The attorney for a Burlington man sentenced to serve at least 27 years in prison for killing his wife and seriously injuring her mother with a meat cleaver in 2017 argued Thursday that the convictions for murder and attempted murder against him should be thrown out.
Rebecca Turner, a public defender for Aita Gurung, contended during an hourlong hearing before the Vermont Supreme Court that the jury selection process in her client’s trial was flawed.
Turner also told the five justices that the trial court’s interpreter who provided Nepali translation throughout the trial for Gurung, who is Bhutanese, did not adequately perform that service.
“The right to challenge prospective jurors runs deep in our common law tradition,” Turner said at the start of her roughly 30 minutes of arguments. “As our United States Supreme Court has confirmed in the late 1800s, it is a necessary part to ensure fairness of a jury trial.”
Turner told the justices that during the jury selection process leading up to the trial in 2022, Judge John Pacht held a portion of the proceedings — in which attorneys raised concerns about certain jurors being assigned to the case — in his chamber, away from public view.
“Mr. Gurung, without explanation, was excluded, as were the public,” Turner said, adding that the alleged errors violated her client’s rights to an open and fair jury selection process and warranted a reversal of his convictions.
Assistant Attorney General Sophie Stratton, one of the prosecutors in the case, countered in her argument to the justices Thursday that the issue did not meet the standard requiring the tossing out Gurung’s convictions.
Stratton said that Gurung’s defense team during the trial did not object to that portion of the jury selection process taking place outside of the courtroom.
Additionally, Stratton said that the part of jury selection that took place in the judge’s chambers was limited to about 90 minutes out of the entire roughly four-day process it took to seat in the jury in the case.
Gurung was found guilty by a jury in November 2022 of first-degree murder in the death of his 32-year-old wife, Yogeswari Khadka, at their home in Burlington on Oct. 12, 2017. He was also found guilty of attempted second-degree murder for seriously injuring his mother-in-law, Thulsa Rimal, in the same attack.
Pacht later sentenced Gurung to 35 years to life, with 27 years to serve and the remainder suspended on probation.
Gurung’s mental health has played a critical role in the case.
In 2019, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George dropped the charges against Gurung, as well as two other defendants in high-profile cases, when she said she could not rebut insanity defenses based on expert opinions.
Gov. Phil Scott called on then-Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan to review each of the cases, and the state’s top prosecutor refiled charges in all three cases, including the one against Gurung.
During Gurung’s trial, his defense attorneys argued that he was not guilty because he was insane at the time of the attacks on his wife and her mother.
The prosecution disputed that contention, maintaining it was a case of domestic violence, saying Gurung was fueled by anger after his wife would not get him a beer.
Despite rejecting the insanity defense and finding Gurung guilty of the charges against him, following the verdict nine of the 12 jurors signed a letter to the judge stating that it was their unanimous opinion that his mental condition significantly influenced the events leading to the charges against him.
Turner, one of Gurung’s appeal attorneys, cited during Thursday’s appeal hearing several other reasons why her client’s convictions should be thrown out in addition to flaws she alleged in the jury selection process.
Among those reasons, Turner pointed to the court’s Napali interpreter who translated the trial as it was happening to Gurung, who listened to the interpreter’s voice through headphones.
Turner said the issue with the court interpreter during the trial was raised by Gurung’s attorneys with the judge during that proceeding.
“The counsel told the court that the interpreter was not completing sentences, missing entire sentences, putting words together that are not exact,” Turner said.
In addition, Turner said, the interpreter included English words in the Nepali translation for legal terms, such as “defense” and “testimony.”
“When the trial court heard these concerns, the trial court was hostile and immediately dismissive,” Turner said.
The Vermont Supreme Court took the arguments Thursday under advisement and are expected to issue a written opinion. The justices gave no timeline for when that decision would be issued.
Gurung, 42, is serving his prison sentence at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
