 the record back to you, you will recall last year you had some language in, I think it went up, I think we'd be able to bring the expungement bill from what I had been working on and it was directing the Attorney General's Office, the Center for Crime Victim Services and the network to be working together on a number of issues. And so I think you'll have some witnesses will talk about this report, but the legislation that you have in front of you as 217 is the legislation done in response to this report. So I'll let them talk to you about the report and I'll walk you through the bill, but just so you know the genesis of it and where it came from. And Senator Sears is correct, there's a bill that's up for third reading today in the House, H568. And it has two of the things that are in 217 and not the rest. And so at some point down the road, if you want me to, I can explain, they didn't, it's very minor differences between the two and that was just through the committee process over in the House. So, first section, section one, as 217 is introduced. So this is adding a section in Title 13. So for a sentencing for a crime committed by a victim of trafficking who was a minor at the time of the offense. And this allows for the court to use its discretion to depart from the mandatory minimums or mandatory additional penalties, which we typically don't have penalty enhancements, but I don't think we typically have something that says you have a mandatory. And then or to suspend any portion of an otherwise applicable sentence in the circumstances, if the person who was charged and convicted of the crime was under 18 years of age, and the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that at any time during the one year period immediately preceding the commission of the offense, the person against whom the offense was committed, the person who trafficked the person who committed the offense. Are we asking questions later? Is there a definition of trafficking in here? This is in the Human Trafficking Chapter where I placed it, so it's already existing scheme for that? This might not be for you, but why would we limit it to under 18? So, yeah, not a question for me, and I think you have an advocate here who is part of, this is a national movement of trying to pass these laws. Yeah, okay. Okay, I know you have a number of witnesses, so I was just gonna go kind of quickly through the bill. Is that okay for you guys? Is it okay to go into section two? So, section two for immunity from liability, you guys were all here when a few years ago when the legislature adopted the Good Samaritan Law relating to overdoses, do you remember that? And so, we have that law on the books in Title 18, so what it does is it provides limited immunity for someone who calls in, if either they are experiencing an overdose or they're with someone who's experiencing an overdose, they can call for assistance. And when law enforcement shows up, if there's evidence that that person was engaged in drug activity, they wouldn't be charged based on those particular offenses under the Chapter 84, under the drug offenses. So, the idea being that you didn't want people to not call in if someone was in danger, you didn't want them to not do it because they were fearful that they would get charged with a drug crime. So, you have that and you've had that for a number of years, in Title 18. And this new section two is based on that idea and what it would do is it would apply something similar, but in the context, if someone is, if you look at the top of page three, subsection B, a person who in good faith and in timely manner reports that he or she is either a victim to or a witness to a crime that arose from his or her involvement in prostitution or in human trafficking, then they would have immunity from the crimes that are listed on page three from lines five down through line 15. And essentially what those are, they are the misdemeanor possession, drug possession and the lowest level felony possession. I will just note that I have on the marijuana possession on line seven. I have an incorrect citation. I need to add a couple of things to that. It was just a technical amendment that I need to make if you decide to move forward. And so, that would provide them the date. So, if somebody, let's say, if you had a, someone who's a sex worker and they had a client who became violent or something and they wanted to call a police, that they could do that and then if police came that they didn't, the person who reported the crime wouldn't be charged with prostitution. And maybe if there were small amounts of drugs, they couldn't be charged with drug possession. If there was other things outside of that context of criminal activity, they could be. So, it's only immunity with regard to the lower level possession and the prostitution and the prohibited conduct. That's something that is, what I understand is, is sometimes charged instead of prostitution. So, you might have somebody, so it's another offense that someone might be charged with under there. So, they would only have immunity with regard to those particular crimes. Next is, I'll move on to page four. In section three, the Sex Work Study Committee. And if you don't mind indulging me just for a minute, I'll just tell you a couple of things. I had spent a bit of time trying to understand our existing prostitution law. So, you have, in Title 13, you have a chapter that is Ludeness and Prostitution. And so, you have two sub chapters. So, the first sub chapter is the Ludeness and the second one being the prostitution. And if you look at the language in there, it's really old. Like, most of the language that's in the prostitution sub chapter is 100, at least 100 years old. And so, I had a great time using all those dusty old books on the mezzanine outside my office, digging up and tracing back all the old laws and where they came about. So, you have, right now, the definition that is, the definition of prostitution that you have in law now was adopted by Vermont in 1919. I hate the term sex work, by the way. I'm sorry? I hate the term sex work. We need a better term. Okay. I think it has certain connotations that... It does. Isn't it supposed to? Yeah. Isn't it supposed to? I mean, yeah, hey, there certainly may be a better word. That's a better way to phrase it. It has led, you know, the problem is, is public perception. And that's what we're into here. It's led to an effort by many to demean the effort to try to deal with this problem. And unfortunately, a number of people in the house have made public comments that leads to the meaning of this work group. We're trying to update Vermont's prostitution laws. And the public often doesn't get things that we try to do. They often take one stupid thing that one house member says and makes it to be the cause. And I think we need to change it. So, I already came up to that Bethel business bureau a meeting a couple of weeks ago, 7.30 in the morning. And immediately some guy jumped, someone says they're doing nothing. They're trying to do this and do that. And they even want to do something with prostitution. And then, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. That's the exact problem. That's exactly what's happening. And I think we need a better view of this. And it should be a study committee to update Vermont's laws regarding blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you're going to say, don't call it body work because we've got the massage. You've got the massage. No, no, I think what we're trying to do is update Vermont laws to try to deal with the human traffics problem. I think everybody, every thinking person, I shouldn't say everybody, but every person with half a brain recognizes there's a huge problem with human trafficking. And I think that's what we really want to focus on. How should Vermont laws be upgraded in order to? There is an email from a prostitute in Nevada with legal. I saw that, but that just feeds that narrative. That's the problem. And the House members, ha, ha, ha, ha. Won't she make a million dollars last year? Well, that's her. I hope she paid taxes on it. I'd like to see her buy the rest. She's in a legal. I hope she paid plenty of taxes and that's more power to her than she could make a million dollars. But again, I'll only say that I don't want to make light of this. No, no, no. It's a serious problem. Human trafficking is a serious problem, especially amongst kids. And many times they're running drugs for somebody that results in their either running the drugs as a result of human trafficking or providing sexual favors. So that's the problem we're trying to address. May I ask Michelle what you're talking about? So section one applies only to a victim of human trafficking. And the section two applies to prosecution or human trafficking, is that right? Okay. All right. Yep. Okay. So if I just, going to your point about the work of the committee. So in talking about these laws are 100 years old and I traced a number of them back. So you still have the 1919 definition of prostitution which I think we've talked a little bit about, right? And so, and that includes offering or saving the body either for hire or indiscriminate sexual intercourse without hire. You also have, and I don't know if you probably remember this a number of years ago, I think it was in 2001 and there was a sex offender bill that we all worked on and we had to, and we noticed that in the prostitution chapter it still referred to female and it talked about white slave traffic, do you remember that? And so even though the sex offender bill wasn't dealing with the prostitution chapter, we went and that was like really the most modern amendments to the prostitution chapter for decades and decades and decades. Is that just to strike the gender provisions in there and there is this, and you still have the slave traffic statute on the books and what that was is in 1910 Congress had passed the white slave traffic act and what it did, it was prohibited persons from transporting women across state lines for either prostitution or immoral purposes and then Vermont that same year passed a state version of that and so you still have that on there and so the only amendments that have come to that were in 2001 where we struck the word white but the slave traffic stayed there because you hadn't yet adopted your human trafficking chapter which it did later on in 2011 but that slave traffic law, the history of that was that was used oftentimes to prosecute men of color who were having relationships, romantic relationships with white women and so you still have on the books in Vermont this thing of prohibiting of transporting a woman for, well it doesn't say a woman anymore for immoral purposes and so you have a lot of really super antiquated books now. That law came up in my case load many, many years ago in terms of the state's attorney said hey, I'll get the guy on this taking a kid into New York State from Vermont. Not right on it with the, whatever it was. Yeah, I'll try. All right, we'll move right along Michelle. So the study committee, you'll see the membership on page four in subsection B and this is, and the advocates will talk to you about this, but last year you had asked them to look at modernizing the prostitution statutes and they came back in their report and said we would like to do this as part of a larger working group with more stakeholders at the table and so that's why you have more people here in this one so there's nine folks on here. You'll see subsection C, the duties of the committee are to develop a modern approach, just a involvement in sexual activity for hire by consenting adults while maintaining criminal penalties for trafficking, coercion and exploitation of minors and strong protections for victims of those crimes. It would be, the product would be a piece of legislation rather than a report. Ledge council would staff it and the report would be due, the legislation would be due in December. Okay, move on. So page six, section four. So motion to vacate by victim of domestic assault. So this one is relating to vacating if you're a victim of domestic assault and then the next section is if you are, I happen to victim of sexual assault. Again, these are two recommendations of the study committee. And you recall last year what you passed was you tweaked the law with regard to being able to vacate a conviction if you were a victim of human trafficking, do you recall that? And this is basically taking what you had passed last year with respect to victims of human trafficking and extending it in section four under the subchapter for domestic assault. And then on the next one adding out similar provision in the chapter for sexual assault. And so again, the process is the same. So someone who is convicted of a qualifying crime and you'll recall that you exempted, never one of the things was exempting the more serious crimes. Did you vacate any crime? Well, if you look at the qualifying crime. Yeah. And it's any crime, but the, what is it? I can't remember. The big 12 or the big 13? I don't know why I can't remember. Big 12, okay. So it's anything but the big 12. And you guys had a discussion about that, whether to include the big 12 and the human trafficking one last year and then ask the study committee to look whether or not you should sweep it in. They said keep it out for now. Yeah, that may, I've had some comments offline with the state's attorneys. I think there's some concern about how broad that is. Can I ask you a question about that? Nope. This doesn't say that it will be vacated. This says that they can apply for a motion to vacate and then the decision is made on a case-by-case basis. Yes. Is that? Well, if you see, you have to look at the standard for page seven. So page, that's section D. The court shall grant the motion if it binds by preponderance of the evidence that the moving party was convicted of a qualifying crime and the conviction was obtained as a result of the moving parties having been a victim of, in this case, domestic assault. So take it back to what you have on the books now and thinking about the, when you're talking about the, in the context of human trafficking, is someone was a victim of human trafficking and maybe as part of their, the control relationship and things that were going on, perhaps that person was also selling drugs or doing something like that, but it was a part of, as a direct result of them being trafficked, then that would mean. About a few years ago, that allowed that to be a, what do you call it, affirmative defense. Didn't we make, person was a victim of human trafficking and was an affirmative defense or? I can do that. Seems to, I recollect doing something like that. Well, you have the, you have the motion to vacate on human trafficking has been there for a long time. You guys just tweaked it and broadened it last year. Yeah, but I think there's, it's a call mitigating factor. Anyway, thank you for. Are you still continuing on? Just with regard to being on page seven. So I'm thinking about the St. John's very case, two people, and if the one of those, one of those persons had been a victim of domestic assault, they might be able to get out of the murder charge. I don't, I'm sorry, I don't know that they, They murdered the, they were convicted of murdering the teacher in St. John's very. Oh, I don't know what was on that. I'm talking about that case. Yes. And there was a pledge that the man was a victim of domestic assault, I believe, and that he was following the woman who told him to murder this, the teacher. And so I think what, Senator? That's what I'm thinking. Well, you exempted the big 12 out, so those crimes would not be eligible. I don't know what the charge was in that case. Well, murder. Murder. Well, was it murder, was that the charge for both of them? Yeah. One of them pled guilty. Yeah, in the other one. In any way, the other one. The man was convicted, that trial was aggravated, and the woman pled down to, first, to be murdered, but I don't know. I don't know. But, and this is the same policy thing you were grappling with last year in the context of extending this onto human trafficking was how broad, what group of crimes should, should, you know, have this available? And then the section five is just, as I mentioned, it's the same thing, but applied to victims of sexual assault. So, for purposes of this, you know, I only had it applied to things that were under the sexual assault statute. You obviously have a lot of other sex crimes in other areas of law. So again, you know, in thinking about what crimes you want to fall under for the immunity, you know, we can go, we can go through those, but maybe once you've already heard from the witnesses and they're thinking about why their recommendations are what they are. Ask a question. No, sorry. Could we get a definition here of domestic assault and sexual assault? Sure. Yeah, it's just, these, both of these sections go in those particular chapters, but I, so they have existing definitions, but I'll go now for you. In those chapters, yeah. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Michelle. The next witness is James Gold, who's here from Washington, D.C. by Las Vegas by a... And we're going to call Sarah. She's going to listen in at the same time. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, Sarah, she's a suspect. Many of you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Some of you may remember James. He worked with Valeris. Yes. He worked with Valeris. That should be... Some of you may remember James. Six, two, six, nine, eight, six, nine, one, two. Thank you. The machine picked up. Me. Okay. Make sure. Let's do six, nine, eight, six, nine, one, two, eight. That's right. Yeah. We'll call in five minutes. We can try again. Okay. I guess... Some of you may remember James. He worked with Valeris Project several years ago. And he was here before this committee. And welcome back. We got... I got his email and I couldn't put a face to it until last night when I saw you in the car. He's also a Semper, and let's go 49 years old. Ha ha ha. So we made it to the Super Bowl. It's quite a patriot, unfortunately. James, welcome back. Thank you. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your new capacity and why you're interested in this bill. And if you've heard a few questions, you can make it up for us. Absolutely, well, Senator Sears, thank you so much for inviting me to come back to... By the way, Senator Benning is in court today and Senator Baruth's in Albuquerdy. And I have no idea what's in Albuquerdy. I believe... Sunshine. Sunshine. I don't know. I think it's for his job. I think it's for his other job. Okay. Anyway, I'm very apologize for not being careful, but you have the three most important questions. Let's do that. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for having me back. And yes, and we also appreciate Jimmy Garoppolo. That was a very kind gift. Yeah, it was. James Dope for the record. I'm the CEO and founder of Human Rights for Kids, which is a human rights organization that is advocating on behalf and trying to advance human rights protections for kids in various systems, including the criminal justice system, as well as an education, child welfare, and juvenile justice. Essential to our organizing principle is the idea that when we look at how most kids end up in the criminal justice system, it's as a result of average childhood experience and early childhood trauma. We believe that most of the social ills in our country could be traced back to the harm that children experience in their early childhood. And so what we're trying to do is raise awareness about the connection between ACEs and these negative life outcomes for children. And that's really what kind of brings us into Vermont today to talk about this really important piece of legislation. And, you know, the genesis for this, for me, I shall say, is when I was first working at Polaris Project on anti-human trafficking and legislation, as a matter of fact, I think the same year I was working and came to speak to the committee, I came across the case of Sarah Cousin, who at that time was serving a life without parole sentence in the state of California for having killed her sex trafficker. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to get her on the phone a little later so committee members can directly hear her story. But for me, it was the first time that I really learned that these draconian punishments were really imposed on children at all, let alone a child sex trafficking victim who had only been in that situation because of somebody who had been raping and trafficking her. And I wish I could say that that was the only instance in the country where we see cases like this. And I used to think, too, like, well, maybe it was just because it was so long ago in 1994 that her case happened. So we didn't know a whole lot about sex trafficking at the time. So a lot of people could be forgiven maybe for not realizing what happens to a child sex trafficking victim and why they end up in those situations and why they might see their only way out as killing their trafficker. Unfortunately, last year in the state of Wisconsin, they charged a 15-year-old girl, Crystal Kaiser, with killing a man who had been raping and trafficking her. Crystal, she's currently on trial right now going through the process. She was a young girl who, like most trafficking victims, had been abused and neglected and exploited her entire life. And there was a man who took advantage of that and exploited her vulnerabilities. And actually, ironically, police had identified that he was a pedophile who had over 200 images of child pornography on his computer. He had been arrested. He gets released unbonded. Within two weeks from his release, he's exploiting Crystal again. So she goes over to his house. He's trafficking her. He's exploiting her through prostitution. And she then kills him. And, of course, they lock her up right away and are charging her with first-degree murder. A couple years ago in Ohio, there's a young girl by the name of Lexis Martin. Lexis was 15 years old. Now, she actually wasn't the person who killed her trafficker. She was a felony murder case. She was 15 years old. She had been raped and trafficked by this man. And she decided that she was going to enter an agreement with a bunch of other boys to rob her trafficker. So she is in the next room being raped by her trafficker's brother. When the boys come in, you know, rob her trafficker, then one of the boys, a 16-year-old, shoots and kills him. So they charge her with felony murder. And she gets a life with parole sentence after 25 years. Folks might remember the case of Santoya Brown. Governor Haslam in Tennessee commuted her sentence last year. She was freed in August. She had received a life with parole sentence after she had served 50-40 years, a minimum of 54 years, for having killed a John who had picked her up and was attempting to rape her. Her trafficker was a man by the name of Kutthro, who had been a brutal guerrilla pin who had forced her into this situation. And the man who picked her up at a sonic, she was hungry and he bought her food and then brought her back to his house. And that's where the murder occurred. We see instances of these very vulnerable children who oftentimes are engaged in other criminal behavior and because of the grooming process that they go through, because of the history of violence and trauma that they've experienced, they've developed a traumatic bond with their views or what they're exploited with their trafficker and oftentimes see no other way out. Now, unfortunately, there's a gap in the walk. Most folks, when they hear these stories, they're like, well, why don't they qualify for self-defense? That's sort of the general thought. The problem with the self-defense statutes and the reason why Section 1 in S217 is needed is because oftentimes in order to benefit from a self-defense theory, you need to be able to show that there was an imminent threat or danger where your life was in danger or you were going to suffer a great bodily harm. Because many of these cases involve girls who act in premeditation where they actually do plan out to kill their trafficker and it's a very unfortunate situation but because of that dynamic, what will happen is they will face the exact same mandatory minimum sentencing that anybody else convicted of first-degree murder would or any other crime that they might commit against their abuser. It's unfortunate that this is the reality where we still see folks in law enforcement prosecutors bringing charges against kids in these situations. It's an abhorrent practice. It is a violation of these children's human rights. Article 39 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically states that the obligation of the state when you're dealing with a child who's experienced trauma and harm in a form of trafficking is to focus on the treatment and rehabilitation of these children, not to lock them away in cages. And that's exactly what's happening in these instances. So, section one of this bill is really concerned with making sure that there are adequate safeguards in place so that God forbid any case like this ever arises here in the state of Vermont, a child in that situation will be protected and not suffer an added human rights violation of any of the length of the sentence. Now, this doesn't mandate for the judge to do anything. You know, there's still a requirement that the person who is accused of committing a very serious crime proved by clear and convincing evidence that they are in fact a trafficking victim and that the person whom they've committed the effects against was the person who did this to them. But if a judge does in fact find that, what we're basically saying is let's take the handcuffs off of judges so that they're not required to just impose a life sentence and a lengthy mandatory minimum but can actually come up with an age-appropriate and trauma-informed response in situations like this. Should we try Sarah again? It may be that I'm looking if she's in California. Yes. It's only 6 a.m. there. That may be why she's here. I did email her. She did give back. Let's try. Good morning, Sarah. This is Senator Dick Sears. You're with the Senate Judiciary Committee here in Vermont. Thank you for being available. I know it's extremely early out in California. James Dole is here and has been talking about you and you're going to be our next witness. But I understood you wanted to listen to Summit James as testimony. We have a number of people in the room. So it is being filmed by a local cable television outlet. So just so you're aware of that. And can you hear us okay? Yes, that sounds great. Can you hear me okay? Yes. We might turn it up just a little bit. So we're going to be listening to James' testimony then you'll be the next witness. Thank you for accommodating our 9 a.m. here. 6 a.m. up there. No problem. Thank you. Good. Thank you. James, go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Sarah. And so that is really the genesis for the law. And I will say, you know, there's been a recent shift in the way that we've looked at juveniles over the last 15 to 20 years. Really beginning with the emergence of juvenile brain behavioral development science that has shown that there are fundamental differences between juvenile and adult brains. In particular, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that's responsible for executive functioning. It's not fully developed in children, which is why children rely on a more primitive part of the brain called the amygdala to make decisions and process information. That part of the brain and that process of development is hindered and inhibited when children experience severe amounts of trauma. And so you have to sort of look at, you know, the brain development in conjunction with the trauma that children experience and the Supreme Court actually of the United States has noted this in a series of recent decisions in a series of decisions called Rover, Miller, Graham, and Montgomery. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the penilogical justifications for imposing harsh punishments on children begin to fall into the developmental differences of who they are. And perhaps nowhere is there a better example of that than children in situations like this where they've committed acts of violence or committed crimes against the people who have abused them. And so this is really about creating a new standard by which judges can look at these cases, look at kids in situations like Sarah, like Centoya, like Alexis, and make sure that we're not adding additional trauma to what they've already experienced. And the last thing I'll just say is, you know, when, as you listen to Sarah's testimony, the one thing that I would really urge committee members to do is just think about if Sarah was your daughter or Sarah or Alexis was your daughter or one of these other girls was your daughter, what would you want to have happen in situations like this? Would you want a judge to have to impose the harshest possible punishment because they're mandated by law? Or would you want the law to have flexibility enough to create a trauma-informed and age-appropriate response? And that's what this is truly about. In my testimony, in the folder, you'll find a couple of stories. Absolutely. There are stories from around the country. Alexis's story, Crystal's story is attached to my testimony. There's also, on the right-hand side, a number of stories that have been written about the work that Sarah and I have been doing around the country to raise awareness about this issue. The HuffPost has covered it. Bills have been introduced on this issue all around the country, including recently in the U.S. Congress by a Republican congressman, Chris Westerman, from Arkansas. For context about Congressman Westerman, he occupies the fourth congressional district in Arkansas, which is the former seat of Tom Cotton. Many would say he's probably the most conservative member of the U.S. Senate, so it's a very conservative district. And so just for context about the bipartisan nature by which these bills have been introduced and the support across the political spectrum for making sure that kids in situations like this don't have to receive these harsh punishments. And with that, I'm happy to yield time for questions on the law about anything within section one or any questions in general. I'll just say, too, I meant to mention this earlier, the National New Trafficking Research Center and National Hotline has received about 124 instances since 2007, human trafficking cases here in Vermont, 24 cases from 2018 alone. So this is a very real problem that Vermont has, in fact, been dealing with. And what we see when we look in and beyond that, the National Center for Missing and Exploiting Children estimates that roughly 100,000 U.S. children are exploited in prostitution every single year. And about one in nine girls, conservatively, and one in 53 boys, again, very conservative estimates, are victims of childhood sexual abuse. I'm actually a survivor of child sexual abuse and child labor trafficking myself. It was one of the impetuses for forming human rights for kids and wanting to address these issues. And so when we look at all of this, it's important to understand the context of how much this is happening and being able to create a legal system that is more flexible and able to respond to cases like this. And so with that, I'll go ahead and yield my time. But we would definitely urge the committee to support this legislation and thank Senator Sears very much for bringing it. He's been a stalwart champion for many, many years on these issues, and we thank you, sir. Thank you. Sarah, please go ahead. Okay. Excuse me, thank you. And thank you for the bravery of being here with us this morning. Thank you. I really believe in the lie behind it. So I'll go ahead and start. So if there is any proof on and for the majority of my life, I was identified cruise on W59700 while haunted by horrendous and embarrassing sexual situations that I was subjected to by adults and the community members in my life. To this day, I mean, therapy is something to make sense of the lies behind it all. Being an invisible voice as an unidentified victim of child trafficking for so many years, I find that there is a long word allow judges to discretion, make decisions based on trauma-informed best practices to enhance the overall wellness of our children to come in contact with our best. The vast majority of children in the justice system are contending with early childhood trauma and underage efforts childhood experiences. That was one of them. I experienced 10 out of the 10 at first childhood experiences. I was in elementary school and my wife was a Berkeley Interactive by George Howard, the man who would sue Robbie and my childhood coming home from school. He was able to convince me to get in his car. I lived in a community where drugs and abuse were the norm and I was an easy target for his sinister attention. I also think that he was a man who himself was coming from a place of unidentified trauma. From the ages of 13 to 16, I was sex trafficked. The holistic type of abuse was torture I could have from my trafficker another adult male. At 16, I was active violence, I shot and killed him. Despite being a victim of child sex trafficking, sex abuse and rape, by the man who I killed, I was tried as an adult where men of the abuse and complex traumas I experienced throughout my childhood were admitted into evidence. I had no victim's advocate, I had no therapeutic modalities dealing with trauma. My care offered to me and as a victim, I was my new witness. After two and a half days on trial, I was ordered to pay $10,000 in victim's restitution and served a life without parole sentence for four years. The judge and the media depicted me only as a sophisticated monster, the worst of the worst, and sentenced me as such. The justice system sentenced me for choosing men who victimized me for nearly a third of my life. Ten years later, thanks to part of the work of my legal team and community advocate, my sentence was commuted and re-dressed by former governor Arnold Bush Snaker. After 19 years and seven months, I was ruled. What happened to me was not justice. What happened to other children, of child sex trafficking victims, like Alexis, I'm sorry guys, Alexis Martin, our own inconsistency, who also see it as for crimes committed against their traffickers, not justice. None of us should have to be sentenced to prison in the first place. It's a far too common response for roles of color in our countries, especially for actions that are taken against our rapists and traffickers. Being silenced, sexually assaulted, raped, trafficked and degraded creates deep wounds, and everyday these wounds require courage, grace and strength over time. When I was silenced, I felt invisible. I felt my voice and life experiences held no value. That I, as a person, had no value. I was labeled as a child prostitute, a murderer, a company teen killer, and a teen prostitute's children pimp and was sent to live out the rest of my days in prison. I was like an animal. All this sympathy and compassion seemed to be reserved for my rape and sex trafficker, and very little for me. Nelson Mandela once said there is no king of revelation that is fighting soul, than the way we treat our children. What does it say about our soul, then, if we allow our children, who have been trafficked to be sentenced to decades in prison for having committed crimes against their traffickers, without offering them justice. I believe that the children that are for months deserve better than this as all children. I believe that there is law that allows discretion to make sure what has happened to me never happens to a child victim in Vermont. Under this legislation, judges will be given greater flexibility in cases like mine to deviate from mandatory minimum sentences to the child victim in cages and silenced. I believe that children like us deserve to be protected by the system and not traumatized by it. And this legislation, before you offer some opportunity to contribute to a human component within our justice system, that is fair and easy. So I ask whether it's not allowed the justice system to take anything else away from child trafficking victims and sexual abuse survivors. There are more to either way than much already. And Vermont has an opportunity to do better as we a national leader so that child trafficking victims in situations like mine are met with empathy, compassion, understanding and love. And maybe with mindful intentions and our continuous act of violence upon one another. So I say thank you with deep regard and respect for having an opportunity to share. Thank you. Thank you. I can't imagine how difficult it is for you to question. It's hard to very difficult testimony to hear how you were first misused by the abuser and the trafficker and then misused by the criminal justice system. So thank you for being willing to speak out too often. People aren't willing to speak out and that's why these things continue. I don't I think the committee is at a point where probably doesn't have questions but if you would like to stay on the line and James is still here and we have some other witnesses you're welcome to. But again, my thanks for your willingness to come forward and try to change the law so that other children don't have to go through what you went through. Absolutely. Thank you. I'm going to go. I have a little person I have to get ready. We'll have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Take care. Thank you. I feel sorry for who that's going to come up next. James James I always feel bad for James. It comes up by the way, I saw your wife on TV. Oh really? Yeah. Something about kids, I don't know. He's always talking about kids. She's taking the let's grow kids very seriously. James Pepper department of state's attorneys and sheriffs. So this bill has a number of different sections. I'll just go through them one at a time because we are very supportive of some and others we have some concerns about. Okay. Section one that we were just discussing that James told that Sarah were talking about we are of course very supportive of that section. Essentially it authorizes courts to consider mitigating factors in very extreme situations. And of course being the victim of sex trafficking is probably the most extreme situation and should be considered by the court. Courts are already permitted to look at mitigating factors and all sorts of evidence when sentencing and to give them more flexibility to really take into account the specific dynamics of any crime. For this type of situation it is really important. So I'll just move on section two. This is a provision that looks very similar to the one that the state's attorneys could protect identical to the one that the state's attorneys supported in the house. This is the immunity from liability. This is an incredibly important harm prevention measure. We want people that are in these situations to report these types of crimes and you look at the types of crimes I know that these are felony possession crimes but these are some of our lower priority crimes and when you compare it to the protection that this provision offers to the people that are engaged in well not I don't want to say sex work but the people that are engaged in this industry that on balance I think there's a big net benefit to this immunity and we already do this for overdose cases and we support it for the same reasons as those cases. We also supported the sex work study committee or whatever the final terminology is on that and again just as I mentioned the house you know we're the negative director of the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs or the designee you know this is an incredibly important study committee these laws haven't been updated in a while and I think that we would probably not put either John or me on that probably find a real expert amongst the state's attorneys the only thing I would add is I don't see the need for legislative members of them to get the legislative council involved anyway we'll talk about that I think what we would like what they talked about in the house is trying to get either current or former actual sex workers involved to kind of hear their stories or their recommendations they might have Section 4 and 5 I'm just going to talk about together because they're very similar this is the motion to vacate convictions of domestic assault or sexual assault we have some very serious concerns about these two sections I mean just as written the types of qualifying crimes are very expansive it's anything but the Big 12 you know specifically to the language you know this is essentially applies to any crime I mean it says the conviction if it was obtained as a result of the person having been a victim of domestic assault that's pretty broad I would say if I get I understand what the intent is but the way it's written I don't see really much limitation on what crimes that could apply to if I am the victim of domestic assault there's a presumption that any crime that I commit is a result of my being a victim of domestic assault under subsection D and then so the court has to grant the motion to vacate I can show that I was convicted of a qualifying crime meaning any crime other than the Big 12 and the conviction was obtained as a result of me having been a victim of domestic assault so it's a mandatory vacate and there's only two provisions and the one provision subsection B there's a presumption that that is met under subsection E so you know there's any number of situations I can describe where it just seems illogical if I am the victim of domestic assault and I go burn down someone's house it doesn't even have to be the person who assaulted me then I can seek to have my I can seek to have my conviction vacated I wonder does this apply to people who are in custody under sentence you know I would file the second I was convicted I would file a motion to vacate and the court would have to grant it there's no kind of interest of justice determination made by the court there's no kind of discussion of the proportionality of the crime that the victim committed compared to the domestic assault there's no even linkage to the domestic assault there's no consideration of who the victim is whether it is the assailants or a third party and there's no consideration of whether the person is currently in custody under I mean if this was allowing for expungement of certain crimes I could understand that but or if this was kind of considered a mitigating factor I could understand that but this is a totally different thing and so it just seems to me that this needs to be considered pretty closely well at the time that we whenever we get to the kind of market we'll shortly look at that section I how would I'm looking at be on line 9 on page 7 and the same but farther on in the other section how would one prove or disgroup that the action was a result of prove the connection well so actually if you look at line 17 through 21 there's actually a presumption that if you can show your status as a victim of domestic assault you're presumed to have met subsection B already okay so you don't even have to prove that there was like the state would actually have to overcome that presumption okay yeah okay so I get it seems like you know well hopefully you have alternative language I will have there's no rush I think would probably do given that nobody's fault my fault I guess if you want to blame somebody representative Brad and myself for not talking but since the house just passed the bill and others there's no point in us passing bills in the nighttime so we'll probably wait a laugh to cross over and add whatever we do from 217 to whatever number their bill is amend their bill with a straight call to whatever we end up with we'll work from this bill so you have plenty of time to give us alternative language plenty of time on legislative parlance is three to four weeks that's more than most people ever get and that's fine we would certainly think that someone being a victim of domestic or sexual assault should be considered by the courts when sentencing and could be a significant mitigating factor to the sentence somebody's made a human trap and to note that the more we learn about the women who are incarcerated in Vermont how many of them were victims of sexual assault or victims of domestic violence and assaults grew up in homes with domestic violence and sexual assault was prevalent and some of the men who are incarcerated also but particularly the women the more we learn about that the more concerned I am that we deal with those problems and not exasperated by locking them up for a long time again what we talked about yesterday on the floor of the Senate is moving from a offense based criminal justice system to a risk based criminal justice system that's what justice for investment is all about hopefully the state's attorneys will begin to look more at the risk of the individual in sentencing options rather than the offense I realize that murder is going to be murder and you know you're going to deal with that but some of these other crimes that's right and you know one thing that we're trying to do you know I just thought I don't mean to interrupt I'm on another subcommittee that's looking at risk assessment tools and trying to find ones that don't rely so heavily on the prior criminal history record of the individual because we know of all the factors that can influence that and the kind of cyclical issues once you enter the criminal justice system to really determine risk based on a number of other factors other than just a straight criminal history record that should listen to the voices I'm thinking can we hurt this kid any more than they've already been hurt with whatever punishment we choose to dole out dole not dole Marshal Paul a juvenile defender or whatever good morning I'm never sure your title looks I try to keep it on top I think I should promote you deputy defender general I've already been promoted deputy defender general but I try not to tell people hear that because there's some sort of hierarchy when they schedule people they put commissioners and deputies ahead of like staff attorneys but I like going last so I try not to let anybody know about the deputy thing deputy attorney defender general attorney general is right after I don't actually even want that job I don't want to be deputy attorney general so the defender general's office certainly supports this bill I want to start we'll go through section by section but I think our testimony is pretty straightforward we're very supportive of section one but we would be a big improvement to section one would be to raise the age from 18 to 25 the reason that we suggest that is that it's our experience in representing people who have been sexually trafficked in Vermont that while there is I've represented a fair number of clients who have been sexually trafficked as juveniles as people who are under 18 I haven't actually represented a single one who is sexually trafficked in Vermont I haven't represented people mostly it's been kids who were sexually trafficked out of the state returned to the state under the interstate compact and that's how I ended up having an interaction with them and I just my experience and the experience of other people who represent juveniles in my office is that we see victims of sexual trafficking we don't see many that are actually sexually trafficked in Vermont it's not true though of people over the age of 18 we do see people who have been sexually trafficked in Vermont who are over the age of 18 certainly I think pretty much everybody in my office who I sort of talked to yesterday just saying how many times have you seen this everybody could name a few just off the top of their head so I think it is something that is fairly common in Vermont for people over the age of 18 it's less common for people under the age of 18 part of the other reason that we suggest raising the age of 25 is it doesn't really it doesn't really cost anything this provision is not a get out of jail free card all this provision does is give a judge the authority to deviate from a minimum mandatory sentence really for reasons like Senator Sears said when you're looking at someone who's already been so incredibly damaged and hurt by their circumstances and then perhaps committed a crime and perhaps a very inappropriate crime perhaps a very wrong crime and perhaps a crime that's deserving of punishment but this just simply allows a judge to look at it and say you know what when it comes to that minimum mandatory sentence or when it comes to the ability to suspend a portion of a sentence this give this we give the judge the opportunity to take into account the context what that person had been through the damage that that person had already suffered in setting that sentence and doesn't require it to the judge could turn around and say you know what I've looked at your situation and I still think that what you did was cold blooded and evil and I'm not going to deviate from the minimum mandatory sentence and I'm not going to suspend any portion of the sentence so it really puts flexibility in the hands of the judges to deal with a really wide variety of facts that come up and it's not perspective it doesn't tell them what they must do it just gives them some options so we're very supportive of section one actually to be consistent with our new laws should at least be 20 under 20 because we're going to raise the age to 18 and 19 I agree so we can debate whether it should be 25 if very almost automatically we should start getting to that one criminal statutes where we're raising the age to 20 under 20 excuse me so section two our testimony is very straightforward we support this, we support a very similar legislation in the house I think that this is really absolutely just sort of a common sense extension of the consumeric law that we already have for drug use and drug overdose you and the state's attorneys we actually the state's attorneys are remarkable now we agree with them on section three the sex work study committee just touching on your comment about having legislators on the committee I would say that just my experience over the summer with having legislators on the sentencing commission it was very helpful to have legislators on the committee in part because they gave us a little bit of legislation we spend a lot of time on these summer study committees trying to guess exactly what we should be doing and it's helpful to have legislators who were involved in deeply in passing the legislation on the committees because we often turned to them over the summer to give sort of a legislative gloss on you know we'd all look around and say I think this is what they want us to do and then we would turn to Representative LaLonde and say Representative LaLonde is this what you wanted us to do and that gave us some direction and it provided some guidance in places where it was really helpful so well I don't think it's a make or break situation whether there's legislators on the committee or not I certainly found it would be helpful in the context of the sentencing commission and would support having them on the sex work study committee but again we have plenty of committees that we've bumbled through without any legislators to help us so so so sections four and five we support these sections you know the Attorney Pepper raised a few points but I think all of those points are really sort of wrapped up in this question of the presumption a presumption is just a presumption it's a starting point it says that if somebody had been shown to have been a victim then it's presumed that their that their offense was caused by their whatever offense they were a victim of that you know that their dv you know whatever other offense they commit was caused by their dv conviction and I you know I guess I'm a little bit puzzled by the state's attorney's rejection to that because it's not like it's some sort of a hard and fast rule oh it is something that so for the example that he did someone who's a victim of some sexual or domestic violence offense and then goes and burns down a house that's of someone that's completely unrelated to the offense that wouldn't seem to be a really hard thing a hard thing for the state's attorney to overcome the presumption in that case and I'm a little bit sort of put off by the idea that whenever there's a provision that requires the state's attorneys to do something in order for the result to be anything besides a loss for the defendant that there's an objection to that because the state's attorneys would have to do something it's their job to overcome presumptions it's their job to put up evidence when there's evidence to be put up I don't think it's a problem to turn around and say you know what we're going to presume that if somebody's had one of these convictions that that conviction was in fact caused by this underlying context and then it's up to the state's attorneys to show otherwise if it's otherwise just put it on the state's attorneys and let them prove it and you know given the examples that have been thrown around it shouldn't be that hard to prove in the cases where there's not actually a causal connection and I wanted to give a couple of examples of where this could apply and why it would be important to apply so for example if you were the victim of domestic violence and you called to report that domestic violence and the police respond and find drugs or stolen property or any other kind of contraband like that in your possession this would give you a way out of that charge or for example if you called the police to report that you were a victim of sexual assault you gave a statement about that sexual assault and in the context of that statement you explained that you had committed various offenses that those would be places where convictions would be obtained as a result of your being a victim of domestic or sexual violence so you know to us that's a pretty common sense provision it would encourage people to report instances of domestic and sexual violence and it would allow people who are reporting instances of domestic and sexual violence to be completely open about what it is that that's happened and what the context of their report is so we find this to be a pretty common sense pretty straightforward provision that we would support I think that to the extent that there's objections around the presumption language we should either look at that and just simply say you know what that's on the prosecutors if they want to overcome the presumption they can overcome the presumption they just have to put on some evidence or we could tweak that language to better reflect I'm not sure what would be done for the language to change so can I ask you a question isn't the two examples that you gave aren't they covered under section 2? Section 2 would only apply if the person was involved in prostitution or human trafficking section 4 and 5 would apply in cases of domestic and sexual violence okay but okay so I guess I'm trying to read the devil's advocating or whatever but if we presume that that a conviction or an action was the result of being a victim of domestic abuse or sexual assault why would we not extend that to if you've been a victim of childhood trauma or poverty or disability I mean there are a lot of things that lead to questions I think that the real issue there is that when it comes to like for example childhood trauma caused by non domestic or sexual violence context so childhood trauma that's caused by poverty divorce all of those types of adverse childhood experiences there we're not talking about balancing two different convictions this is the way that I read this this balances our state's interest in two different types of convictions on the one hand there's convictions for domestic or sexual violence and on the other hand there's convictions for other crimes that are not the most serious felonies and what this provision is really saying is it's important enough to prosecute domestic and sexual violence that we are willing in cases of domestic and sexual violence to overlook someone's commission of a collateral offense that's caused by them being a victim of domestic or sexual violence so it is a balancing of sort of different values in terms of which crimes do we sort of elevate in importance over another one and that's not an issue when you're talking about adverse childhood experiences or poverty or any of those things that are non-criminal but can result in someone someone's behaviors later on in life because really what you're because there you're not balancing the interest in convictions for two different types of crimes so I just see this as a way of saying look essentially saying to state's attorneys look we as a state have decided prosecution of this event is important and we want to protect the prosecution of this even if that means not prosecuting some other less serious offenses I'd like to have other witnesses on this one needs to section actually everybody has a story right I mean everybody has an excuse for behavior too we would look at say everybody has a story anybody can give you a reason for their behavior and does being subject to domestic assault and I don't want to minimize that but does that allow the person to behave in a certain way that results in certain crimes that's what I think the state's attorneys are concerned with that it shouldn't be a mitigating factor but maybe shouldn't be a factor to completely absolve the person of any responsibility for whatever happened if it's directed if an assault was directed was assaulting you or crime was directed particularly at that person and that I think is much more understandable than suggesting that that what I was getting from James and maybe I'm wrong James Pepper was that really hard to hire to that door by the way I was complaining I'm calling Chris Holt well they say they can't use W240 anymore WD40 I guess it's somebody decided they can't use W240 back to where I was to concern it I think what I heard the concern from James and maybe it's James Pepper and maybe it's not what what I'm reading here is not that but so a person is a victim of domestic violence and then they go out and violate a law against somebody who's absolutely not connected with that act is that what your does that stand up in court and say there's absolutely no evidence that this was caused by that and in a case that's so where it's so crystal clear that this was not caused by that them just standing up and asserting it would probably be enough to overcome the presumption but shouldn't we write it so to make sure that they don't have to overcome that presumption that the fact that somebody had again somebody gets a presumption in every case Sarah's story there Sarah's story was completely directed at that offender the other stories that James presented us were completely directed at the offender what I'm concerned with this looks like it says whatever you might do as a result of the domestic violence or not even as a sexual assault is and that's true only if it is caused by the conviction and there's a presumption that it's caused by the conviction but the state's attorneys can just put on some evidence to overcome that presumption what kind of evidence would you put on to overcome that it would depend on the case if it was a case where somebody like the example that attorney pepper used where somebody burnt down a house that was completely unrelated to their domestic violence victim status then I don't think you would have to put on much evidence at all I think you'd probably just have to stand up and assert it but you could certainly put on some eventually you could put on the owner of the building to stand up and say I have no idea who this person is I've never had anything to do with them and I've certainly never been involved in any domestic violence with them you could put on the I think in a petition to vacate that would be in civil court so you could actually probably call the defense themselves and put them on the stage so if I were the defense attorney and I'm not like Joe is I would say that I mean if I were the other attorney I would say that but the abuser in this case talked about fire all the time and I mean I don't know but it just does seem to me that there it's a lot harder to convince judges to do things for criminal defendants than I think people picture that it is it's really not that easy to convince a judge that they should cut a break to a criminal defendant so you know I totally understand what you're saying you could as a defense attorney get up and say that as a defense attorney I never would because I'd lose all my credibility in the court you laughed at a court and nobody would ever take it seriously again so it really I think it's a lot harder to convince judges of this kind of stuff than your picture I think we've kicked this can enough but you get a part of concern there may be a better way to draft this thank you we just have time here for the attorney general we'll hear from Sarah Robinson the next time we take the bill that's okay with you Sarah sorry I don't think we're going to get to you and then anyone else who wants to testify when we take this up shortly after crossover let me know or let Peggy know good morning thank you for having me this morning I did have Peggy Delaney hand her out to you in the AT32 report that was produced in cooperation with the network it was actually drafted by at least in part by Sarah Robinson he was here behind me and just wanted to bring that to the committee's attention not for full review right now but let the committee know that we work cooperatively with the network and with the center for crime victim services and some of the stuff in this bill is a sort of direct result of this while we were just taking up oh oh oh this is the letter oh okay sorry go ahead David so I won't go into that in great detail but just wanted to let the committee know that that is the background for some of where this is coming from turning to the bill we certainly I'll move pretty quickly through the bill because other witnesses have spoken well about what the bill is going to do and how it will do it but we certainly support section one no issues there certainly think it's important for people to be able for the justice system in general to be able to take into account the full circumstances of what's really happened as often as it possibly can and certainly that provision and many of the other provisions in here go toward that goal section two we also support that as other folks have mentioned very similar to a bill up in the house which we supported section three on the study committee we support that as well and I'm sure we can work through any tweaks on the membership but in concept that is certainly something we support and look forward to working on with respect to sections four and five it won't surprise the committee to hear perhaps that we share some of the concerns of the state's attorneys and actually the committee has really already hit at the core of the problem so I won't belabor that too much but the core of the problem is around what it means for a conviction to have been obtained as a result of a person having been a victim of domestic assault and we're opening this up to a huge number of potential crimes and with a so essentially it's allowing for a second bite at the apple after a conviction for a very large number of offenses and without having a clear understanding of what it means for the conviction to have been obtained as a result of the person having been a victim I think we don't really know what territory we're walking into and there could be arguments that are very attenuated from the behavior in question and the most recent conviction with a prior act that created the victimhood it could be that an adverse childhood experience which could qualify under subsection A1 or sorry subsection A2 is then the created trauma which then resulted in somebody doing something many years later even decades later and that under the terms of this might actually be something that would be a reason for vacating the sentence it certainly shouldn't be the case in a sentencing that all of those prior realities of a person's life it's not your fault Virginia but it's just it's really getting aggravated it's like a I've got my WD-40 in the car and even if David Sheet says I can't use it I'm coming in I have no idea why they banned WD-40 do you have lines of say she can't use it oh well I don't, whoever says I can't use it why they banned WD-40 I don't know I probably did it right here in this building in one of those chemical bills yeah I've got it in my car and it's going to be used to sound like me I bet you it's a nickel bone probably put down our probes WD-40 really so that's the way okay sorry anyway David go ahead so I was just trying to summarize the issue and W Defender General Paul sorry used the title had a different interpretation of what this might mean and his interpretation as I understood it or one of his interpretations was more around reporting was sort of like an after the fact immunity provision more similar to how these three would work which may be a defensible reading but I think that the fact that it's a little bit unclear as to what exactly we are doing here is part of the problem that we have to overcome as I read this once you get out of this trail you wonder why why we would include victims of child child abuse abuse and poverty and poverty even though that's not a crime child if you were a victim of child abuse why wouldn't we include that I'll just close by saying that to return to a comment I made earlier in my testimony we certainly are believers in making sure the criminal justice system can take into account all the circumstances that are relevant and we need to do better about doing that and through that lens we're certainly happy to work on these provisions and see what we can do to make something of that let me offer a all in branch here to you and to the state's attorneys would hopefully work with any others coming back here after March what was the question it's I think it's March 9th we come back March 13th sometimes why don't we come back to here on I won't say St. Patrick's Day we'll give you know the 18th to come back with some kind of recommendations about you would think what language and if you could work with Michelle on that anybody else who has thoughts on how to do this section would be happy to so we're going to put this in a post James Mark if I could I was listening to both the statements by prosecutors and defense attorneys I think it's interesting because there are two sort of different aspects of this that raise concern on the one hand you know I'm thinking of cases in the domestic violence context if you have a mother for example or father who you know ends up allowing an abusive situation with their children to take place and they're able to vacate those convictions we would be concerned about that right standpoint for children because children get harmed on the other hand one of the cases I began to think about was the case of Katherine Jones who was a 13 year old girl in the state of Florida who ended up getting convicted of murder she was one of the youngest people ever convicted in the United States for that offense and her and her brother she had been sexually abused by a man that was living in her house and it was a very brutal sexual sexual abuse crime it was documented by the DCF they never removed the children from the home so she was forced to stay in the home and in that particular case her and her brother Curtis because none of the adults none of the people from protective services were listening to them or helping them they devised this plan that they're going to kill her dad and all of the adults in the house that are allowing this to happen so they end up killing her father's girlfriend her brother does she doesn't and they run into the woods and then they're later apprehended and so I think about in the context of situations where the almost kind of like Sarah's story but not quite where you have a kid in a very tough situation and some sort of crime is committed against you know an adult who is kind of responsible and rising out of those fact patterns that might be a situation like the defender general said where you'd want judges to have flexibility it's a very complicated issue but perhaps there's a way to look at it you know specifically within you know maybe it's age maybe it's looking at you know the particular circumstances that give rise to those sorts of crimes but I just wanted to throw that out there because I do I could see cases that arise where this provision could be really helpful for victims of crimes and then there's others where we would have concerns if you know crime was big no I just want to say so for those of you who are going to work on it is because the language that's in four and five is directly copied from what we have for victims of human trafficking and crimes they may commit as a result of the trafficking so even if the committee decides to go not broaden it to include victims of domestic of domestic assault or sexual assault I think you guys have identified something that you have concern about with the existing elements of current law so I would say you know thinking about the different aspects of that because they may choose not to pursue the policy of expansion to other areas but it sounds as though you have concerns about something that's already there that's already there thank you all very much