It was a traffic stop that didn’t result in any criminal charges.
Instead, a prosecutor took the rare step of no longer accepting any cases from the officer involved — an often fatal blow to a law enforcement career.
Addison County State’s Attorney Dennis Wygmans explained his decision in a letter in February 2019 about Timothy Maxfield, who worked for the county sheriff’s department. Wygmans told Maxfield’s boss he decided he would no longer prosecute the deputy’s cases after reviewing video of Maxfield’s traffic stop, an encounter the county prosecutor said turned unnecessarily ugly.
“A review of the video reveals a clearly racially motivated escalation of a roadside stop for a mere traffic violation, wherein he falsely identified the occupants of the motor vehicle as gang members based upon race,” Wygmans wrote to Addison County Sheriff Peter Newton.
Wygmans said it wasn’t the first problem he’d seen with Maxfield.
“We already had concerns regarding Deputy Maxfield based upon recent inaccuracies in an affidavit of probable cause,” Wygmans said, “wherein he misrepresented certain facts in an effort to protect the identity of an informant.”
Maxfield, reached for comment, said there was little he could say about the matter, and referred questions to his attorney, Caroline Earle of Montpelier.
“We thought it was without support,” Earle said of the prosecutor’s letter, adding that she did not believe that her client’s performance was properly reviewed and overlooked his career as a law enforcement officer that had previously drawn praise.
Earle said an eventual lawsuit over Maxfield’s termination and “collaborative” resolution included a $21,000 payment to her client. Maxfield’s termination was also changed to a resignation, she said.
Sheriff Newton said all he could say was that Maxfield no longer worked for the department.
The prosecutor wrote what is often referred to as a “Brady” or “Giglio” letter, named after national court cases. The letters are filed when an officer’s credibility is called into question. They can be used by a defense attorney to question the credibility of an officer, and often prosecutors will simply not pursue any more cases from an officer who received a “Brady letter.” It’s the law enforcement equivalent of a scarlet letter.
They can also lead to tension and bad blood due to the high stakes and effects on reputations. Questions of conflicts of interest are raised as the prosecutors who decide whether to write the letters often have close ties to the law enforcement community within their jurisdictions.
At a time when police conduct is under scrutiny, in Vermont and nationwide, prosecutors’ documents and Brady letters provide insights into dishonesty issues raised about some Vermont law enforcement officials.
Recent public record requests by VTDigger show prosecutors have named roughly 30 officers across Vermont in such documents over the past five years.
The records also reveal some surprises:
• No one is tracking these credibility issues across Vermont’s 14 counties.
• There are no requirements for maintaining Brady letters as years go by.
• When an elected county prosecutor leaves office, there is no system for relaying those letters to the next prosecutor.
• Vermont has no centralized database where all the lists and letters are stored. That prompts questions about what information may follow an officer who’s moving from one department to another.
• The degree to which prosecutors write such letters and include officers’ names on lists is inconsistent. The numbers are higher in Rutland, Chittenden and Washington counties, while others, such as Franklin County, report no such letters or any officers appearing on a list.
Some have termed the letters “Do not call lists” — that is, officers can’t be trusted if they’re called to testify in court. That’s because defense attorneys can tear them apart on cross-examination, zeroing in on past credibility and dishonesty issues.
The letter can even end a law enforcement career, said Robert Sand, longtime Windsor County attorney who is now a Vermont Law School professor.
“Once a prosecutor takes the rather extraordinary and ethically appropriate step of writing a blanket letter about a particular witness, about a particular officer,” Sand said, “that does not bode well for that officer’s further work in the field.”