Opinion ID: 6357502
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard for Revocation of Youthful-Offender Status

Text: ¶ 20. The youthful-offender statute does not provide factors the court should use in deciding whether to revoke youthful-offender status. See 33 V.S.A. § 5285(c)(2) (authorizing revocation but not providing standard). The trial court therefore adopted the standard the Legislature provided for determining whether to grant youthful-offender status in the first place. See 33 V.S.A. § 5284(a), (b) (requiring court to consider public safety, probationer's amenability to treatment, and services available for rehabilitation in deciding whether to grant youthful-offender status). In arguing that this was error, defendant attempts to distinguish a youth's situation at the time of the grant from his situation when facing revocation. He argues that revocation, unlike the grant, entails the loss of statutory protections, and therefore the court must weigh that loss in its revocation decision. ¶ 21. We disagree. The Legislature expressly provided factors it intended the court to consider when assessing whether youthful-offender status will be appropriate and effective: public safety, amenability to treatment, and sufficient services for rehabilitation. 33 V.S.A. § 5284(a), (b) ; see Harris v. Sherman , 167 Vt. 613 , 614, 708 A.2d 1348 , 1349 (1998) (mem.) (In construing statutes, courts have a duty to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the Legislature .... (citation omitted) ). Despite defendant's arguments to the contrary, we see no significant difference in a youth's situation when youthful-offender status is granted from when it is revoked. There is no reasonable basis for this Court to craft an alternative standard to the one the Legislature adopted. Cf. Harris , 167 Vt. at 614 , 708 A.2d at 1350 (refusing to alter scope of statute because Legislature expressed no intent to do so, stating great care should be exercised by the court not to expand proper construction of a statute into judicial legislation (quotation omitted) ). Indeed, defendant conceded in the trial court that the court would be on strong ground to base its  decision on the factors for granting youthful-offender status, and that those factors are the crux of how the court decides this case. Cf. State v. Longe , 170 Vt. 35 , 39 n., 743 A.2d 569 , 572 n. (1999) (holding under invited error doctrine, a party may not induc[e] an erroneous ruling and later seek[ ] to profit from the legal consequences of having the ruling set aside (quotation omitted) ). The trial court did not err in applying to the revocation decision the same factors the Legislature provided for granting youthful-offender status. 6