Gov. Phil Scott on Tuesday appointed Orleans County State’s Attorney Jennifer Barrett as a Vermont Superior Court judge.
Barrett, a Newport resident, has served as Orleans County’s top prosecutor since 2015 — and is expected to appear unopposed on the ballot to keep that seat in November, having secured both the Republican and Democratic nominations during primaries earlier this month.
She would have to resign her current post to become a judge, and would need to resign again in January should she win reelection.
That means the governor may get to decide who will serve as the next top prosecutor in Orleans County — not only for the remaining few months of Barrett’s current term, but for the next four years of the following term.
Prior to Barrett’s current role, she served as deputy state’s attorney in Orleans and Bennington counties. She was born in Brattleboro and graduated from Champlain College in Burlington and the University of New Hampshire School of Law.
Scott called Barrett “very impressive” at his weekly press conference on Tuesday, adding he believed she had the “energy” and “drive” to help the court system get through a backlog of court cases that have accumulated through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Barrett would replace former Superior Court Judge Nancy Waples on the state’s trial court bench. Scott appointed Waples to the Vermont Supreme Court in February.
Since taking office in January 2017, Scott has made a total of 12 appointments to the Superior Court bench, including six women and six men.
At least eight had extensive criminal prosecutorial backgrounds, including the appointments of two state’s attorneys — with Barrett’s selection — as well as the chief of the criminal division of the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.
The salary for a Superior Court judge is $167,449.
In response to a question at the press conference, Scott said his selection’s timing had “nothing to do with the election,” and that he wasn’t aware when Barrett’s term as state’s attorney expired.
Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for the governor, emphasized the point in an email in response to further questions. “Election timing did not come up throughout the process, and it was not a consideration at all,” Maulucci said, adding that candidates could still run write-in campaigns.
Eleanor Spottswood, chair of the Vermont Judicial Nominating Board and solicitor general at the Attorney General’s Office, said Tuesday that the board forwarded four names to the governor for consideration for the judge’s position on June 15.
Maulucci said judicial selections “tend to take a longer time” to “give enough time for interviews and thorough reference checks, given the significance of the appointments.”
Ballot implications
An official with Vermont’s Secretary of State’s Office said that unless Barrett withdraws her name on the general election ballot, a write-in candidate would need to receive more votes than Barrett in order to win.
State law says the deadline for candidates to withdraw their nominations is 10 days after the primary election, which this year amounted to Aug. 19, according to Will Senning, director of elections for the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office.
Aug. 26 was the deadline for nominations to fill any spots where people had withdrawn, Senning said.
But, he said, state statute contains another clause that gives candidates up until the ballot printing deadline to notify voting officials — in most cases, the Secretary of State’s Office — that they want to withdraw.
“It’s a unique statute as far as I’m concerned,” Senning said. “I think the sense of it is, if we have any way to keep your name off the ballot — say if you pass away — we’re going to do everything we can to take your name off the ballot.”
If Barrett’s name were taken off the ballot before the printing, he said, the candidate with the most write-in votes would become the state’s attorney.
Barrett did not return phone and email messages Tuesday seeking comment.
Senning said Tuesday afternoon that he hadn’t heard from Barrett seeking to have her name taken off the ballot. “I could still probably take her off at this time,” Senning said. “(Wednesday) would probably be the last day.”
Barrett’s appointment to the judicial post means she would need to resign her state’s attorney job since she could not serve as both a prosecutor and a judge, Senning said, allowing the governor to fill the remaining portion of her current term through January.
If Barrett wins the general election, she would need to resign since she can’t serve as both a prosecutor and judge, he said. The governor would then need to make another appointment, possibly the same person, to fill the new four-year term.
“That’s what makes the most sense,” Senning said. “I don’t have prior precedent I can point to or even statute that lays that out, but just as a matter of practical thinking, that’s what I think would make the most sense.”
