State of Vermont v. Christopher Fuller

VERMONT SUPREME COURT Case No. 24-AP-179
109 State Street
Montpelier VT 05609-0801
802-828-4774
www.vermontjudiciary.org

Note: In the case title, an asterisk (*) indicates an appellant and a double asterisk (**) indicates a cross-
appellant. Decisions of a three-justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

JUNE TERM, 2025

State of Vermont v. Christopher Fuller* } APPEALED FROM:
} Superior Court, Caledonia Unit,
} Criminal Division
} CASE NO. 23-CR-06399
Trial Judge: Michael R. Kainen

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

Defendant appeals his jury conviction of violating an abuse-prevention order. We affirm.

Defendant was charged with violating a relief-from-abuse (RFA) order that prohibited
him from going within 200 feet of the complainant’s residence for a purpose other than arranging
visitation with his children. At trial, the State presented the following evidence.

Vermont State Trooper Griffin Pearson testified that early one morning in June 2023, he
was dispatched to the home of the complainant, Kendra Fuller. Prior to speaking to the
complainant, he reviewed the RFA order, which required defendant to stay 200 feet away from
the complainant and her residence but stated that defendant could have direct or indirect contact
with the complainant solely for the purpose of arranging visitation with the parties’ children.

Trooper Pearson went to the complainant’s home, which was at the end of a dead-end
road. The house was about fifteen to twenty feet from the edge of the road. He met the
complainant outside her house. She was upset and crying. He asked her questions to determine
if the RFA order had been violated. After she told him her side of the story, he asked if she
knew “where the individual may be,” and she provided an address.

Trooper Pearson and Trooper Kyle Fecher, who had subsequently arrived at the
complainant’s house, both traveled to defendant’s apartment building. They saw a vehicle
nearby that matched the description given by the complainant. They knocked on defendant’s
door and spoke to him. Their interaction was recorded on the troopers’ body cameras.

The State played a portion of the video recording for the jury. It showed Trooper Pearson
knocking on defendant’s door. After introducing himself, he stated, “Ok, so, why are you going
over to Kendra’s house when you know you have an RFA that says you cannot do that?”
Defendant responded, “I understand that. Uh because she egged me on this evening, she asked
for some money and I was trying to provide for my boys, but I didn’t know what to do.”
Trooper Pearson testified that they continued to talk for approximately half an hour,
during which defendant acknowledged that he went to the complainant’s house and gave various
different explanations why, none of which were to arrange visitation with his children.
Defendant told the troopers, “I get it. I went over; it won’t happen again.” The troopers issued
defendant a citation and left the scene.

On cross-examination, defense counsel asked Trooper Pearson if he had ever witnessed
any interaction between defendant and the complainant. Trooper Pearson responded that the
complainant showed him a video on her phone in which defendant was visible in his white GMC
Envoy. The complainant repeatedly told defendant that he could not be there and needed to
leave, and defendant kept saying, “I love you,” and “I want this to work.” The trooper could tell
from the background that the video was taken at the complainant’s house and the time stamp
indicated that it was taken that evening. There was no indication that defendant had gone to the
complainant’s home to facilitate visitation.

On redirect, the State sought to play additional portions of Trooper Pearson’s body-
camera recording to rebut defense counsel’s suggestion that defendant was impaired or otherwise
did not understand what was happening. The court allowed the State to play a portion in which
the trooper told defendant, “So you can’t be driving to her house, you can’t be texting her, you
can’t be calling her, you can’t do what you’ve been doing,” and defendant responded, “I
understand that. I did that basically it was just like because I was trying to help my children.”

Trooper Fecher’s testimony was similar to that of Trooper Pearson. Trooper Fecher
added that when they first arrived at defendant’s address and located defendant’s car, he checked
the hood and it felt warm to the touch, indicating that it was recently operated. Trooper Fecher
testified that defendant told the troopers that he had driven to the complainant’s house a couple
of hours earlier and got out of his car “long enough to say hello.”

After the State rested, defendant moved for judgment of acquittal, arguing that there was
insufficient evidence to prove the charge and no evidence that he was served with the RFA order.
The court denied the motion. Defendant did not testify or present any witnesses. The jury found
defendant guilty. The court imposed a suspended sentence of one to three months.

Defendant subsequently filed a motion for judgment of acquittal under the corpus delicti
rule, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to corroborate his admission to the troopers that
he had gone to the complainant’s house. The court denied the motion, concluding that the
troopers’ testimony about being dispatched to the complainant’s home in the middle of the night,
the complainant’s demeanor when they arrived, Trooper Pearson’s description of the video
shown to him by the complainant, the fact that she gave them defendant’s address, and Trooper
Fecher’s testimony that the hood of defendant’s car was still warm all corroborated defendant’s
later admission to the violation.

Defendant’s first argument on appeal is that the court’s admission of testimonial hearsay
from the complainant, who did not testify at trial, violated his right to confrontation. Defendant
argues that the court erred in admitting the complainant’s statements that defendant went to her
residence and about where defendant lived and what kind of car he was driving. Defendant
concedes that he did not object on this ground below but argues that the admission of the
evidence was plain error. “Plain error lies only in the rare and extraordinary cases where a
glaring error occurred during trial that was so grave and serious that it strikes at the very heart of
defendant’s constitutional rights.” State v. Leroux, 2008 VT 104, ¶ 12, 184 Vt. 396 (quotation
omitted).
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The record does not support defendant’s claim of error, for several reasons. First, neither
trooper actually testified that the complainant said that defendant went to her house or told them
what car he was driving. While Trooper Pearson did testify about the contents of a video that the
complainant showed him on her phone, and statements she made in that video, this testimony
was elicited by defense counsel. Defendant did not request a curative instruction or move for a
mistrial, and instead went on to ask several more questions about the video. Under these
circumstances, the court’s failure to take some unspecified action in response to the testimony
does not amount to plain error. See State v. Turner, 145 Vt. 399, 403-04 (1985) (holding that
State’s unobjected-to questioning of defendant, which elicited admission that defendant drank
while driving, did not constitute plain error where defendant refused curative instruction and did
not move for mistrial). For the same reason, defendant’s argument, raised for the first time on
appeal, that the testimony about the video was inadmissible under Vermont Rule of Evidence
1002 fails as well.

Trooper Pearson did testify that the complainant provided an address for defendant.
However, we are unpersuaded that the admission of this statement violated defendant’s right to
confront the complainant. “The Confrontation Clause preference for a face to face confrontation
at trial is to allow the jury to determine the witness[’s] credibility, possible bias, and ability to
recall.” State v. Gemler, 2004 VT 3, ¶ 12, 176 Vt. 257. When, as here, the statement was not
offered for its truth “but to explain the police conduct, the credibility of the informant was not at
issue.” Id. (affirming admission of evidence that anonymous informant had complained that
green Chevy truck with New Hampshire plates was being operated erratically on highway
because offered to explain police officers’ conduct, not truth of assertion). Accordingly,
defendant’s right to confrontation was not violated by the admission of the testimony.

Defendant next argues that the court erred in denying his motion for judgment of
acquittal under the corpus delicti rule. The rule requires that when a criminal charge is based on
a confession, the corpus delicti, or “body of the crime,” “must be corroborated by independent
evidence.” State v. FitzGerald, 165 Vt. 343, 350 (1996). The purpose of the rule “is to foreclose
the possibility of conviction based on false confession where, in fact, no crime has been
committed.” Id. “The corroborating evidence need not independently prove commission of the
crime beyond a reasonable doubt, however; even slight corroboration may be sufficient.” Id. In
reviewing the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal under the corpus delicti rule, we view
the evidence in the light most favorable to the State and will uphold the court’s ruling if the
evidence could support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.; see also State v.
Tonzola, 159 Vt. 491, 496 (1993) (describing general standard of review for motion for
judgment of acquittal).

We conclude that the record contains sufficient admissible evidence to corroborate
defendant’s admission that he went to the complainant’s home and to allow the jury to find
beyond a reasonable doubt that the RFA order had been violated. This evidence includes the fact
that someone, presumably the complainant, called the police to report that defendant had violated
the order, causing the troopers to be dispatched to her home; Trooper Pearson’s testimony that
the complainant’s home was within fifteen to twenty feet of the dead-end road; the complainant’s
emotional state when speaking to the troopers; Trooper Pearson’s description of the video shown
to him by the complainant; defendant’s explanations for going to the complainant’s home, which
did not include arranging visitation; and the fact that the hood of defendant’s car was still warm.
The decisions from other jurisdictions cited by defendant to support his argument are
inapplicable here because they involve factual scenarios that differ significantly from this case.

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Defendant argues that the evidence of the complainant’s demeanor and the warmth of the
car hood was minimally probative given his statement to troopers that he went over to the
complainant’s house hours before the troopers arrived. These inconsistencies were resolved by
the jury in favor of the State, and we will not reweigh the evidence on appeal. See State v.
Johnson, 2013 VT 116, ¶ 27, 195 Vt. 498 (explaining that this Court will not substitute its
judgment for that of jury).

Finally, defendant claims that the court abused its discretion in admitting the portion of
Trooper Pearson’s body-camera video recording in which the trooper told defendant he couldn’t
go to the complainant’s house, text or call her, or “do what you’ve been doing.” Defendant
argues that this evidence was prejudicial because it suggested that he had violated the RFA order
in other ways that were not charged by the State. Defendant argues that the trial court previously
found in a pretrial order that this portion of the video was more prejudicial than probative, and its
subsequent decision to admit the above portion was inconsistent with that decision.

Prior to trial, defendant moved to exclude the body-camera footage in its entirety because
it contained allegations that defendant had been driving while intoxicated and had violated the
RFA order by texting and calling the complainant. After a hearing, the court issued an order
permitting the State to use the first segments of the recordings, in which Trooper Pearson asked
defendant why he went to the complainant’s home and defendant responded that she had asked
him for money. The court excluded the remaining portions of the recordings, holding that the
troopers’ subsequent statements that they could investigate defendant for DUI and arrest him
were prejudicial and not probative of an issue in the case. The court stated, however, that the
State “may be allowed to use the tapes in rebuttal or to corroborate statements the troopers make
if their credibility is challenged.”

During cross-examination of Trooper Pearson, defense counsel asked a series of
questions suggesting that defendant may have been confused or made inaccurate statements due
to intoxication and being woken up in the middle of the night. On redirect, the State offered the
challenged snippet of the recording to rebut defense counsel’s implication that defendant did not
understand what was happening. Defendant objected that he had not attacked the troopers’
credibility. The court responded that the snippet was offered to show that defendant understood
what was happening, and “I don’t see anything else otherwise prejudicial.” Defense counsel
responded, “Otherwise prejudicial, no, but just going off of your answer” to the motion in limine.
The court concluded that the snippet was admissible for the purpose offered by the State.

The court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the snippet. Although the court did not
specifically reference Vermont Rule of Evidence 403, it weighed the probative value of the
evidence against the potential prejudicial effect. The court’s decision to admit the snippet was
consistent with its pretrial order, which warned that additional portions of the video could be
admitted for purposes of rebuttal or to bolster credibility. Defense counsel opened the door to
admitting the snippet by asking questions designed to create doubt about whether defendant
understood the order or what he did wrong. The primary purpose of the snippet was to prove
that defendant understood the RFA order and the officer’s questions, not “to appeal to a jury’s
sympathies, arouse its sense of horror, provoke its instinct to punish, or trigger other mainsprings
of human action that may cause a jury to base its decision on something other than the
established propositions in the case.” State v. Noyes, 2021 VT 50, ¶ 42, 215 Vt. 182 (quotation
omitted) (defining unfair prejudice for purposes of Rule 403 analysis). Defense counsel
conceded below that the challenged snippet was not unduly prejudicial. Moreover, any potential
confusion caused by the reference to texts and calls was mitigated by the court’s jury

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instructions, which were unobjected to and made clear that the State had to prove that defendant
violated the condition requiring him to stay 200 feet away from the complainant and her
residence by traveling to her home for a reason other than to arrange visitation. See State v.
Farrow, 2016 VT 30, ¶ 18, 201 Vt. 437 (holding trial court acted within discretion in admitting
evidence that defendant discontinued participation in field sobriety test, because evidence had
probative value in showing consciousness of guilt and trial court’s instruction to jurors mitigated
potential prejudice identified by defendant). Accordingly, we see no error in the court’s ruling.

Affirmed.

BY THE COURT:

Harold E. Eaton, Jr., Associate Justice

Karen R. Carroll, Associate Justice

Nancy J. Waples, Associate Justice

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