Updated at 5:09 p.m.
NORTH HERO — A jury has failed, once again, to reach a verdict in the assault case against Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore stemming from a widely publicized incident more than two years ago in which he repeatedly kicked a handcuffed and shackled detainee.
As a result, Judge Samuel Hoar declared the proceedings in Grand Isle County Superior criminal court to be a mistrial just after 1 p.m. on Monday. Jurors had spent more than 17 hours deliberating the case over three days — but ultimately could not reach a consensus.
It was the second mistrial in Grismore’s case in about as many months. A different jury in late July also failed to reach a unanimous verdict, and Hoar then also declared a mistrial. Those initial proceedings ran for three days, while the latest trial spanned six.
Grismore was charged with simple assault for kicking the detained man, Jeremy Burrows, in a sheriff’s department holding cell in August 2022. He was a captain in the department at the time. Had he been convicted, Grismore could have faced up to a year in prison or a $1,000 fine, or both.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the judge’s decision, Grismore said he felt “a tremendous amount of frustration” at the lack of a verdict a second time, adding that facing a criminal charge has “greatly compromised my ability to do my job.”
But, he said he continued to have no reservations about his actions.
In fact, “I feel more empowered than I ever have,” he told reporters Monday afternoon. “I feel more compelled now than ever to continue to do the job.”
Doug DiSabito, the Grand Isle state’s attorney, was prosecuting the case. DiSabito told reporters that he had not yet decided if he would pursue a third trial. He said his decision would hinge, at least in part, on whether Burrows wanted to pursue the case further, too.
“I’m disappointed,” DiSabito said, adding that he was nevertheless “wickedly impressed” by the amount of time the latest jury spent considering the case.
In both instances, jurors were tasked with considering whether Grismore’s actions were both “reckless” and caused Burrows pain — two key components of a simple assault charge under state law.
The trial redux featured many, though not all, of the same witnesses and arguments, including both Burrows and, late last week, Grismore himself taking the stand.
After hearing four days of lawyers’ arguments and witness testimony, the latest jurors were sent to deliberate at around 3:15 p.m. last Thursday. Around 4:45 p.m. on Friday — following some eight hours of deliberations that day, and more than five hours of deliberations on Thursday — the case’s designated lead juror told Hoar that there was “a slight possibility” the panel would reach a consensus with more time.
But even after a weekend break, and about four more hours of deliberations starting Monday morning, that proved not to be the case. Shortly after the court’s scheduled lunch break on Monday, Hoar received a note from the 12-member jury, which he read out loud.
“Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach a unanimous decision,” the note stated. “Two jurors want to continue. One juror is undecided about continuing or not. Nine jurors do not see a way forward to continue.”
Hoar then brought the jurors back into the courtroom one final time.
“We’re not going to require you to keep at this, folks,” he concluded, adding the jurors had “affirmed what we knew before — this is a difficult case.”
A state oversight panel previously found that Grismore’s actions violated Vermont’s policy on police use-of-force and, as a result, it revoked his police officer certification. But both recent trials were supposed to determine whether Grismore also violated criminal law.
As a captain at the time of the incident, Grismore was effectively the department’s No. 2 behind then-Sheriff Roger Langevin. After Langevin opted not to run for reelection, Grismore ran for the office — and, in November 2022, he won, despite the assault charge being filed against him just weeks before.
Body camera footage was central to the trial, and both attorneys played it repeatedly, at times breaking it down for the jury second-by-second. Two experts on police use-of-force, one called by the state and one by Kaplan, offered competing assessments of whether Grismore acted appropriately.
The August 2022 footage shows sheriff’s deputies responding to a call at Burrows’ mother’s house, where Burrows later threatens and lunges at one of the officers, prompting his arrest. Burrows, who appears intoxicated, is taken to the sheriff’s office and shackled to a bench. At one point, he falls flat on the ground.
After two deputies help him back up, he appears to refuse orders to sit down. At that point, Grismore enters the frame and kicks Burrows back onto the bench before repeatedly pressing his foot into the man’s groin. Burrows stands up again, and Grismore kicks him back down again.
“He’s so much in trouble,” Burrows appears to say after Grismore’s second kick — a comment that would prove to be prescient, particularly when played aloud in the courtroom.
Grismore told the jury on Thursday, as he has argued repeatedly over the past two-plus years, that his actions stemmed from concern for the safety of everyone in the holding cell — himself, the two other sheriff’s deputies and even for Burrows.
He said he wanted to get Burrows seated back on the bench and away from his and the deputies’ faces because he believed that Burrows was rearing his head to spit on them. Burrows had spit on one of the deputies, Christopher Major, earlier in the day, the body camera footage shows.
Grismore testified that he was especially worried about contracting Covid-19 or Mpox from Burrows’ saliva.
“It was very urgent for me to be involved,” Grismore told the jury on Thursday morning, arguing that he had to respond to a “split-second” situation.
Burrows testified, however, that he was not going to spit — and the deputy who was in closest proximity to Burrows at the time, Karry Andileigh, testified that she did not think Burrows was going to spit, either.
Grismore also said that he did not think the other deputies had Burrows under control — a characterization both deputies have disputed. He added that Burrows was safer after he forced him down onto the bench because he would not fall onto his face again.
DiSabito, though, pushed back on Grismore’s assessment, questioning why Grismore did not employ other, less physical, tactics or why he did not, for instance, put a face mask on if he was so concerned about contracting a disease from Burrows’ spit.
Instead, Grismore’s self-described health concerns “only became an issue after, when this defendant realized he had crossed the line,” DiSabito said, suggesting Grismore had essentially made up those concerns to explain away his actions after the fact.
“He lost his temper, and he used unreliable and unnecessary force,” DiSabito said.
Even if he had been convicted on Monday, the verdict would have had no legal bearing on Grismore’s ability to maintain his post. Impeachment is the only way Grismore, or any county sheriff, could be removed from office under state law.
But in April, a Vermont House committee formally dropped an investigation into whether he should be impeached. Lawmakers were weighing allegations, among others, that he violated the public’s trust and, in his capacity at the time as the office’s bookkeeper, improperly paid himself his own retirement funds.
The sheriff has also been under joint investigation by the Vermont State Police and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. Officials have said previously that the investigation pertains to alleged financial wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office wrote in response to a request for information last week about the investigation: “We have no update to share at this time and cannot comment on open investigations.”
