State v. Steinhour, 91-096
| Decision Date | 03 April 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-096,91-096 |
| Parties | STATE of Vermont v. Linwood STEINHOUR. |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
James A. Hughes, Franklin County Deputy State's Atty., St. Albans, for plaintiff-appellee.
E.M. Allen, Defender General, and William A. Nelson, Appellate Defender, Montpelier, for defendant-appellant.
Before ALLEN, C.J., and GIBSON, DOOLEY, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.
Defendant appeals a judgment revoking his probation based on admissions of drug use he made to his probation officer. He claims these statements should not have been used against him because they were compelled in violation of his privilege against self-incrimination. We affirm.
Defendant was convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, sentenced to 1-5 years, suspended, and placed on probation with conditions. The conditions included requirements that defendant report to his probation officer as the officer required, that he participate in any program to which his probation officer referred him, and that he not "purchase, possess or consume regulated drugs." The probation form advised that if he violated any of the conditions, he could "be brought before the court to be further dealt with according to law."
During a routine meeting to review his probationary status, the probation officer asked defendant if he had been abstaining from drugs and "would [he] come clean" if given a urinanalysis test. Defendant responded by admitting he had smoked marijuana. At a subsequent meeting, defendant told the probation officer that he had been using marijuana "once a week to once a month," and at a later meeting when asked about his drug use, he told his probation officer that he had been smoking between one and two joints a day. The court revoked defendant's probation on this evidence.
Defendant does not claim a failure to warn him of his privilege against self-incrimination under Miranda. Rather, he maintains that the circumstances supported a reasonable belief that an assertion of the privilege would itself be a ground to revoke probation, which rendered his confessions involuntary. Assuming defendant's probationary status required him to answer the officer's questions and a refusal to answer them under a claim of privilege against self-incrimination could be a ground to revoke probation, we conclude defendant's answers did not violate his privilege against self-incrimination under either the Fifth Amendment 1 or the Vermont Constitution. 2
We recognize that the existence of the privilege in these circumstances compels a defendant to choose between three alternatives: answering truthfully or falsely or remaining silent. If defendant is guilty of conduct which is a violation of probation, whether it is the conduct admitted in his answers to the probation officer's questions or other conduct, his answers are relevant and may be used against him in the revocation hearing. That is because defendant is not being compelled to give statements to be used against him in a criminal proceeding.
Defendant relies on a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, Minnesota v. Murphy, for the proposition that:
The general rule that the privilege must be claimed when self-incrimination is threatened has ... been deemed inapplicable in cases where the assertion of the privilege is penalized so as to "foreclos[e] a free choice to remain silent, and ... compe[l] ... incriminating testimony."
465 U.S. 420, 434, 104 S.Ct. 1136, 1146, 79 L.Ed.2d 409 (1984) (quoting Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648, 661 (1976)). In Murphy, as here, a probationer made incriminating admissions during a meeting with his probation officer without asserting his privilege to remain silent.
Defendant, however, misconstrues the impact of Murphy when he takes it a step further and asserts that the "compelled" statements cannot be used in a noncriminal proceeding. Murphy involved a claim of "waiver" of the privilege by the probationer's failure to assert the privilege when questioned by a probation officer. Murphy is readily distinguished because there the State sought to introduce defendant's statements in a criminal proceeding, namely, his prosecution for first-degree murder. Simply put, the privilege does not prevent compelled testimony of the sort elicited here to be used in a probation revocation...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Powers
...hearing, the court granted the motion. It found that the statements to the probation officer were inadmissible under State v. Steinhour , 158 Vt. 299, 302, 607 A.2d 888, 890 (1992), which it read to preclude the use of statements made by probationers to probation officers in a new criminal ......
-
State v. Powers
...hearing, the court granted the motion. It found that the statements to the probation officer were inadmissible under State v. Steinhour, 158 Vt. 299, 302, 607 A.2d 888, 890 (1992), which it read to preclude the use of statements made by probationers to probation officers in a new criminal p......
-
State v. Cate, 94-419
...statement demonstrates that the State has not met its burden of eliminating the threat of incrimination. See State v. Steinhour, 158 Vt. 299, 301-02, 607 A.2d 888, 890 (1992) (State may validly insist on answers to incriminating questions only if it recognizes that answers may not be used i......