Claire Burns, who had been leading the Caledonia County State’s Attorney’s Office in an interim capacity, is now the county’s top prosecutor.
Gov. Phil Scott appointed Burns earlier this month. She replaces Jessica Zaleski, who stepped down this summer.
In an interview Wednesday, Burns described her appointment to the job as “bittersweet”: bitter because she was no longer working with Zaleski, who she described as a mentor.
Burns first joined the Caledonia County State’s Attorney’s Office as a deputy prosecutor in 2021. Prior to that, she worked as a recovery services clinician at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital, and in public defense in Colorado and California.
While working at a Sacramento public defender’s office in law school, Burns said she developed an interest in the root causes leading people into the criminal legal system.
“I just became bombarded with the reality of mental illness and substance use really precipitating criminal behavior and involvement in the criminal justice system,” she said. That experience led her to study clinical psychology, an education “equally important as my law degree,” Burns said.
That path eventually brought her back to Vermont, first to work in mental health care, then as a prosecutor.
“I grew up in Craftsbury, so the Northeast Kingdom is very much my community,” Burns said, explaining her interest in leading the Caledonia County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Becoming the county’s top prosecutor has already brought challenges, according to Burns. Unable to secure a witness, she didn’t have the evidence to fully explain one defendant’s involvement in a fatal ATV crash, enraging the victim’s family. And a plea deal in a case involving multiple sexual assault charges has attracted public criticism, according to Burns.
“Any difficulty or adversity is a learning opportunity, and all we can do is keep moving forward,” she said. “We are hard workers and we are caring, and I think we do all right by Caledonia. That’s not to say we can’t do better, and we will continue striving to do better.”
Burns will finish her predecessor’s term and be up for election next year.
Correction: The credit for the photo that accompanies this article was previously misattributed.
