A plea deal was reached late last week in the murder trial of Seth Brunell, the man charged for the 2022 killing in Vermont of transgender woman Fern Feather.
Reports VT Digger:
Under the terms of the deal, Brunell will plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and will serve a decade of probation but no additional prison time. He has been jailed since his arrest in 2022, as his trial has been repeatedly delayed.
Lamoille County Superior Court Judge Mary Morrissey approved the plea deal Thursday. Under the conditions, Brunell will be prohibited from consuming alcohol or drugs without a prescription, will be barred from possessing firearms and will wear an electronic monitoring device during his probationary period, according to court records.
A second-degree murder conviction could have resulted in Brunell being incarcerated for life.
The deal comes partway through the first week of Brunell’s trial in Lamoille Superior Court in Hyde Park, and a day after his attorney, Jessica Burke, made a motion for a mistrial. Burke filed the motion after discovering that a Lamoille County Sheriff’s deputy had allegedly improperly spoken with Brunell about the incident while transporting him from the courthouse to Southern State Correctional Facility on Monday afternoon.
According to Burke’s motion, a state police investigator directed law enforcement officers in a “scheme” to record the conversation during the transport in the hopes of obtaining “evidence of Defendant’s statements to use against him during the pending trial.”
During that conversation, a Lamoille County Sheriff’s deputy asked Brunell specific questions about the day of Feather’s death and Brunell’s relationship with his attorney, all of which he answered “candidly,” according to the motion for dismissal.
That resulted in statements from Brunell “obtained in violation of his Miranda rights, to his right to counsel, and in violation of attorney client privilege,” Burke wrote.
A rally was held in support of Feather on Monday in Essex Junction. “”Fern Feather deserved to live,” said rally organizer Kris Smith Thyme, reported mynbc5.com. Said Essex Junction resident Jordan Verasamy, “It’s constantly a slap in the face to see these things happen. It shows us these people who hurt us are just going to get away with it. It’s an injustice.”
Read the complete VT Digger story here.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up.
