State v. Morton

Supreme Court of Vermont
State v. Morton, 184 A.3d 249 (Vt. 2018)

State v. Morton

Opinion of the Court

(Emphasis added.) Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(b) allows individual courts to "establish procedures and standards by which persons arrested with or without a warrant other than during normal business hours" may be released temporarily pending an initial appearance. Rule 5(b) further provides that the initial appearance before a judge "shall be held as soon as possible after release." V.R.Cr.P. 5(b). This plain language demonstrates that an after-hours bail order is temporary and functions as a stop-gap before the court can make a more informed bail decision at the initial appearance. See State v. Villar, 2017 VT 109, ¶ 7, --- Vt. ----, 180 A.3d 588 ("In construing a procedural rule, we look first to the rule's plain language, just as with statutory construction."). The temporary quality of the after-hours order, and the swiftness with which the rules mandate an initial appearance, indicates that whatever bail determination the court makes at the initial appearance replaces the after-hours order, rather than revokes it.

¶ 7. The structure of these rules makes sense. The initial after-hours bail assessment is often based on an incomplete, ex parte recitation of limited facts to a judicial officer without the participation of the state's attorney, defense counsel, or defendant. The rules recognize the limitations of the after-hours order by treating it as temporary, pending a more thorough assessment with more comprehensive information at the initial appearance.3

¶ 8. For these reasons, we affirm the trial court's decision to hold defendant without bail pending further review in a weight-of-the-evidence hearing, if defendant requests review.

Affirmed.

Because we rest our decision on the specific limitations of after-hours orders under our rules, we need not consider the impact on the broader issue raised by defendant of this Court's one-justice entry order in State v. Synnott, No. 2012-302, 2012 WL 5975002 (Vt. Sept. 11, 2012) (unpub. mem.).

Reference

Full Case Name
STATE of Vermont v. Tyreke MORTON
Cited By
1 case
Status
Published