Updated at 4:16 p.m.
The Vermont Supreme Court has upheld five murder convictions against Steven Bourgoin in the case of a wrong-way crash on Interstate 89 that killed five teenagers from central Vermont.
In a unanimous 29-page ruling, the justices rejected an argument by Bourgoin’s attorney that during his trial the defense was subject to “ambushing” and key evidence was not disclosed properly.
The decision released Friday morning stated that the trial court judge did not act improperly by not declaring a mistrial, instead asking the jury to disregard the statement at issue. The justices found that the trial court had “appropriately exercised its discretion.”
Bourgoin was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in August 2019 on five counts of second-degree murder and other charges.
On the night of Oct. 8, 2016, Bourgoin was driving a pickup truck the wrong way on I-89 when he crashed into a vehicle carrying five teens returning from a concert.
The five friends in the Volkswagen were Mary Harris, 16, and Cyrus Zschau, 16, both of Moretown; Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston; Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury; and Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston.
Four were juniors at Harwood Union High School, and Cozzi attended Kimball Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire.
“I think it’s a really thorough and thoughtful ruling,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, the lead prosecutor on the case, said Friday.
She also praised Judge Kevin Griffin, who presided over the trial, for rulings that were upheld by the state’s highest court.
“I’m grateful they did it as quickly as they did, frankly,” George said of the court, which heard oral arguments in the case in late January. “This is something that has been hanging over these families for years now.”
Joshua O’Hara, an appellate public defender representing Bourgoin, referred specific questions about the ruling on Friday to Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio. O’Hara did say other avenues of appeal would be explored, including federal challenges alleging his client’s constitutional rights were violated.
Valerio said Friday that he was not too surprised by the decision.
“When you have the deaths of five young people and a conviction,” he said, “I think the court is going to get to a decision that upholds the jury’s verdict one way or the other.”
O’Hara had pointed to two main issues in seeking to overturn the convictions. He contended that one piece of testimony from Bourgoin’s former girlfriend, Anila Lawrence — which undercut his client’s insanity defense — should have not been allowed.
“Is it correct that the only thing he ever really told you about what happened on Oct. 8 was that there were no wrong-way signs on the highway?” prosecutor Susan Hardin asked Lawrence.
“Correct,” Lawrence replied.
Robert Katims, Bourgoin’s lead attorney during the trial, moved for a mistrial at that point, telling Griffin that Lawrence’s testimony was the first time he’d learned that she had conversations with Bourgoin about the crash and the signs. Judge Griffin denied the motion for a mistrial, and instructed the jury to disregard that part of the testimony.
The Supreme Court ruling, written by Justice Harold Eaton, sided with the judge and prosecution, finding that the comment did not warrant a mistrial.
“Defendant exaggerates the potential prejudicial impact of the witness’s one-word acknowledgement that, at some unspecified time after the crashes, defendant told her he did not see any wrong-way signs at the time of the incident,” the decision stated.
O’Hara also took issue with the testimony of a Burlington-based psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Cotton, and what he called a late disclosure that violated his client’s rights.
The issue involved contrasting expert testimony from psychiatrists. Cotton was brought in as a witness after the prosecution dropped Dr. Reena Kapoor, a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
Instead of testifying for the prosecution, Kapoor was called by the defense. She stated that Bourgoin was insane at the time of the crash. Later in the trial, Cotton testified that Bourgoin was sane.
According to O’Hara, the prosecution informed the defense that, in Cotton’s opinion, Kapoor’s diagnosis of Bourgoin as having an “unspecified personality disorder” did not meet the definition of a mental illness. O’Hara contended that information was provided to the defense shortly before Cotton took the stand.
The ruling issued Friday found that the defense had the opportunity to cross-examine Cotton, and “defense counsel neither sought a continuance to recall Dr. Kapoor to present additional expert testimony on this issue nor explained why Dr. Kapoor was unavailable to present any needed testimony.
“Nor did defense counsel make a specific proffer as to what Dr. Kapoor would say if she were given an opportunity to respond to Dr. Cotton’s alleged new opinion,” the ruling stated.
At trial, Bourgoin’s attorneys tried to show he was insane at the time of the crash, and called defense witnesses who testified he believed he was on a top-secret government mission, getting messages through devices such as his computer and his pickup truck’s radio.
Prosecutors countered that Bourgoin’s actions were intentional, fueled by anger over his financial struggles and a child custody dispute with his ex-girlfriend.
The Supreme Court ruled that, even if Bourgoin believed he was on a government mission, that wasn’t enough to toss the convictions.
“Evidence of defendant’s delusion that he was on a government mission to protect his family did not preclude the jury from concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that his mental state satisfied the wanton-disregard intent element of second-degree murder,” the ruling stated.
Bourgoin is serving his sentence in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, according to a Vermont Department of Corrections online inmate tracker.
