A recent case before the Vermont Supreme Court asks whether a warrantless search by police of a closed container, “was permissible under Article 11 [of the Vermont Constitution] absent a factual showing of exigent circumstances.” One would think that the first step in the Court’s analysis would be to identify the specific language of Article 11 that the defendant claims the search violated. If not the first step, one would think that at some point in the decision the Court would quote Article 11 and address whether the text of Article 11 prohibited the search at issue in the case. But the Court concludes that the search violated Article 11 without ever telling the reader what Article 11 says.
I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up. Article 11 says “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” See State v. Kirchoff, 156 Vt. 1, 32, 587 A.2d 988, 1006 (Peck, J., dissenting) (quoting State v. Brunelle, 148 Vt. 347, 365, 534 A.2d 198, 210 (1987) (Peck, J., dissenting) (“If . . . constitutions, state and federal, mean whatever the highest courts having jurisdiction say they mean, and that power of interpretation is not exercised with restraint, we may as well adopt ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ for constitutional purposes.”)).
