomized them on several

 

  occasions.

       The children's description of the sexual conduct was consistent with
  the findings of Dr. Paul Young, the State's medical expert, who had
  examined the boys and found physical abnormalities consistent with a
  history of rectal penetration by an object the size of an adult penis. 
  Although the physical examination of the boys revealed a difference in
  severity of abnormality, Dr. Young concluded that the most likely
  explanation for the rectal injuries in all three boys was "sexual abuse,
  repeated sodomy, anal intercourse."

       Defendant testified in his own defense.  His theory of the case was
  that his wife had accused him of sexual abuse of the children in
  retaliation for an affair he was conducting with another woman, and that
  his wife had coerced the children to testify.  He presented expert
  testimony contending that the children had been improperly manipulated by
  various interviewers. His explanation for the physical evidence found by
  Dr. Young was that the children were engaging in sexualized play with each
  other and with children in the neighborhood.

       The central issues for the jury, then, should have been the children's
  credibility and the reliability of B.L.'s account of the abuse, as related
  through his mother and the police officer, the persuasiveness of the
  medical and other expert testimony, and defendant's credibility.  The
  State, however, shifted the focus of the trial to defendant's character. 
  Thus, we first discuss defendant's two related assignments of error, that
  the admission of numerous bad acts combined with improper prosecutorial
  commentary deprived him of a fair trial.

                                     I.

       In criminal cases, prosecutors have a duty to obtain convictions
  "earnestly and vigorously through legitimate means and methods."  State v.
  Verrinder, 161 Vt. 250, 261,