In Re Ray

Termont Superior Court
Filed 01/29/26
Orleans UUnit

VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL DIVISION
Orleans Unit Case No. 21-CV-00745
247 Main Street
Newport VT 05855
802-334-3305
www.vermontjudiciary.org

In re: Jeffrey Ray

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND ORDER
In this post-conviction relief case, petitioner Jeffrey Ray seeks to vacate his sentence
for second-degree murder. Petitioner alleges that he did not receive effective assistance of
counsel because his defense counsel failed to conduct a reasonable mitigation investigation
in advance of sentencing and consequently failed to effectively present mitigation evidence
at the sentencing hearing. The case came before the court for a bench trial on July 29 and
30, 2025, and the parties submitted post-hearing memoranda on October 29, after which
the court took the matter under advisement. Because petitioner has not shown he was
prejudiced by defense counsel's purported failures to investigate and present mitigation
evidence, the petition for post-conviction relief is denied.!

Findings of Fact
On the morning of May 25, 2015, petitioner Jeffrey Ray shot and killed Rick
Vreeland, the husband of Jeffrey's ex-wife Brenda Vreeling and the stepfather to
petitioner's children including daughters Rebecca Ray and Sarah Ray. Petitioner had
previously threatened to kill Mr. Vreeland on multiple occasions. The Orleans County
State's Attorney charged petitioner with first-degree murder the next day, and at
arraignment, petitioner entered a plea of not guilty.
Petitioner was represented in his criminal case by assigned lead counsel David
Sleigh and co-counsel Kyle Hatt. In September 2015, counsel retained investigator Susan
Randall to assist with the defense. The initial email from Attorney Hatt to Ms. Randall
asked her to contact petitioner's sister Terri Mayer "for purposes of gather[ing] information
about [petitioner's] background generally, and specifically as much detail as possible about
his history with alcoholism" and petitioner's "conflict with Mr. Vreeland over Brenda"
including any information concerning "any recent dispute between [petitioner] and Mr.

1
Petitioner correctly notes in his post-trial memorandum that a sidebar conference held on the first
day of trial was not recorded and accordingly is not reflected in the transcript. This was the result of
technical issues in the courtroom, for which the court apologizes. The sidebar conference is not
material to the resolution of petition.
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Vreeland which led to the shooting.” Pet.’s Exh. 6. Attorney Hatt’s email noted that this
was a “hard case,” that there was “ample evidence of longstanding conflict” between
petitioner and Mr. Vreeland, “and plenty of premeditation evidence too.” Id. The email
stated that counsel was considering potential defenses including “diminished-capacity from
intoxication” and “extreme provocation.” Id. The email noted that the Defender General had
approved five hours for Ms. Randall’s investigation.
Ms. Randall spoke with Terri Mayer by phone on September 4, 2015, for over two
hours. Ms. Randall prepared a report for defense counsel on or about September 10, 2015,
which summarized the conversation. The report described petitioner’s traumatic family
history, which included physical abuse, chronic alcoholism beginning at age 5, an extensive
criminal history, and violence in the family. The report also detailed petitioner’s
complicated history with Brenda, their children together, and Mr. Vreeland. Ms. Mayer
claimed that Brenda had cheated on petitioner with Mr. Vreeland during their marriage,
that Brenda later forged petitioner’s signature on a quitclaim deed to property that she
owned with petitioner and now lived at with Mr. Vreeland, and that petitioner’s children
had recently shown petitioner the deed to provoke him into killing Mr. Vreeland. Ms. Mayer
claimed the children did this in order to get rid of both petitioner and Mr. Vreeland.
Ms. Mayer noted that Ms. Randall “might want to talk” to petitioner’s friends Billy
and Kim Waters. According to Ms. Mayer, petitioner’s daughter Rebecca Ray had recently
visited the Waters’ home in Washington State while petitioner was staying there, had
requested that petitioner return to Vermont to be in Rebecca’s wedding, and had stated to
Ms. Waters that Mr. Vreeland “was no good.” Pet.’s Exh. 6. The report ended with the
following sections:
Possible follow-up investigation:
- get release signed by Jeff; full intake interview with him to generate list of
places to request records
Possible interviews:
Billy & Kim Waters – tel: 509-[XXX-XXXX]; Jeffrey’s old friends who he
used to stay with in WA; Kim heard from Jeff’s daughter Becky that
Vreeland was bad news.
Daughter Becky
- request arson records relating to brother Jerry Ray to show level of
family insanity
- request Jeff records from stint at Sacred Hard Mental Health facility
Spokane, WA
Pl.’s Exh. 7. Defense counsel did not request any further investigation from Ms. Randall,
nor did they retain any other investigator to conduct the follow-up inquiries suggested in
Ms. Randall’s report.

2
At a January 23, 2018 change-of-plea hearing, Jeffrey pled guilty to an amended
charge of second-degree murder. As part of the plea agreement, the parties agreed to a
contested sentencing where the State could argue for a sentence of up to twenty-five years
to life and Jeffrey could argue for a sentence as low as twenty years to life, all suspended
but ten years to serve with lifetime supervision.
On February 20, 2018, Newport Probation and Parole submitted a pre-sentence
investigation report. Ms. Mayer completed a phone interview with probation and shared
much of the same information concerning petitioner’s childhood history that previously was
provided to Ms. Randall. Rebecca and Sarah Ray were also interviewed. The PSI report
recommended a sentence of 30 years to life to serve.
A contested sentencing hearing was held over three days on March 7, 8, and 9,
2018, before Judge Robert Bent. Petitioner was represented at the hearing by Attorney
Hatt. The State presented several witnesses including petitioner’s ex-wife Brenda and
daughter Rebecca. The defense presented a single witness, Dr. Scott Lukas, who presented
expert testimony that petitioner’s decades of chronic alcoholism damaged his brain and
negatively affected his judgment and impulse control. In response to questioning from the
judge, Dr. Lukas explained how this damage was likely compounded by petitioner’s early
childhood trauma, as set forth in the PSI report.
At the close of evidence, the State argued for the court to impose a twenty-five year
to life sentence—the maximum permitted under the plea agreement. The State described
the killing of Mr. Vreeland as a premeditated murder that was committed in direct
violation of an abuse-prevention order, in front of petitioner’s teenage son, and for which
petitioner had shown no remorse. In support of the premeditation argument, the State
argued that petitioner was “obsessed” with the belief that Mr. Vreeland had “stole
everything” from petitioner including his wife, his home, his hard-earned money, and his
children. Pl.’s Exh. 4 at 74:1-10. The State also detailed petitioner’s extensive history of
domestic abuse and criminality, his repeated threats against Mr. Vreeland, and his
continued harassment of his family following the murder.
Attorney Hatt argued for the minimum permitted sentence of twenty years to life,
all suspended except for ten years to serve. Attorney Hatt’s argument focused on
petitioner’s chronic and debilitating alcoholism and his intoxication at the time of killing as
mitigating factors. Attorney Hatt pushed back against any suggestion that petitioner
presented an irredeemable threat to public safety because of his “history of trauma and
alcoholism,” and argued that petitioner’s likelihood of future aggressiveness was greatly
reduced because of his sobriety since being incarcerated. Attorney Hatt also disputed the
State’s theory of premeditation and argued that there was no evidence that petitioner had
any specific plan to kill Mr. Vreeland, but that petitioner simply lost control when Mr.
Vreeland unexpectedly approached him on the day of the murder.

3
After a short recess, the court sentenced petitioner to twenty years to life. The court
noted that this was understood as the presumptive sentence for second-degree murder and
concluded that, by itself, represented a fair punishment for petitioner’s crime. 2 The court
then considered various aggravating and mitigating factors and found several applicable.
With respect to aggravating factors, the court noted that the murder violated both a relief-
from-abuse order and a prohibition on firearm possession. The court further found that
petitioner blamed Mr. Vreeland for his problems and spent years stewing in hatred and
thinking about killing Mr. Vreeland, but the court declined to find that petitioner had
formed any specific plan to kill Mr. Vreeland. The court determine this degree of
premeditation was “some aggravation.” Pet.’s Exh. 4, at 125:14-16. The court additionally
found that petitioner’s history of alcoholism had “substantial mitigating effect” and was
“just a terrible thing on his back,” but was not “sufficient to obviate the need for
punishment, in this particular case, given the aggravating factors.” Id. at 125:17-25. The
court accordingly sentenced defendant to twenty years to life.
Petitioner filed this action for post-conviction relief in March 2021. As amended, the
petition alleges that defense counsel was ineffective for failing to present mitigation
evidence at the sentencing hearing from petitioner’s sister Terri Mayer, and for failing to
investigate allegations that Mr. Vreeland sexually abused petitioner’s daughters Rebecca
and Sarah Ray and that petitioner was aware of the abuse when he killed Mr. Vreeland.
Conclusions of Law
“Post-conviction relief is a limited remedy. State v. Bristol, 159 Vt. 334, 337, 618
A.2d 1290, 1291 (1992) (citing 13 V.S.A. § 7131). “In order to obtain it, a petitioner is
required to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that fundamental errors rendered
his conviction defective.” Id. As noted above, petitioner claims the fundamental error in his
criminal case was the ineffective assistance of counsel in investigating and presenting
mitigation evidence.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused
shall . . . have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. This right
includes the right to “effective assistance of counsel,” Garza v. Idaho, 586 U.S. 232, 237
(2019) (quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984)), and applies in state
criminal prosecutions by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344 (1963). This implies a right to effective counsel
that provides “the assistance necessary to justify reliance on the outcome of the
proceeding.” In re Kolts, 2024 VT 1, ¶ 14, 218 Vt. 565 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 692).
“Because the focus of the inquiry is on the outcome of the proceeding, a petitioner asserting

2 The court referenced 13 V.S.A. § 2303, which provides that “[t]he punishment for murder in the

second degree shall be imprisonment for: (A) a minimum term of not less than 20 years and a
maximum term of life; or (B) life without the possibility of parole.”
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ineffective assistance of counsel must show not only that counsel’s performance was
deficient, but also that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s
unprofessional errors, the proceedings would have resulted in a different outcome.” Id.
(citations and quotations omitted); see also Garza, 586 U.S. at 237 (To establish ineffective
assistance of counsel, defendant “must prove (1) that counsel’s representation fell below an
objective standard of reasonableness, and (2) that any such deficiency was prejudicial to the
defense.” (quotations omitted)). 3
Petitioner’s claim fails because he cannot show prejudice. As noted above, to
establish prejudice under Strickland, petitioner must show that there is a “reasonable
probability” that, but for defense counsel’s unprofessional errors, the outcome of the
proceeding would have been different. “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to
undermine confidence in the outcome.” In re Sharrow, 2017 VT 69, ¶ 9, 205 Vt. 309 (quoting
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694). There is no reasonable probability that petitioner would have
received a more lenient sentence had defense counsel called Terri Mayer as a witness or
presented evidence that petitioner killed Mr. Vreeland to avenge the sexual abuse of his
daughters.
With respect to Ms. Mayer, her statements concerning petitioner’s traumatic
childhood were included in the PSI report, and petitioner’s childhood trauma was
referenced by Judge Bent at the sentencing hearing. Attorney Sleigh credibly testified at
the bench trial that defense counsel made a strategic decision not to call Ms. Mayer as a
witness because of concerns about her credibility, in particular her theory that petitioner’s
children intentionally provoked petitioner to kill Mr. Vreeland and her efforts to contact
other witnesses in the case. Given counsel’s focus on petitioner’s alcoholism, which was
accepted by the court as a substantial mitigating factor, it is difficult to see how Ms.
Mayer’s testimony—given the risks involved on cross-examination—would have resulted in
the court imposing a lesser sentence.
Likewise, the court cannot accept petitioner’s argument that defense counsel should
have presented evidence that petitioner knew that Mr. Vreeland had sexually abused his
daughters. At the time of sentencing, neither Rebecca nor Sarah had made any claim of
sexual abuse that reasonably should have prompted further investigation. Both were
interviewed in connection with the PSI and Rebecca was called by the State to testify at
sentencing. Neither claimed to have been abused by Mr. Vreeland. But if even they had,

3 The Vermont Constitution separately guarantees “[t]hat in all prosecutions for criminal offenses, a

person hath a right to be heard by oneself and by counsel.” Vt. Const., ch. 1, art. 10. The parties rely
on cases applying the federal Strickland standard and has not argued (nor has the Vermont
Supreme Court held) that the Vermont Constitution provides different or greater protections in this
context. Accordingly, the court will analyze petitioner’s claim under the Strickland standard. See
Lowell v. Dep’t for Child. & Fams., 2024 VT 46, ¶ 25, 219 Vt. 563 (declining to consider state
constitutional claim where plaintiff failed to set forth any rationale for applying different or greater
protections under the state constitution).
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and were called to testify about that abuse at sentencing, such evidence only would have
further supported a conclusion that the killing was part of a premeditated plan, a
conclusion the State vigorously argued and defense counsel strenuously resisted. The
sentencing court found evidence of premeditation insofar as petitioner had repeatedly
thought and talked about killing Mr. Vreeland but declined to find that petitioner had
made a specific plan, as the State had argued. The court accordingly concluded the evidence
of premeditation merited only “some aggravation.” There is no reasonable probability that
the court would have imposed a lesser sentence had it been presented with additional, more
compelling evidence of premeditation.
Order
The petition for post-conviction relief is DENIED.

Electronically signed on: 1/29/2026 pursuant to V.R.E.F. 9(d)

_______________________________________
Benjamin D. Battles
Superior Court Judge

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