Kimberly B. Cheney (born November 25, 1935, in Manchester, CT)[1] is an American lawyer and politician who served as Vermont's Attorney General from 1973 to 1975.
After graduation he enlisted in the US Navy for four years of active duty, married Barbara Suter in Tokyo, Japan (with whom he had two children, Alison and Margreta), and upon discharge from the Navy enrolled in University of Connecticut Law School transferring to, and graduating from, Yale Law School in 1964.
He is most remembered for processing the litigation against the State of New York and the US Environmental Agency for polluting Lake Champlain, writing an open records law, and particularly for an Attorney General's tongue-in-cheek opinion allowing him to keep his dog, Hector, in the office arguing that dogs had rights as well as humans to pursue happiness.
[4] He was defeated for reelection in 1974 by about 500 votes[5] after Republicans lost electoral favor following Richard Nixon's resignation and subsequent pardon by Gerald Ford arising out of the Watergate affair.
He wrote an article describing Vermont's unique system of grievance resolution by a public board as distinguished from the usual practice of private arbitration.
[7] In 1983, Cheney's family law practice inspired him to form a legislative panel with Trine Beck Esq.
[8] Cheney's work in family law concluded in 1986, by forming a Task Force to reform Vermont Adoption Law, resulting in substantial changes in adoption practice including clarity in relinquishments, requiring realistic parental consents, and enlarging the ability of adoptees to search for their birth parents.
Plus his anger caused by a "dirty cop" working in drug enforcement, the moral laxity of his own Assistant Attorney General, and the malevolence of the Commissioner of the State Police in covering up that officer's scheme to make multiple self-aggrandizing fraudulent arrests.