State v. Stone

• Decision Date: 12 May 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-075.,98-075.
• Citation: 756 A.2d 785
• Parties: STATE of Vermont v. Pamela STONE.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

756 A.2d 785

STATE of Vermont v. Pamela STONE.

No. 98-075.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

May 12, 2000.

Robert M. Butterfield, Caledonia County Deputy State's Attorney, St. Johnsbury, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Robert Appel, Defender General, and Henry Hinton, Appellate Attorney, Montpelier, for Defendant-Appellant.

Present AMESTOY, C.J., DOOLEY, MORSE, JOHNSON and SKOGLUND, JJ.

DOOLEY, J.

Defendant Pamela Stone was convicted by a Caledonia District Court jury of hindering a police officer, in violation of 13 V.S.A. § 3001. Defendant appeals on the grounds that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support her conviction. We agree and reverse.

On September 19, 1998, a Vermont State Police officer received information that John Stone had failed to return from furlough and had been placed on escape status by the Vermont Department of Corrections. The officer had dealt with Mr. Stone before, knew where Stone lived, and drove his marked cruiser to Stone's home in St. Johnsbury. Finding no one at home, the officer left around 8:00 p.m. While on the road only minutes later, the officer came up behind a car he recognized as that of defendant Pamela Stone, Mr. Stone's wife. He followed the car as it pulled into the parking lot of a gas station in Lyndonville and proceeded into a dimlylit section of the parking lot behind the station. The officer stopped and approached the car, determining with his flashlight that the car was occupied by defendant in the driver's seat, John Stone in the front passenger's seat and an unknown male in the back seat. He also saw alcohol containers on the rear floor.

As the officer neared the driver's window, defendant asked if there was a problem. The officer replied that Mr. Stone was on escape status and directed the occupants of the vehicle to remain in it and to place their hands where they could be seen. Defendant complied with this order by putting her hands on the steering wheel and remaining in her seat.

Mr. Stone, however, did not comply. Instead, he began to yell and swear, generally acting out of control. The officer moved to the passenger side of the vehicle, repeatedly telling Mr. Stone that he was under arrest and to exit the car. Mr. Stone refused to comply, continuing his verbal torrent and locking his door. When the officer determined he could not enter, and after warning Mr. Stone of the consequences of noncompliance, he smashed the passenger window with his flashlight to gain access to the door lock.

When the officer shattered the window, defendant immediately got out of the car and walked towards the rear of the vehicle in a quick and determined manner. She was carrying an object that turned out to be her purse. The officer ordered her to return to the driver's seat, but she did not comply and continued walking. The officer then left the passenger side of the car and confronted defendant along the driver's side. He repeatedly ordered defendant to get back in the car until he had apprehended Mr. Stone, but she refused to comply and attempted to go either around or through the officer. After warning her, the officer then told defendant that she was under arrest, and he reached down to grab her wrist to handcuff her. That caused an altercation between the officer and Mr. Stone, who left the vehicle to come to the aid of his wife. A back-up officer arrived and took custody of defendant while the original officer arrested Mr. Stone.

Defendant was charged with and convicted by a jury of hindering the officer's arrest of Mr. Stone in violation of 13 V.S.A. § 3001. That statute provides that "[a] person who hinders an executive, judicial, law enforcement, civil or military officer acting under the authority of this state or any subdivision thereof shall be imprisoned not more than three years or fined not more than $500.00, or both."¹

Defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to V.R.Cr.P. 29(a), both at the close of the State's case and at the close of the evidence, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction for hindering the officer's arrest of her husband. The trial court applied the standard for considering such a motion: whether the evidence viewed in a light most favorable to the State and excluding any modifying evidence, is sufficient to fairly and reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Couture, 169 Vt. 222, 226, 734 A.2d 524, 527 (1999). The court denied the motion, concluding:

The state has shown evidence showing that she refused to stay behind the wheel as she had been ordered to do inside the car, that she exited the car when told not to, that she was told to reenter the car, and she persisted in refusing to reenter the car and in walking back, toward the back of the car, and confronting the officer, that she did physically interfere with his ability to attend to a very difficult, agitated and unruly person that the officer was taking into custody, so the motion is denied.

The court also noted that defendant "walked beside the car, not walking away from the car." Defendant argues anew in this Court that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction.

Before we address the applicable law, we think it important to address the State's theory of hindering that is supported by the evidence. The evidence of defendant's conduct before her arrest came exclusively from the testimony of the officer.² The officer's testimony was that he confronted defendant when she was walking along the driver's side of the vehicle in the direction of the rear of the car. There was no indication that she intended to go around the rear of the car and physically interfere with the officer's arrest of John Stone. Indeed, the officer admitted her actions were equally consistent with an intent to leave the area of the car and go to the gasoline station.

Consistent with these facts, the officer stated why he believed defendant had hindered his arrest of Mr. Stone:

Ms. Stone, by getting out of her vehicle after I had essentially told her to stay in the vehicle, directly affected my ability to deal directly with John Stone in a safe and efficient manner, depending upon how he reacted. It affected my ability to be able to place him into custody without any other people getting involved, and by her getting out of the vehicle, she caused me fear for my safety.

He testified that his fear was caused:

Because I hadn't searched her. I didn't know what her intentions were. She had something in her hands, later turned out that it was her purse and I hadn't gone through her purse, I had no idea what she was going to do.

Although all cases must be decided on their unique facts, we emphasize the limit of what those facts show. As the trial court found, if defendant hindered the arrest, it is because she left the car in contradiction of the officer's orders, and did not immediately proceed away from the car so it was clear she would not physically interfere with the arrest.³

We have defined "hinder" as "to slow down or to make more difficult someone's progress towards accomplishing an objective; to delay, or impede or interfere with that person's progress." State v. Oren, 162 Vt. 331, 334, 647 A.2d 1009, 1011 (1994). In interpreting the statute, we have consistently added that the interference "must be action that a defendant does not have the legal right to take." Id. This requirement was first explained in State v. Buck, 139 Vt. 310, 313, 428 A.2d 1090, 1093 (1981), where the owner of a business was charged with hindering the actions of tax inspectors, who were examining records of defendant's business in a room where they were kept. After a dispute arose over the inspectors' action, defendant entered the room, removed the light bulb and placed seat pads against the door after he left. In rejecting the State's claim that these actions hindered the activities of the inspectors, this Court held:

We regard the test as being one of whether or not the respondent has a legal right to take the action which results in impeding the officer. If he does have that right, its exercise is not prohibited by the statute. Only when he has no such right can his actions be an unlawful hindrance.

Id. We held that defendant had a right to remove his own property—that is, the light bulbs; and that the seat pads were a minor hindrance to leaving the room, but not to the tax inspection. Id. at 314, 428 A.2d at 1093.

We have explored the absence of legal right element of the offense in some later cases. In Oren, 162 Vt. at 335, 647 A.2d at 1012, and State v. Dion, 154 Vt. 420, 424, 578 A.2d 101, 103 (1990), we found absence of a legal right because defendant was charged with threatening a law enforcement officer to prevent the officer from discharging a duty. For example, in Oren, defendant threatened a deputy sheriff to prevent the deputy from serving civil process on her. See Oren, 162 Vt. at 335, 647 A.2d at 1012. By comparison, in a case where defendant was charged with hindering the police by flushing cocaine in his possession down the toilet, we held that defendant had a legal right to do so, noting that although cocaine possession was a crime, dispossession was not unless the defendant sold or dispensed it. State v. Harris, 152 Vt. 507, 509, 568 A.2d 360, 361 (1989).

Here, defendant claims the State presented insufficient evidence that her actions were unlawful, because she had a legal right to exit the car and walk away. The State responds that her action were unlawful because defendant did not have a legal right to ignore the officer's order to return to her seat in the car.

Whether defendant's conduct here is more like threatening an officer, or more like turning off the lights and shutting the door on tax inspectors, we cannot conclude that her failure to obey an officer's command automatically makes her guilty of hindering the officer. Although we have never addressed this question, we find decisions from...