Title: State v. Higgins

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.


                          Nos. 87-060 and 87-451


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

     v.                                      On Appeal from
                                             District Court of Vermont,
Daniel Higgins                               Unit No. 1, Windham Circuit

                                             January Term, 1991


Robert Grussing III, J.

Dan Davis, Windham County State's Attorney, Brattleboro, and Gary Kessler
   and Pamela Hall Johnson, Department of State's Attorneys, Montpelier, for
   plaintiff-appellee

Michael Rose, St. Albans, for defendant-appellant


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


     MORSE, J.   The sole issue we address in this appeal is whether the
trial court misinterpreted our remand in State v. Higgins, 147 Vt. 506, 519 A.2d 1164 (1986).  We find that our remand was not followed and accordingly
reverse and remand.
     In 1984, defendant pled nolo contendere to one count of lewd and
lascivious conduct with a minor and was given a deferred sentence of five
years by Judge Grussing.  He subsequently was charged with violating
conditions of his probation, was found by Judge Hudson to have violated
three of those conditions, and was sentenced to one-to-five years, with
three months to serve.  He appealed, and this Court struck two of the three
probation violations for insufficient evidence.  The case was remanded with
instructions: "This Court cannot know what sentence might have been imposed
by the sentencing judge for a single violation of probation, rather than the
three violations found by the trial court.  We therefore remand for
resentencing."  Id. at 508, 519 A.2d  at 1166.
     On remand, the case was assigned to Judge Grussing, who resentenced
defendant to one-to-four years, with one year to serve.  Defendant now
appeals receiving a greater sentence for his original conviction based on
only one probation violation than he previously received based on three,
asserting that this result is contrary to our remand.
     This is not a case where the "original conviction has, at the
defendant's behest, been wholly nullified and the slate wiped clean."
North Carolina v. Pearce,