Wood v. Wallin

316 A.3d 266

2024 VT 21

Andrew WOOD

v.Jeffrey WALLIN and Michael Schirling

No. 22-AP-274

Supreme Court of Vermont.

April 19, 2024

March Term, 2023

On Appeal from Superior Court, Washington Unit, Civil Division, Robert A. Mello, J.

Matthew Valerio, Defender General, and Kelly Green, Appellate Defender, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Charity R. Clark, Attorney General, and Lindsay Browning, Assistant Attorney General, Montpelier, for Defendants-Appellees.

Harrison Stark and Lia Ernst, ACLU Foundation of Vermont, Montpelier, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Vermont.

PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Eaton, Carroll, Cohen and Waples, JJ.

REIBER, C.J.

¶ 1. This case involves the interrelationship between the requirements of the Vermont Sex Offender Registry and the merger provision of the concurrent-sentence statute. Plaintiff Andrew Wood, who received a concurrent sentence for murder and sexual-assault convictions, served the maximum sentence for his registrable sex offense but remained on parole. He grieved a decision of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) that denied his request to remove him from the registry. The civil division granted summary judgment to the State on the ground that the registry statute continued to apply because plaintiff had not yet been discharged from parole, regardless of the connection between the parole and the registrable sex offense. We conclude that summary judgment was inappropriate because there are unresolved factual and legal questions regarding whether plaintiff’s parole is linked to his sex offense. Therefore, we reverse the summary-judgment order and remand for further factual development.

¶ 2. The following facts are undisputed. In 1993, plaintiff was sentenced concurrently to eight-to-ten years for felony sexual assault and twenty years to life for murder. In 1996, Vermont enacted a sexoffender registry. 1995, No. 124 (Adj. Sess.), § 1 (codified as amended at 13 V.S.A. §§ 5401-5413). The statute created a duty for those convicted of qualifying offenses to report certain data to the State.¹ 13 V.S.A. § 5407. Under the statute in effect at the time, the reporting requirement continued for "10 years after the sex offender is released from prison or discharged from probation or parole, whichever is later." Id. § 5407(e). The statute further directed that "[t]he 10-year period shall not be affected or reduced in any way by the actual duration of the offender’s sentence as imposed by the court, nor shall it be reduced by the sex offender’s release on parole or ending of probation or other early release." Id. The DPS administrative rules contain essentially the same requirements without elaboration. Sex Offender Registry § 3.11(a), Code of Vt. Rules, 28 050 002, https://dps.vermont.gov/sites/psd/files/ AdminRules/SOR Rules 2014.pdf [https://perma.cc/HV2G-YFCP] (providing similar requirement as statute). Plaintiff’s sexual-assault conviction was a qualifying offense and subjected plaintiff to the registry’s reporting requirements. Plaintiff was released on furlough in September 2010, and in 2017, placed on parole.

¶ 3. In 2021, plaintiff filed a grievance with the DPS seeking removal from the sex-offender registry. Plaintiff alleged that he reached the maximum sentence for his sexual-assault conviction on August 28, 2001, and claimed that his reporting requirement therefore ended on August 28, 2011, ten years later. At the time of his grievance, plaintiff was on parole and under the supervision of the Department of Corrections (DOC). In his request to the DPS, plaintiff attached sentence information from the DOC, which indicated that his maximum sentence for sexual assault ended on August 24, 2001. The information also showed that the sexual-assault sentence was concurrent with his other convictions, including second-degree murder, and that he was on parole.

¶ 4. The Director of the Vermont Crime Information Center (VCIC), which is part of the DPS and responsible for overseeing the sex-offender registry, denied plaintiff’s request for removal from the registry. The VCIC Director explained that according to the DOC, plaintiff remained on parole for sexual assault, and therefore the registration requirement continued. The VCIC Director instructed plaintiff to contact the DOC if plaintiff wanted to challenge the DOC’s sentence determination. Plaintiff did not file a separate grievance with the DOC regarding the computation of his sentence.

¶ 5. Plaintiff then filed a complaint against the DPS in the superior court under Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 75. The DPS moved to dismiss on various grounds, including failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The court denied the motion to dismiss.² In denying the motion to dismiss, the court recognized that plaintiff’s claims were serious enough to require more factual development. The court explained that plaintiff’s concurrent sentence was unusual, and that 13 V.S.A. § 5407(e) was "ambiguous insofar as it does not explicitly describe how it applies to multiple and concurrent sentences and does not expressly indicate whether the probation or parole must be related to the qualifying offense or applies to any probation or parole." The court noted that the DPS could have provided guidance on how concurrent sentences impact the registration requirements, but that the DPS regulations simply reiterated the language of the statute without elaboration.

¶ 6. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment. In his motion, plaintiff claimed that the registry requirements ceased applying to him ten years after he reached his maximum sentence for the sexual-assault conviction because the registry was for sex offenders and he no longer fit that definition. The State argued that the reporting requirements were not dependent on plaintiff’s maximum sentence for sexual assault and the statute plainly required continued registration until ten years after plaintiff’s release from parole, regardless of whether the parole was part of the sentence for sexual assault. The State also responded that in any event, plaintiff continued to be on parole for sexual assault because when he was sentenced concurrently, the sexual-assault and murder sentences merged under 13 V.S.A. § 7032(c)(1).

¶ 7. The civil division granted summary judgment to the State. The court concluded that the statutory language was plain in providing three events to trigger the beginning of the final ten-year reporting period: release from prison, discharge from probation, and discharge from parole, whichever is later. Because plaintiff was on parole, the court held that plaintiff’s final ten-year reporting period had not yet begun. The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that this outcome was absurd, explaining that it was rational for the Legislature to require registration for a period after an offender is released from state supervision in keeping with the registry’s overall purpose of providing information to authorities to assist with investigating and preventing sex offenses. The court did not reach the question of whether the DOC considered plaintiff to be on parole for sexual assault or whether such determination was consistent with the merger statute, § 7032(c)(1). The court concluded that the language of § 5407(e) was clear in triggering the ten-year reporting period only after discharge from parole, regardless of whether that parole was linked to the registrable offense. Plaintiff appeals.

[1, 2] ¶ 8. This Court reviews a decision on summary judgment de novo and "applies the same standard as the trial court." King v. Gorczyk, 2003 VT 34, ¶ 7, 175 Vt. 220, 825 A.2d 16. A motion for summary judgment will be granted when there is no genuine dispute of fact, and a party is "entitled to judgment as a matter of law." V.R.C.P. 56(a). In assessing a motion for summary judgment "we regard as true all allegations of the nonmoving party supported by admissible evidence and give the nonmoving party the benefit of all reasonable doubts and inferences." King, 2003 VT 34, ¶ 7, 175 Vt. 220, 825 A.2d 16.

[3, 4] ¶ 9. The heart of the issue on appeal is how plaintiff’s concurrent sentence impacts the requirements of the sexoffender registry. To resolve this question, we begin with the statutory language. "Our overriding objective when interpreting a statute is to effectuate the Legislature’s intent." State v. Stamper, 2011 VT 18, ¶ 3, 189 Vt. 583, 15 A.3d 142 (mem.) (quotation omitted). In assessing a statute’s meaning, we first look at the language "because we presume the Legislature intended the plain, ordinary meaning of the language." Id. (quotation omitted). We are also mindful that the sex-offender registry is a remedial statute, which aims to "provide appropriate authorities with information to assist in the investigation and prevention of sex offenses." State v. Thompson, 174 Vt. 172, 176, 807 A.2d 454, 459 (2002) (addressing "obvious purpose" of 1996 sex-offender-registry statute); see also Fraser v. Sleeper, 2007 VT 78, ¶ 12, 182 Vt. 206, 933 A.2d 246 (noting that, in general, "[s]ex offender registry statutes are remedial rather than penal" and, "[a]s a remedial statute, we give liberal interpretation to advance the Legislature’s intended remedy").

[5] ¶ 10. The relevant statutory text is as follows. The sex-offender statute provides that the reporting requirements end "10 years after the sex offender is released from prison or discharged from probation or parole, whichever is later." 13 V.S.A. § 5407(e). The merger statute indicates that when sentences are imposed and the terms run concurrently, "the shorter maximum terms merge in and are satisfied by discharge of the longest maximum term." 13 V.S.A. § 7032(c)(1).

¶ 11. Plaintiff argues that once he reached his maximum sentence for sexual assault, he no longer met the definition of "sex offender," and therefore could not be subject to the reporting requirement in § 5407(e). Plaintiff alternatively argues that the...