Chester death defendant loses attorney

The attorney for a Springfield man implicated in the 2008 shooting death of Vincent Tamburello in Chester has dropped his client.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20141031/NEWS02/710319931

Timothy Arbuckle, left, appears in court with his attorney Stephen Craddock, who asked to be removed from the case. Photo: Photo by Eric Francis Published October 31, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Chester death defendant loses attorney By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The attorney for a Springfield man implicated in the 2008 shooting death of Vincent Tamburello in Chester has dropped his client. Defense attorney Stephen Craddock of Barre said he’d filed a motion to withdraw as the attorney for Timothy Arbuckle, 34, of Springfield, because he’d reached a point where, “professional considerations require termination of representation.” Arbuckle stood quietly in his blue prison uniform next to Craddock during a brief hearing Thursday. Craddock was the third attorney to represent Arbuckle, who is now charged with being an accessory to second-degree murder in the killing of Tamburello, and is serving a jail term for an unrelated conviction for drunk driving. Craddock told Judge Karen Carroll that when he first took the case late last year, Arbuckle was only facing simple assault and perjury charges. However, earlier this year special prosecutor John Lavoie filed a new charge alleging that Arbuckle had in effect aided Kyle Bolaski when Bolaski shot Tamburello twice at the end of a confrontation at McKenzie Field. “Things have changed,” Craddock said, noting that the new charge carries the same potential penalties as a second-degree murder conviction. Bolaski, who has maintained from the beginning that he shot Tamburello in self-defense, was convicted of murder in 2011 and sentenced to serve 25 years to life in prison. Then the Vermont Supreme Court granted his appeal earlier this year and ordered a new trial, set for next spring. Bolaski is now out on bail. Arbuckle told the judge he did not object to Craddock’s request, and asked that the court appoint him a public defender at state expense. The judge said the request would likely be granted, but that any future request for a new attorney might not be granted because the public defender will be Arbuckle’s fourth lawyer. “If there are difficulties that you have with the next attorney,” Carroll said, “the court might take the position that, because of prior instances of this same sort of thing, the court isn’t going to give you a new attorney (so) I would urge you to cooperate to the best of your ability with any new attorney that is assigned to you, OK?” “I understand,” Arbuckle said.