Court Opinion

ID: 9735472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:17:05.807151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:58.967616
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
dissenting. The policy issue presented by this case is whether it is fair to require a criminal defendant to defend twice against the same factual allegations if he obtains a favorable ruling in the first proceeding. Here, defendant was accused, in a probation revocation proceeding, of attacking his former girlfriend. The trial court heard evidence from the State and defendant, and made a specific factual finding that defendant acted to protect or extricate himself from an altercation -with his girlfriend, and therefore did not engage in violent behavior in violation of his probation. Nevertheless, the State charged defendant with assault, based on the same events, which resulted in a hung jury. Only after a third trial, at which the State increased the number of witnesses, was defendant convicted of assault. Then, as a result of the conviction, defendant was again charged with violating his probation, and his probation was revoked. All of these hearings and trials involved the same incident.
Not surprisingly, defendant cries foul. Although the trial court in the revocation proceeding had to decide whether defendant had engaged in violent behavior, not whether defendant was guilty of the charge of assault, defendant argues that the trial court’s determination of the facts undermined the elements of the subsequent charge of assault. Because the State had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the revocation case, he contends that the State should have been collaterally estopped from relitigating the facts that were decided adversely to it in that proceeding. I agree and respectfully dissent.
The United States Supreme Court has defined collateral estoppel as “mean[ing] simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.” Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443 (1970). There is no question that collateral estoppel applies to criminal cases. State v. Dann, 167 Vt. 119, 126, 702 A.2d 105, 110 (1997). In this context, collateral estoppel is a principle of constitutional dimension, which is derived from the protection against double jeopardy guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Harris v. Washington, 404 U.S. 55, 56 (1971). Although revocation proceedings do not put a defendant in jeopardy, the policies underlying double jeopardy and collateral estoppel serve the same function. Those policies insure that “the State with all its resources and *145power ... not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby... compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.” Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187-88 (1957); see United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 705 (1993). Here, the issue of fact that had already been determined was whether defendant attacked his former girlfriend at an altercation in a bar. In prosecuting defendant for assault, the State had a second opportunity to establish a different version of the same event (and a third, after the hung jury). Because he finally suffered a conviction, defendant was not even entitled to the benefit of the original finding of no violation of probation. I have to conclude, on these facts, that the State has violated the fundamental principle set forth in Ashe.
Of the elements of collateral estoppel established by this Court, I agree with the majority that three have been met. Those are: “(1) preclusion is asserted against one who was a party or in privity with a party in the earlier action; (2) the issue was resolved by a final judgment on the merits; [and] (3) the issue is the same as the one raised in the later action.” Dann, 167 Vt. at 126, 702 A.2d at 110 (internal citations omitted). Where I disagree with the majority is in its conclusion that the State did not have a “full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the earlier action,” and that applying preclusion in the later action would not be fair to the State. Id. Because both the technical aspects of collateral estoppel were met and the underlying policy rationale for the doctrine is supported in this case, I would hold that dismissal of the criminal case is the proper result.
To place the policy question squarely before us, I am compelled to explain why this case is not about “a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue” in the prior action. Trepanier v. Getting Organized, Inc., 155 Vt. 259, 265, 583 A.2d 583, 587 (1990) (emphasis added). There is no evidence in the record that the State was denied the opportunity to present its full case at the revocation hearing, by, for example, the court limiting the State to the number of witnesses it could call. Instead, the State’s true complaint is that it failed to exploit the opportunity to litigate the crucial facts at issue in the revocation hearing. The proper inquiry, therefore, is whether the State was given a chance to present its case fully, not whether the State elected to present that case as completely as possible. See Lucido v. Super. Ct., 795 P.2d 1223, 1224 n.2 (Cal. 1990).
*146The factors identified by the State and the majority in support of the position that the State did not have a full and fair opportunity fail to identify any barrier that was outside the control of the State. For example, the State chose to bring the revocation proceeding within three weeks after filing the new charges, knowing that the hearing would be held within a short period of time. The State also chose to rely on only two witnesses in this proceeding, instead of the nine witnesses it produced at the second criminal trial, and chose not to call crucial witnesses such as the victim herself. The State complains that'it did not have the incentive to fully litigate at this early stage of the proceedings, but the lack of incentive should have counseled against bringing the probation revocation before the criminal assault. No rule of law required the State to proceed to probation revocation first, and, in fact, we have advised against such an approach in the past. See State v. Begins, 147 Vt. 295, 300, 514 A.2d 719, 723 (1986) (better method of dealing with problems raised by concurrent criminal and revocation proceedings is to postpone revocation proceedings). The point is that the State made several strategic choices. Those choices did not bear fruit for the State, but it was not because the State was not afforded the opportunity to litigate its case fully.1
Contrary to the majority’s assertion, this case closely resembles those where courts have barred subsequent relitigation of specific facts previously determined at prior hearings. In Ex parte Tarver, 725 S.W.2d 195, 198 (Tex. Grim. App. 1986), the probationer was charged with assault and the State brought a revocation hearing. At the hearing, in which three witnesses testified for the State, the court found the allegations of assault unbelievable. The court of criminal appeals barred the subsequent criminal trial on the ground of collateral estoppel. The court held that “it is clear that a fact issue, i.e. whether applicant assaulted the complainant, has been found *147adversely to the State.” Id. at 198. Similarly, at the revocation hearing in State v. Chase, 588 A.2d 120, 121 (R.I. 1991), the court made, a determination that the defendant did not buy drugs from an undercover police officer, after hearing testimony from both the defendant and the undercover officer. The Rhode Island Supreme Court held that “a specific finding on a material matter of fact fully litigated at the probation-revocation hearing will collaterally estop the state from attempting to prove the same fact at trial.” Id. at 123; see also People v. Kondo, 366 N.E.2d 990, 992-93 (Ill. App. Ct. 1977) (“[T]he court made a finding on the only disputed question of fact involved----[T]he State is barred from seeking a relitigation, upon the same evidence, at a criminal trial, of the issue that had been conclusively determined----”); State v. Donovan, 751 P.2d 1109, 1114 (Or. 1988) (“[I]f the state elects and a judge agrees to conduct a probation revocation hearing that concerns any of the elements of the new offense, then collateral estoppel... will apply against the state if the judge finds that a necessary element is not proven at the hearing.”). These cases are indistinguishable from the present in which the court made a specific factual finding that defendant’s contact with his former girlfriend was accidental. All the technical aspects of the collateral estoppel doctrine point toward barring the State from relitigating that specific finding..
The resolution of this case, therefore, hinges on whether “applying preclusion in the later action is fair.” Trepanier, 155 Vt. at 265, 583 A.2d at 587. The majority reasons that it is not fair because the differences in procedure and purpose between probation revocation hearings and criminal trials do not justify preclusion on the factual issues decided, and that the criminal trial should be preserved as the forum where criminal charges are adjudicated.
There are substantial differences between a revocation proceeding and a criminal hearing, but these differences hardly make it unfair to apply preclusion to the State. In fact, the differences are advantageous to the State, and therefore disadvantageous to the defendant. See Chase, 588 A.2d at 123. As already noted, the State has the advantage of choosing when to proceed and how vigorously to prosecute. The State enjoys a lower burden of proof than at a criminal trial, and may use evidence that is not admissible under a strict reading of the rules of evidence. This allows the State to make strategic choices about how much evidence it will put on. Because the defendant has no choice but to defend or suffer a violation, the State has the further opportunity to “discover” a defendant’s ease at the revocation.hearing and essentially *148to audition its case in a relatively low stakes setting before the criminal trial. See Begins, 147 Vt. at 297, 514 A.2d at 721; see Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 41 (1982) (multiple prosecutions give the State “another opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding” and allow the State to “hon[é] its trial strategies ... through successive attempts at conviction”) (internal quotations omitted). Finally, the State is not precluded, on double jeopardy grounds, from bringing a subsequent criminal prosecution based on the same facts.2
The only prejudice the State suffers in this scenario, assuming collateral estoppel applies, is the preclusive effect of any specific issues of fact decided at the revocation hearing.3 But the State can avoid that harm completely by choosing to prosecute the underlying offense first. We confronted the problems raised by the order of prosecution in Begins, and concluded that “[w]hen it is not detrimental to the probationer or to the public’s safety, the better method of dealing with problems of concurrent criminal and probation revocation jurisdiction is to postpone the probation proceedings until after disposition of related criminal proceedings.” 147 Vt. at 300, 514 A.2d at 723. In Begins, we recognized the disadvantages to a defendant who is subject to two proceedings, and found it necessary, to preserve a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, to create an exclusionary rule to prevent the State’s use of a defendant’s testimony in the subsequent criminal prosecution. Id. at 299-300, 514 A.2d at 722-23. But we did not remove from the State the discretion to make the choice on the order of prosecution. Id. at 298, 514 A.2d at 722. Because the State can avoid any potential prejudice to its criminal case, it is not fair, to allow the State “to treat the revocation hearing as a ‘Heads I win, tails I flip again’ proposition.” Lucido, 795 P.2d at 1243 (Broussard, J., dissenting).
Moreover, revocation proceedings are not like other hearings where the need for summary dispositions explains our reluctance to give their results preclusive effect. This case is unlike State v. Stearns, 159 Vt. 266, 617 A.2d 140 (1992), where we declined to apply collateral estoppel to bar prosecution for DUI when the State failed to prove the *149defendant refused to take a breath test at a civil suspension hearing. There, we held that the State had not had a “full and fair opportunity” because the civil suspension hearing is a summary proceeding designed to get suspected drunk drivers off the road expeditiously. Id. at 271, 617 A.2d at 142-43. See 23 V.S.A. § 1205 (providing for civil suspension of driver’s license by affidavit alone). Similarly, we do not apply collateral estoppel to small claims cases because in those proceedings the procedures have been designed to “provide a simple, informal and inexpensive procedure for determining” cases with small amounts in controversy, where the parties are typically unrepresented by counsel. Cold Springs Farm Dev., Inc. v. Ball, 163 Vt. 466, 469, 661 A.2d 89, 91 (1995) (citation omitted). These informal procedures are “woefully inadequate” to support the application of collateral estoppel in a subsequent suit. Id. at 470, 661 A.2d at 91-92. In revocation proceedings, in contrast, there is no need for promptness or accessibility or informality that limit the procedures, such that application of collateral estoppel in a subsequent criminal trial would be unfair. To the extent that public safety is threatened by the probationer, the State may use conditions of release or the denial of bail on the new charges to protect the public.4 See Lucido, 795 P.2d at 1238-39 (Mosk, J., dissenting).
The final consideration of the fairness question is the impact that applying collateral estoppel to facts determined at a revocation proceeding will have on our judicial system. Here, too, the prejudice suffered by the judicial system is greater when collateral estoppel is not applied to revocation proceedings. We have identified those interests as protecting the integrity of the judicial system by avoiding the possibility of inconsistent judgments, relieving litigants from having to prove a fact twice, and preventing an uneconomic use of judicial resources. See In re Cent. Vt. Pub. Serv. Corp., 172 Vt. 14, 20, 769 A.2d 668, 673 (2001). I cannot agree with the analysis in Lucido that these policies weigh against applying collateral estoppel in revocation cases. Indeed, I believe that applying collateral estoppel to this case serves all three policies, particularly where the pitfalls of not applying collateral estoppel are so evident here — this defendant was put to his proof three times, received a different result each time, and the State needed three court proceedings before it succeeded in convicting defendant.
*150First, the public must have confidence that our system produces accurate results, no matter the purpose of the hearing. For the State to try defendant criminally for the same incident plainly calls into question the accuracy of the fact-finding at the revocation hearing. Failure to apply collateral estoppel leaves us hard pressed to explain why the factual finding at the criminal trial is any more valid than the factual findings of the revocation hearing. Such relitigation casts a shadow over all revocation hearings, renders their results less valid than the results of a criminal trial, and does not inspire confidence in our judicial system.
Second, the failure to apply collateral estoppel in this case forced defendant to prove his case more than once, giving the State multiple “bites at the apple,” and requiring defendant to mount multiple defenses against the same charge. As discussed above, the defendant is prejudiced when the full power of the State is brought to bear against an individual defendant repeatedly. We should not “allow[ ] the [State], through sheer perseverance, to litigate and litigate until [it], in [its] view, lget[s] it right.’” Lucido, 795 P.2d at 1236 (Mosk, J., dissenting).
Third, allowing the State a second chance to litigate what happened between defendant and his former girlfriend is an unnecessary drain on judicial resources. It is a waste of public funds to allow the State another chance to present its case, when it had a fair opportunity to do so at the revocation hearing. The concern for judicial economy is especially pressing where the State failed under a less demanding evidentiary standard than that faced at a criminal trial. Indeed, in various contexts our actions are frequently guided by concern for judicial economy. See, e.g., In re Estate of Gillin, 172 Vt. 546, 548, 773 A.2d 270, 273 (2001) (mem.) (in interests of judicial economy, Court reaches issue trial court did not decide, rather than remand); State v. Tongue, 170 Vt. 409, 414, 753 A.2d 356, 359-60 (2000) (in interest of judicial economy, trial court need not reconsider pretrial suppression ruling when new facts are adduced on motion to reconsider); Reporter’s Notes, V.R.A.P. 2 (noting rule allows this Court to suspend rules “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action”). I see no reason to cast aside those concerns in this setting.
The Lucido majority identifies an additional rationale for not applying collateral estoppel to revocation hearings. It holds that public policy requires that “ultimate determinations of criminal guilt and innocence not be made at probation revocation hearings,” 795 P.2d at *1511224, but should be preserved for a full criminal trial. I agree, but I emphasize again that whether the determination of criminal charges is made at the probation revocation hearing or at a criminal trial is a matter of the State’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Although it,is entirely possible to reserve the trial of criminal charges for full criminal trials by requiring the State to proceed with the criminal trial first, I doubt that the State would have us adopt a rule that removes that choice from its discretion.
The State could have waited until the conclusion of the criminal trial before trying the probation revocation — it chose not to. We should not allow the State to toss aside unfavorable judicial determinations as a result. As Justice Mosk stated in Lucido, “the People control the sequence of proceedings. They alone determine what appears to be in-the best interest of society and public safely. They should be bound by the procedural choice they make.” 795 P.2d at 1239 (Mosk, J., dissenting). Therefore, I would hold that when the trial court in a revocation hearing makes a specific factual finding, that finding is entitled to collateral estoppel, assuming all other elements of the doctrine are met. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

 Even Lucido, the case on which the majority relies, recognized it was answering a policy question based on fairness, not on a full and fair opportunity to litigate. 174 Vt. at 142, 806 A.2d at 1012. The Lucido majority explicitly states that “[i]t appears that the People could have presented more evidence had they wished to — [T]he important question, at least for threshold purposes, is whether the People had the opportunity to present their entire case at the revocation hearing, not whether they availed themselves of the opportunity.” 795 P.2d at 1224 n.2 (emphasis in original). The Lucido majority is dear that its decision is based on the policy rationale behind collateral estoppel, not on the technical requirements of the doctrine. “[Ajssuming all the threshold requirements are satisfied, however, our analysis is not at an end. We have repeatedly looked to the public policies underlying the doctrine before concluding that collateral estoppel should be applied in a particular setting.” Id. at 1226.

 Because the State must prove a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt, collateral estoppel does not preclude the defendant who loses.a revocation hearing from trying the facts anew in a later criminal prosecution.

 Depending on the similarity of the issues in the revocation hearing and a criminal charge based on the same conduct, the State may or may not be precluded from bringing the subsequent criminal prosecution.

 Defendant in this case was held without bail prior to hearing.