 Welcome to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs. We are here on February 21st, Tuesday afternoon, to take up two pieces of business, the first of which is going back to the recommendations of the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission. There were a couple of changes we had asked Ledge Council to make. So Tim is here to reorient us to that language and talk about the latest draft. So Tim Walton. Thank you very much, Chairman McCarthy. Good afternoon, everybody. For the record, my name is Tim Dufflin, Ledge Council. Before you, you have Draft 2.1 of the Committee Bill, which we're referring to as 23-09-07, having to do with this many as law enforcement training for the recommendations of the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission. This bill, just quickly running through each section, section one will require law enforcement agencies and constitutional exercise law enforcement authority to adopt the 2010 domestic violence involving law enforcement model policy and any future updates of that policy. Section two is session law will require the Vermont Law Enforcement Advisory Board to update the domestic violence involving law enforcement model policy by January 1st, 2024. And I'd just like to note the change in the previous version that had been 2025 will now be 2024 to reflect VF, FRC recommendations. So section three moves into officer misconduct and transparency of information. Section three, sorry, amends title 20, VSA, section 2404, and that's definitions for law enforcement officer certification and Vermont Criminal Justice Council structure. To one, include the issuance of a relief from abuse border, sorry, a relief from abuse border is a category A conduct, and to include the violation of the domestic violence model policy as category B conduct. And again, for reference, category A conduct is namely felonies and certain misdemeanors. Category B conduct is various types of gross professional misconduct. Here I'd also like to pause and point out a change from the last version and which is a terminology. The new draft now reflects the language as a final relief from abuse order versus a relief from abuse order just for clarification, specification of what the law actually describes. Section four will require the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to collect annually report aggregate data regarding domestic and sexual violence in complaints of category A and B conduct resulting in filings or charges or stipulations or the taking of disciplinary action. Any questions from committee about the words on the page? Just a couple of updates before we get into testimony. Yes, Representative Chase. Relief from abuse order versus final relief from abuse order. Either way, they're just one last longer than the other. Is there like a relief from abuse orders as temporary or? That is an excellent question. I'm not sure if there is a, you know, I have to get back to you about that. I'm not too particularly familiar with. Sarah Robinson from the network is going to be our couple witnesses deep here and she raised her hand and said she'd be willing to speak to that representative Chase. So thank you. Great question. Any other questions about the words on the page? Great. Tim, thank you so much for your work on this. I'd like to invite Chief Sean Burke up. He's here in his role as the committee chair and appreciate you being with us today. Pleasure. I think it's been since 2019. It's been here in person. Fantastic. So thank you just for the record. My name is Sean Burke. I have the privilege of being the police chief in the city of South Burlington. I also am chair of the current law enforcement advisory board or it's known in acronym as the LAB. I also have a bifurcated view on this work as I also serve as the law enforcement appointee to the domestic violence fatality review commission. So thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on this proposed bill related to domestic violence involving law enforcement employees. The Vermont law enforcement community has a strong appetite for a mandatory domestic violence policy of this nature. Currently, many of our agencies have some of the key tenants of the 2010 domestic violence employee policy in place. Given the passage of time and other relevant legislative changes, the 2010 model policy is due for an update. The law enforcement advisory board would welcome the opportunity here from stakeholders who could best inform a revision of the policies with specific focus on addressing survivor needs, leveraging best practice and awareness prevention and investigation, identifying existing support mechanisms for employees, identifying new means of supporting employees, developing processes and practices which protect affected employees and privacy interests, and providing clear policy guidance related to firearm surrender for employees who are defendants in protection orders. The model policy in its current form is not ready for publication. The law enforcement advisory board would appreciate the opportunity to revise the model policy in 2023 with a legislative mandate for adoption in 2024. The law enforcement community also believes in accountability and professional regulation, designating the domestic violence involving law enforcement employee policy as a state required policy would in turn create this accountability. Violations would become category B conduct as defined in Title 20, Section 2401. By virtue of this designation, there would be no need to expand the language of category B violations to include on and off duty conduct, as this would be inherent via the model policy. Category B violations require agencies to conduct a valid internal investigation. Violations of the state required domestic violence policy would necessitate a report to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council as defined in Title 20. This process would afford the due process employers and employees need and leverages potential sanction by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council as it pertains to state certification. The draft bill includes language that would expand category A conduct to include the issuance of a final relief from abuse order. Category A conduct was specifically created to address criminal behavior. The intent of this language could be better served by explicitly calling out any sustained violation of the domestic violence involving law enforcement policy as reportable and actionable to the council under category B. In closing, there is strong support across law enforcement for this draft bill to ensure that this draft bill is effective and consistently interpreted. Consideration should be given to the policy development work in reliance on the accountability measures currently in statute. Criminal violations are more unique from both an intent and evidentiary standard. Category A conduct does not need to be expanded in order to achieve the intent of this bill. Those are my prepared remarks. I'm fairly conversant in this topic. I've been doing this job for just over 29 years now, so I would honor any questions that you had of me. So Chief, I just want to make sure that I understand exactly what you're saying. So on the model policy, do you support the process that's laid out in the bill and the adoption of that model policy for 2024? I do. However, if you look at the 2010 version that was produced by the LEAB, it's really a draft model policy. And because it references other policies that Department of Public Safety had in place at the time, many of those, as I understand it, are not mandated policies and also makes references that just aren't contemporary, I think it's very important for a policy of this magnitude that we take it up, that the LEAB takes it up this year and we get a really operational model policy for publication immediately in January. So we wouldn't necessarily have to change the references to the 2010 policy because this language doesn't envision any updates that are adopted by the LEAB. So is it your intention to kind of get on the record that the LEAB should this year adopt the next iteration of the policy before the January first implementation that's envisioned in the draft language? I think we're saying the same thing. So what I'm suggesting is that it would be really flawed if we mandate, if we attempt to mandate the 2010 policy in its current form, like say tomorrow. I think the LEAB is going to need the months that we have remaining in 2023 to hear from the stakeholders, develop the policy so it is operational and we pledge to do so and you will legislatively mandate us to have it done by January 24. So we have envisioned in the top of section two this bill that will be on or before January 1st, 2024. So hopefully that's enough time if we move this bill forward to make that happen. The other question that I had was in regard to your testimony about making a final relief from abuse order category A misconduct. So am I understanding correctly that you do not support that aspect of the bill? So this is the perspective that we bring. Sometimes, and Sarah will testify to this, sometimes there are odd stipulations in these family court orders, one of which could be a survivor could stipulate that their partner remain employed and have the ability to carry a firearm. Depending on the federal nuances of that, that could be largely problematic labeling this simple issuance of the final relief from abuse order as category A. What I think we would find though, with a policy in place that the underlying conduct leading up to the issuance of that final relief from abuse order would be actionable and I believe from my perspective of administering internal affairs and my perspective on how the criminal justice council is kind of tackling these cases that if we focus on the conduct, keep the conduct as category B and make any violation reportable and actionable as the council sees fit would probably be the most effective way to get at the intent of this draft bill. So a conversation that I've had outside of this room that is going to come up later on today as we hear testimony from the criminal justice council has to do with the fact that right now category B is basically it's not misconduct until it or it doesn't drive the whole process of the room on criminal justice council to review as my understanding until it sort of happened twice right and so we discussed outside of this room the idea that perhaps we should give more discretion to promote criminal justice council to treat specifically egregious category B misconduct as if it were category A and is that the kind of thing that you're talking about doing here instead of what we have in the bill where it says category A conduct means the issuance of the final relief from abuse order? I do think that's a sensible evolution and when I think about all of the police reform energy afoot I really want to see us invest in this framework that was stood up in 2018 and make it effective. Lots to think about there Chief Burke. Other questions I've dominated this sorry about that. Other questions for the Chief? You've given the committee a lot to think about with your testimony. Thank you very much. I'd like to invite Sarah Robinson from the Vermont Network to join us. Afternoon for the record Sarah Robinson I'm the Deputy Director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and it is a pleasure to be back with this committee discussing this bill. Thank you so much for taking up the recommendations of the Fatality Review Commission. I'm very heartened that this committee has taken an interest in these recommendations and look forward to the continued conversations about the most effective way to make those recommendations a reality. So just big picture broadly to reground ourselves in kind of the recommendations themselves as I testified previously to this committee the Fatality Review Commission we conduct in-depth reviews of specific domestic violence homicides and as part of that review process we determine kind of where there are gaps in our response system, where we could be doing better, and where there are opportunities for either institutional policy or statute to evolve to better address ideally violence that's happening in a certain context prior to becoming lethal. And as part of one of the reviews that we conducted in the past several years these issues that have kind of brought forth this recommendation came to light and so I just love to address each one of them and also get back to Representative Chase's question about relief from abuse orders just broadly. The first thing I'll say is that we're really glad that the LEIB is going to take a look at the Model Domestic Violence Policy completely in alignment with Chief Burke's testimony that the 2010 policy is not complete it needs to be updated and we very much are in favor of the LEIB taking that up in the next year and getting it to a place where by the deadlines in the proposed bill those could be adopted by agencies across the state. There have been many places where model law enforcement policies have been really useful sometimes they're promulgated by the state police others have come out of the LEIB and we think it's a really it's a good strategy for ensuring that there's consistency across the state and we also think that it's helpful to have aggregate more transparency and aggregate information about the extent to which law enforcement officers do have conduct violations related to domestic violence. I think that element of the bill is really important and finally I'll kind of get to this category A category B question. So a relief from abuse order I realize that's not something that this committee is probably discusses all that much but in my line of work it's something I'm really familiar with so you would find that in title 15 1103 and 04 and essentially what a relief from abuse order is is it's a civil order of the court so it is not related to someone reporting to law enforcement that they have experienced domestic violence so it is when an individual goes to the court and they have to submit a petition and an affidavit with the court they can do that at any time of the day or night and then a judge reviews that petition and affidavit and if they based on the facts that they have available to them to them determine that abuse has occurred and there is a risk of future abuse they will issue what's called a temporary relief from abuse order and a temporary order again it's a civil order it exists for usually well by statute there needs to be a final hearing within 14 days that temporary order is issued ex parte that means that the person who is subject to the order is not part of that proceeding when the court issues that temporary order so within 14 days there's a hearing at which the defendant is noticed to appear both parties are noticed to appear and the court will then take additional testimony about the extent of that abuse if after that hearing where the defendant has had an opportunity to appear the court still finds that abuse has occurred and there is a substantial risk for future abuse they will issue a final relief from abuse order those orders are time limited they're not forever most commonly they might last one year so and as a result of a final relief from abuse order there are various court conditions that the court can impose and those most often have to do with conduct contact and conduct so stay away conditions limitations on contact but they can also include things like um conditions related to shared um children that the parties may have custody of um and they can they almost always are always actually final relief from abuse orders also include an order that an individual um not possess or be transferred a firearm um and that is really uh that has been federal law for a very long time um and that is just kind of part of the standard court order that um is ordered at at a final relief from abuse order so then that order may be in place for say up up to a year and then if the petitioner the victim in this case would like to continue the order at the ex prior to the expiration of that order they would need to reapply to the court so that's kind of what a um relief from abuse order is I will say it sits in this liminal but very important place it's not criminal conduct right it is not something that has been investigated by law enforcement nor is it just a policy violation of an employer so it is a civil order that um a judge has determined that abuse has occurred there has been factual information that has been entered into the record um through a petitioner and affidavit and both sides have had the opportunity to present evidence to the court um so our we certainly are supportive of the recommendation that's coming from the fatality review commission um to include this in category a conduct what I will say is that the import the important piece to us is the effect and so I was just hearing from chief Burke that there may be some additional opportunity to consider whether it is some kind of elevated category b conduct and the important thing things to us kind of the prerequisites is that relief from abuse orders we need to ensure that conduct that happens off duty is able to be kind of brought in as a conduct violation um and that it have that there is some kind of reporting process as well um and so for us you know really the the impact is kind of what's the effect going to be um and so whether it's category a or some kind of elevated category b I'm sure we're happy to have that conversation but um the fatality review commission did believe that it uh was most was best aligned with category a at this point in terms of where the statute is is written currently happy to answer any questions yes um so the word change that we're talking about here adding final relief from abuse order on um page three line 20 um means that it would just be the the uh I'm sorry I forgot what you described it but the first one is the f party yeah so it would not be an ex parte order second one correct um and if we didn't have that word in there it might include the first one yeah it could include a temporary or a final um the temporaries are the two weeks that happen without the defendant being present when the judge makes that decision the final is after the defendant has had the opportunity to appear um so the final would only be issued after hearing thank you yeah one the only other thing I will note is that in currently um you'll note like category a conduct currently includes criminal violations category b conduct includes violations of policy again we think that relief from abuse orders exist with an elemental space between the two um and so for us the most important thing is what would be the effect of putting it in one category or the other Sarah would you say that the most important thing another way of saying that would be the most important thing to the my network it is to try to make it so that the criminal justice council can act on the initial substance of what's in the final uh relief from abuse order that it's the thing I struggle with is I don't think the criminal justice council can take very immediate action if we for instance change it from category a category b correct yes I we would have to we would have to change the discretion that the criminal justice council has about an elevated level of category b misconduct if we were going to put put this down in category b in order to have the same the desired effect of being able to act immediately on a final relief from abuse order yes and I defer to chair sorrell to speak about kind of the council's process on how category a and category b violations come to that body but essentially you know we want to make sure that when there's a final relief from abuse order that that is actionable um as quickly as possible by by the council senator higley mr chair sir I I thought I heard the chief say that in some instances there could be in the order um the ability for more uh an officer to continue to work which would require useful play around can you explain that piece of it a little bit sure so um and that brings up representative higley it brings up a really um important point is that when domestic violence involves a law enforcement officer there are always barriers to victims and survivors uh reporting the violence that they experience whether that's to the court or to law enforcement um but when the violence involves a law enforcement officer those barriers are enhanced right and so there's significant lack of trust that many victims and survivors have in calling law enforcement to report essentially one of their own as someone who has been abusive and that's why the relief from abuse order process is so important because it doesn't require law enforcement involvement so a survivor can go to the court and receive some element of protection without needing to navigate the law enforcement system necessarily um it is possible that uh the conditions of relief from abuse orders final relief from abuse orders are tailored to the circumstances they're tailored to what the um plaintiff so the victim is asking for in terms of relief and safety so sometimes um the plaintiff will ask for very specific things or as a result of the hearing there'll be information that is presented and the judge will essentially tailor the conditions there are some standard conditions but judges aim to make these orders tailored to the circumstances that exist um all final relief from abuse orders do include conditions about surrendering firearms however um there are certainly condition there are certainly orders in which someone is subject to to an order but is able to work on I don't know um Chief Burke would be able to tell me what the terminology is I'm just going to say desk duty um but kind of administrative duty or duty that doesn't involve possessing a firearm and and keep their employment maintain their employment during the duration of the order um and you can imagine that for a survivor who is depending on the income of kind of maybe a co-parent of their children that that person being able to maintain employment for a certain period of time um could be something that would be important to them great thanks for explaining that yep questions for Sarah because I'm just a logistical for both the last witness from you it's your testimony available in a written form so we could put it on our website I would be happy to submit something to the committee it sort of thank you visual learning yeah absolutely I apologize I am double booked upstairs so I'm going to head up there but I'll come back down if I need to thanks for being with us there all right um I would like to invite um so I have Director Simons testifying next uh Chair Sorrell are you would you like to come up sort of with her and testify in tandem or should I should I just go to Dr. Simons I want to uh well I take my orders from Director Simons to go up and be in the chair and either kick off or whatever all right thanks so much and it's okay with the committee um we'll have Chair Sorrell begin all right I wanted to leave it to your your team's discretion I want to put one of you before the other well I will gladly defer to Heather Simons and then her deputy your deputy director of the academy Christopher Burkell former police chief and Brandon is also on and uh is intimately involved with our procedures relating to certification of law enforcement officers for the record Bill Sorrell chair of the Vermont criminal justice council and just coincidentally this morning we had a meeting of the council and uh we were talking about some legislative matters in the meeting but the first orders of business were two cases in which we permanently revoke the certification of former Vermont law enforcement officers for in their cases convictions of domestic violence related cases and if we haven't already put out a press release announcing those actions uh it will go out this afternoon and there's a link in the in the press release to the negotiated or stipulated resolutions of these cases and uh including some graphic details about the conduct on the part of these former officers against family members or loved ones and uh you talk about egregious conduct it's it's spelled out there and uh they neither one of them former Winooski officer and former Manchester officer are have been employed for some time in Vermont law enforcement but their Vermont certification is permanently revoked and they are reported to a national registry of the keeps keeps track of officers who have lost their certification for various forms of misconduct uh we did after approving both of those uh cases unanimously I might add took up some legislative matters including the proposal before you today uh on triggering the authority of the criminal justice council to take action relating to law enforcement officer certification status if a final relief from abuse order is is issued and uh again there was no one on the council who thought that a relief from abuse order is a de minimis kind of thing that shouldn't potentially impact an officer's certification status um on the we didn't have a in-depth discussion on whether it should be a category a violation or a category b violation uh the only ones who spoke to it thought that if the domestic violence fatality review commission wants things that ought to be in a then you know okay but I did want to on behalf of the council did raise with the council this issue of category b violations which are typically violations of uh departmental policies that don't necessarily result in a criminal uh complaint and a decision by a prosecutor to bring charges against the officer and for a court to find probable cause that the officer did in fact violate this particular provision what triggers a category a violation is a finding of probable cause that an officer has violated the the criminal law category b in a case that didn't result in a criminal violation or even a finding of probable cause the conduct might well be in violation of a departmental or statewide policy and we haven't statute this well predates the existence of the criminal justice council the fact that under statute it says if it's a category b violation the council it gets reported to the council the council determines whether it's a well founded category b violation but the council has no authority to impose any discipline or punishment for a well-founded category b violation the legislature subsequently has put I think it's three specific situations in the statute that say instead of my language first bite of the apple is is you can't be punished if there's a if the conduct that is the category b violation is using a chokehold by law enforcement that could trigger our jurisdiction to take take action similarly there's a requirement to intervene by another officer to not sit by and watch unlawful conduct excessive force being used on an individual and there's there's a there's a third issue that I'm just forgetting right now but these are minimal subsections of b that allow the council to take action first time the case comes through and as we get more and more active in this arena there are category b violations and there are category b violations and some of them actually are egregious and so we talked a little bit at the council today whether the legislature rather than going kind of piecemeal over time and saying oh that's a b but that's a really serious b and it ought to be in a special category that allows the council to do something first time through and you're always kind of catching up with prior conduct is you created this criminal justice council yet doubled the size of the old criminal justice training council you added various community voices and human rights commission and others and would it make sense for you statutorily to strike that inability of the council to take action on an officer's certification the first time through if the council deemed that the conduct was sufficiently egregious first time through that action should be taken and I started by talking about the two cases that we permanently revoke certification today had the victims in those two cases not gone to the police and so no criminal charge was was filed just take a look at that conduct and think about whether that's that's okay for any person let alone a law enforcement officer but arguably particularly a law enforcement officer so I as the chair of the council after taking the temperature of the council today there is certainly some there was no adverse commentary on the part of council members the thought is that you would trust the council in its discretion to look at the facts of individual cases and empower the council to take disciplinary action on certification status first time through on a category B then you wouldn't have to going into the future be continuing to add particular conduct that would trigger category B discipline first time through so we ask you to consider that I don't know whether it's in the context of this bill or some other piece of legislation but I think it's an issue that warrants your consideration again the council is very supportive of being able to take action when there's a final review relief from abuse order issued we are concerned that there is what about one that we don't hear about and so ask you to consider one making it mandatory that an officer who's the subject of a final relief from abuse order discloses to his or her employer that that has been issued similarly mandating that a police chief or supervisor the personnel in a department that that is apprised that someone under his or her authority is the subject of a final relief from abuse order that the employer should disclose to the council that fact and then sort of the there's no perfect mousetrap but please consider mandating there aren't a lot of these cases please consider mandating that the court the issues a final relief from abuse order communicates that fact when it's a law enforcement officer who's the subject of the rfa uh that the the court report that matter to the council makes sense to me i have questions from representative hooper and representative lee pippa um when a relief temporary release for abuse order is filed that's an affidavit is that evidence that would authorize a state's attorney or are they barred from filing a charge based upon that uh well if you would they're they're not statutorily barred but uh you would want the victim unless you had external evidence of this conduct you know it was in front of the neighbors or something uh you would want a cooperating victim to support any allegations and uh so it it would not be likely i was the state's attorney in chitlin county two different times sandwiched around 10 or 11 years in private practice and then obviously it was the attorney general for almost 20 years uh you you wouldn't typically move forward in a case of this sort without a cooperating victim and so the uh i i i think if uh uh my predecessor witness from the uh network uh was was back uh i there are an awful lot of victims who take the effort to get a relief from abuse order issued who would not want to participate in a jury trial and such against the the person who has victimized typically her but sometimes him did i answer your question barb or well it just strikes me as weird as if it's an egregious sort of level of abuse that uh the court having ruled on it uh it would then not further be constituted well there's a different standard uh for the issuance of a relief from abuse order than a criminal conviction you got proof beyond a reasonable doubt as opposed to some other standard something like preponderance of the evidence or whatever where you can err on the side of trying to be protected by issuing an order without finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the subject of the order did in fact that did in fact or does in fact represent that kind of a threat need be ordered to either be out of the house surrender his or fire arms no contact no text messages you know those orders can be very very very broad it's not typically issued that a relief from abuse order is issued when the parties to it are the complainant and the subject of it are still together thank you if the council is given that discretion to take disciplinary action after a first time through what is what is the officer's defense and his or ability to appeal oh yes i mean first of all that it's a matter that's handled by our professional regulations subcommittee of five members a majority of the five non-law enforcement and they really get into the weeds of the cases and look at the investigation that supports the the allegations they can ask for the department in question to do a further investigation there's authority to conduct our own investigation if we wish but then that group makes a determination that this is well founded and that some sort of action relating to certification is appropriate and they so disclose to the the law enforcement officer or the yeah the law enforcement who has every right to be represented by council and then there is the opportunity by the officer if he or she is dissatisfied with what the professional regulation subcommittee has done to appeal to the full council and for potentially a contested hearing like a like a trial before the the council in the two cases we had today there was a stipulated agreement where the former officers agreed to have their certification permanently revoked but we will certainly have contested hearings at some point in time we haven't had one since the council started January 1 of 21 but we will and they'll be a regular like a like a mini trial and then ultimately there is the possibility of appealing to court by someone allegedly agreed but we we will make sure that I mean just for example that we don't have due process flaws in our procedures so the five members of our of our professional regulation subcommittee are not allowed to participate in an appeal hearing before the full council because they know much more information than might be admissible for the council about the case and it would be like letting a prosecutor hat that I wore be on the jury you know it's so that so that we we have issues because we take those five people out of the equation sometimes of making sure we have a quorum for the hearings that we had this morning and we're internally you were revising our operating rules to have a different quorum thing because taking five of the 24 out all of a sudden makes it a little challenging to get the requisite quorum that we need and want thank you we've I think got the committee to a reasonably good sense of kind of the crux of the the issue around the final release from the dues order category a versus they're now sort of category b plus and there are there are multiple from understanding your testimony to us around now there are three I think three and and if we went in this direction there might even be a fourth yeah and it but is it your recommendation I understand you correctly you would rather us say instead of enumerating each category b misconduct as potential for action on the first offense be to just say allow the criminal justice council to exercise its jurisdiction or its discretion in what you would consider egregious or rise to that meeting to take action yes that's that's the ask and and if you think that's a bad idea and you decide to have the fourth category of offense that would trigger first time through I that would be okay that would take care of really from abuse orders but I'd be very surprised if a year two or three from now you weren't adding a fifth it is six subcategories they at all you can't you can't have one might free a free beyond that kind of conduct so I if if you think it makes sense to trust the judgment of the council which you know I think we have 40 or 50 open files right now uh obviously a range of of conduct uh and so you know the council's not about permanently revoking everybody who is the subject of a professional regulation uh from playing I didn't mean to monopolize without Heather Simons and and or chris brickel uh they'll fire me if they have the opportunity here yeah Heather I think and deputy director brickel I would I would invite both of you to uh if you have additional comments to make that would help us understand the and feel free just disagree with anything I said that I said wrong chris did you have anything okay very well uh front of record that deputy director chris brickel for the remote criminal justice council for someone who often says he's not sure he has all the particulars at hand shares the real just detailed very very appropriately so all of the factors that play into the subcommittees review and also details that there are many things that you may look at in the near future where you see some sort of behavior that has not been listed in statute that you're now looking at and saying well maybe we need to address this as a category b uh first defense where we can take action I think it does make sense from a procedural standpoint for the council to be able to have that discretion to look at category b violations and say is this something that the subcommittee should review and send to the council for potential action because as category b is written and you'll notice in there there's only seven policy violations in there but the language says it defines council policy and shall include so it includes many other policies that the subcommittee has already reviewed where uh for instance the department has an ethics policy and they have somebody that goes to an internal affairs investigation and lies is that something that the council should take action on well given the current construct the council could not take any action on that that would just be a first defense so do you want somebody that has a background where they're comfortable in lying to their employer and someone who has the job of being an ethical person to be able to to get away with something like that that's certainly something for this committee to to discuss and contemplate and in addition to that having having that discretion if the council were given that discretion there are options for the officer to defend themselves or for the council to take limited sanctions on something that maybe doesn't rise to the level of permanent decertification but when that comes to the council at that point the officer gets notified um through a notice of hearing when that hearing will be can be represented by council and in addition to that notice the subcommittee can also work on a stipulated agreement with that officer so sometimes the subcommittee could come to terms of an agreement with an officer that outlines perhaps some sort of other sanction but retraining or other other areas of responsibility that the officer should be paying attention to so uh i'll just end my my testimony there and answered it happy to answer any questions but i do think that giving the council the option of looking at category b violations rather than uh in the future having to look at continual policy violations might make more sense representative higley has a question thank you mr chair uh more of a statement i guess or um should should this be before judiciary as well this particular piece i just have a concern about capabilities to understand the scope and maybe even who else should testify in regards to uh the other the other side of the story uh enforcement officers are thinking allowing the the council to authority so here's what i found we're going to ask siri if you can tell us what's in here so what i think would be appropriate for us and i'm i'm really thinking that we're going to dive into this uh at least once again this week uh with opportunity for testimony before we move anything out and i i think that it didn't it didn't come on to my radar until i heard chief burke lay it out um that we may want to tweak the domestic violence fatality review commission may want to consider coming out so that it's actually not automatic right and so um we've heard that one voice of law enforcement i think it would be appropriate for us to ask um some other representatives from law enforcement i think it's what you're you're asking for to come in and weigh in on um the specific recommendation about um final relief from abuse orders and then the broader connected ask that we have this category being misconduct um that we give discretion to the for my criminal justice council to to you know have proceedings on the first time we don't sort of get two bites at the apple if you know they feel there's an obvious egregious misconduct even though it's uh a violation of a policy as opposed to a crime the the distinction chair sirrell or or the director brickel or director simons the distinction between category a right now category a there's like an investigatory you know it's criminal or you know for its misdemeanor there's there's already some investigatory threshold there whereas with category b those are policy misconduct violations behavior that doesn't rise to the level of criminality but is clearly uh misconduct in my understanding this this or it could rise to the level of criminality but if it's not charged it's not complained about to the police or whatever that it wouldn't necessarily result in a criminal charge you know for example the final relief from abuse order which uh any number of folks who have applied for those are not looking to have the matter litigated in criminal court and I will say uh that you know on the council the the the sheriffs and the chiefs association and the troopers association uh uh league of cities and towns they're all represented and we're in a position today to to to uh to speak up and I invite is that anybody wants to speak against this idea please feel free to do that but I certainly would encourage you to hear from the voices including law enforcement that you would want to hear from on this issue um before we move to captain firm's testimony I just wanted to offer director simons a chance if you had anything else you wanted to add thank you for the record heather simons executive director of the vermont criminal justice council I will just add uh context for the discussion and um remind folks that we're not just talking about accountability and law enforcement but we're talking about the councils uh the vermont criminal justice council's role and um the police academy being the first stop in the education and training and readiness for law enforcement and domestic violence is not domestic and sexual violence is not particular or specific to law enforcement but really a systemic and societal problem and that um we know that when we uh get in front of these things we can uh prevent them and uh the goal here is to prevent them and to recognize that there we have a strained workforce everywhere and that uh we're not talking about a profession that is plagued with this issue what we're talking about is a process for recognizing behavior for what it is and for investigating it properly this also uh allows for another message and that is that um law enforcement officers who are victims hear that they also can come forward this is not uh there's the um presumption often that when we say relief from abuse order that we're talking about men and and the assumption is that the victim is female and that's not always the case and in addition to it being under reported it's also vastly under reported by men and certainly by law enforcement and i i bring that up for uh for context in terms of the point of sorting this out is that people are safe and that when we say victims and we say survivors we mean children and and um victims are humans and the damage is as we all know generational as well and this is something that we can address at the academy and that is the point for us is that when uh we um we're pretty certain that there's no one untouched by this in some way either in their own nuclear family extended family friends etc and recruits attending the academy um are also touched by this so we want to begin the accountability process understanding that we can't be accountable if we don't educate and we can't educate if we fully with meaningful training unless um we build an empathy and this this process is one piece of the bigger picture and that's really all i wanted to add and i appreciate your time thank you uh for the criminal justice council and delegation um i am so just so that you know my plan is to um hear captain burnham's testimony take a brief break and then we'd like to come back and talk about some of the other elements that you had asked if you feel like we have time to to do that today so sure great if you'll uh hang out i'll hang out well we'll be back talking to you more on some of the the other asks um and i'd like to invite captain Lance Burnham to come and give the department feedback on um this draft language thanks for being with second name thank you very much um for the record um uh good afternoon and thank you uh committee here for allowing the state police to come and uh provide testimony on this issue for the record my name is Lance Burnham i am a captain with the Vermont state police i am also the chair of the Vermont state police domestic violence task force we are currently working very heavily in the state police on multiple domestic violence issues um specifically regarding how our troopers in training our troopers are responding to these cases uh to the highest level that we possibly can um not to not to really get into the waters of that but we are we are at the forefront and inviting our municipal and our sheriff's partners to make sure that we are responding to these cases the most training with the best ability of investigative tools that we have available to us um my testimony luckily thankfully is going to be very short because if i could just say ditto to the chief i would um however there are a couple things that i think i really need to point out um uh as the bill is written currently um there are certain issues that the Vermont state police feels needs to be pointed out and changed however we fully support this initiative we are behind this 100 as i think is every law enforcement agency in the state of Vermont uh the first thing i want to point out is uh the need between the separation of the rfa process and the internal investigation as well as the criminal justice council proceedings there needs to be a separation in that uh you heard the chief say that we really want to focus on the conduct of the officer that is of the utmost important to us uh there are as you heard sarah and the chief and and other tests testify about the relief from abuse orders it's it's a very convoluted system sometimes sometimes and as a police officer and as quite frankly a commander i want to focus on my troopers actions and we hold them to the highest accountability uh vsp as in most agencies in the state of rama has a long history of holding our our members amongst our ranks accountable for their actions especially domestic assault cases i can think of two in my career of 20 24 years um where we have charged troopers with domestic assault it is front headlines um they are very thorough investigations um and we've held them accountable and they know they are no longer wearing our uniform um and they have and they have gone through the process through the criminal justice council as well so the vsp perspective is we need to focus on the accountability and actions of the officers not necessarily the rfa process in and of itself secondly uh i want to echo what the chief mentioned with the the le ab report uh policy of 2010 it is not a finished product um it is a great policy it is moving forward um if you look at vsp's policy it is almost word for word um i can't say whether the le ab took our policy and adapted it um i i don't know that but if we are also changing our policy almost annually because we look at these and we look at societal issues today and to make sure that our policies of uh the best that it can be to roll out a mandate to all law enforcement on a policy that is not finished will cause a lot of concern to all law enforcement it'll cause confusion it will also cause a very slow and unnecessary rollout we just ask and agree with the chief that we allow the le ab the next year this year to finalize that product have conversations with stakeholders vsp sheriffs municipalities the network to make sure that when that policy is ready to be rolled out that that's when it be rolled out not just be set on an arbitrary date um i fear as was sometimes when mandates come down we have agencies that run from 350 officers to one yet we're all held to the same standards so those agencies that are um smaller in nature they don't have the resources to put a statewide mandate out that that's not finished is going to cause confusion to them and it'll it'll uh it'll potentially even impact training as it as it rolls down in the future so we just asked that that le ab as the chief said let them finalize that product so we can roll it out in january of 2024 um so captain berm can i ask you the same question i asked chief burb which is if we essentially say where you're we want to see a model policy implemented by january first the 2010 is where is the draft but whatever the the le ab's latest version is at that time that's that's what you have the authority you know that's what we're expecting uh you know does that satisfy your concern if we're giving the whole year before before we're mandating that that policy be adopted as long as there's interaction between the the leab and the stakeholders in and of themselves i have no doubt that they can finish that by january one i'm not on the leab um so i don't want to speak for them but if chief burb says he can get it done he can get it done thank you i just think the important aspect is the collaboration between the important stakeholders does that mean that if a new version isn't done by then then the 2010 version goes into effect by default i would hope not because there are many things in 2010 that are referencing policy that we had that are no longer valid um and we don't want our our policy our policy should not be a statewide mandate our policy is an internal policy it works for the state police it does not mean that it's going to work for fairly police department for butland city police department it works for us i just want to acknowledge the tension between the recommendation of the domestic finance fatality review commission and the attorney general and the law enforcement voices that we're hearing today and so the committee is going to have to weigh those things on balance and just want to acknowledge that there's a little more tension in the recommendations than maybe i expected in this testimony if i could if i could address that if you don't mind i don't think there's tension i mean i think we all have a long history here of working together we're very lucky in the state of remand we wear different uniforms but we have the same goal um i i i have no doubt that given a directive we can we can hammer it out we may have different opinions how we get there but i can guarantee it'll be cordial other questions for captain berm on the committee great thank you so much for your testimony and for the work that you do state police definitely appreciate you thank you all right so i want to give the committee a quick break here so we start things back up at 240