 Good morning committee. I was going to take you through the draft 1.2 of your committee amendment. We went through this bill last week and there were a couple of tweaks that needed to be made to make sure that it reflected the intent of the sponsors so that those changes are made in this draft. And I have just a little summary document I can give you as well, so that's helpful. Great, a little session by session. So we can just go through this pretty quickly, I think. If you have someone, I'll put them on the list. Yeah, I'll give that to her. Don't post it, I'll post it. You let me know. So section one, again this is the penalties for first and second degree murder statute and the changes here are pretty, I think they're pretty minimal. So again, just as a reminder, this is the statute that sets out the punishment for murder in the first degree and it changes it so that it removes that possibility of imposing life without the possibility of parole. So first degree murder is a minimum term of 35 years, maximum term of life imprisonment. And second degree murder is a minimum term of 20 years, maximum term of life imprisonment. And then the change down at the very bottom of the page, that's just putting in the effective date of that act that we discussed last week, act 119 from 2006, which was responsive to the provost's decision. And some of that is summarized in the document that I gave you. If you turn to page two, subsections B and C are applied to homicides that were committed prior to that act 119 that was enacted on May 1st of 2006. So those set forth a different sentencing scheme. And the difference is that there is a possibility of a minimum term that's below the presumptive minimum that's set out in what's apparently subsection A, that 35 years presumptive minimum for first degree, 20 years presumptive minimum for second degree. So the only change that's made to these two subsections is that again it removes that possibility that the judge can impose life without parole on anybody who committed a murder prior to 2006. Change in the subsection G at the bottom of the page. I do the same thing, I just take out, this is just really a sort of a clerical thing, take out effective date of this act and put it in the actual date. Pretty clear about section one? Okay. So section two, this is the aggravated murder statute. As it returned to page four, it amends the statute, strikes some language to provide that a person who's sentenced for aggravated murder shall not be eligible for parole. It strikes that language so that a person who is convicted of aggravated murder could not be subject to a life without parole sentence. Section three is the consecutive sentence with statute. Remember, this is the section that provides that a person who commits crimes for which they are sentenced to multiple periods of incarceration when they're under 26 years old has to serve those sentences concurrently. So a judge can't sentence a person to consecutive sentences if they were under 26 and they committed the crimes. It's the age at which the judge is trying to not commit. Right, right. So no changes there. And then no changes to the next two sections. Section four, this is the statute that prohibits a life without parole sentence for juveniles. It amends that statute to make it apply to everybody who are on page seven now. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the sentence. Okay. Pages four and five. Okay. The sentence under this section shall not be eligible for work release or non-custodial furlough, except in serious medical services make custodial furlough inappropriate. Right, so custodial furlough is inappropriate than a person may be eligible for non-custodial furlough. And I'm not sure what sort of medical services might make custodial furlough inappropriate. I'm reading that the word backwards is the word inappropriate. I'm thinking it should be appropriate. I think it's presuming that if custodial furlough is inappropriate, then non-custodial furlough would be appropriate. Oh, I just saw something, okay. I think it's the person who, so it could be abstain to say, maybe. Well, I agree with you, that's the tip. I'm looking at the language thinking because it's backwards of what it should be. Maybe. Except when serious medical services make custodial furlough inappropriate. So custodial furlough, we're using that term as somebody who's incarcerated. And then, what is custodial furlough? Yeah, I'm gonna have to go and refresh my memory about custodial versus non-custodial. My understanding is that if they're still in the custody of the Department of Corrections when they're on custodial furlough, and if they're in non-custodial furlough, they have been released and they're no longer in the custody of the Department of Corrections, but they are still under the supervision in the community. They're under community supervision status as opposed to incarcerated status. So I think custodial furlough is you get sent out for your medical services. Is everybody going to understand that? There, it's defined elsewhere. This is my, oh, I see. It's typical to judge understand. Yeah, I'll double check those definitions and get back to the committee on that. Yeah, if you wanna just continue through these. Sure. So the final two sections, section five, the purposes section, no changes to the draft is introduced, the bill is introduced. This is the purposes of the Department of Corrections and it just amends that purpose language on page eight, line seven, to ensure that the department provides programming for a return to the community for all incarcerated offenders because it presumes that life's up for all is no longer an option. And then lastly, the effective date. No change there. Yeah, striking section line number three, right? Right. And I may be wrong about this. Did life without parole carry an automatic appeal? At least so. Would eliminating life without parole also eliminate the, yeah, Marcia? No, it wouldn't because the automatic appeal applies to any life sentence whether it's with or without parole. Any life sentence is not an automatic, yeah. Just eliminate one more. And not allow them to have an appeal? No, they could have an appeal but it might not have an appeal. Oh, I see. That's why you wouldn't make that much of a difference because as a matter of practice, any time a life sentence is imposed, the defense attorney files a notice of appeal anyway. I like it. All right. So are we taking more testimony on this? Yeah, right now. I'm not asking you to vote yet. No, I just, because I was gonna say, I had a conversation the other day with someone who said that there are very few people in Vermont life without parole, I think it's 15. Well, at one point it's 19. Somebody said last week was 16. But it's somewhere around there. Yeah, but it's somewhere around there. Where do they go? I don't think they die. The problem is, DOC has no idea. I've asked for the list of people. Yes, I'm not joking. I've asked for the list of people on life without parole numerous times. And I get a different list every time. Skyler's asked for a list. He gets a different list than I do. And we can both find people who are on life without parole who don't show up on DOC's list and go back and find where they were sentenced. That was largely all criticizing the Department of Corrections lists. I don't understand that. I mean, I understand what you said. No, I would guess it's somewhere between 12 and 20. And evidently, they don't know. So anyway, whatever the number is, this person's position was that it's, because we have a relatively low number, it seems that the system is working and that those people who should never be paroled are only there, that the system itself is working and that the bill is unnecessary. Surely a point of view. Yeah, no, I found that very interesting because we have been cutting our prison population and so the people who are- Really need to be there. Yeah, and her point was that if we do this, for victims in particular, there's always the fear that that person will be paroled. So anyway, I just threw that out. I think she's not here to testify, but. But, I mean, like anything, you're gonna have opposition. Oh, I know that. I just, I hadn't thought of that before, that maybe the system- I mean, I can see there's good, it's a, you know, something that I ought to support. I would interest the bill of the function, but I've been more of a housewife. I understand people concerned about some of the most violent pleasures of actually being paroled with on the other hand. Yeah, I just thought I'd throw it out. So what you're saying is we should bring back the death penalty? That's what some people- Those are so partial. The David and the Dave, I mean, James' stuff celebrate. That's what some people have said. If you don't have life without parole, you need a temporary death penalty. Some people have said that. Yeah, I believe that if there's life without parole, but I believe there's still a death penalty in the books and the mind, it just happens to be unconstitutional. I don't believe there have been repealed. But it is unconstitutional? Yeah, not my understanding. No, I'll take it. Do you want to miscommunicate with Edwin Barrello? I really, really hope that everything he has testified about earlier, he definitely needs to be able to be paroled with a prosecutor under the law for last year. No, I wasn't here. I was pretty paroled with that one. He ran for what office? He ran for a big office. He was like, it was easy to just have to be arrested. No. I think the last person who put the death penalty was Edwin Barrello. That's a good one, too. Anyway, we're in with that. I have a question for Bruce. Our next witness is James Tupper. Hello. Anybody have to go to the house or somewhere else? Because I can jump around. It's not, I don't know, people are OK. I'm with you guys all day, thank you. All right, good. All right, James Tupper, Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs. So I'm going to separate my testimony on this bill with the life without parole portion and then the consecutive second, or consecutive sentences for offenders under 25 portion. So life without parole, the elimination of it is a deeply emotional issue for many people, more so than any other of the criminal justice efforts that we've looked at in this committee or in the legislature. I'm going to, you know, I worked for Schumlin. I was the liaison to DCF in 2015. And, you know, we saw how some of the murders that happened really rocked that department. But it's not my intention to make an emotional appeal on this issue. So I'm going to just talk strictly how the, from the point of view of the state's attorneys and what they've expressed to me about this issue. And again, the state's attorneys are not a monolith. They all serve a public safety interest. They all have different approaches on how to serve that interest. And this bill prompted a very robust discussion amongst them. One of them was very supportive of the bill and actually wanted to go a little bit further so that she could reevaluate sentences of all people serving either life sentences or de facto life sentences. A few of the state's attorneys kind of took your thinking, but took it the other way, that it's so rare and the possibility of parole for those crimes is so low that do we really need it? However, the vast majority of the state's attorneys, particularly the ones that have been involved in the prosecution of these cases, and have seen how the trauma has kind of rippled through their community, were very reluctant to supporting this, specifically as it applies to aggravated murder. There's a life without possibility of parole for first and second degree murder, but the real concern is for aggravated murder. These are crimes that are usually so atrocious that they damage the fabric of society. They make well-intentioned people think twice about getting into public service or helping a fellow citizen. I think the pros and cons of this issue or on an academic level are pretty well established. Life without parole provides a more humane alternative to capital punishment to the death sentence while still fitting most people's inherent sense of justice. It provides finality, enclosure for the victim's families without having to re-traumatize them through the parole process. On that issue, I would just say that Laura Sobel's father reached out to me last night. We had a long conversation. He told me to bring up her name. He told me to bring up how his feelings on this. I'm not gonna do that other than to say that he thought that the house version of this bill had passed and that's why it was in the Senate and he was legitimately, I mean that's the level of trauma that he's still facing. It's just that even the passage of the possibility of this is, of one chamber has got him, life without parole removes the most heinous criminals from society, prevents them from re-offending and it can serve as a general deterrent for other people thinking about committing similar crimes. I know that some people say that the certainty of punishment and not the consequences are what actually serves as a deterrent. I would say there's a long section in the Sobel opinion about deterrence and the ripple effect this has had and on DCF workers and people interacting with DCF. One might argue, I'm gonna argue on the other side that there's more likelihood that these events rather than deterrent end up with copycats if you look at the mass murders around the country, firearms, shootings, they appear to have a certain rather being a deterrent, people want their 15 minutes of pain and will go out in the blaze of load. So I really, I've always questioned deterrents but I think people who commit heinous crimes deserve strong punishment but I'm not sure it deters somebody else who's in that moment of either psychologically so distraught right there. They're not thinking about what happens and I'm gonna do a life in jail when they commit the act or somebody is so furious and raided by a partner in a domestic situation that they could murder that partner. I don't think they're thinking about what the consequences are they're just so consumed by that rage. And then- Can I ask a question? Yeah, I hate it. Anyway, I'm just, deterrence is the thing that's bothered me my entire adult life working with kids. Thinking that sending kids away is gonna deter them from future behavior. I've been chipping on that particular conversation after 36, almost 37 years of representing criminal defendants and I don't know about you, Marshall. I've never run into one of them who was thinking about, gee, is this going to result in X? That deterrence just does not register on the right or right. I recognize that they're in the Laura Sobel opinion. The judge quoted her as saying, killing Laura was worth going to jail for life. So you can see that while it didn't ultimately deter her, there was a balancing of kind of the actions and the consequences. So while he's on the phone, I hate to ask this again, but can we get a definition of what, of aggravated first degree and second degree? Is that in here? Is it in the middle? Aggravated and first degree. And that's the factors for what makes her. Oh, here it is, aggravated defined. Okay, thank you. I guess I hadn't, even though I was a co-sponsor, I guess they just didn't, thank you. So aggravated is on page six. Okay, so anyway, I interrupted your question. Yeah, thank you. There's less angst about first and second, but the aggravated murder, I mean, this bill essentially renders aggravated murderers purpose. It treats it the exact same way. So is that a suggestion that we consider taking only life without parole for first and second degree and not for aggravated? That would be in line with the vast majority of the state's attorneys. No, we could make that amendment and then have a discussion about it. If you wanted to make that suggestion. I would make that suggestion on behalf of the state's attorneys. Yeah. So I think life without parole, sentencing judge should, in every case, consider rehabilitation. Life without parole seemingly forecloses rehabilitation. It's not that it forecloses rehabilitation, it just says that the magnitude of this crime that the punishment should extend beyond the rehabilitation. You talked about life without parole, which is worse, the death penalty of the life without parole. I was struck by cases like Aaron Hernandez. He obviously, to him, life without parole was worse than a death penalty, so he gave himself a death penalty. For some people, I mean, for other people who wind up doing good works in prison and have a whole community pair. So it isn't, certainly not in those cases. Death is not anything else. Death is not better. I'm just commenting that, you know... For some people, I... Which is more... They can probably kill themselves in an arranging in prison. Sadly. I mean, even some of our most rehabilitation-centric judges in Vermont have determined that life without parole was appropriate and the most rare agreed to circumstances. You know, it's just one of those sentences that you hope you never have to use. Again, some courts have found it appropriate in the very rare circumstances. I'm gonna move on to the consecutive sentences for people under 25. Yeah. From a policy standpoint, the state's attorneys raised, almost all of them raised a kind of similar issue, that it creates a negative incentive for them or desentifies, disincentivizes, pleading down a felony to a misdemeanor in certain situations. You know, if you have someone, the example, a 24-year-old charged with aggravated assault with a weapon, it's a felony punishable up to 15 years, and they have a misdemeanor stalking charge as well. You know, the state's attorney is looking for, you know, a one-year incarcerated term plus three-year supervision. You can get that pretty easily by pleading to two misdemeanors, you see. But under this law, the maximum term of that sentence would be two years. Probably shouldn't give away no secrets, but that all was developed, and Bryn and I talked about it. Okay. We talked with Skyler about it. We're up to the introduction of Bill, and one of the decisions was, what do you do about that in a second, because it basically, if you do two 50-year to life without parole, or 25 to life in your 50-years-old, it's essentially life. So the idea was just kind of a compromise. We'll cut it off at 25 because of the information about those who are under 25, brain development, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it's not critical, but it was one of the problems with, as I saw it, with efforts in other states to do life without parole, you don't deal with it in a second. Yeah. Because you essentially, if there's, the fact of life without parole, yeah, yeah. And I am very much aware of the emerging adult brain science, and I agree with that. That was what, that's the analysis of that. That may be something. It's for the kind of lesser felonies, the ones that aren't gonna, that a prosecutor might wanna plead down to a misdemeanor. But if he can't stack those two misdemeanors, then he's not gonna get sufficient, he or she won't get sufficient supervision. On the tail end, and it's not just about incarceration, it's about, you know, to be pre-approved for a little with a, you know, programming at the tail end and supervision. Hopefully all that changes with that. That was the main concern about the consecutive sentence piece. And I, you know, again, I don't think that state attorneys are talking about both stacking the longer term sentences. It's really those crimes that could be pled down to a misdemeanor. Could you take a poll state attorney to see if the majority would support a bill that hadn't had a vision that aggravated murder is not considered? Yeah, I absolutely would. And I can tell you from the nature of our conversations already, I think that's where the vast majority of them are. With the exception of people that would like the bill to go further. Can I ask, I know there's a relatively low number of people with life and output of sentences in Vermont. Of those, how many do we know? How many were prosecuted on, unaggravated? We didn't even know how many a parent placed part in life without parole. We just heard that every time they asked to get a different number. Oh, because didn't we get the number in the justice order? Yeah, but that's not the same number that David Shure's gotten that. Marshall's gotten that. Scottler, they all get different numbers. They've all got different numbers. All around 20. Relatively close. Yeah. There's no more than 20, no less than 10, I would say. I have the most recent list from DOC right now. And apparently it might not be accurate, but that's what I asked for last week. So am I reading this right that only one is aggravated? Well, I know that this one is aggravated. Oh, it doesn't. It doesn't say it, though. So again, the coding system might not be totally. One of the first things they said to the justice room assessment was that that collection is horrible. Well, come to education. It's the exact same thing. Yeah, law enforcement, it's the same. Anyway, sorry. Oh, that's the end of my testimony on this. So just not to keep it too long and maybe you don't know exactly, but if as the chair suggested we carved out aggravated, it seems like we'd be dealing with a very small system. Like on the order of less than five, maybe. I think so. Yeah. But we still have the both sides of the page. Just on the same page. The old people, like local friends, gonna go over the aggravating factors and make it aggravated versus. Do you have language about the change language about the consecutive? I can propose something. I just want to run it through the state's transfers there. Any other questions? Judge Grish, two days in a row, we're back to thousand. See, when you come here, we actually bring you up to the table as opposed to the house. Well, they brought me up. Oh, did they? Yeah, I was there for two hours in the way this chair yesterday. So they made up for. You said they kept putting you out. Good morning. For the record, Brian Grierson, Chief Superior Judge, testifying to S261, I have the draft date 512 yesterday. And I did, obviously, this is a significant policy decision for this committee and for legislature, and the court does not take a position in support of or in opposition to the policy. I did run it by the judges just to get comments or questions. And some of the questions they had were, have been addressed in this most recent draft. We received an earlier draft yesterday. And so they've been addressed. The only two comments I would have are what has already been discussed this morning. One, the aggravated murder, if you proceeded on this draft would not have a minimum sentence in it. And on the question of running sentences concurrently, the question they raised with me was, does that mean if there is a conviction at age 19 or 20 in an offense four or five years later, still under 25, does this bill mean that despite any gap in time that any sentence incurred at any time under 25 would be concurrent? So again, not taking a position on it but just raising the question. How frequently do people do consecutive sentences? I don't think you can... I don't know that it's frequent. Keep in mind, remember the other number that came out in Justice Reinvestment that 99% of cases are resolved through plea. So when those pleas come in, part of the agreement is always concurrent or consecutive or maybe some of them are consecutive with each other and the rest are concurrent. And so I think to the extent that a court might interfere or object or alter an agreement, I don't know that it comes into that area of concurrent or consecutive. It's very case specific. It a lot depends on the types of the offenses. Maybe one occurred, the case has been pending for a long time and one offense occurred much later. In other words, they're not close in time. So there are any number of reasons why a court might impose a consecutive versus concurrent but usually when there's a whole at one time, all one incident, there may be multiple counts, they're going to be run concurrent. Is there a difference in the 14 states attorneys in whether they do murder one, murder two or aggravated? I mean, I just, cause I know some of the names on there and I was just curious. There was only one aggravated murder on there but I said it and I wondered why that one was and some of the others weren't. I think, I think Pepper said it best. The state attorneys are not a monolith and so you have 14 different views on how they approach the charging decision and the negotiating position. So it's, it varies. It does vary. No question. And I, unless there are other questions, those were the comments that. We're going to ask you sometime the next few days about Bill S-275, so I'm not going to answer. Peggy mentioned it and I'll take a look at it. I think the main question is, is it something that is overstepping the bounds of the legislature? Give you a preview of it, my opinion is yes. But I will say. Check it out. Yes, but I will. That's the question. I'll be prepared to tell you why I think so, because a lot of what's in there, I can explain better what our training is when folks come on board, so that you'll understand why I don't think it's necessary. I think you came out of judicial retention and Senator Nickerson chair, I think you said. We have a diverse group on judicial retention. Just like you. Yes, we do. Not a monolith. Not a monolith. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. David, sure. David, chair for the attorney general's office. The attorney general does support the elimination of life sentences without parole looking prospectively. We've already, the committee's already discussed some of the primary issues in play here and I do think that the data's pretty clear that the deterrence argument isn't a strong one with respect to the effectiveness of sentencing. What are we doing sentencing for, especially for these most serious crimes, deterrence doesn't seem to have much practical effect in the world. That being said, punishment is a valid and necessary aspect of our criminal justice system. And I think the concept here and the idea here is that there are still severely punitive sentences that are available for these most serious crimes and that that will remain. But we also have to look at the back end for people who have been in for years and years, maybe decades and decades. Does it still make sense for an individual who may not be a danger to society at all anymore, who may be quite elderly and frail? Does it make sense, is it just to keep them in? Does it make sense financially to keep them in? It seems like a reasonable thing to allow the body to take a look at those questions and have a second look at that decades down the road. It may be that they take a second look and say yes because of issues of punishment and justice, the person should stay in and that may be the answer. And so I don't think we are eliminating the possibility of people staying in for life for these most serious crimes, but it does allow for the second look and it does allow for a just look at these sentences for people who have been in for a long, long time. And that is the Attorney General's position on the bill. Happy to answer any questions. So you heard the discussion about potentially separating out aggravated what might be the, may not be a specific question that the AG considered, but. It is not a specific question the AG considered. I think my forecast of that would be that it would be something, I think something that the AG would probably consider to be a reasonable compromise and something that would be acceptable, but I will take a more definitive answer and bring that back to the committee. Question for David. I have a question for both David and James. In listening to the conversation, I think the impetus behind the bill is to look at why are we continuing at taxpayer expense to lodge people who may no longer be competent, any kind of a threat to anyone. And I don't know how to fashion or articulate what I'm running through my head right now. The state's attorneys have an overall objection on behalf of the victims which sounds kind of legitimate but would victims aprecase someone that is medically rendered incapable of being a threat to society? Is there at least wisdom there to think about whether they should still be housed at taxpayer expense? And I know that still raises a red flag for some victims, that the evidence could be demonstrated by way of a petition that there's no medical reason for this individual to remain because they're no longer a threat in any fashion. Would the victims' community be more receptive to the language of the bill? So I think that at some sort of medical furlough or home confinement furlough, I actually asked DOC if that's possible for folks on life without parole. There was no definitive answer. I know that there's some suggestion to the aggravated murder statute that they could be eligible for medical furlough. But I think that's kind of more just, it's not end of life, it's for a specific need. But I think that that would be appropriate. I didn't ask the state's attorneys that specifically but I do think that some sort of furlough, home confinement furlough is still under DOC supervision. Could it be appropriate? Just to pick up on where Joe's going and maybe to preview my own feeling about separating out aggravated murder, isn't this something that the parole board is supposed to look at? What kind of continuing threat are you? What is your medical condition? What is your mental condition? So all by getting rid of life without parole, including for aggravated, all we're doing is saying that that person will have the ability to make a case to the parole board which could very much be based around medical reasons. So creating a separate category that end runs the parole board so that we can say that they still have life without parole but they have this off ramp. Seems like a complicated way of doing what the bill I thought was originally intended to do which is just get rid of life without parole and after 35 years you have the ability to make a case, including medical, to the parole board. I understand where you're going. Yeah. Just to provide a little pushback. Two of the names on James' list are people who killed somebody that is familiar to me. The community is very much, it's a raw nerve in the entire community and I would envision even 30 years down the road from now if they were to have the option of making that case, the community and especially the family members who I all know would be absolutely ballistic knowing that that's somewhere down on the horizon that they may have to re-litigate and I can understand their frustration if that's hanging out. I think James touched upon it in this particular case. This woman was very well loved in the community, is very well connected with individuals that I'm very familiar with and I know if they had that option to pursue it signals to the family members a real concern that somewhere down the road they are going to have to deal with all of this again. And that was a sympathetic- When you say that option to pursue if these individuals who are on that list had the option to be able to pursue this method. But which method do you mean? Making a petition to say- From a medical standpoint to say that we are no longer a threat. Yeah. What that is is a signal to the victims' families to have to deal with this all over again. That's why I'm on the fence with the bill all together. There is a bill, and I'm not sure if it's in your committee or my committee on compassionate beliefs. And that could be the vehicle to discuss that part of the scenario where we do know that there are individuals who are incarcerated no longer capable of doing anything and that bill's never passed. I think I'm not sure if it's in your committee or this one. I don't know. I thought there was all the bills that were referred to me were sitting in the desk somewhere and I think that part of the building had only gotten there. I think that issue is more of a different subject here. And I say to the victims, as long as this isn't retroactive, at this point it's pro-respective. And if you, depending on how we do this, we add the aggravated, it's still not eligible, but the state's attorney still has the ability and most horrific cases to impose that. That's what the committee chose. But I do want to hear in the future from the parole board. I think we missed something here we haven't heard from them yet. And Peggy also, the victims of Virginia's here, so I don't know if you've got any. I'm here to gather some information. I want to take it back to both my clients. Who are both your clients? Senator, from my clients, and the National Chancellor's Office, etc. And the victims, we should hear from the victims and Skylar Nash after we have. What I was thinking was, we'd have a re-grap by Bryn with the choices that we played. Things that we've, I think we've already decided it's not retroactive. That's number one. Number two, I believe that there's a few other things that she's changing. So we'll have a straight call bill and then we'll have option one, every crime, and then option two to still allow aggravated murder to be lighted up for all. I just want to point out if I could. So, and I think you just indirectly made this point, but that list that we saw, nobody would be affected by this bill. And the first thing, if it passed this year and went into effect, it would be what, 2055 before the first person could go to the parole board. So we're talking about the vast time in the future. So I get the idea of victims being concerned and I think they will always be concerned. But 35 years is a long, long time. So I just do that as a way of previewing when we talk about getting rid of life without parole altogether or getting rid of it for aggravated. I felt this way when we went over the firefighter issue, whether it should be aggravated murder to murder a firefighter. I really bought Matt Valerio's argument that we were in effect, privileging one life over another. So if we say that we're honoring the victims of aggravated murder, but somehow we're not honoring the victims of murder when we make this change, I think either we have to have a philosophical approach or not. I don't disagree, although I think the elements of aggravated murder can make it such a heinous act that people feel that's the only reasonable punishment that's going to happen. And I think, because I don't have the actual numbers of people who've been convicted of aggravated murder, I too recognize many, obviously we all recognize some of those names as they're some of the most famous criminals in Vermont history. And then you think about some of the other heinous crimes and you don't see those names on there. So something happened within the system and they were convicted. This may be splitting hairs, but to me, trying to change the actual sentence structure of each of these coromans raises James's argument, in my eyes, higher than if you had a compassionate, released statute that was separate to enable people to make that thing. And it is splitting hairs. Oh, God, I think it accomplishes the end result, but at least signals to victims the argument that has to be made is one literally of, there are no longer a threat to society. There's a big difference between that and knowing that somewhere down the road, the parole board, you just all of a sudden not buffing and taking a look at somebody who's in the case of that particular couple that's on your list. That is interesting because, well, we have the compassionate release though in here because I introduced it, but that when I was looking at that list, the one that's listed as aggravated, she's shocked two people. I mean, I know because I know it and the ones that you're talking about are not listed as aggravated. I mean, I don't know why she would be, hers would be aggravated, she just shot him. We're kind of talking, we're not asking the witness questions and I'm always uncomfortable. Oh, I'm sorry, David. Poor witness is sitting there saying, what should I do? I'm gonna go back to the office and see if I can get in. So I have a question for the Attorney General's office that they've been here. So I will say that the infamous Senator Jeanette Boyd introduced us 167, an aggravated compassionate release of parole eligibility. We should probably take off at the same time as this bill. So the next iteration, when we take testimony, people please take a look at that bill. Bryn, we can also look at that 167. It's been around for quite a while. We should be passionate release, just I'm not sure what the definition of compassion is. So we'll have to walk through the bill. Yeah, and I don't know either. I hope you know what it is. No, I just want us to have the conversation and figure out how we can get some of these people out of prison that are there and are no longer a threat. Frankly, I'm not concerned about some of the people that are in prison that don't belong there because they're so mentally ill and we don't, and we've used correctives to default, and I think that's just as unfair and incapacitated as any other. Absolutely. Incarceration, but. Absolutely. David, thank you so much. Thank you. So I guess we're going to ask people to take a look at that 167 as well as this bill. Marshal. Yes. The next time we take the 7, it would be 167 and this bill. Distorted, I see. Yeah, ordered. Yeah, I heard everything. Just keep them separate so they're equal. Thank you. So Marshal Hall, chief juvenile defender and deputy defender general. We very much support this bill. As far as we're concerned, life without parole is a death sentence of a different kind. And given what we know about desistence, rehabilitation, and reoffence, it's really not an appropriate sentence in any case. And really the reason for that is that we know that to begin with, people who, there's really two periods over the course of someone's life where they desist from offending behavior. Really, first of all, when people reach about the age of, for men, when they reach about the age 25 or 26, they get out of that period of adolescent brain development where they are very inclined to commit offenses. And just naturally, without any intervention at all, people who have a pattern of committing offenses when they are adolescents simply stop. Similarly, people who commit offenses during their sort of middle age stop as they reach around the age of 55, 60, 65. Generally, actually, it lines up with when people, when people's production of testosterone starts to decline. And so we have evidence that there are these periods of desistence that are medical. They're not, it's not based on what happens in your head. Psychologically, it's physiological. It's a real pattern of desistence that affects everyone. And to that end, what we know is we know that it's really impossible for anyone, for a judge, a prosecutor, for anyone to look at someone and say, this is a person who will be a danger to the rest of the world for their entire life. And the only way to remediate that danger is to remove them for their entire life. That's not a prediction that anyone is able to make accurately, period. It's not to say that there aren't people who do go on to present such a danger. It's just to say that there's no way to predict that with any accuracy at all from 35 years prior or 50 years prior or anything like that. That's a decision that's more appropriately made on the spot by a parole board saying, yes, at this moment this person has reached a point in their life where they are no longer a threat. Another piece of this puzzle is really looking when you look at how life without parole is applied across the state of Vermont, that also really speaks to the need to get rid of life without parole as a sentencing option. And that's because when you look at, you guys have seen one list of names of people who are serving life without parole. And when you think about other notorious crimes that have occurred, you can see that it's really pretty arbitrary who has gotten a life without parole sentence and who hasn't. There are people that we're all familiar with, people in very recent cases, people in cases many years ago, who've committed crimes, offenses that are every bit as horrific as the crimes and offenses committed by the people on that list, but who weren't given life without parole. In fact, I know of two of the people on the list were both sentenced to life without parole for felony murder where they did not actually commit a killing. And in both of those cases. So felony murder is a doctrine that allows someone to be sentenced as if they committed a killing, even when they didn't, if they are someone who participated in the commission of a felony. And during the commission of that felony, someone was killed, but they were killed by someone else. So for example, if three people break into a house to rob it and one of the people kills one of the people in the home, all three of the people who broke in could be guilty of felony murder. Two of the people I know of who are on that list were sentenced to life without parole for felony murder where they didn't commit any actual killing, but the people who committed the killing weren't sentenced to life without parole. So just to talk about the arbitrariness of how life without parole can be applied, there's at least two cases on there where really co-defendants, one co-defendant was clearly more culpable than the other and yet got the lower sentence just because of the nature of decisions that are made at charging decisions that are made at trial who decides to turn state's witness and give evidence against the other party. There's all kinds of factors that come into it, but at the end of the day, you're left with a very arbitrary application of life without parole. Similarly, just to add to it, there's at least two of the people who are on that list who committed their offenses when they were under the age of 22. There's at least one person that I see on that list who I know is over the age of 70. There might be more. I should go through and get at the ages of all of them, but there's at least one on there who's well over the age of 70. In fact, I was kind of shocked to see that he was still alive when I saw his name on the list. So that's really- I have to, my wife told me I got a call from a constituent yesterday. I said, well, did he leave his number? He said, no, but it was Henry Strowmire. I said, Henry's dead. I don't understand how he called me. Some global call probably, but- Probably. I just found out to be so odd that I just read as a bit through every few weeks ago. So- Very nice man. Just to touch on some of the other things that have been brought up. You know, around the issue of deterrence, there's been scientific studies of this. Life without parole doesn't deter anybody from anything and it doesn't deter anybody from anything for two reasons. One is that just generally speaking, lengthy sentences don't deter people from committing crimes. There's no data to support that. There's no evidence to support that. And there's been plenty of studies because it's actually a really easy thing to study because you just look at a state where sentences have dramatically increased and you look to see whether crimes are being committed at a higher or lower rate. You account for whatever confounding factors there are in there. It's been studied up and down and right and left and nobody's ever been able to show that increasing sentences gives you any sort of a deterrent effect. Really whenever they're able to show something, creating a deterrent effect, it's always on the enforcement side. It's when they do more visible enforcement of particular crimes or when they speed up a docket so that a particular crime is going to be enforced very publicly and very quickly. Those are initiatives that have a deterrent effect. Checkpoints. Checkpoints, yeah. But just increasing sentences doesn't have a deterrent effect and also they've done studies of what types of crimes do people engage in any sort of risk-benefit analysis for and people, the types of crimes that people get life without parole for are not the types of crimes that people engage in any sort of risk-benefit analysis for. Finally, I would just say about two more issues. One is when it comes to the issue of victims, I totally understand the sensitivity around particularly those life without parole sentences that have already been imposed. But there's been work done on are victims more satisfied with lengthy sentences? And if you just ask victims, are you more satisfied with lengthy sentences? They will say yes. But when you actually study whether they are satisfied with lengthier sentences, the answer is no. So what they did is they looked at New York State parole hearings and they divided the parole hearings. They didn't look at anybody in the middle. They just looked at people who were either serving the very, very high range of their sentencing range or the very, very low range. So people who for whatever crime they committed either got a very, very stiff sentence or a very, very light sentence. And they looked at when those people came up for parole and victims were invited to give a statement before the parole board, were victims more inclined to say, yes, parole board, you should release this guy. I feel okay that he has been rehabilitated or that he has served his time or been held accountable with the long sentences or the short sentences. And what they found is there was no difference whatsoever. Pretty uniformly the vast majority of victims came in and said this person should never be released no matter whether they got a super long sentence or a super light sentence. It just simply didn't affect victim satisfaction. The final thing I'll talk about is that we're not actually an outlier in considering this. The Virginia governor, Northman, the guy with the black face problems. More problems than that right now. Well, that was the one that stuck in my head. I was having a parade in an emergency situation. And there I'll be heard about that. I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, well, the Charlottesville groups are threatening to do harm during the march. It was the king parade at the capitol of Easton declared an emergency at the capitol. Being criticized from all sides for saying you can't carry guns in the capitol during the march is the king parade. Well, here's one thing that I will say. I'll say something positive about it if that's helpful to you. Which is that he's proposing eliminating life without parole in Virginia. That's part of his justice initiative for this upcoming Virginia legislative session. And his proposal is actually interesting because he touches on both the elimination of life without parole. So his proposal is that if you serve more than 20 years of any sentence that you've been eligible for parole but he adds in a section that touches on the question of sort of aging prisoners because in addition to that he says if you've served more than 10 years of a sentence and you're over the age of 55 then you're eligible for parole also. It's his proposal. That's not law yet or anything. That's just the administration's proposal in Virginia. There's also bills to eliminate life without parole currently pending in Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania. Alaska has no life without parole, never has. And a lot of, in fact, the vast majority of Western European countries don't have life without parole as an option at all. So in considering this, we're not really an outlier at all. And honestly, from a practical perspective from someone who's represented a lot of people who have gone up to the parole board, I wouldn't actually expect this bill to make a tremendous difference in many cases at all. The fact is that the parole board does not grant parole to people who have committed very serious offenses very often. They do occasionally, but they are very skeptical about it and they're very careful about it. And it's not as if people are just marching up to the parole board and getting released for who have committed heinous crimes. That's just, it's actually a really heavy lift when I'm counseling my clients. I counsel all my clients to expect to serve their maximum sentence or hear their maximum sentence because if they have a two-serve sentence, not a split sentence, because a two-serve sentence where your release is gonna be in the hands of the parole board, like my experience has been that they are, even in cases where the crimes aren't very heinous, they are very skeptical, they really need to be convinced before they release somebody. And that goes double or triple in the case of these types of offenses. So when it comes to, would this result in some vast number of people who commit these types of offenses being released? The answer is probably not. Barring some really significant changes in how the parole board approaches things, which of course we can't predict because we're talking, like you said, 35 years down the road at most. But we are talking about, this isn't some sort of automatic release or anything, even approaching automatic release. I think that's something reality that you're reminded of is not something that's happened to much 35 years ago. I was surprised. I knew you were good at English. I had no idea you were all so good at math. Added those numbers like that. No, I had my transfer at shows and I'm trying to make sure that it's been destroyed at the university. Well, it's stuck in my mind because I wrote a novel by the ex-president in the far flung future of 2055 where Bill Clinton is bionically enhanced and time travel is possible. So that's what we're talking about. Oh, so that was more. 2055. Okay, last, is Monica part of the story? No. She wasn't bionically enhanced, though. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, thank you. And then, did you join us? If you can, so we make sure we're all on the same page and we're all over here. And while we're in the joint study, I told many of you last night I had dinner with the next resident I hadn't seen in 20 years and he did. It was interesting in our talk about justice for investment because Josh had been, when he left to, of course, I told you he ran away in Morrisville because the staff member stopped in Morrisville to get gas instead of water very, and we talked about that actually. He said, you know, I had my hand on the door and I wasn't gonna do it. And then I got out the door and I said, Bob, I've already done it, I'm gone. And I said, yeah, that sounds like you. Anyway, he did get a job for a landscaper and he broke into a house that he was working on landscaping and he did get a sentence for it. And what's significant is he told me that the biggest problem he had when he got out he was feeling to get drugs. And his biggest problem was housing. He could not get housing and part of it was his last name because both his brothers have been convicted of serious crimes and his father's been convicted of serious crimes. So even though he had very little relationship with those three members of his family and he lived with his grandmother the day before he came into his own home. And that struck me because of what we've been talking about and justice, re-investment, and the importance of housing options for people. He had a job and he ended up, he's an assistant manager of some food co-op up there and he's ended up doing fairly well, he's got two daughters. So it was a nice evening but it struck me with all we've been talking about and what we put in front of people getting out of jail that housing issue, he could not get housing use homeless and he gets out of jail when it's homeless and how we survived, I don't know. But it's interesting because it's one of those key facts.