New & Noteworthy...

Jury Decides Truck's Key Is Key

ST. JOHNSBURY - It took a jury less than an hour to find a St. Johnsbury resident innocent of drunken driving.

In an unusual and brief trial in Caledonia District Court Friday morning, the jury only had to decide one crucial question: Was the defendant, Ryan Dauphin, 27, in actual physical control of the vehicle when state police Sgt. Jacob Zorn charged him with drunken driving?

The jury decided he was not and the crucial determining factor was a missing ignition key.

Dauphin's defense attorney, David Williams of St. Johnsbury, and Caledonia County State's Attorney Robert Butterfield stipulated to certain facts in the case. Both sides agreed Dauphin was the operator of a 2006 Toyota Club Cab pickup on Jan. 27 and that the pickup was a motor vehicle.

They agreed the vehicle was on Charles Street in Lyndonville at the time of Sgt. Zorn's stop and that Charles Street was a public highway.

They agreed Dauphin was under the influence of intoxicating beverages at the time he was cited. The defense and prosecution disagreed on whether Dauphin could have been considered in physical control of the vehicle at the time he was charged by police with drunken driving.

While Judge Thomas Zonay instructed the jury it would be up to them to agree that the stipulated elements were true, he told the jury the stipulation meant the defense would not contest those elements and would not present testimony or evidence to dispute the stipulated elements.

The final and only remaining element of the drunken driving charge was the element of "actual physical custody."

Dauphin exercised his constitutional right not to testify in his own defense and the defense did not call any other witness while the state only called Zorn and Lyndonville Police Chief Jack Harris.

Harris testified for less than 10 minutes. He said he was called by police dispatch at 3:44 a.m. and asked to assist Zorn. Harris was told by dispatch that they had received a telephone call from a resident at 194 Charles St. who reported someone was banging on his door and the resident did not know who the person was.

Harris testified he found the Toyota pickup parked directly in front of the residence with its headlights on. While Zorn processed Dauphin for drunken driving, Harris went to secure the pickup because Dauphin was to be taken into police custody.

Harris found the driver's side door unlocked with an open container of beer between the seats and more beer in the back seat. He told the jury he did not find a key in the ignition switch. He looked around the interior of the club cab and did not see a key, then searched in the light snow for a key on the ground outside of the driver's door. He did not find a key.

He testified he was only on the scene for about 15 minutes and went back to the scene that afternoon and noticed the truck was no longer there. It had been moved.

Williams cross-examined Harris for less than two minutes, simply asking Harris if he looked for the key and if he found a key either inside the truck or outside the truck. Harris testified he did not find a key.

Taking the stand, Zorn said he was on patrol on Broad Street in Lyndonville when he was dispatched at 3:44 a.m. to 194 Charles St. for a report of a male subject banging on the door of a residence. He said he found a Toyota pickup with its headlights on parked in the traveled portion of Charles Street. The engine was not running, but Dauphin was in the driver's seat behind the steering wheel.

When Zorn opened the driver's door he detected a very strong odor of alcoholic beverages and found Dauphin lethargic and unsteady on his feet with bloodshot and watery eyes.

"Everything he said was unintelligible," Zorn told the jury. When asked repeatedly why he was banging on a resident's door at 3:45 a.m. in the morning, Dauphin could only reply, "I just didn't want to hurt anyone."

Eventually, Dauphin told Zorn he had been drinking beer and that he came from Danville to Lyndonville, but when Zorn repeatedly asked him if he was driving, Dauphin replied, "I don't know."

During a one-legged stand, which is part of a field sobriety exercise administered by police, Dauphin "almost fell over" according to Zorn. He told the court he conducted a "pat-down search" of Dauphin outside the vehicle, and during the pat-down, the only item he found was Dauphin's wallet in his back pocket. He did not find a key.

During his questioning of Dauphin, Zorn said Dauphin first told him the Toyota ignition key was in his pocket. He later told Zorn the key was "near the truck." Zorn opened the passenger side door to the vehicle to search for the registration in the vehicle. He said he noticed there was no key in the ignition and that he did not see a key anywhere. He also said he did not search the truck cab and did not search the ground around the truck.

The jurors watched approximately 10 minutes of the police video of the traffic stop as it was recorded by the video camera in Zorn's cruiser. In the video, Zorn could be heard telling the defendant, "You're drunk. You're really drunk."

Later, Zorn can be heard on the video telling Dauphin, "You've got to say something that makes sense to me, because you're not making any sense." Dauphin repeated that he did not know if he drove from Danville, to which Zorn replied, "You can't be that drunk. You've got to know whether you were driving the truck or not." Dauphin repeated his answer; "I do not know, sir." He did confirm he was alone.

Cross Examination

After a brief cross-examination of Zorn by Williams, both sides rested. With the jury out of the courtroom on a break, Williams moved for an acquittal, telling Judge Zonay that the state had not established a case. Williams said, "That does not make any sense at all, that someone can be charged for sitting in a vehicle without a key."

The judge rejected the motion request, saying Butterfield, under the law, only had to establish that Dauphin had the "potential" to operate the vehicle. "The potential to operate is enough." He ruled there was "more than enough" for the jury to convict if the jury believed the key could have been nearby.

When the jury returned to the courtroom, each side made closing arguments. Butterfield said the case was a serious one because an intoxicated individual behind the wheel is a threat. He said testimony showed Dauphin "thought the key was on him or immediately nearby." The prosecutor said the headlights were on and and if Dauphin wasn't going anywhere he wouldn't have the headlights on.

But Williams countered, "What is wrong with going back to your vehicle and sitting there? Is that a crime?"

During his instructions to the jury, Zonay said "actual physical control" meant the driver was "in a position to to regulate the movement of a vehicle."

The jury returned a unanimous verdict of innocent.