State v. Welch

• Decision Date: 22 December 2022
• Docket Number: 22-AP-337
• Citation: 2022 VT 65
• Parties: State of Vermont v. Richard Welch, Jr.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

2022 VT 65

State of Vermont
v.
Richard Welch, Jr.

No. 22-AP-337

Supreme Court of Vermont

December 22, 2022

APPEALED FROM: Superior Court, Rutland Unit, Criminal Division DOCKET NO. 22-CR-09149 Cortland Corsones Trial Judge:

ENTRY ORDER

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

¶ 1. Defendant Richard Welch, Jr. is charged with one count of violating 13 V.S.A. § 3253(a)(8), aggravated sexual assault, victim under thirteen years, for which the penalty is imprisonment of not less than ten years with a maximum term of life. The criminal division concluded that the evidence against defendant is great and exercised its discretion to hold him without bail pending trial. Defendant appealed to this Court after the criminal division subsequently denied his motion to review bail. We affirm.

¶ 2. The purported victim M.B. is twelve years old. Defendant is M.B.'s stepfather. Prior to his arrest, defendant lived with M.B., her siblings, and her mother to whom defendant is married. On August 17, 2022, M.B.'s biological father contacted Brandon police after he saw a photograph of M.B., which suggested to him that she was pregnant. Brandon police officers performed a welfare check and confirmed that M.B. was visibly pregnant. Defendant and M.B.'s mother denied knowing M.B. was pregnant. Later that day, a doctor confirmed that M.B. was full term in her pregnancy.

¶ 3. The next day, August 18, authorities conducted a forensic interview with M.B. She denied knowing who the father of her child was and denied having sexual intercourse with anyone. M.B. could not explain her pregnancy. Four days later, she was re-interviewed and reported that the only person who could be the father was defendant. M.B. told investigators that she sleepwalks and sometimes ends up in defendant's bed, but only when her mother is away.

¶ 4. M.B. gave birth to H.B. on August 31, 2022. M.B.'s biological father and defendant provided DNA samples to help determine parentage. M.B. and her child also provided DNA samples. The DNA testing eliminated M.B.'s biological father as a candidate. In an affidavit, a forensic chemist from the Vermont Forensic Laboratory provided the following information: "[s]tatistical analysis of the parentage relationship of M.B. (item A1/mother), H.B. (item A2/child), and [defendant] (item A4) indicated it was 72 trillion times more likely if

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[defendant] is the biological father of H.B. than a random, untested, unrelated man in the population."

¶ 5. At arraignment, the State moved to hold defendant without bail under 13 V.S.A. § 7553 and introduced two exhibits in support of its motion: the affidavit by the forensic chemist detailing the results of the DNA test he conducted, and that of the detective with the Rutland County Sheriff's Office assigned to the case. The court granted the motion and scheduled a weight-of-the-evidence...