State v. Couture

Defendant appeals his convictions for kidnapping, 13 V.S.A. § 2401, and simple assault, 13 V.S.A. § 1023(a). He raises three claims on appeal: (1) although defendant was charged, in a single count, with forcibly confining five people, the court erroneously instructed the jury that .defendant could be convicted for confining “any one of the five”; (2) the court erred in sustaining the Fifth Amendment claim asserted by a witness who had already been adjudicated guilty; and (3) the court erred by excluding evidence of a complainant-witness’s prior conviction. We affirm the simple assault…