Cases | State v. O¿Neill, 682 A.2d 943 | 2018
A police officer fired his pistol into a store. Upon the defendant police chief’s advice, the defendant police officer substituted a different pair of casings for the ones found at the scene. The defendants were charged with obstruction of justice and appealed on the ground that Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 13, § 3015 did not apply where judicial proceedings were not pending at the time of the alleged offenses. Specifically, the defendants claimed that the court must adopt the construction of the statute given to a federal statute on which it was based. The court held that under the plain meaning approach, there was no evidence that the legislature intended § 3015 to apply only where a judicial proceeding was pending. The statute made no reference to a “pending proceeding” requirement. Such a requirement would make the statute ineffective where judicial proceedings were not initiated. Further, the statute was not identical to its federal counterpart.