Did you expect any different title on this day of all days?
Anyway, I've been a little busy the past few weeks so we're going to go quickly here.
On April 19, SCOV issued an opinion dealing with concurrent sentences, the sex-offender registry, and triggering dates for reporting periods. Plaintiff was convicted of murder and sexual assault back in the 90s, maxed out his sexual assault sentence in 2001, and took the position that his ten-year reporting period should have ended ten years later in 2011. Without getting too deep into the weeds, SCOV says, "Well, maybe." The majority reverses the trial court's summary-judgment ruling for the State and remands for further factual development.
Justice Eaton, joined by Justice Carroll, dissents. The dissent reasons that the reporting-period triggering event is when plaintiff is finally released from parole. There's no need to parse out the connection between the sex offense and its sentence because we're not even at the point where the reporting period would start to run. Wood v. Wallin, 2024 VT 21.
Also, on April 19, SCOV follows up on the immediately-taking-the-license professional-responsibility opinion we wrote about a few weeks ago. Because respondent is now cooperating with disciplinary counsel, SCOV grants her motion to dissolve the interim suspension and she gets her license back. In re Vekos, 2024 VT 22 (mem.)
One decision on April 26, dealing with probation conditions. The short version is that if a certain type of programming is discontinued and replaced with a similar program, the trial court can't just plug in the new program and grant the state's motion to modify. The majority reverses. Justice Carroll dissents, not because she disagrees with the reversal itself but because she would add a remand to determine the interplay between the proposed amendment and already existing conditions that might arguably require the programming. State v. Meade, 2024 VT 23.
On April 30, SCOV issued a bail decision. I'll spare you the details, but defendant himself made an incriminating video on the complainant's phone and confessed, more or less, to a sexual assault. On appeal, he argues that the trial court needed more corroboration than his confession to hold him according to the corpus delicti rule. SCOV reasons that the complainant's sworn testimony is enough corroboration here and skips any reliance on the video. The hold-without-bail order is affirmed. State v. Holland-Levine, 2024 VT 25 (mem.)
Yesterday, May 3, SCOV takes up two professional-responsibility cases involving the same attorney. To grossly oversimplify, an attorney who's entered an appearance in a case can't just not show up for a final hearing. An attorney probably also shouldn't try to get around a court's prohibition on kids testifying by filing affidavits from said kids. The legal issues in this decision don't stem so much from the alleged violations but from the parties' stipulations to discipline: a public reprimand for one case; a private reprimand for the other. The majority reasons that the matters must be taken as a whole and that the proposed discipline is inconsistent with the ABA guidelines. This one gets remanded. Justice Cohen dissents, reasoning that stipulated resolutions are good things and we should encourage them. In re Kennedy, 2024 VT 24.
Our final decision deals with Canadian currency exchange rates and child support. Again, I will grossly oversimplify. It's okay for a magistrate to use some discretion in determining what exchange rate to use. That's the primary issue in this case. The other issue is whether the trial court had authority to order mom to pay back an overpayment when she wasn't really on notice that dad was overpaying. SCOV concludes that this kind of order in this case would be inequitable. So the repayment order is vacated and the rest gets affirmed. Stone v. Henneke, 2024 VT 26.
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