As Fair Haven Union High School prepares for the possible release of the teenager who allegedly planned to inflict mass casualties at the school, students from the school are asking lawmakers to update criminal statutes they say should have kept him behind bars.
A judge initially ordered that Jack Sawyer be held without bail, for the charge of attempted first-degree murder. But last week, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that under existing law, Sawyer’s statements and journal entries, however chilling they may be, did not constitute an attempt at anything. And justices overruled the decision to deny bail.
The judge in the case has said that if Sawyer is released he will be confined to his father's care, home or to the Brattleboro Retreat for inpatient treatment.
Some students at Fair Haven say they’re scared for their lives now. And students like Fair Haven senior Adriana Dalto are demanding action from lawmakers.
“This case should be what causes the change and protects the kids, teachers and citizens from being put in this position,” Dalto told members of the House Judiciary Committee, Wednesday.
Dalto says she used to love going to school, and even admits to missing it during summer vacation.
After police arrested 18-year-old Jack Sawyer back in February and found the journal in which he outlined his alleged plan to kill as many people as possible at Fair Haven, Dalto’s world got darker.
"It's very heartbreaking obviously to hear a 16-year-old talk about drafting a will instead of looking at college applications." — Rutland County State's Attorney Rose Kennedy
“I look behind me if I’m alone as I walk into school. I fear getting there early, wondering if there’s going to be someone there waiting for me,” Dalto says.
Now that Sawyer may be released, Dalto says that fear is only getting worse.
And Wednesday morning, she and her classmates asked lawmakers to overhaul the definition of what it means to “attempt” a crime.
Fair Haven student like Jazzmyne Dunleavy, a freshman, says she felt blindsided by the Supreme Court ruling.
“We’re here today because we have been told as students to report anything we see or hear that doesn’t seem right to us so we can stop acts of violence before they occur,” Dunleavy says. “We did that.”
Students say concerns about Sawyer and his behavior were well-known in the community before his arrest in February. They thought that by bringing the threat to authorities' attention they would eliminate any threat posed by Sawyer to the Fair Haven Union community.
Dunleavy and other students, like Fair Haven senior Elyza Bird, say the Sawyer case has exposed a scary shortcoming in the existing statute.
“Are you really prepared to wait for bullets to fly and people to lose their lives before you see that this is an issue that needs to be addressed?” Bird says.
Rutland County State’s Attorney Rose Kennedy, the prosecutor who lost her bid to keep Sawyer behind bars pending a trial, accompanied the Fair Haven students as they walked from committee to committee on Wednesday.
She says she’s “begging” for an attempt statute that would criminalize the behavior Sawyer’s accused of. She says the students are effective advocates.
“It’s very heartbreaking obviously to hear a 16-year-old talk about drafting a will instead of looking at college applications,” Kennedy says.
But Defender General Matt Valerio, whose office is defending Sawyer, says the problem isn’t with the attempt law, but with Kennedy’s decision to charge Sawyer with it.
“No legal person who I am aware of believed that there was probable cause for an attempt for the charges that she filed,” Valerio says.
Valerio says there are plenty of existing crimes to address the kind of behavior Sawyer allegedly perpetrated, like disorderly conduct, aggravated disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, or simple assault by physical menace.
Valerio says that even if lawmakers adopt the statutory changes Kennedy is now asking for, Sawyer’s alleged behavior still wouldn’t constitute attempted murder under the new law.
Gov. Phil Scott and lawmakers say they plan to update state law to address the Sawyer case. Under no circumstances though can it be retroactively applied to prosecute Sawyer.
