State v. Lapham

• Decision Date: 10 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 138-75,138-75
• Citation: State v. Lapham, 340 A.2d 81, 133 Vt. 431 (Vt. 1975)
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Vermont v. Robert E. LAPHAM.

Page 81

340 A.2d 81

133 Vt. 431

STATE of Vermont v. Robert E. LAPHAM.

No. 138-75.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

June 10, 1975.

John S. Liccardi, Rutland County State's Atty., Rutland, for plaintiff.

Parisi & Broderick, Castleton, J. Fred Carbine, Jr., Rutland, for defendant.

Before BARNEY, C. J., SMITH, DALEY and LARROW, JJ., and KEYSER, Ret. J, Specially Assigned.

PER CURIAM.

The crime charged is murder and the issue is the denial of bail. Since it is not a charge involving the death sentence (see 13 V.S.A. § 7554), it is not a capital crime, and there is a right to have the entitlement to bail judicially determined.

The matter was heard in district court and bail on any terms denied. The cause was then passed to this Court. The order below contains no findings of fact, but is supported only by conclusions. This requires a remand. State v. Roessell, 132 Vt. 634, 635, 328 A.2d 118 (1974).

Some facts are contained in the material before us: the affidavits of probable cause of the police officers; the psychiatric evaluation; and the transcript of the hearing on bail. These reveal that, apparently, the defendant shot his wife in their home, then attempted to take his own life. He admitted the police when they arrived and made no resistance. He then collapsed and was taken to the hospital in serious condition from his attempt to commit suicide by taking about one hundred tablets of Valium and Darvon.

He is a man of about 48 years, who has lived in the State since 1961. He recently operated an oil business in Fair Haven until he sold it in 1971. Since then he has worked full time as a life insurance salesman. He has a home in Mendon, Vermont, with a claimed equity of at least thirty thousand dollars.

He has three grown sons, two in the Rutland-Fair Haven area, and one in Indiana. He has been in the Vermont State Hospital at Waterbury since sometime in April, and his psychiatric evaluation has been completed. He seems to have been quiet and cooperative while at the hospital.

It should be pointed out that this recitation does not come from any facts found below, but is information gleaned from the documents and record submitted to this Court in connection with this appeal. That being so, much of it does not truly have the standing of found facts, and has not been tested in a fact finding forum. We resort to it only to get some flavor of the circumstances surrounding this case, so that we do not have to consider it without any knowledge of the apparent circumstances. It does appear that here, as in the Roessell case, supra, the ingredients are present from which written findings could and should have been made.

The defendant, in argument, represented that, for purposes of psychiatric examination, his doctor wishes to meet with him outside of an atmosphere of custodial restraint because he feels it would bias the...