Brian Burgess
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Brian Burgess is a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. He was appointed to the state's highest bench on July 8, 2005 by Republican Governor James Douglas. Immediately prior to this appointment, Burgess had been serving as Vermont's Administrative Trial Judge.
Education
In 1973, Justice Burgess received his B.A. from the College of Holy Cross and his J.D. from Villanova University School of Law in 1976.
Legal career
He was appointed to serve as a District Court judge in 1992; prior to this appointment, Burgess served as Deputy Attorney General (1985-1992) and Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry (1983-1985). For five years, he served as the state's Assistant Attorney General (1978-1983), and as staff attorney for Vermont’s social welfare department (1978).[1]
Dissent in international custody case
In August of 2008, the Supreme Court overturned a family court ruling revolving around an international custody battle. In 2002, the family court "gave custody of a son born to a Bennington couple to the father," but in 2000 the mother fled to Canada with the child in question and obtained custody there. Custody was granted based upon her claims that her ex-husband had abused her and threatened to harm the child in question. In 2007, a United States Federal Court convicted her of kidnapping. In the majority (3-2) opinion, Justice Marilyn Skoglund wrote, "This is one of those rare cases where the best interests of the child must take precedence over the policy goal of deterring parental wrongdoing.Canada was the more appropriate forum to resolve this matter." Justice Burgess highly disagreed: "The majority rewards the kidnapper, and encourages others, by equating unlawful frustration of family court jurisdiction with the best interests of the child. ... While mother's criminal interference with father's parent-child contact was extraordinary, she demonstrated no extraordinary circumstances warranting relief from the family court's order on jurisdiction." "It's a fascinating collision of law and justice," Michael Mello, a professor at the Vermont Law School, said. "The law is pretty clear in denying custody to the mother, but when it comes to justice, not just any justice but justice for a child, the court came down for what it believes was in the best interest of the child."[2]
