Michael Potter was sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to attempted murder and lewd-and-lascivious conduct in a 1997 attack. Potter, who assaulted and slit the throat of a 66-year-old woman in Quechee, registered as a sex offender, and was to be released in December 2008.
But he failed to meet one of the conditions of probation: to identify a suitable place to live once he got out.
The Department of Corrections cited him for a probation violation after rejecting his proposals for residency, one of which was moving in with his mother, who lives with two young grandchildren.
On Wednesday, a judge in White River Junction approved a compromise under which the 34-year-old Quechee man agreed to submit to electronic monitoring and polygraph tests and the state agreed to withdraw the probation violation complaint.
Under the compromise, the Department of Corrections agreed to find Potter a place to live and to release him by July 30.
His attorney, Kevin Griffin, said it was “insanity’’ for the state to house Potter for 19 months more than it had to and said that while no one was crying over the extended incarceration, taxpayers were paying for it.
“The public doesn’t care about Michael Potter,’’ Griffin said yesterday. “Even the feedback I get in the community is that everyone simply points to his crime and says, ‘Why should we care?’ I say that at a minimum, keeping him in for another 19 months cost them another $75,000. They could have built a trailer for the guy, and housing never would have been a problem.’’
David Peebles, community justice executive for the department, said the cost of an inappropriate placement can be high in other ways, too.
“When we’re trying to balance public safety with individual rights, sometimes there’s a rub,’’ he said. “Our job is to make the best decision based on what we know about offenders who are similar and how they respond upon their release.’’
