This series looks at a privately operated but state funded program created to deal with people who have two strikes against them: a court has judged them to be mentally retarded, and they have been accused of a sexual offense for which, because of their disab... More »
by Joseph Gresser copyright the Chronicle, 9-14-2012 Editor’s note: This article is more recent than the Chronicle’s Safe Choices series published in 2010. The entire series is posted in the Safe Choices Program category from part one through 30 starting with... More »
by Chris Braithwaite copyright the Chronicle October 1, 2008 NEWPORT — In his effort to take control of his life away from the state of Vermont, George St. Francis found an ally in Probate Judge John Monette. After a hearing on September 4 the judge ordered th... More »
by Paul Lefebvre copyright the Chronicle October 8, 2008 Two former clients of the Safe Choices program who went into the program under cloudy circumstances said in recent interviews they were treated as if they were sex offenders and threatened with jail if t... More »
by Chris Braithwaite copyright the Chronicle October 15, 2008 NEWPORT — The people who run the Safe Choices program from a suite of offices on Seymour Lane are in a bind. They work under strict rules of confidentiality, rules that protect the privacy of clien... More »
by Chris Braithwaite copyright the Chronicle October 22, 2008 NEWPORT — A 24-year-old farmhand we are calling Wendell walked out of Orleans County Probate Court Thursday afternoon, October 16, with something he had never had before: his freedom. Wendell has b... More »
copyright the Chronicle October 22, 2008 A friendly, soft-spoken 24-year-old farmhand goes into Probate Court and, after a brief hearing, wins his emancipation from his mother’s guardianship. He’s been living and working away from home for more than a year, a... More »
by Chris Braithwaite copyright the Chronicle October 29, 2008 NEWPORT — Few private citizens have had more experience with the Vermont court system than George St. Francis. Few people could have found it more bewildering. The battle over Mr. St. Francis has g... More »
by Paul Lefebvre copyright the Chronicle November 19, 2008 A Family Court judge is expected to rule on allegations that the Safe Choices program — the program founded in 1993 to deal with sex offenders judged incompetent to stand trial — interfered with a Newp... More »
copyright the Chronicle November 26, 2008 Last week, in one of a series of articles this newspaper has published about the Safe Choices program, Paul Lefebvre wrote of a lawyer’s struggles to maintain contact with her client. Brain damaged in a childhood accid... More »
by Paul Lefebvre copyright the Chronicle December 23, 2008 NEWPORT — The press won a qualified victory last week by being allowed access to a Family Court hearing involving a petition by a Safe Choices client to get out the program and be served by a private g... More »
by Paul Lefebvre copyright the Chronicle February 25, 2009 NEWPORT — A Safe Choices client moved significantly closer to ending his state custody and trading a public guardian for one of his own choice during a Family Court hearing here that was closed to the ... More »
