Jeffrey Amestoy, chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court from 1997 to 2004, is best known for authoring the 1999 decision in Baker vs. Vermont that legalized same-sex civil unions. That case laid the groundwork for the legalization of same sex marriage in Vermont a decade later and ultimately led to the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same sex marriage in 2015.

At the age of 79, Amestoy is still a prolific writer, but in a different genre. His latest book is a true crime legal thriller that he spent years researching. Winters’ Time: A Secret Pledge, a Severed Head, and the Murder That Brought America's Most Famous Lawyer to Vermont, is the story of when celebrity attorney Clarence Darrow came to Vermont to defend a convicted murderer before the Vermont Supreme Court. The book was just published by the Vermont Historical Society.

Winters’ Time recounts the brutal murder of Cecelia Gullivan, who was killed in her home in Windsor, Vermont in November 1926. Gullivan, a single woman, was the treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine company in Windsor. Police quickly arrested John Winters, a machinist at her company, and he was promptly tried, convicted and sentenced to death. That’s when Clarence Darrow entered the case after the Winters family called in a favor promised by Darrow’s son.

Amestoy, who was Vermont's attorney general from 1985 to 1997, set the scene for what would become one of Vermont’s most sensational trials. “By the 1920s you had the first real mass media with radio and newspapers racing to outdo each other in circulation wars that focused primarily on murders and then a tremendous interest in celebrities," Amestoy said. "Darrow sort of combined two of those: he was an extraordinarily successful defense lawyer, adamantly opposed to capital punishment … And then he was famous for his ability to speak to larger social issues.”

The death penalty was among the issues at play. “There was a tremendous amount of focus on capital punishment in Vermont but not, in fact, from those opposed to it, more about making sure that Vermont had a method of execution that would work,” said Amestoy. Winters would be only the second person executed by electric chair, which had recently been installed at the Windsor prison.

Vermont executed 26 people between 1778 and 1954. The state abolished capital punishment in 1972 following a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The most sensational aspect of the trial of John Winters was the prosecution’s use of the victim’s severed head as an exhibit. “That had never happened in Vermont legal history and as far as I was able to determine, hadn't ever happened in American legal history either,” said Amestoy.

Amestoy said that the Winters case “gave us a lens on Vermont in the 1920s in terms of gender.” Cecilia Gullivan was an “extraordinary single woman, sort of a modern woman of the time.” He noted that Gullivan was “probably the highest ranking female executive in Vermont, a tremendously capable woman who had the authority for managing the plant.” Her murder was “extraordinary because of the status of the victim, and it immediately became front page news, not only in Vermont, but in Boston and really all over the country.”

There were rumors raised at Winters' trial that Gullivan was in a relationship with Frank Cone, the owner of the company, who some thought was a suspect in her death. Amestoy noted that women did not sit on juries at that time. Vermont in the 1920s was "not attuned to issues of gender," said Amestoy.

Clarence Darrow succeeded in winning a retrial for John Winters, who then pleaded guilty to second degree murder on Darrow's advice, though Winters publicly maintained his innocence. After serving 20 years in prison, Winters was pardoned in 1949 by Gov. Ernest Gibson. Clarence Darrow had saved the convict’s life.

Amestoy is no stranger to sensational cases himself. His civil unions decision, which he famously wrote “is simply a recognition of our common humanity,” changed the national conversation about same sex unions.

“I thought that opinion helped move that issue in a way that allowed Vermonters to address a social issue of extraordinary importance in a way that I think stood as an example to the country. So to have been able to play a part in that was obviously something I was thankful for.”