Title: State v. Buelow

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. 89-346


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

     v.                                      On Appeal from
                                             Addison Superior Court
Steven Buelow
                                             November Term, 1989


Hilton H. Dier, Jr., J.


John Quinn, Addison County State's Attorney, Middlebury, and Gary S. Kessler
  and Pamela Hall Johnson, Department of State's Attorneys, Montpelier, for
  plaintiff-appellee

Sessions, Keiner, Dumont & Barnes, Middlebury, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ.



     GIBSON, J.   Defendant appeals from denial of his motion to transfer
his case from criminal to juvenile court.  We affirm.
                                    I.
     Defendant, who was fourteen years old at the time of the crime, is
charged with murder while perpetrating a sexual assault on his seven-year-
old cousin.  The girl's body was found near her home three days after
defendant had moved in with her family.  Initially, defendant denied having
committed the crime; indeed, he even participated in the search efforts.
Two days after the homicide, however, he confessed to the killing during the
administration of a polygraph test.  He was then arraigned in criminal court
in accordance with 33 V.S.A. { 632(a)(1)(B), which subjects to criminal
proceedings persons between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who commit
certain serious crimes.  The court denied defendant's motion, made pursuant
to 33 V.S.A. { 635(b), to transfer the case to juvenile court, and this
appeal followed.
     On appeal, defendant argues that (1) the court erred by applying a
mandatory presumption of adulthood and by requiring an extraordinary
standard of proof to overcome that presumption; (2) the court's denial of
the motion to transfer was an abuse of discretion because several of its
findings and conclusions were unsupported by the record; and (3) the {
635(b) transfer proceeding violates due process because it vests absolute
discretion in the court without prescribing any standards or burden of
proof.
                                    II.
     Defendant first argues that the trial court erred by assuming {
632(a)(1)(B) created a presumption that criminal proceedings were
appropriate, by placing on defendant the burden of showing that juvenile
proceedings would be more appropriate, and by requiring an extraordinary
standard of proof to meet that burden.  We disagree.
     Persons between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who are charged with
certain serious crimes, including murder, "shall be subject to criminal
proceedings as in cases commenced against adults, unless transferred to
juvenile court."  33 V.S.A. { 632(a)(1)(B); see also 33 V.S.A. { 644(c)
("any proceeding concerning a child who is alleged to have committed an act
specified in section 635a(a) of this title after attaining the age of 14 but
not the age of 18 shall originate in district or superior court") (emphasis
added).  33 V.S.A. { 635a(a) includes murder in its list of offenses.
Accordingly, in situations where a fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old is charged
with murder, the criminal court has exclusive original jurisdiction over the
matter.  Pursuant to 33 V.S.A. { 635(b), however, the court "may" transfer
such a proceeding to juvenile court.  In such case, the party seeking to
transfer the proceeding out of criminal court has the burden of showing
that the case does not belong there.  State v. Anderson,