Vermont Bar Association
137th Annual Meeting
You Be The Jury: The 21st Annual Vermont
Judicial History Seminar
September 24-25, 2015
Stoweflake Conference Center
Stowe, VT
Faculty:
Paul Gillies, Esq.
Hon. Steve Martin
Report of the Inquisition
Inquest on the body of Speedy Goodrich taken Sept. 18 & 19 1830
before David Russell Justice Peace
Filed Jany 4 1831
Nathan B. Haswell clerk
State of Vermont}
Chittenden County}
An inquisition taken at Burlington, within the said county of Chittenden on the 18th day of
September in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty before David Russell Esq.
one of the Justices of the Peace in said county upon the view of the body of Speedy Goodrich, there
lying dead by the oaths of John Pomeroy, Truman Powell, Robert Moody, Thomas Chamberlin,
James Corbin, John Howard, Henry Sherman, John N. Pomeroy, Jesse I. Starr, Nathan B. Haswell,
Nathaniel Mayo, William L. Harrington, Robert Alexander, William Sweetser and Benjamin
Lincoln, good and lawful men, who being sworn and charged to enquire for the State of Vermont,
when and how and by what means the said Speedy Goodrich came to her death, upon their oaths say
that she came to her death from the use of unlawful means to procure an abortion thro' the
instrumentality of Charles D. Daggett, and unreasonable exposure; between the 9th and 13th days of
September, instant, at some place or places in the town of Burlington to the Jurors unknown. And
so the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said Speedy Goodrich, in manner
aforesaid came to her death by the means aforesaid.
In witness whereof, the said Jurors have hereunto set their hands the 19th day of September
A.D. 1830.
Thomas Chamberlin
John Pomeroy
W. L. Harrington
Truman Powell
Robert Moody
John Howard
Wm Sweetser
Nathnl Mayo
James Corbin
Nathan B. Haswell
Henry Thomas
Benjamin Lincoln
John N. Pomeroy
J. I. Starr
Robt. Alexander
In witness of all within written, the said Justice hath hereunto set his hand, the same day and
year.
David Russell Justice Peace
Dr. James Van Sicklen says Charles Daggett called on me a week ago Sunday at my
house with a carriage and a female in it & wished me to ride with them.--I did--he said he wished
me to procure an abortion on the girl in the carriage--I refused--he insisted on it said he had
money enough & you shall have it--I still declined & he said I should do it that he should leave
her at James Southards and I must go there & do it--I still refused, but went to S. the next night
to ascertain who she was--found it was the deceased--. She requested it done--I declined-- She
was to all appearances in good health. I advised her to go home and confess it-- He afterward
called on me several times after I complained that I would not do it said if I would not do it--he
would. I told him he had got into bad business and he had got to pay for it--he said it was not his
business-- The day after Election (Wednesday) he made the last & most urgent application-She was urgent for the operation when we were in the carriage-- They said that she had gone off
on pretense of going to Camp Meeting-- She appeared advanced in pregnancy.
Dr. Lincoln: Mr. Daggett took me aside privately & told me he could get a subject which
he wished to sell me--a foetus-- I refused to take it unless by consent of parties--he said there
was no difficulty about that-- I think it was on Monday he first spoke to me and the day before
yesterday he said it was ready--that it was a little injured.
Dr. Moody was sent for to see patient yesterday--that she was dying--called & found her
in a desperate situation that she could not live long--pulse low-Dr. Pomeroy was called yesterday by Mr. Goodrich who said he did not think anything
could be done--no pulse--abdomen prominent. Looked as if she had been deprived of blood-prescribed calomel--could not speak-James Southard says that Speedy Goodrich came as he thinks at his house on Sunday
evening--said she had been to mill to work--was tired of work--wished to stay a few days--that
she wished to go to Vergennes--wished me not to say that she had been there-- Mr. Daggett
requested that she might come. Said she was something unwell-- I gave her wine thrice--believe
Daggett was there once-- She left I think on Tuesday. Dr. Van Sicklen told me he had been to
see her, to doctor that Girl but that he was not agoing to Dr. her for nothing-- This was about
seven o'clock on Monday evening, previous to freeman's meeting.
Rufus Kibby says Mr. Charles D. Daggett has been rooming with me at Mr. Corbin's--he
said that a young woman had applied to him to procure an abortion--he invited me to do it-- I
refused and advised him not to do it-- I enquired of him occasionally if he had done the
business. He told me on Sunday or Monday that the business had been done--he said the patient
was near the Square--that the patient was near four months gone—
I saw Mr. Daggett making an instrument of wire made sharp, the wire as large as a coarse
knitting needle--6 inches long-- Daggett told me he was fixing the instrument for the purpose of
using-- He also prepared a dose of ergot and said he gave it to her and that it made her very sick.
He was absent from the room where we lodged on Monday night--he said that the patient
had been at the falls with him and intimated that she was at another time south of the college
some where--he made a decoction of ergot, and he said she took the whole of it, I should think a
three ounce vial full--about a table spoon full of ergot in substance-- The instrument was made a
fortnight or three weeks since in the room where we were--he denied being the father of the
child.
Sunday evening.
Rufus Kibby further states that the fore part of week before last Mr. Daggett came in very
late at night--got the Dr.'s [f....], went into the [ ] got some herbs and a cup some coals, went to
the place where the Girl was and said he made some tea for her--he returned about day light. I
inquired where the Girl was--he said she was down South--I have no means of knowing more
definitely where she was.
Mr. Kibby (continued) never saw the Girl until she was dead. Other students probably
know something about it--has not seen Mr. D. since the last examination & have told no one that
I had seen him--have not seen him since friday last-- The students are Mr. Pollard, Mr. Butler, &
Mr. Spencer. --heard Mr. D. say that D. used the wire till it hurt her & then desisted--had some
reason to suspect that she was in the barn one night--he said something that she was going to be
there or something, no reason to suspect she was in the academy--the impression I got from all I
heard from him that he performed the operation with the wire.
Alexander Spencer, being sworn saith, had a conversation with Mr. Daggett before dinner
relative to this operation--he said that he did not do it, that Mr. Chamberlin did it--he hired him
to do it. Chamberlin said he had as lief do it as not--he said the operation was performed with a
wire--that the Girl told him so--had a suspicion that it was going to be performed about a
fortnight ago-- Kibby said in a jocular manner that he was going to do it--drew the inference that
it was Daggett's child from the circumstances--that Daggett wanted it done-- Understood nearly
a fortnight since, but am not certain that it was more than a week that the foetus came away two
or three days after the operation. Saw D. fixing a dose of ergot (a six ounce vial full I should
think of substance) he asked me whether it would kill flies--supposed it was for Mrs. Corbin to
kill flies-- Daggett called me out. I told him to tell the truth--he said he would, that altho he
procured it to be done, Chamberlin did it. Did not advise him to clear out--I might possibly have
said so. Nobody has asked me where Daggett was till tonight-- Do not recollect that I said he
was safe. I did suppose he was in the barn last night-Dr. Corbin says Daggett enquired what method was best to procure an abortion-- I told
him there were various ways-- I heard a noise in the office like filing and on enquiring of Kibby
what was doing he (Kibby) told me Daggett was making an instrument to procure abortion-- I
advised him not to attempt it--he inquired how much ergot it would take. I declined stating-- on
Sunday last he told me it was done, but that he did not do it--he said the friends of the patient
thot she was in St. Albans at Camp Meeting-Dr. Chamberlin-- Night before last I was informed that Mr. Daggett wished to see me-he said the folks were sick at the house below the Mansion house & wished if I saw you to call
on you to see the patient-- I went down to Mr. Goodrich's, found the patient (the deceased) quite
sick--tongue furred--administered physic--next morning called again and gave more physic-some tumification of the abdomen. No application was ever made by Daggett to procure an
abortion. the first I knew of it. Daggett did not come down with me.
Mrs. Goodrich says that on Monday night last her daughter Speedy came to the house
about 12 or 1 o'clock at night, alone. I put her to bed--she said she had been to camp meeting-next morning I called her up--she appeared unwell and on examination I found her clothes
bloody--her clothes were changed-- Daggett was here on wednesday evening and set up with her
until [ ] o'clock in the morning-- She was again found bloody the morning after Daggett was
here-Lecta Dixon a sister of the deceased says that the next morning after Speedy came home,
I found by the smell that something was wrong and I told her that I thought she had been in the
family way and something had been done to her--she denied it--on examination we found her
bloody. Her clothes were changed.
Nancy Goodrich says that I sent to Charles D. Daggett to have him come on Sunday night
to tell where my sister was--on enquiry he said if I would swear not to tell of it--that he would
tell me he said she had gone away to get rid of a child, that she was within a mile and a half of
here & that the woman where she was would have a child that I should hear of it-- Charles D.
Daggett told me he expected my sister was in the family way & that he had examined her at Mr.
Mills and found it was so-- She had formerly lived with Mr. Daggett--about six months ending
about ten or eleven weeks since.
Albert C. Butler states boarded at the same place that D. Boarded at--he was gone much
nights--heard D. enquire of Dr. Lincoln if he wanted a foetus, about the middle of the last week.
Dr. L. replied he did if he could have it without having a fuss about it--he said he had one--Dr.
Lincoln wishd the placenta--he said tho't he could get it. Heard Mr. Kibby state that he knew
what D. was about--and if I would suggest what I tho't he was about--he would tell-- I did
suggest that D. was procuring an abortion--he (K.) replied he had performed the operation and
the girl was like to die--this conversation was on friday last-- K. said D. was with the girl
Thursday night-About half past twelve, yesterday, I said in presence of D. that the Dr. was going to open
the Girl-- Shortly after he said he believed he would go down and give in his testimony--he was
innocent--& rather than be implicated he would implicate some one else-- Dr. Van S. did not do
it--he told the Girl to send for the Dr. who procured the abortion to attend upon her.
Saw D. have wires but he was repairing a pump & had wires about it--Kibby told me that
Daggett had the girl in the old stable near Dr. C.'s one night and he expected he had her at the old
academy one night--understood from what Mr. Kibby said that he took the [funnel?] to the
Academy-- Kibby said that when he learned that the Girl was at the Stable he supposed D. Brot
her there to have him perform the operation & he cleared out so as not to do it-- Kibby told me
that D. said he had worked upon the Girl with the wire till the Girl said it hurt her and then
desisted (Kibby told me that this he forgot to state yesterday). From what I learned I inferred
that D. did it. Yesterday supposed from what Mr. Spencer said that D. was in the Barn near Dr.
C.'s-Nathan Collins says that he heard Mr. D. say, about noon yesterday that he was not guilty
of any violence to the girl--he said Dr. Chamberlin did it--that the girl spoke to him to do it & he
spoke to [Dr.] Ch. to do it & he said he would. Mr. Spencer & Mr. Butler were present at Dr.
Corbin's yesterday-Sometime before this Spencer told me that Kibby told [him] that Mr. D. had had a girl
that was pregnant & that D. had procured an abortion. Eight or ten days since Spencer told the
above to me.-- Heard Spencer say to D. he had better clear out--he said he had not--he had better
come down and testify about it--. Saw D. have some ergot, said he was going to kill flies-Willard Daggett heard his brother say that an operation had been performed, but he had
nothing to do [with] it--said the girl applied to him to do it or procure it done--that he had spoken
to two or three--Dr. Chamberlin, Dr. Corbin, & Dr. Van Sicklen-- Had my chaise one evening
last week, can't tell when.
John G. Colbourn says the carriage has not been taken to his knowledge-- Has heard
Willard Daggett speak about it.
Dr. Van Sicklen called again, states that Willard Daggett said if his brother could he
cleared he would come forward & tell the whole truth--how it was and where it was-- Daggett
said to me that the operation must be done & should be done-- After I went to see the girl to
Southard's I saw Southard at his hog-pen. He asked me why I did not take care of that Girl,
meaning as I suppose to procure the abortion.-Charles Daggett’s Letter to Dr. Benjamin Lincoln
Mr. Benjamin Lincoln, M.D.
Burlington, VT
Sept. 27 1830
Most Respected Sir,
Having been informed of some of the circumstances that took place on the 18th & 19th
and likewise since, which proceedings & circumstances to me are very painful, particularly Mr.
Kibbe’s being expelled from the lecture room as I understand for his being engaged in that
abortion scrape but I believe him to be innocent of the charge, & I take the liberty to detail to you
the facts as they have transpired, believing you to be a man of candour & fine feeling, I shall
endeavour as far as my word will go with you to clear from censure those who have been
unjustly censured. I am well aware that such circumstances as the one which has lately taken
place particularly if it is supposed that any of the students are concerned in it has a strong
tendency to increase that prejudice which the people have already got against the medical
students & Institution, & it grieves me to the heart to have the suspicion fall to my lot, to have it
said & thought that I have made a blot upon the science, but I feel conscious in my own heart
that I have not, believe me not selfish, for the truths of the late circumstances have not all been
told.-- that the unfortunate girl was in a family way & that there was an abortion procured in
some way or other is undoubtedly true, but that I did it or undertook to do it is false, & had I
been called as a witness with other testimony instead of being hunted down like a beast of prey I
probably should have shown how it was procured & how the girl came by her death but I heard
that I was not agoing to be called as a witness but soon should be arrested & arrested for a crime
I was not guilty of. I therefore saw fit to absent myself until the excitement of the people should
die away.-- The girl in the first place did apply to me because she was well acquainted with me
& thought I could do it. She said I should be well satisfied for doing it & keeping it a secret. I
told her that I could not do it & that I did not know how-- She then asked if Doctor Corbin
would not do it. I told her I would talk with him & see her again, but instead of asking him I told
Mr. Kibbe of the circumstances & he advised me to do it. I told him the same that I had told the
girl. He said he would do it id the girl would let him. I presumed she would for she was very
anxious that it should be done before the people knew she was in that way. --an opportunity
soon presented itself for me to talk with Doct. Corbin. I asked him how such a thing should be
done, if done at all; he told me how the operation was generally performed but there was
considerable danger attending it especially for a person that did not understand the anatomy of
those parts & spoke of Cleaveland’s case. I told him I had an application of the kind & he
advised me not to undertake it or have any thing to do with it for should it get out it would be a
bad business for me & said that he would not have any thing to do with such cases. I saw the girl
& related to her the conversation we had had about her case told her the responsibility a
physician took upon himself in procuring an abortion, but still she insisted upon its being done
some way or other, & asked me if I knew of any one that would do it. I told her I thought likely
there were men in town would do it. She had heard that Van Sicklin would do it when asked &
wished I would see him. I told her she had better get the one that put her in that situation to
apply to him. She replied that she would consider upon it a few days & see me again. I asked
her how she came by it but she would not tell me. in a few days I saw her again and she then
told me the person that got her in that situation stood ready to pay all expense & his engaging a
physician to do it would divulge the secret at once & she would be in a worse situation than she
was at present. I of course was prevailed upon to see a physician & accordingly spoke to Doct.
Van. __ he said he would not have any thing to do with [it] but she could find a man at his house
that would do it meaning himself. the next friday night was agreed upon for him to see her. I
carried her to his house about eight oclock he arose from his bed seated himself in the chaise
beside her. I drove to pearl street. I allighted (we both allighted & had some conversation he
then drove away) & he drove off with her, was gone some time before he returned. On his return
he told me if she would come down the next evening he would have a place provided for her to
stop where no one would see her to know her but himself and the business should be done for her
handsomely & secretly. the next evening she went as agreed upon & found he had got no place
for her he said he would get one in a few minutes he went & agreed with old Southard for her
to stop there during her sickness. She of course stopt there. I saw him Sunday & asked him if he
performed the operation. he said he was not prepared but he should do it that evening. on
Monday evening I was at my fathers & thought I would run over & see how she got along &
took a pitcher a long to put the fetus in for I had agreed with Van to save it for me. I saw the girl
asked her if the operation had been performed She said it had not & she was out of patience
waiting for Van. he had been there but was to drunk to perform. --She wished I would speak to
some one else. Old Southard said that Doct. Chamberlain was very good to perform such
operations. the next day was tuesday & the election day & I spoke to Chamberlain about it. he
took me out one side talked with me & asked where the girl was. I told him & he said he would
not go to Southard’s but the weather was such that she could have it done for her out doors & a
place must be agreed upon for her to go & he would meet her. says he you go with me & I will
show you a place. he took me across the square down the street by Mr. Englesby’s to the next &
showed me the lot on the opposite corner & south of Mr. Foster’s house. there says he is a good
place. No one goes in there & a woman can easily get over this fence. Now some one must tell
the girl to go down under those apple trees & I will come there. I asked him what hour, he said
he could not set any hour but so soon as it was dark so dark that no person could tell him from
another man-- Upon this we parted, rather than let any one else into the secret. I was under the
necessity of getting excused from meeting that night. I went & told the girl where to go & where
she would find me afterwards. I was suspicious he had not got there so soon as the girl, but on
going into the orchard I found him there & spoke with him. when the girl came out I asked her if
he had performed the operation. she replied that he had & she was glad of it. I asked her how he
did it. she said that he told her not to tell me anything about it, however she did. I asked her if
she was going home. she said no she would go into the woods first & if I would take her to some
place where she would stop she would give me no further trouble and I should be satisfied for
what I had done. I therefore procured a horse & waggon & carried her to the stone house at the
falls. --She told me if she needed any further medical aid that Chamberlain was to come & see
her. if she did she did not know how she should get word to him as he did not know where she
was he would have to be sent for. I told her to send word to me & I would tell him. I asked her
to save the fetus for me & she said she would, but Mrs. Boroughs was afraid the people would
mistrust she was there & it would injure his house. I therefore took her away & told her she
must go home, feeling afraid the procured abortion would be laid to me-- I told her so, but she
said she would swear to the contrary. I could not prevail upon her to go home. She therefore
took lodgings in a place I am ashamed to mention & staid there until she got rid of her concern &
by that means I got the fetus. She was quite smart when she went home, & I believe her mother
was the cause in part of her death, for every thing she took even to her porage her mother
compelled her to take it in spirits new rum I believe. the girl told me this & told her sister the
same in my hearing. She was taken worse and Chamberlain was sent for. I called to see the girl
& thought her dangerous. I told her she had better have her sister to attend her & went after her.
I then went & asked Chamberlain what he thought of her. he said if there was not an alteration
soon for the better she would die. Myself & her sister staid with her all night-- her being absent
some time from home & myself being seen with her while she was absent I felt suspicious if she
should die that the blame would be attached to me. I therefore asked her if she would not relate
to her sister what the matter of her was & the whole circumstance from its beginning to that time.
She told me she would so soon as the old folks got to sleep. I told her sister what I had asked her
to do & she must be sure & have her do it for it would be a burden from off her mind & she
would rest more easy, but after her taking the medicine which Chamberlain left that night her
mind seemed to be confused & was so until she died.-- & I believe you would sooner found the
cause of her death by examining her stomach than her uterus.-- could I but see you I could tell
you the whole of the circumstances, & more particularly, had it not been for a number of the
students I should gone to the court of inquiry on the 18th for the purpose of introducing my
testimony but they advised me not to, that Chamberlain had given in his testimony and it was
point blank against me, consequently I did as I have done, & feeling conscious of my innocence I
do wish that I might be presented before the authority of the town of Burlington & sustain a fair
& impartial trial, & not have the better judgement of the justice or jury carried away by
excitement of the people & if they would decide to make a decision form the facts of the
testimony & set popularity entirely aside, nor because a certain physician in the town of
Burlington has got a few influential friends to say that he has sworn thus & so therefore he is not
guilty, & if he is, that some one else had better suffer in his stead & still doing there utmost with
his assistance to excite the feelings of the people against me or some one else.-- I acknowledge I
told Kibbe some things that were not true but as we were joking each other frequently I expected
he would take it as jesting but I understand he has made a more serious thing of it but it has
learned me to be careful hereafter who I jest with. however I believe Kibbe stated as I heard he
stated more through fear & for the sake of falling in with the multitude than any thing else & I do
believe that the jury implicated me in the verdict which they brought in more through the
excitement of the people than by the facts & circumstances of the testimony. I do not wish to
infer that the jury were incapable of discriminating between right & wrong because I know not
who they are but that they were carried away in no small degree by excitement. And I do think if
the people of Burlington would stop one moment & harken to the voice of reason, draw their
inferences from the knowledge of the circumstances they have already acquired they would be
convinced that the man who never read ten pages on midwifery in his life could not perform an
operation as nice & as skillfully as the very first, & in fact, all the physicians that were present
decided it was done, common sense would convince them of their error & tell them on whom
their suspicion should rest. but let the public once ask what physician in the Village of
Burlington took home to his house not ten months since a young lady & procured an abortion for
her let the people ask what young lady he takes in his chaise & rides from J. Howard’s with
occasionally, & not his wife neither, when they find the man who has done this & ‘tis said he
now does it they will find the man who is guilty of the unfortunate circumstance lately taken
place. Kibbe’s being expelled from the lecture room on suspicion of his being engaged in the
affair is very unfortunate for him & I feel as though it was partly on my account & if it is
consistent with your feelings & the regulations of the Institution do pray readmit him for he is
innocent of the charge.
I have one more favour to ask & that is if this affair should be cleared up to your satisfaction will
you take me to Baltimore with you i.e. if you require a person & have none engaged I think I can
do you as much good as any other person & receive as much benefit from it myself.
Most respectfully & sincerely yours,
Charles D. Daggett
I shall enclose this in a letter to my brother as I have a chance to send it by private conveyance.
Inquest Determination Form
STATE OF VERMONT
Chittenden County, ss.
)
)
An Inquisition taken at Burlington within the said county of the __ day of the ___ month
in the year of our Lord ____, before David Russell, Esq., one of the justices of the peace in said
county, upon the view of the body of Experience (Speedy) Goodrich, there lying dead, by the
oaths of [names of jurors], good and lawful men, who being sworn and charged to inquire, for
the said state, when, how and by what means the said Goodrich came to her death, upon their
oaths do say, [here insert how, where, when and by what means, with what instrument she was
killed; and if it appears that he was murdered by a person known, then the inquisition shall be
concluded thus] and so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say, that the said
Charles Daggett in manner and form aforethought, did kill and murder: against the peace and
dignity of the state of Vermont, and the laws of the same.
In witness of all before written, the said justice hath hereunto set his hand, the same day
and year.1
1LAWS OF VERMONT OF A PUBLICK AND PERMANENT NATURE,
Chapter 35, Sec. 7, 278.
When Inquests were Inquisitions
When death comes unexpectedly, when there is uncertainty about what happened,
officials must inquire. An inquest is the first stage in the criminal justice process that may lead to
a grand jury, charges, and a trial. It was a part of legal procedure in this state from before there
was a Vermont, based on the English model. Its purpose is not to accuse or charge. It is purely
investigatory. But until the 1850s, the result of the inquest was not kept secret, and the
conclusion that someone was responsible for a death became public knowledge even when no
subsequent proceedings followed.
An inquest differs from a grand jury. A grand jury is empowered to indict, by the finding
of a true bill. An inquest answers or tries to answer how a person died. Today, the proceedings of
both are treated as secret. The doors on the room where the hearing is conducted are locked, and
everyone, from the jurors to the bailiff, are sworn to maintain the confidentiality of the
proceedings. That is one reason studying these institutions is a challenging business. The
evidence about how inquests were conducted and how they ruled has leaked into the public
domain through official and unofficial sources. Let’s unseal some of it.
Unlike grand juries, today inquests are heard by a single judge, but the court of inquest,
or court of inquiry, was a feature of the law from 1779 to 1856. After that date, justices of the
peace acted alone, and made decisions that at times led to the next stage of the criminal justice
system, the grand jury, and beyond that to a criminal prosecution by the state’s attorney. But
during the era of the jury, the process was different. The jury was the body responsible for the
decision, not the justice of the peace, who would give no charge or instructions. How this
worked procedurally is unclear, but results became public in this period. They were described in
a newspaper, and were the subject of public discussion. Even when no charges were filed, people
knew that a jury had found someone to be the cause of a death. A very different thing from a
conviction, of course, but the censure was manifest in the finding, and served, without more, as a
sanction in some cases.
Inquisitions are hearings without the benefit of a defense. Torquemada, the Grand
Inquisitor of fifteenth century Spain, used more corporal means to investigate and obtain
confessions of heretics, but the process of looking into evidence of criminal acts in an official
forum, closed to the public, leaving the accused no role to observe or review the process, seems
similarly, if not equally, unfair. It is inconsistent with our modern appreciation for openness and
due process, and our respect for the rights of the accused. The result of an inquest today is secret,
unless unsealed. There is a statute, and a criminal rule, dealing with process.1 The inquest results
in a written report, and serves as a way of instilling confidence in a state’s attorney or assistant
attorney general to decide whether to bring charges against an individual. An inquest makes no
finding of guilt of a violation of law. The inquest might find one person killed another, but it
cannot decide whether it was murder, even though many of the early reports use that term in their
conclusions.
Inquests have other functions in the law. In 1826, there was an inquest of insanity held
before a Judge of Probate.2 In the administration of the poor laws, two Justices of the Peace
were required to ascertain the residence of a pauper by the statute of 1797.3 An inquest of office
could be held to determine whether a landowner was an alien (and so incapable of owning land
1
13 V.S.A. Chapter 161: Inquests as to Criminal Matters.
Smith v. Burnham, 1 Aik. 84 (1826).
3
Town of Manchester v. Town of Rupert, 6 Vt. 291 (1834).
2
until naturalized). All were inquisitions, in one case the report called the proceedings “an
inquisition of jurors.”4
The first inquest
The first reported inquest in this land came the day following the Westminster Massacre,
in March of 1775, after partisans of the New Hampshire Grants stopped the Cumberland County
Court of Common Pleas from opening, and William French was shot by the sheriff’s party as it
retook the courthouse at midnight. After 200 angry settlers arrived the following day, the court
and sheriff’s party were confined under strict guard. The settlers me at the courthouse, chose a
moderator and clerk, and appointed a committee to observe the proceedings of the coroner’s jury
of inquest.5 William French’s body was laid out in the courtroom, to be viewed by the jury, and
many others stopped to dip handkerchiefs in French’s blood. Vermont historians claim this was
the first blood shed in the war for independence.6
The inquisition into the death of William French was conducted under New York law.
There was a duly-appointed coroner and 17 jurors. The jury found the respondents “made an
assault on the Body of the Said Wm French and Shot him Through the Head with a Bullet of
which would he Died and Not Otherways.” The coroner joined in the verdict.7 The jury ordered
the expulsion of the accused from the state, and the judges and others were seized and taken to
Northampton jail.8 Samuel Knight, one of those who were named, suffered no more than a few
days in jail before he and the others were released. He changed his allegiance, his crime was
forgotten, and Knight was subsequently elected Chief Judge of the Vermont Supreme Court,
serving from 1789 to 1793.9
In this first instance, the modern function of inquest, grand jury, and petit jury all merged
into one efficient and seamless process. The Northampton jailers had no idea what to do with the
prisoners, and soon released them to return home.
Speedy Goodrich
In October of 1830, a 23-year-old woman died in Burlington. The physicians that
attended her concluded her death was caused by a badly-performed abortion. A medical student
at the University of Vermont was named as the father and accused of performing the operation
that led to her death. Burlington justice of the peace David Russell presided, Nathan Haswell as
clerk, and Charles Adams was state’s attorney. The jury consisted of 15 men, including
physicians William Chamberlin, Truman Powell, James Corbin, and Benjamin Lincoln, all
determined to be “good and lawful men.” The jury was sworn and “charged to enquire for the
State of Vermont, when and how and by what means the said Speedy Goodrich came to her
death.” The jury examined witnesses, and reached a verdict. There were no parties and no
lawyers, other than the state’s attorney, who led the questioning. The accused had been
summoned but not served, and did not appear. The justice of the peace played little part in the
4
Gilman v. Thompson, 11 Vt. 643 (1839).
E.P. WALTON, ED., RECORDS OF THE VERMONT GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL I (1873), 332-336.
6
REV. F.J. FAIRBANKS, “WESTMINSTER,” in ABBY MARIA HEMENWAY, VERMONT HISTORICAL GAZETTEER V
(1891), 575; ROWLAND ROBINSON, VERMONT: A STUDY OF INDEPENDENCE (1892), 96; FRANK LESTER GREENE,
VERMONT, THE GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE: PAST, PRESENT, PROSPECTIVE (1907), 7; E.P. WALTON, GOVERNOR AND
COUNCIL I (1873), 330.
7
JESSIE HAAS, REVOLUTIONARY WESTMINSTER: FROM MASSACRE TO STATEHOOD (2011
8
BENJAMIN H. HALL, HISTORY OF EASTERN VERMONT (1858), 752.
9
Id., 225, 675; Timothy Olcutt was county coroner. HASS, supra at note 7, 71.
5
proceeding, other than to see the right forms were completed. The state’s attorney asked the
questions, and the jury made its decision.
A rich version of the tragedy that linked Charles Daggett and Experience (Speedy)
Goodrich was published as a novel by UVM Archivist Jeffrey Marshall in 2006, entitled The
Inquest. This is historical fiction, in the tradition of Charles Brockden Brown, America’s first
important novelist, whose philosophy of writing in that genre authorized an injection of romance
into the known facts of a story, to bring it to life.10 Where the spare report of the inquest, found
by Marshall in the archives but otherwise lost to history in other official documents, gave
synopses of the testimony and the decision of the jury, the novel expands the story by first person
accounts of three central characters—Daggett, the decedent’s sister, and a stenographer (an
invented persona used as a device to describe the inquest itself)—bringing passion and color to
the tragedy and its subsequent resolution through the legal system. The material added by
Marshall is precisely what is missing from most official accounts of crimes and criminal process,
yet it is what has the most importance in decisions of a cause of death, a finding of guilt, or
sentencing in the criminal justice system. The tragedies of life are left out of the public record.
“Upon their oaths,” in the matter of the death of Speedy Goodrich, the jury unanimously
concluded “that she came to her death from the use of unlawful means to procure an abortion
thro’ the instrumentality of Charles D. Daggett, and unreasonable exposure.” Charles D. Daggett
was never charged with a crime. There was no prosecution and no trial. The inquest stands alone
to mark his and her story.
More inquests
Scholars from Ohio University and others have assembled the Violent Crimes Database,
available on the net, listing details of every reported death, inquest, grand jury, and capital trial in
Vermont beginning in 1760 and ending in 1846.11 The Goodrich case is not listed among them,
perhaps because the copy that turned up in the UVM Archives is the only document to survive,
suggesting that the 16 inquests reviewed here are not a complete inventory. These are stories of
passion, insanity, and tragedy, and illustrate the difficulty of dealing with violent crime in early
Vermont. There was no state prison before 1808, and no facility for the mentally ill until 1891.
There were county jails. Matthew Lyon languished in Vergennes jail for four months in the late
fall and early winter of 1798-1799, an inhospitable place, in his opinion.
Here is what we know of the inquests conducted by the juries of inquiry before 1856.
The Supreme Court held an inquest to determine the cause of death of Lt. Ebenezer
Hyde, who died after leaving the Isle La Motte shore in a canoe with Nathaniel Wales. The
inquest was held in Bennington in 1791. Despite rumors of more devious actions on his part,
Wales was not held responsible for what the court found to be an accidental drowning.12
In 1800, Mrs. Samuel H. Holgate burned down her home, killing her stepdaughter Orrora
and a woman who worked there. The day before, Mrs. Holgate had an argument with her
husband Samuel, after she hid all his books and papers, and she had threatened to burn the house
“and him in it.” He awoke amid flames, and survived, but was unable to rescue one of his
1010
PHILIP BARNARD, MARK KAMRATH, STEPHEN SHAPIRO, REVISING CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN: CULTURE,
POLITICS, AND SEXUALITY IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC (2004), 326.
11
The full report can be downloaded through this url:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228658439_The_historical_violence_database_A_collaborative_research_
project_on_the_history_of_violent_crime_violent_death_and_collective_violence
12
Id. As each of the following synopses are found in the database, excessive, repetitive footnotes are elided.
children. The verdict of the court of inquest was willful murder. There is no report of any further
proceedings relating to the crime.13
Deborah McKirkland killed her newborn illegitimate son in 1804, by throwing his body
into the outhouse in an attempt to “hide her shame.” The verdict of the inquest was death by
malicious & felonious desertion. The Vermont Gazette wrote, “O that parents might be warned,
from this incident, to increase in tender and religious attention to their offspring; that females
may be induced to cherish virtue, and young men learn to detest inconstancy, as that which leads
to infamy and murder.”14
An inquest into the death of William Maxfield in Ryegate in 1805 found he was drunk
when he was beaten to death by his wife, described as a “late immigrant from Scotland.”15 The
report explains the murderers have been jailed, but does not name other participants.
An inquest in 1811 found that Harrington Brooks was shot and killed attempting to
escape from custom-house officials with a load of salt, coming from Canada near Gull Island on
Lake Champlain. The jury of inquest found John Walker shot Brooks in the pursuit, but there is
no report of any further prosecution. The event left “a cloud of gloom over [Walker’s] entire
life.”16
Betsey C. Williams was accused of killing her illegitimate child in Westminster in 1812,
but at the inquest the jury could not find how or when the baby died, and was discharged after
reaching no verdict. Women familiar with Betsey suspected she was pregnant, due to her
increasing size, although her mother testified that was untrue, and believed her daughter had
dropsy.17
Frederick Burnham sliced his grandfather’s throat in 1813. Pomfret justice of the peace
John P. Miller presided at the jury of inquest. Frederick was reported to have said he intended to
“kill all of his posterity.” Frederick was found to be insane, and his family brought him home
and chained him in his room for the rest of his life.18
Samuel Beach was killed by a musket shot to his breast as he drove a team of oxen
toward the border in Canaan in 1813. Beach was accused of smuggling. Lt. John Dennet and
four others were accused of killing him.19 Jailed in Guildhall, Dennet escaped the following
spring. He was indicted for murder by the grand jury, following an inquest.20 Dennet was killed
in Averill, shot by a pistol and then clubbed to death. A jury of inquest found Gaius Kibbe to
have “anticipated the victim’s death,” but at trial the petit jury concluded he was not guilty.
Alvah Sabins killed Silas Gates in 1813, and a court of inquest determined he had
committed murder. Sabins was a member of the Vermont Militia, called to service to Champlain,
New York, leaving the frontier without a defense. Many mutinied, and people back home lost
confidence in the war and the country. Gates had deserted the U.S. Army and Sabins was in the
party of soldiers sent to apprehend him. Gates fled his home and was shot by Sabins as he ran, at
Farmer’s Museum, May 5, 1800.
Rutland Herald December 17, 1804, January 5, 1805;
https://www.google.com/search?q=deborah+mckirkland&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1#tbm=bks&q=deb
orah+mckirkland+vermont+1804.
15
Rutland Herald, September 21, 1805.
16
HEMENWAY, supra note 6, 294.
17
Windham County Superior Court 2 (235).
18
Norman Williams Correspondence, Vermont Historical Society; HENRY HOBART VAIL, POMFRET, VERMONT
(1930).
19
Caledonia County Superior Court 3: 271.
20
GARY SHATTUCK, INSURRECTION, CORRUPTION & MURDER IN EARLY VERMONT (2014), 312-314.
13
14
a distance of 25 yards.21 An inquest was held, and verdict of the jury was Wilful Murder.22 After
a grand jury indictment, Sabins was twice tried, but not convicted, due to hung juries. Sabins
had a religious conversion the day he returned home to his farm, became a Baptist preacher,
Franklin County State Senator, Secretary of State, Franklin County Judge, and was elected to
two terms in U.S. House.23
Betsey Gilson was accused of killing her newborn, illegitimate child, in 1815, and an
inquest was held. The baby had been found dead in a “vault of a necessary” near the house of
Josiah Perkins. The court of inquest found the child had died “by the visitation of God.” Her
friends had suspected she was pregnant, but Betsey said it was only a cold.
Selah Hickok killed his father-in-law Isaac Hobbs in 1815, hitting his head with the green
cane. The inquest found willful murder. Selah was tried and found guilty of manslaughter, and
sentenced to 13 years hard labor. He was pardoned five years later.24
After Alvira Ayers was drowned in a cistern at the home of her employer, Judge Richard
Skinner, in Manchester in 1824, an inquest was held. The verdict was accidental drowning.25
The newspaper called it a suspicious death. The editor of the New Hampshire Patriot noted that
the water in the cistern wasn’t deep enough to drown her. Her body had marks on it, her clothes
were torn. The jury of inquest found she had fallen into the cistern by herself.26
Starksboro resident Mary Brown and her sister were accused of murdering Mary’s
husband Aaron in 1834.27 After a quarrel over soap making, Aaron had disappeared. During the
argument, Mary had screamed, “You ought to be killed and made into soap.” Mary was arrested,
with her sister. A justice court was summoned to hear the case, overseen by two justices of the
peace and a jury. The evidence showed the sisters made more soap than their grease supply
allowed. Dr. Levered Clark examined the bones used in making the soap and concluded that one
was a piece of a human skull. Then, as in the infamous Bourn murder case, Aaron walked back
into town.
Henry Damon slashed his wife’s throat with a razor in 1838 in Rutland, and the inquest
found him guilty of the act. He wife Sophia Damon had been convicted of adultery in 1833,
carnally knowing Socrates Clark of Sherburne, at a dwelling of ill fame on the border with
Mendon, where the Damons resided, at a place called Hayti.28 Henry tried to cut his own throat
but failed before being arrested. He was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang, but his
sentence was commuted to life.29
William Quinn killed Hugh Murphy in Fairfield in 1841 with a pocket knife to the chest.
The two were cutting tobacco at the time when they quarreled. Rum “acted its part in this case,
as is usual in such cases.” Murphy went at Quinn with his fists first. An inquest heard the
details, including the defense of self-defense. Quinn was then charged, tried, and found guilty,
sentenced to seven years, and pardoned three years late.30
Farmer’s Cabinet, December 4, 1813.
L.L. DUTCHER, THE HISTORY OF ST. ALBANS, VT. (1872), 294-295.
23
HEMENWAY, supra at note 6, 294-296.
24
Vermont Mirror, June 7 and July 12, 1815; Rutland Herald, November 7, 1820; Farmer’s Cabinet.
25
New Hampshire Patriot, July 12, 1824.
26
Rutland Herald, June 29, 1824.
27
BERTHA B. HANSON, BERTHA’S BOOK: A VIEW OF STARKSBORO’S HISTORY (1998), 51-52.
28
Rutland Herald, October 9, 1839.
29
Rutland County Superior Court Records, 27:129.
30
Burlington Free Press, October 1, 1841.
21
22
Eugene Clifford’s wife and child drowned in Fairfield Pond in 1842. Two inquests were
held, the first finding that the deaths were accidental, the second that it was willful murder. The
reason for the second inquest was a dream. Mrs. Stewart Marvin dreamed that she walked
through a field and two gates, into a woods with fallen trees, near the pond and found the shawls.
Her husband wouldn’t go to look for them after she awoke, but a neighbor named Bailey joined
her, and they found the shawls “still wet as when the murdered buried them two days before.”31
Following a trial, Clifford was sentenced to be hanged, but the Governor never ordered it.
Clifford was insane, and died a few years later in prison.32
For all the secrecy accorded inquests and grand jury proceedings today, the fact that these
stories of inquests were reported in the newspaper or in public records may seem unusual, but
that sensitivity to information that might compromise the impartiality of a criminal proceeding
today was missing in early Vermont. The law did not expressly require the sealing of these
records until 1912.
Statutory history
The first law on inquests was enacted in 1779, and applied to “any sudden, untimely, or
unnatural death,” or in cases where the cause of death is unknown.33 A jury of twelve “able and
discrete men” was summoned before an assistant judge or justice of the peace, “to enquire of the
cause, and of the manner of such person’s death; and shall present, upon oath, a true verdict
thereof, under their hands,” returning the verdict to the next session of the court. The “court”
was the Vermont Superior Court, renamed Supreme Court in 1787 at the time the county courts
were first formed. In 1787, the law prohibited burials in these cases until an official inquiry was
made.34
The law was rewritten in 1797. The justice of the peace was to charge the jurors to
“declare of the death of the person, whether he died of felony, or by mischance or accident; and
if of felony, whether of his own or of another; and if of the felony of another, who were
principals, and who were accessories, with what instrument he was truck, or wounded, and so of
all prevailing circumstances, that may come by presumption; and if he died of his own felony,
then to inquire of the manner, means or instrument, and of all circumstances concerning it; and if
he died by mischance or accident, whether by the act of man, and whether by hurt, fall, stroke,
drowning or otherwise; to inquire of the persons who were present, the finders of the body, his
relations and neighbours, whether he was killed in the same place where he was found; and if
elsewhere, by whom and how he was bought from thence, and of all circumstances relating to the
said death.”35 The sheriff was issued a summons to bring 15 men of the county together as the
jury. Each would be sworn. The law provided a form for the summons, and for the Inquisition,
the formal report of the jury.
After 1840, the actual questioning of witnesses became the duty of the foreman of the
jury. The justice of the peace was present for subpoenas and oaths, and ordering witnesses and
31
Burlington Free Press, November 18, 1842.
L.L. DUTCHER, supra at note 21, 300-301.
33
“An act concerning sudden and untimely deaths,” February 20, 1779, STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT XII, 108.
34
“An act concerning sudden and untimely deaths,” February 27, 1787, STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT XIV, 175-176.
35
“An act, directing the mode of taking inquisition on the body of a person found dead, by casualty or violence,”
LAWS OF VERMONT OF A PUBLICK AND PERMANENT NATURE (1825), Chapter XXXV, 275-278.
32
those found guilty to jail, but played no part in the final decision of the inquisition.36 In 1856, the
jury was taken out of the process. Selectmen were required to request a hearing before a justice
of the peace acting alone when there was a death caused by “casualty or violence.”
The inquest function was enlarged in 1898, authorizing inquests for any criminal matter,
and allowing judges of the county court, in addition to justices of the peace, to receive the
petition for an inquest and conduct it.37 By 1917, the state’s attorney could request an inquest
before a county judge or a judge of the municipal or city court. Selectmen were required to bring
the information before a justice of the peace, or county or municipal judge.38 From 1898 until
1921, the judge conducting an inquest was forbidden from participating in any trial that resulted;
after that date, the law expressly authorized participation.39
The power to conduct inquests was removed from the authority of justices of the peace
when the Vermont Constitution was amended in 1974, and first municipal judges, and then
district judges were given that power.40 Today a Superior Judge conducts the proceedings.
The reported cases
Isabella A. Marsh and William C. Muzzel were convicted of murder in the first decree for
killing George Marsh, Isabella’s husband, by “arsenical poison” in 1896. On appeal, they
challenged the prosecutor’s use of information from the court of inquest in his closing argument
had introduced facts not within the evidence presented at trial. The inquest records were
introduced to contradict testimony of a witness, when his testimony in court differed from what
he told the court of inquest. In his closing argument, prosecutor Charles Plumley addressed the
inconsistency and blamed it on the “informal manner in which [courts of inquest] are conducted,
not as courts of trial, but to elicit facts upon which criminal action might follow; to the fact, well
known by the jury, that at courts of inquest the evidence was elicited in an informal manner, and
by attorney or attorneys and magistrate, and that it was not an orderly, formal eliciting of facts
which witnesses were known by counsel to possess, but an investigation to find out what the
witnesses knew, in any way or in any part, concerning the cause and manner of the death of the
person upon whose body inquest was being held.” Chief Judge Jonathan Ross rejected the claim
that this was improper.
There is a class of facts which need not be proved, because courts take judicial notice of
them. Among these are the public laws of the state, the other courts established by law in
the state, their judges, extent of jurisdiction, and course of proceeding. Hence, by
bringing the testimony of this witness in the court of inquest into the case, the
respondents brought with it the statute creating courts of inquest, the extent and purpose
of their jurisdiction, and their course of proceedings. These include all the facts which
Mr. Plumley called to the attention of the jury as well known to them. An inspection of
the testimony of this witness given in the court of inquest reveals, moreover, the
informality in the proceedings in that court, of which Mr. Plumley speaks. 41
“An act, directing the mode of taking inquisition on the body of a person found dead, by casualty or violence,”
LAWS OF VERMONT OF A PUBLICK AND PERMANENT NATURE, Chapter XXXV, 275-278; REVISED STATUTES (1840),
Title XXII, Chapter 84, 401-403.
37
LAWS OF 1898, No. 117; PUBLIC STATUTES OF VERMONT (1906), Chapter 30, Sections 5523-529.
38
GENERAL LAWS OF VERMONT (1917), Chapter 281, Sections 6611-6619.
39
Laws of 1921, No. 207.
40
In re D.L., 164 Vt. 223 (1995).
41
State v. Marsh, 70 Vt. 288 (1898).
36
In 1915, however, the high court ruled that the proceedings of a court of inquest were not
by right available to the defense or admissible in evidence at trial. The defense might inspect
them at the sound discretion of the trial court, reflecting a change in the law adopted in 1912.42
Using the record in a closing argument triggered different reactions from the high court.43 In
1918, defense counsel’s statement that his client had been pounded and pommeled by the State at
various inquests, after he clarified that he used the term figuratively, was not reversible error, as
the offensive terms had been sufficiently withdrawn, and his client’s acquittal stood.44 In a 1966
decision the court ruled that once the prosecution refers to inquest evidence, defense counsel is
entitled to an equivalent opportunity of access to the record.45
Inquests held after a trial has commenced are not prohibited. A prosecutor conducted an
inquest during the lunch hour recess in a case, granted the witness immunity, and called the
witness to testify in favor of the State. The high court ruled that inquests are investigatory, and
there is no rule that an investigation cease during the progress of a trial.46 But while the Court
did not see the lunchtime inquest as reversible error, it did say the practice did not meet the
Court’s full approval. The following year, the Court clarified its position: “we would emphasize
for purposes of retrial that the motion to suppress should be heard by the court, testimony taken
as to all relevant circumstances, and appropriate findings and conclusions made. The procedure
involved is too fraught with opportunity for abuse to deny a suppression motion as a matter of
law.”47
In 1975, Arthur E. Ploof, Sr. perjured himself at an inquest. Convicted, he appealed,
claiming the inquest was defective due to the presence of an unauthorized person. The Court
affirmed the trial court’s decision refusing to suppress the record of the inquest.48 Use of inquest
testimony incorporated into an affidavit is, however, not protected.49 Not everything that is
ordered to be confidential remains secret. During the contested disciplinary proceedings against
Justice William Hill, there were leaks to the press from the inquest.50
A judge’s participation in an inquest is not a violation of the separation of powers
provision of the Vermont Constitution.51 Because the Court’s role is administrative. The judge
doesn’t call the inquest, ask questions, or make any decisions as to evidence of crime or to
prosecute. It is within a judge’s discretion whether to honor a prosecutor’s request for an
inquest.
The Inquest today
Vermont has never officially created an office of coroner, although some cases use that
word to describe a physician who participates in the inquest. The office of state medical
examiner was first created in 1961. The chief medical examiner is appointed by the governor,
42
State v. Truba, 88 Vt. 597 (1915).
State v. Shaw, 89 Vt. 121 (1915).
44
State v. Felch, 92 Vt. 477 (1918).
45
State v. Miner, 128 Vt. 55 (1969.
46
State v. Bleau, 132 Vt. 101 (1974).
47
Woodmansee v. Stoneman, 133 Vt. 449, 460 (1975).
48
State v. Ploof, 133 Vt. 304 (1975).
49
State v. Chenette, 151 Vt. 237 (1989).
50
In re Hill, 152 Vt. 548, 568 (1989).
51
In re D.L., 164 Vt. 223, 230-232 (1995).
43
and in turn appoints assistants. Autopsies are ordered on petition of the state’s attorney before a
superior judge or the attorney general.52
Inquests “are investigations into criminal matters to determine the existence of probable
cause, and thus the statutes are strictly construed. An inquest is at most a discovery procedure.”53
Today it is conducted by a superior judge, when requested by a state’s attorney.54 The judge may
subpoena witnesses and hear their testimony, as they are examined by the state’s attorney. The
judge is not disqualified from presiding over a trial, if one is held on the facts evinced at the
inquest.55 The transcript of the inquest is strictly privileged, and remains in the custody of the
attorney general or state’s attorney. Miranda warnings are not required in inquest proceedings,
as a witness is not in police custody.56
Inquest proceedings may only be conducted for the investigation of criminal matters to
determine the existence of probable cause to institute a criminal action.57 They may not be used
for general investigatory purposes. The Supreme Court has explained, “An inquest is essentially
a ‘criminal proceeding’ within the scope of constitutional guarantees. Although the inquest
statutes are not penal and the proceeding is not accusative, the investigation relates to criminal
matters to determine the existence of probable cause and are thus to be strictly construed. In
other words, the statutes will not be regarded as including anything not clearly and intelligibly
described in the words thereof, and manifestly intended by the legislature.”58 In both grand jury
hearings and inquests, “perjury traps” are forbidden. This occurs when prosecutors are more
interested in extracting a false answer than finding out the facts in a hearing. The wrong of such
a practice is founded on the due process prohibition against “outrageous government conduct.”59
Both the inquest and the grand jury’s proceedings are secret. The difference is that the
inquest is merely investigatory: no finding of probable cause is made by the court of inquest, as
with the grand jury.
The lay presence in the judicial system
The role of lay persons within the judicial system has eroded over time. Today jury trials
are rare. More rarely, grand juries are summoned. Gone is the court of inquest, the justice of the
peace jury, and qui tam suits that once allowed citizens to enforce the civil law and enjoy the
benefit of all or a portion of the penalty set in statute.60 Assistant Judges sit in the Civil and
Family Divisions of the Superior Court, and perform other valuable functions in the court
system, contributing their experience and wisdom, although few are lawyers. The lay influence is
from the other side of the bench, as a growing number of pro se litigants are appearing in court
today. As the courts have become more professional over time, the judicial system has become
more protective of rights. The early inquest was not concerned with that. Someone died. A jury
52
13 V.S.A. § 5162; 18 V.S.A. § 505.
State v. Alexander, 130 Vt. 54, 60-61 (1971).
54
13 V.S.A. § 5131.
55
13 V.S.A. § 5123.
56
State v. Tonzola, 159 Vt. 491, 500 (1993).
57
In re Certain Inquest Matters, 137 Vt. 595 (1979).
58
State v. Alexander, 130 Vt. 54 (1971).
59
State v. Wheel, 155 Vt. 587, 595-596 (1990).
60
The 1882 act prohibiting fishing with nets in Lake Champlain or the rivers running into it provided that a
“common informer” could bring an action in his own name to recover the penalty, half of which he would have to
pay to the state treasury. Drew v. Hilliker, 56 Vt. 641 (1884).
53
of citizens was chosen, who viewed the body, took evidence, and made a ruling, often naming
the killer. Sometimes they called it murder, a judgment beyond their authority.