BURLINGTON — A federal judge said she plans to advance the slow-moving case against a former Washington state resident accused of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent in northern Vermont in January 2025.
Teresa Youngblut faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted in the fatal shooting of David Maland that took place after a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in Coventry on Jan. 20, 2025. Maland, 44, of Newport, was the border patrol agent who pulled over the vehicle that Youngblut was driving.
The hearing Monday in federal court was the first proceeding in the case in a little more than a year.
Judge Christina Reiss told the attorneys in the case she was worried that the discovery process, or the sharing of evidence collected by the government with the defense team, was not moving along as efficiently as she would like.
“I am not willing to leave the discovery process unsupervised at this point,” Reiss said.
The judge said she would set regular status hearings in the case moving forward to ensure that the process is advancing and any issues that may arise could be addressed in a quick fashion.
Reiss set the next hearing in the case for Nov. 23.
The judge Monday also called on the parties to establish a schedule for the filing of pretrial motions.
“If you can’t do it, I’ll do it,” Reiss told the attorneys.
The hearing Monday that lasted roughly an hour also focused on the matter of electronic devices.
Reiss called on the government to come up with an inventory listing all of the electronic devices used by law enforcement that may have relevant information on them — including all work and personal devices.
The defense team for Youngblut had raised concerns earlier this year that some of the devices may not have been preserved by the prosecution, and that data from those devices could be lost as time moves on, particularly personal devices used for work-related duties.
Steve Barth, an attorney for Youngblut, told the judge Monday that he wasn’t asking at this point for the data on those devices. Instead, Barth said, he wanted to first see an inventory of how many devices with relevant information exist and whether any of them or the data stored on them may have already been lost.
Reiss told the prosecutors to develop that list and share it with the defense team. The list should include each device, who it belonged to, and what role that person played in the case, the judge said.
At one point during the hearing, Reiss asked Barth, “Have you gotten all the video evidence?”
“I don’t know,” Barth replied, adding, “I would say no.”
Dennis Robinson, one of four federal prosecutors in court Monday for the hearing, told the judge, “We have provided voluminous video evidence.” Robinson did not say how much video was turned over to the defense. He did add that he didn’t know of any other video evidence.
Robinson also said that the government would be producing another “tranche” of discovery evidence next month.
Youngblut, 22, of Seattle, who was wounded in the deadly incident, was taken into custody days later on charges related to the shooting after being released from the hospital.
Felix Bauckholt, a German national known as Ophelia, was a passenger in the vehicle Youngbut was driving and was killed in the shootout.
Prosecutors have stated in court filings that if they get a conviction, they will seek the death penalty for Youngblut. Vermont does not have the death penalty under state law, but this case is brought under federal law where the death penalty is permitted.
A defense filing earlier this year argued that evidence the defense has collected so far disputes a version of events from federal authorities about what led up to the deadly shootout.
That issue was not specifically raised during the hearing Monday.
Youngblut and Bauckholt had been connected by law enforcement to a loosely linked group known as the Zizians.
The Zizians have ties to Bay Area communities in California known as rationalists, a movement of philosophically-minded people focused on logical reasoning and interested in raising alarms about the potential harm of artificial intelligence. Members of that group have been tied to six homicides across the country in recent years.
Youngblut, wearing bright orange prison clothing, did not speak during the hearing Monday and sat quietly between the three-member defense team.
