 All right, good afternoon and welcome everybody to House Judiciary Committee. Welcome back, it's good to see everybody. And thank you Peggy Delaney who is helping us. Mike will not be with us for this brief session and we'll be meeting Lori more shortly who is staffing another committee. And so I really wanna thank all of the staff for pitching in, we're really not so busy and so really appreciate it so we can do our work. So again, thanks committee for your attendance at the public hearings. I think that was definitely a good start to our work. Certainly one piece of our ongoing work on racial and social justice and I'll be filling you in more later today and then on Friday about our ongoing work with House Government Operations and Senate Judiciary Committee. But in the meantime, today we're gonna turn our attention back to S234, which is the Miscellaneous Judiciary Bill. We just have a few pieces of that bill to revisit and which we'll start with. And then we have the technical fix. Michelle will be joining us and then we'll be moving to expungement. Another criminal records for cannabis convictions. So anyway. So Lori just joined us. Oh, great. Lori, do you wanna put your audio on real quick? Hi, I just wanted to introduce you guys to Lori. So she's gonna be helping you guys and we're really appreciative as Maxine just said. And Lori does house transportation and she's a superstar. So I'd be really lucky to have her filling in. And of course I'll be there to help as well. Great, well thank you Lori. Great, well thank you Lori and welcome. Again, I really appreciate your help so far and moving forward. So, okay, great. So I'm gonna get started with S234 and we have Eric with us. Hi, Eric. Hi there, how are you? Good, thanks. So we have new language for section 34 which I believe is posted on our website, correct? Yeah, that's right, yeah. And Eric if you could give us a little bit of background. We did go over it, it was been quite a bit of time but this is one piece that I know you and Martin and others have been working on. And I'm also glad to say that committee after Eric works with us on this, he will be doing a walkthrough with Synergy Dishery because they are taking up our DLS bill. And so I very much appreciate Senator Sears' interest in the DLS bill as well as this and hoping to move those forward. So anyway, okay, Eric I'll turn it over to you, thank you. Sure, good afternoon everybody. Nice to see you again. The chair was saying, we're talking about a particular piece of S234 right now. S234 was the Miscellaneous Judiciary Procedures Bill. Remember a lengthy 30 page bill with all kinds of different moving parts. This one in particular deals with persons who are driving with suspended licenses. And I know the committee has worked on this issue, the DLS issue quite a bit over the years. It's a different approach to but the same issue that I'm sure very familiar to everybody which is that a lot of times people's licenses are suspended for non-criminal reasons. In other words it's not maybe an accumulation of points, speeding tickets, that kind of thing rather than a DUI or a criminal offense that someone is charged with that also comes associated with a license suspension. So there's other universe of people, folks whose licenses are suspended for non-criminal reasons. I think the committee has done a lot of work over the years trying to find ways to get those folks licenses restored so that they can be back driving to work and doing other things that they need to do without driving illegally which I think the evidence the committee has heard sometimes does happen. So that's kind of the subject that the section is approaching. And when S234 came over from the Senate, there was a piece in there, it was called an amnesty program for persons with suspended licenses. And what that section did was it took basically the, you know, there's two sets of fines slash fees that a person would have to pay after their licenses, their license has been suspended. One would go to the court. So in other words, you've got your fine to the judicial bureau, whatever the fine was for the associated offense, whether it's for speeding or a previous DLS or going through a red light, whatever it is, there's a fine associated with it. So you've got fines, you know, the court as the statutes have permitted them to do over the years, there are surcharges that go along with the fine as well, go to various court operations as well as the center for crime victim services, although surcharges are also added onto the ticket price. So you have that set of fees slash fines. And then there's also, once your license has been suspended, you also have to pay a reimbursement fee to the department of motor vehicles. That's a separate thing that a person would owe if their license got suspended. So when 234 came over from the Senate, the program that it had, this amnesty program, required that both those sets of fees and fines be waived and that the person's license be reinstated if it was someone whose license had been suspended for a non-criminal reason for at least a year. So that was kind of the universe of people you were talking about. Someone whose license has been suspended for over a year for a non-criminal reason. If that was the case, then this amnesty program was established, waived all the fines and fees with the court and DMV and the person's license got reinstated. The language also was sort of ahead of a lengthy process for how that would happen. And the attorney general, if you may recall, would get all the names together on a list and submit it to the judicial bureau, file a motion, et cetera, et cetera. So that was all the mechanism for how it would happen. But the big picture is who to whom did it apply and what fees got waived. So you may recall back in probably, I think it was in May or June, that there was testimony from the court that requiring all those fees to be waived would impose a substantial burden revenue in terms of revenue for the court as well as a lot of hours would be required to input all the data to do that. So the decision that the committee reached was well as there's some other way we can go to maybe just waive the DMV portion of the fee. Remember the reimbursement fee that I just mentioned, could we go that route? And so that if someone were to have paid all their court fees then they could get their license reinstated without having to pay that reimbursement fee to DMV. So that, in a nutshell, is what the new language in front of you does. Takes that, so you can see that instead of having both sets of fees and fines waived, it only waives the DMV reimbursement fee fine, still requires the person to comply with other conditions that one would ordinarily have to comply with and that basically means your court fees. But if they paid those and they're all set with those, then their reimbursement fee gets waived by DMV and their license gets reinstated. So that's the big picture. We can take a moment to look at the language. It's pretty straightforward, but I could pause there if anybody has any questions so far about the background or the overall description of what's going on. I see Barbara's hand. And then also after we hear from Barbara, Martin, I know you worked on this quite a bit. So if you wanna add anything or respond to questions, please go ahead, Barbara. Thanks. So Eric, this I'm asking you because you may be able to jot my memory if this was discussed or not, but two things sort of seemed troublesome to me. One is you said if people had a suspended license for over one year, is that right? Not so under a year, they still have to pay there fine. Yes, that's correct. But wouldn't it be a disincentive for people to pay early then? Like why not wait and get the discount? That's a good question. And I think Willow will be able to talk a little bit about that because interesting. She may recall, I asked her the same question and she and I were talking about it. And the thought there is that there are some folks for whom you don't want your license to be suspended for any period of time. Sure. So you're not gonna wanna drive with a suspended license. So those folks will pay the fee within the year and because they can and because they, for whatever reason, don't have any incentive or don't have any reason to want to drive with a suspended license. Whereas another group of people, and I think Willow can talk about this in more detail, the folks who don't pay within that year are frequently gonna be the people who financially lack the means to do so. And therefore they would be an appropriate group to sort of have the fee waived after a year. So in that sense, maybe the one year could operate as sort of a filter system as to the people that genuinely have the financial need and those who have the means to pay the fee and start driving. But I think you're right, that issue was out there for sure. Well, especially for people that it's, I can pay my electric bill this month or I can pay my fine. So they may not, right, like, yeah. Anyway, I'll follow up with Willow. So Mike, you made a point early on, which was it came over from the Senate originally having both waived the judicial part and that it was too labor intensive for the judiciary, so it stayed in? No, I think, and Judge Grierson, I think we'll be able to talk about this a little bit more, but no, I think on the committee's website, in fact, is a memo that he had submitted to this effect. But I think that the two concerns the court were raising were, A, would take a couple thousand hours of work time to go into the system and find all these folks and delete the fines, and B, doing so would cause a revenue issue for them. They would lose money by not collecting those fines. So for those two reasons, that piece of it is no longer in the bill that the proposal that you're looking at now, that's right. So that the court fees are still required to be paid and they're not waived as part of this reinstatement program. Even with the wonderful new software that makes it easier to do like group expungement, et cetera. That's a good question for Judge Grierson, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just, I feel like, and again, this is more, I guess, a statement. There are times that we think something makes good sense as a policy, but the implementation of it is too burdensome for government. And so we end up keeping it in when it feels like we're here for the people. We want government to run well, obviously, but I just get concerned that sometimes we back off of things because of the feedback we get from state agencies. Right, thank you. And I appreciate that. And we'll hear the testimony and also I'm hopeful that maybe this is a first phase and that we could get to those other folks at another time. Thank you. Sure, so let's see, I have Ken and then Tom. Hi, everybody. So if these fees were to go away, who's gonna be responsible for the extra revenue that's lost the taxpayers, everybody? Gonna cost more to live in Vermont is what I'm going out after? I think that's, you have a witness, Dave Evans from the Department of Motor Vehicles who looked at the proposal and how it would affect their revenues. So I'm not an expert in that, but I think he might be able to answer that question as to how they would absorb that or cover it. Okay, and then my next question I have on this is if somebody goes and they lose it for any certain amount of time, why don't we give them like different, like if somebody loses it for a year or something, why don't we go and give them a year to pay it back so they've had a job and then they can pay us? Has that even been looked at? I think in a sense, if I'm understanding your question right, Representative Gossin, is that the fee only gets waived after they've been suspended for a year. So they would have had that year to pay it back if they could or so anybody who's been suspended, like let's say your license gets suspended three months ago, you can't, you don't qualify for the program. It has to have been suspended for at least a year. I understand that what I'm saying is as somebody that loses their license, if it will go back to the year thing, then they have one year to pay it back. If they lose their license for three months and they've got, let's say six months or something like that, has any of that been looked at? I don't think so. It's a good question. So, if I could just weigh in on just that issue as well and kind of goes back to Barbara's issue, the reason why we modified or that I suggested that we modify this and we went forward with this with DMV and Willa, it isn't just because of hardship or difficulty for the court, but it has to do with incentives for paying the fines. And we learned in a earlier biennium, I think it was, that there is a drop off of when fines are paid, but it's not within a year. It's within some number of years after that. So, people are still paying their fines. And we also put into place where an individual can get on a payment plan. And if we said that, oh, after one year, everything's forgiven, that payment plan lane would be a little less interesting for individuals. So, we tried to balance having incentives for people to continue to pay their fines. And also with ensuring that eventually somebody can get their license back. If they haven't gone back and paid their reinstatement fee within that year, that means they, for whatever reason, often it is just not being able to pay. I think it's $75 if I'm remembering right. And let me just real quickly, and maybe Eric hit this and I was zoned out, but the individuals who are subject to this, as I understand it, and we can double check with Willa, is a few years ago, we modified the license suspension laws. And we provided that if an individual or wasn't able or didn't pay their fee for a moving violation that in the time they had to pay that fine, I won't say fee, they're fine. If they don't pay it within the 30 days of the due date, then their license would be suspended for 30 days. And they could get that license back by paying the reinstatement fee without having paid the fines. So it really is just that reinstatement fee that people haven't paid the fine, and then they don't pay that reinstatement fee, even though that's all that stands between them and getting their driver's license back. And that's the part that makes sense to me to get rid of. If it's been essentially nine months now that they haven't paid that reinstatement fee, let's just get them that driver's license back, make them still have to pay that fine and do other avenues to try to get them to pay that fine, including perhaps they get the job eventually and they're able to pay that fine. So that's kind of the construct for why, at least how I thought that this should go forward. I don't know if that clarifies anything or just raises a bunch of questions, but. Thank you. Ken, any other questions? Yeah, Tom. Thank you, hello everyone. I don't have a lot of problems with this language. I think it's important, and I understand what Barbara was saying, but I think it's important that there is conditions and requirements. And going forward, if we addressed any more removing any conditions and requirements, I might have an issue, but I do think it's important that people have skin in the game, I guess you could say. But I just wanted to ask Eric, I know some of the reinstatement conditions are, you know, cork costs or things like that, but can you go through just real quick, a list of what reinstatement conditions and requirements are in place now and would stay in place? I think you already covered it, but I need to hear it again, so. You're muted, Eric. Thank you. I hope I muted it in time so that you didn't hear the phone ringing. But. No, we heard it. Okay. No, I was just kidding with you. All right. As far as the conditions and requirements go, the only ones that I'm familiar with have to do with the reimbursement fee to DMV and the cork costs and the fine to the judicial bureau that would generally apply. Now, I know that there's a couple of others, but I think Dave Evans from DMV will be able to talk about that a little bit more, I think, and Willow from the court diversion program as well had taken a look at one of the model forms that DMV uses, which a lot of times when they send it to a person it actually whists what some of the conditions are. I don't happen to have one of those, but I think they might be able to describe it for you in more detail if it covers things beyond the fines and fees themselves. Right. Thank you. I just needed to hear it again, just to remind myself that there is a number of steps in, I guess with quotation marks around it, punishments that people do still have to go through. It's not a, you know, have your license suspended wait a year and get it back and, you know, and have nothing happen, I guess you could say, and know nothing that might remind you that you might not want to do it again. So anyway, thank you. No, I think that's right. The idea is that you've done everything else and all the other requirements and the only thing left is that reimbursement fee. And if that's the thing that's keeping you from being able to have the license, this permits DMV to just say, all right, if that's all you've got left, then we'll waive that. Can I just follow up with what Eric just said? Because I want to make sure I understand this right, that I thought that given those amendments that we did a few years ago, if it's a moving violation, you have to pay your fine and the court costs. And if you don't, then you lose your license for 30 days and after those 30 days, all you have to do to get that license back is pay the reinstatement fee to DMV, that those fines, you don't have to, you no longer have to pay those fines and court fees to get your driver's license back. You've already essentially had the punishment for not paying or the incentive that they're trying to create for paying the fine is that you're going to lose your driver's license for that 30 day period. But after that, they have to go after those fines and court costs in a different manner. And that's what I, because I want to make clear that I want to make sure that that's how it works. Yes, for that group of people, that is how it works. Yes, I think there might be others who don't qualify for the moving violation. You know, you're whatever, your license might be suspended for some other non-criminal reason. But yes, I think for that universe of people I want to say 2015 or 16, it was initially, and this sort of is good background to have because there's another category of people covered by this in the language that I didn't yet mention. But initially, the way it worked was that for failure to pay, you're fine. You know, not for the underlying offense, not for the underlying moving violation or whatever it was, but if you didn't pay your fine, your license would be suspended indefinitely, would be suspended permanently until you were to pay the fine. So that was changed, I want to say, I don't know, 2012-ish in that ballpark. And they changed it to kind of goes where you're going to represent the lawn to six months. So okay, it said, I think the initial period was six months, 180 days. And for that period of time, if you didn't pay your fine, the only suspension that you would get for failure to pay the fine was six months. Then a couple of years ago, I think 2016 perhaps, I probably have these dates all wrong, but I know that's been amended two times. That's when the 30 days was established. So then they said, okay, what the legislature said was, we're going to shorten that period up to 30 days. So if you're, the period that your license would be suspended solely for not paying the fine. Again, not associated with whatever the fine was for the underlying offense. For not paying the fine, you only get suspended for 30 days. And that's true after that 30 day period, if you haven't paid the fine that you owe to the judicial bureau, then you're eligible for reinstatement. You could, as long as you paid the reinstatement fee. So what this does for that group of people, they would be essentially not required to pay either one of the fines, either the criminal or the moving violation fine or the reinstatement fee to the judicial bureau, to the DMV. Does that make sense? So one last little piece on that is that, so the other thing that you'll see in the language of the bill, as I mentioned, the one group of folks to whom this applies is the ones who at least a year ago had their license suspended for non-criminal reasons. And the other, but the other group though, is that as I was, it was now that I look at the language, remember it was 2014, that that indefinite suspension for pay or to pay a fine went away. So this also takes a group of people that says, all right, if your license was suspended before July 1st, 2014, which would have been suspended permanently for failure to pay your fines, for that group of people as well, if you've satisfied all your other conditions, in other words, paid your court fines, et cetera, then you would be eligible for reinstatement. So if your license had been suspended indefinitely prior to July 1st, 2014, for a non-criminal reason, you'd also be within the group that can get it reinstated without paying the fee. Thank you. Tom and Barbara, is your hand up or was it up before? Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, Tom, go ahead. Great, thank you. Eric, the scenario that, the bill that we did that Martin brought up where you would lose your license for 30 days, you pay the reinstatement fee and you get it back and you lost it because you didn't pay your fine, now those fines are still owed, right? Well, actually, this will be a good question for Judge Griss and DMV, but I think that the answer to that is no, that what the statute set, this statutory language was passed that said after 30 days, if you haven't paid the fines that you owed, then, oh, I'm sorry, I think the suspension for the failure to pay goes away, but as to whether or not they'd still owe the court fees themselves, I think those are still, it doesn't bar them from getting their license back because the suspect, but they would still owe them, right? They would still owe, and not that it's that important, but do you remember if we or anybody discussed on how the court system goes about collecting that because I'm sure they haven't put in any new programs just for that, but I know we've discussed in the past and tried to help them remedy a little bit how they do collect and try to improve it, but so I don't know if there's a question in there, I'm just kind of reminiscing, I guess, about the past. No, I think that your witnesses will have some information on that, I've heard anecdotally that tax offsets, for example, are now one of the biggest ways that they're collected, but I think your witnesses, that same issue came up and that'll be a good question to direct to them too. Great, thank you. Yeah. Okay, great, thank you. So, Eric, if you quickly just walk us through the language, that'd be great, and then we can hear from our witnesses that will help us with the more- Sure, yeah, I think we've already gone over the top, the subject, so hopefully it'll just seem familiar when we look at the language, it's pretty straightforward. So again, it's replacing the section 28 that was in S234 as a path to Senate with a new section 28 and no longer called an amnesty program, but it's a reinstatement fee waiver program. So you've got a different title for the program and it permits DMV to waive all licensed reinstatement fees for the group that I mentioned, first people with licenses have been suspended under certain circumstances, requires the date, and I should mention too about the language that this has been reviewed both by Dave Evans at DMV and Will Ferrell at the Court Diversion Project and they were okay with it so far as is obviously always can change, but they have seen it and thinks that it would work. So the way it works is that by December 15th of this year, DMV waives all licensed reinstatement fees for any person whose license has been suspended for one of two reasons, and this is A and B, and this is what I was just mentioning, who's the universe of people, does it apply to? A, if your license has been suspended for non-criminal reasons for one year or longer and you've satisfied all other reinstatement conditions and requirements and that includes the payment of court fees, et cetera. So that's one group, suspended for longer than a year for non-criminal reasons and you've paid all your other fees. BU, it's this other group is the one I just mentioned. If you were suspended before July 1st, 2014, again solely for failure to pay the amount due, not for any other reason, but just because you didn't pay what was due if that was the only reason for your permanent suspension, well then you can and you've satisfied all your other conditions, then you can also have your reinstatement fee waived under this new language. So this authorizes DMV to do that. I should say it requires them to do that. And then now that they waived the fees under subdivision two, they reinstate each person's license who's subject to the criteria that I just outlined. And then under subdivision three, there's a notification provision. So they waived the fees, they reinstate the license and then they notify each person that their license has been reinstated or that their license is ineligible for reinstatement and the reason for ineligibility. So if they've got some other criteria that they didn't meet, they would know. So they could go ahead and try and meet it if they wanted to. And then it just a ropes in an existing definition of amount due, which includes all the fees owed to judicial bureau, that sort of thing. And that's pretty much it, pretty straightforward. Thank you, Eric. Martin, your hand is going up and down, so I'm not sure. Yeah, I just had a question that there's one bit that is a little ambiguous to me and that is the subsection B1A, all other reinstatement conditions and requirements. What I had thought that meant was just the reinstatement fee or whatever money is owed to DMV, not any money owed to the court, but let's hear from what DMV and Willa understood that language to be, but I think we may need to clarify that because that would suggest possibly that the fines have to be paid as well. And that was not the intent from what I understood. And it was not the intent to have the court fees having to be paid either. It was the intent I thought, again, to just have the whatever was owed to DMV to get the license reinstated, but we should find out from Willa and Dave Evans what their understanding was as well. So it's not necessarily a question for people. You may want to be more specific, but I think the way it's phrased is consistent with what you're saying, Representative Long, because it's phrased that you waive it for any person whose license has been under A, suspended for non-criminal reasons for one year or longer, and who has satisfied all other reinstatement conditions and requirements. And those other conditions and requirements, like the intent is anyway, is the court fees. So you have satisfied all the other ones other than the reinstatement fee owed to DMV, then you'd be eligible. But maybe that needs more clarity. That does because in fact, I thought it was because that would suggest that you paid your fines and your fees and the only thing you haven't paid is the reinstatement fee. My understanding is what we were trying to go after was you have everything outstanding, but the one thing you have to pay to get your driver's license back is the reinstatement fee. So, and I haven't seen this line. This is language you've worked on since, however many months it seems ago that we last talked about this, but that was at least what I thought we were trying to do because what essentially, because that's doing exactly what the, almost exactly what the Senate bill, well, let me think about that. Well, so the Senate bill is saying, we're going to waive those fines and fees and reinstatement fees, the court fines and fees and the reinstatement fees and give back the license. Correct. My response to that was, well, we shouldn't be waiving those court fees and fines. We should just be waiving the reinstatement fee and they can get their driver's license back. That didn't mean, at least as I understood the proposal that they couldn't get their license back until they paid those fees and fines because that would be different than what we did a couple of years back where we said, you lose your license for 30 days and then all you have to do then is pay that reinstatement fee to get the license back. You don't have to pay the fines and court fees only the reinstatement fee. So that would be a step back actually from what we did a couple of years ago unless it's only the reinstatement fee that they have to, that is being waived. But we can talk further with Will and Dave about that as well. And I can look back at whatever emails we're kicking around back then. Right, so Eric, I didn't know if you wanted to respond or we can go right to our witnesses if I didn't want to cut you off, Eric, if you- No, no, that wasn't my understanding of what the intent was. But that doesn't mean that I understood it correctly. My understanding is particularly based on Judge Grierson's memo was that you did not want the people to have their licenses given back to them if they haven't paid their court fines yet because that would mean that they were essentially were never gonna get them. So, but I could be misconstruing that. Right, and then we'd have to look at whatever the provision. I'm trying to remember or find the provision that we changed a couple of years ago. Again, what that suggestion is would reverse what we did a couple of years ago. And I don't think that was the intent. Well, again, those are good questions for our witnesses. Any other questions for Eric? Can I just ask one question, which is what is, do you have the citation for the provision that we changed a couple of years ago? I'm trying to- Yeah, I'm getting it, I'll send it to you. All right, thanks. If you just put it in the chat, that'd be great. Okay, great. All right, thank you, Eric. And I know that some folks are here for the next section of our agenda. And I'm sorry that we are running late, but good to our witnesses and then move on. Okay, so we do have Dave Evans and Willa Farrell. I'm wondering, how about Willa? Yeah, I was gonna ask you, welcome. If you could start and you might be able to answer some of Martin's questions in terms of what we did before and help sort of give us context and groundwork. And that might be helpful to then bring us up to where we are today. So welcome, nice to see you. Good to see everyone. Good afternoon. For the record, this is Willa Farrell with the Attorney General's Office and Court Diversion and Pre-child Services. For the big picture, my understanding of what Eric and I had discussed with Dave Evans was to narrow the parameters of what this legislation would do such that when the DMV reinstatement fee is the only barrier to somebody getting their license, that that be waived. And so I think, I'm not a drafter of legislation, but maybe the comprehensive wording of all these, maybe if it were just simply the DMV reinstatement fee might be more clear for people. But that was the intention to find, it's an $80 reinstatement fee for some individuals, that is the only reason they don't have a license. They may not realize that's the only barrier or it is still a financial barrier to getting their license reinstated. The idea here then would be to waive that fee, the reinstatement fee, but the person would still be obligated to all of their fines that they owe to the Judicial Bureau and to address other reinstatement requirements. And so, for example, other reinstatement requirements might be that they obtain SR22 insurance, which you were just referencing earlier. It could be that you have to complete IDRP, which used to be called Project Crash. It's an education program for alcohol-related violations. You may have out-of-state requirements that you need to address. Dave Evans certainly could explain those in more detail, but the idea here was for some people, the only barrier to getting their driver's license reinstated is that reinstatement fee. So that was the intent of this proposal was to waive that. The idea of a one-year waiting period, I think stemmed from the original bill passed by the Senate and I don't know what the magic time period is. I think one wouldn't want that waiver to happen immediately as a number of you have mentioned in terms of you want to have an incentive for people to pay. I mean, most people who get a driver's, a speeding ticket or some other violation that might lead to a suspension or to a 30-day, what is now a 30-day suspension pay. I mean, they don't want their license suspended. It's people whose lives are either really chaotic or they're struggling with poverty who may not be able to pay, frankly. And so they wait, they get suspended for 30 days and then they're eligible to get their license back, but they have to pay that $80. So whether it's six months or a year, as I say, I'm not sure what that magic time period is, but I think Representative Rachelson brought this issue up to start within Eric's testimony. But I think the idea that was to have some time period which would capture the most people who would satisfy their requirements and then pay the fee. But for some people, for whom that is the only barrier, if you wait a certain amount of time, then you could have a waiver. I can, I'm just looking at my notes to see if there are other points I wanted to make. There was a question about how the state collects the debt. There is a collections agency that the state uses called Alliance One or A1, and the judicial bureau sends the debt. I think it's 75 days after the debt was due and you don't pay, they then send that to a collections agency and then every December they send what is owed by Vermont or anybody to the Vermont tax department and then the Vermont tax department does what they call tax offsets to collect the debt. There's a whole sequence, as I understanding, of other debts that may be collected in that manner. The other point I want to say, and first I want to apologize to Eric about this because when he and I spoke, I think we discussed this and then he sent me the language and I didn't click that there was another idea on the table that wasn't drafted and I did email Representative LaLonde this idea but back in May or June. So if I could just raise another proposal. So this other idea would address the group of people who are under suspension for failure to pay a ticket and that that occurred pre-July 1, 2014. So if you got a ticket before July 1, 2014 and you didn't pay it, your license was suspended indefinitely until you satisfied all your reinstatement requirements and paid that entire debt. Through the Civil DLS Diversion Program, we have, there are people out there who owe thousands of dollars. This is the proverbial snowball problem that the committee has been addressing over the years where people get one ticket for something, they get suspended, they keep driving to go to work or medical appointments, they get another ticket, et cetera. So there are individuals out there who still come to the diversion program who remain under suspension for tickets from before 2014 and who owe the state a lot of money and who through our program can create it and through other programs are able to do payment plans and make payments towards that, but until they satisfy that debt, they will not be able to get their driver's license. So the idea I wanted to suggest was that for people whose license who are under suspension for failure to pay a ticket from before July 1, 2014, that their suspension be waived and that the requirement to pay the reinstatement fee be waived and they still owe the debt and they could avail themselves of the means created to pay that debt off over time, but that they would be eligible for reinstatement to obtain a valid driver's license and work. Currently, you can't do that unless you create, you get on a payment plan or are able to pay down your debt quickly and not everybody knows of these options, but we, I mean, Vermont has already provided that opportunity for subsequent offenders that your suspension will be a short-term one of 30 days. So this idea and effect would be to provide that same reduced suspension time period to people whose suspension stems from before 2014. So I think I just may have gone around in circles a bit with that idea, but maybe I would end there to see if maybe if there are questions, I might be able to clarify that. Okay, and well, just before I take other people, is this something that you've been working with DMV? Yes, I did, Dave Evans, I emailed Dave Evans about this and he said DMV was supportive of this idea. Okay, so we'll speak to him, we'll, okay, great. Let's see, Tom and then Martin. Thank you. Thank you, Willa, between you and Eric, you certainly pointed out that there is a lot of conditions and requirements that there's still a number of hoops to jump through for people who end up giving themselves in this position. And I just think it's important for people to know that it's not just a simple handout, I guess you can say, and without even a slap on the wrist type thing. But the thing that's got me baffled is the change and it probably happened a number of years ago, I don't know, the name of Crash being changed to IDRP. What's IDRP stand for? I'm trying to bring it, Driver Rest, you know, I should know this. Driver Restoration Program? Well, no, it's not though, it's intensive. I can Google it quickly, but it's essentially the same program as Project Crash, although I will say the health department has made changes in recent years, but it is an educational program that includes an assessment and it's for people who get convicted or have civil DUI, either alcohol and I think drug related offenses as well. Right, okay. For people with alcohol. All right, thank you. You're welcome. Sorry. Yeah, Willa. So with respect to the subsection 1A, this concept has satisfied all other reinstatement conditions or requirements, was it your understanding that that includes still having to have paid the court fine or any court fees or is that the SR 22, any requirement for Project Crash? You know, what was your understanding? My understanding was it was everything basically, so that currently in order to get DMV, in order to get your license back, you have to meet a host of requirements and it depends on the individual. So my understanding of the way what Eric drafted would be, you have to meet all your reinstatement requirements, which could be IDRP, it could be just a term suspension that your sentence is you can't drive for X number of days, or it could be that you pay the Judicial Bureau something or you're what they call in compliance with the Judicial Bureau, which means that you have either paid or you're on an approved payment plan with the Judicial Bureau. All right. So that's not what my intent was or what the intent should be. And the reason I say that is that's contrary to what we put into place in four VSA subsection B2A. And essentially what that says is if you haven't paid your fine, the Judicial Bureau is going to contact the DMV and after 20 days to notice period, the commissioner shall suspend the person's operator's license or privilege to operate for a period of 30 days or until the amount due is satisfied and the amount due has to do with fines. What that says to me pretty clearly, and I know that's what it was meant to be back then was that after 30 days, the only thing you need to do to get your license back is to pay the reinstatement fee. Unless it was an SR22 or anything like that. But this provision here would completely turn that back from what we intended to do. So I would suggest, and you can think further if this changes your position on this, my suggestion is making it very clear that the reinstatement conditions and requirements includes only those that are required by DMV. And if that means the SR22, but it doesn't mean the court fines or any fees owed to the court. I think that's an important distinction and that to clarify my thinking was that because of the language that you quoted, the 30 day suspension for failure to pay, you are no longer after that 30 day period by law, you're not suspended, provided you pay your reinstatement fee. So my thinking was what Eric drafted, it did not change that. It would still be that if you failed to pay a ticket 30 days later, and it's for a violation with points, you would be suspended for 30 days and then you're eligible for reinstatement. And to be eligible for reinstatement, you still have to pay the fee, the $80 reinstatement fee, but the intention was not to contradict that suspension was for only 30 days. Okay, so in other words, all other reinstatement conditions and requirements also takes into account this section that I just referred to in for VSA, 1109 that if you don't under that provision, you've done your 30 days, you don't have to pay the fine or court fees to, okay, so as long as there's that understanding, the language is probably fine. But if there's any ambiguity here, we should make that clear. I mean, Dave Evans would probably be the best person to speak to that, but that was certainly not the intent of my suggestion or discussion with Dave and Eric. Thanks. Thank you. Will any, anything else or? The only other thing is I, and I'm happy to resend this in January, I think it was David shared with the committee a couple of stories we had gathered from diversion programs about people's struggles to get their license back and that catalyst for that was the discussion about SR 22. But the reason I thought of that was in there, there are a number of stories that talk about people being able to get a job after they get their driver's license. And I think it was Representative Goslin was questioning, understandably, the loss of potential fee revenue to the state if the DMV reinstatement fee is waived. And I think the benefit to the state of having people to get a job would outweigh that loss. And that's really what comes home to us a lot in the diversion program is how could, not having a driver's license hampers people's employment. And sometimes it's people being able to get a CDL and getting a really good job or a plumbing assistant. I've heard stories where people's lives are turned around dramatically by being able to get a driver's license plus for all the other reasons of taking your family member to the doctor or all the other reasons of wanting to be able to drive legally. So I'll forward that on to Peggy. Great, thank you, Willa. Yeah, I appreciate that because it is very important. And we've always looked at this as a really a workforce development initiative. Great, thank you. One quick follow-up question as well. Just quick and then I want to get to Dale and we're also behind you. No, it's very quick. So you mentioned Willa the subsection B1B, those pre-July 1st, 2014. Do you want to make clear that they only owe the reinstatement fee because they wouldn't fall under that other provision we were just talking about? Was that what your suggestion was? You should make a very clear just reinstatement fee. We're not counting on them doing the thousands of dollars that they still owe or? Yes, my suggestion, I could follow up in an email given time, but is that those people actually, their suspensions be terminated and the reinstatement fee be waived. So two things for that group of people. Okay, yeah, if you could send an email to Eric and if you could copy me, I'd be great. Thanks. Great, thank you. Thank you, Willa. Okay, Dave Evans, thank you so much for your patience. Good afternoon. I have to apologize for the strong backlighting. I could pull my laptop out to log into the meeting and realize my battery was dead and the only plug-in I have is with the windows at my back. So I apologize for that. For the record, Dave Evans, I'm with the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles. I oversee a number of units, one of which is a driver improvement unit. I'm not hearing you. Do other folks hear him? No, I can't. So Dave, we can't hear you? Okay, hang on a second, let me try some. That works, that was good. Okay, I'm not sure what I just did, but apparently it worked. I'm Dave Evans for the record. I'm the work for the Department of Motor Vehicles. I'm one of the chiefs over here. One of the units that I oversee is driver improvement. And I'm pleased to be here with you this afternoon. Are we still having promos with my voice? Yes and no, go ahead and hopefully we can hear you. Well, hopefully it'll settle out. My recollection was the same as representative Alon's when we started this down this road. And it's changed dramatically. Right now in Vermont, we have a total of about 52,000 people that are suspended for various reasons. These are all traffic ticket moving violations and don't include criminal offenses. Of that 52,000 and approximately 25,000 are Vermont residents that are balanced being out of state people. This bill would directly impact about 8,000 people of that 25,000 that are on the list about 2,300 predate the 2014 portion of this bill. And 2,700 roughly would be those folks that just have not paid a reinstatement fee. In many cases, they aren't aware that they all won. I deal with people on a weekly basis where they'll call up and say, well, I paid my tickets, but I don't understand why my license is still suspended and you know, you have to pay the reinstatement fee. And so we'd be looking at about a total of about 5,000 people. Thank you. I'm not sure if you were adding anything else after that, but if not, I know there was a question about whether or not DMV can absorb this loss in terms of this budget. Well, I haven't spoken with our financial people about this, but reinstatements, while they're owed, we don't collect them until they're paid. And in the majority of these cases, people can't afford to pay it. They've met their other requirements, but the $80 reinstatement fee is one that they hadn't anticipated going into this. And it is a loss of income, but is it income that we would be collecting anyway? And I think the answer, at best, is dubious as to whether we collect it because in many cases, these have hung around for years and years and years. So I think it's more important that we get people back, able to drive legally to do their business and go back and forth to work. The majority of the people that are on this list are people that are in vulnerable situations, financially and otherwise. And so if we can assist them in any way to be able to move on with their lives, I think that's an important thing. Thank you, I do see a few hands. Martin, Tom, Barbara. A quick question, I think, or maybe not. What about the other, what's the story with the other 17,000 of the 25,000? They have outstanding fines that haven't been paid. For the most part, that's what it is. These are people that have outstanding fines that have gone to collection, without looking at each one, I couldn't tell you exactly. But anecdotally, I can say that that's what the situation is. But if we're trying to say that whether they owe the fines or fees or not it doesn't matter, it's just that if it's been a year, we'll try to figure out their fines and fees some other way but we wanna get their license back and to do that we're just gonna do it automatically and waive the fee, does that, the reinstatement fee? Or do we get into the situation in that case where you are anticipating collecting the $80 from a lot of those people? My understanding is we can't do anything about the reinstatement fee as long as these fines and fees to the courts are outstanding. And that's the situation with most of the people that are on that 25,000 person list. Okay. All right, so there seems to still be a little bit of misunderstanding of that I think what the intention of the Senate was. And I was kind of trying to follow the intent of the Senate except to say that we're not gonna forgive the fees and fines but what we're gonna do is reinstate all the driver's licenses that have been suspended for at least a year because the chance of us collecting that $80 is pretty low anyway. And we'll continue to let the collection agencies or the tax where we get it through their tax refund, et cetera to get those fees and fines. But the main thing is we wanna, people have been suspended at least a year. And as long as it's not like a criminal suspension or a suspension for DUI or any of this only because they haven't paid their fines they should get their licenses back. And I would like to make this bill make that very clear unless there's a reason why we shouldn't do that. Forget about the fines and the incentives and all those things. Is there a reason from DMV's point of view to not read this expansively that if you don't have it suspended for other reason if you ever spent suspension because of not paying a fine it's been at least a year. Let's waive the reinstatement fee and get those people driving legally. Yeah, absolutely correct. And if that is the case then we're looking at about 25,000 people total. I'm just understood. Yeah, no, it's from your point of view again forget about the payment of the fines and fees that something will take up further with will I guess. Is there any reason from DMV's point of view to not do that? No, there is none. All right. Thanks. Thank you, Tom and then Barbara. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Can you by any chance walk me through exactly how and what's involved in a license being reinstated? And the reason I'll say it up front the reason I'm asking is to the layperson it seems like it would be a very, very simple thing to reinstate a license. I mean, I'm thinking go into a file change the license from suspended to being good and send out a letter of some kind to let the people know that's a layperson's term. And the reason I'm asking if it is that simple it's just going through my mind that $80 seems pretty high. There's a fair amount to it. What we have to do prior to reinstating someone is to make sure we have compliances. And you were talking about a normal I'm talking about a normal reinstatement nothing to do with this bill. Let's say we have an individual that's got a suspended license and they call us and say, you know I want to get my license problem straightened out and what can you do for me? And the first thing we're going to do is to run their record here in Vermont and find out if there are any outstanding tickets you know, outstanding requirements for example, from a DWI we're going to list all of those things on what's called a requirements letter that we then send them saying this in their bullets all the way down through the page saying these are the things you need to do you need to contact the Windsor court and pay a court fine and fees there. You did contact, you know the Rutland court and pay court fees because many times we're dealing with multiple offenses that need to be cleared up. If there's a DUI involved you need a complete IDRP you need to provide an SR 22 you need to pay a reinstatement fee. In addition to this we ran you on the national the PDPS problem driver point system and you have two outstanding suspensions in other states one in New York and one in Wisconsin which we can't do anything for you until you've taken care of these here's the phone number for you to contact so it's a long process but the person that is going through this gets a checklist and they can actually sit there and check off as they're going down through if I've taken care of this I've taken care of this I've taken care of this and at the end all of the compliance is coming to us from the different agencies and the person pays the $80 reinstatement fee and they're reinstated. So a DMV employee can have a lot of time involved in one case? Absolutely, absolutely at bare minimum 15 minutes, 15 to 30 minutes on each one. Bare minimum, yep, okay. What would be at the top of your head what would be a max on it? I mean I could foresee a day I mean once Well, if through a whole period of time trying to walk somebody through everything I mean I could see a lot of time potentially involved. It can in certain circumstances those are very few and far between but you know a long one on for an average clerk working on one here in the unit is probably 45 minutes to an hour. Okay, great. Thank you. Yep. Hey Barbara coach and Martin and then I'd like to to wrap this up because we are behind on on our expungement discussion. Thank you. So I think my question should be quick. Dave, you mentioned that 52,000 people currently are suspended without licenses and 25,000 are Vermont residents. I'm confused about what happens to the ones that aren't Vermont residents. They have a license in another state. Like I just that didn't fully register with me what their situation is. That's pretty much for the most part correct. They have a license in another state. They're here in Vermont and get involved in some traffic violation or you know, a DUI or an accident something along those lines and they don't comply with the terms of the Vermont civil citation and take care of in a timely manner and we suspend their right to operate in Vermont and we notify their home state that we have suspended them for failure to comply with a court proceeding. And in most cases, the way it's supposed to work although it doesn't always happen this way the home state is supposed to suspend them as well until they get this resolved with Vermont. So that's a huge chunk of the 52,000 it's more than half of the 52,000 are people from out of state that over Vermont some fine or something like that. So isn't there sort of the flip side of people in Vermont who got their license suspended in another state? There is, we have that happen as well. And you know, without going through the individual records we wouldn't be able to tell you that number what that suspension is for. But you know, if they're in a suspension we certainly would look at it and say, okay, you haven't done anything in Vermont but you've done something in New Hampshire and send them a requirements letter saying your license is suspended in Vermont. You do however need to get this thing in New Hampshire straightened out before we can reinstate you. And I don't think that this bill pertains to that type of a violation. I could be wrong but. Are those numbers embedded though in the 25,000 Vermont residents who are suspended? Yes, those are included in that number. Okay, so depending on the answer to what Martin was saying that group of people may or may not be affected, right? I mean. Yeah, you know, I can't really answer that because that would just be something that I'd have to run by our attorney general. Find out whether we would extend that to people who've committed something out of state. And we don't collect the money. We just say you've got to pay New Hampshire what you owe them or something, right? That's correct. We provide them with a phone number and a contact into Hampshire where they can resolve their problem. Okay, so we're not gonna waive another state's fee with this bill. Yeah, I don't believe that we're gonna do that. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Great, coach. Thank you. I was gonna give Tom a very quick example of an expiration. I've got a letter here from the department. And if I don't get my DOT physical med card done within 30 days, I will be one of those 25,000 people. And you can see how that could happen in COVID trying to get to a doctor with all of the social distancing and what have you. It could happen that there is a short lapse in that time. And then you have to go through the steps, like Dave was saying, and make the call and get down on one knee and say, please help. No, but anyways, those are some of the smaller types of situations. How are you doing, Dave? Good, how are you? Good. So I just wanted to follow up on Tom's question and Dave's answer to Tom's question. So if you didn't have to, for this reinstatement letter, the check off letter, if you didn't have to find all the fines or court fees that they may or may not owe or that they may owe, if that's not part of it, does that make it more straightforward? Is there a way to say, here all the people just have fines that that's why they've lost or had their license suspended. Here are the people who haven't suspended because of DUIs or 10 points that they've gotten on their driving license. So would it be easier in that case? Or if you don't have to worry about the fines and court fees? Oh, absolutely. It would be much more streamlined. All right, well that's I think is consistent with what I'm suggesting that the end goal here is that fines and fees are out, we don't care about them. We do, the court cares about them. There's other ways that can collect them. It's just getting these driver's licenses back into these people's hands unless they haven't suspended because of DUI or suspension or other state. All right, thank you. Okay, great. Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anybody that had the last question. Okay, great. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, everybody. And as I said, the Senate Judiciary will be looking at this and then we'll get back to the next draft. It sounds like we might need some clarifications in new language, so. Okay, all right, so sorry that I am running behind but I think this was helpful to have a discussion. Okay, in terms of our agenda, I'm gonna wait on H936 as a technical fix that we can certainly get to. And I'm going to move to S294. I think if people need a break, why don't just, as folks are doing maybe turn your video off or whatever and then take a break and come back when you can. So S294, just to give you some context, that's the larger expungement bill that passed the Senate and is in our committee. And there are two sections of it, section six and seven that pertain to the expungement and the sealing of criminal records regarding marijuana. And those are the two sections that we're gonna be looking at. So we are not looking at the rest of the expungement bill. We don't have time to do that. Given COVID and everything else, however, these two sections are very important. They're very important in terms of our work on racial and social justice. And so I'd like us to move forward on those sections. We did, if you remember, Bryn gave us a quick walkthrough before we took our recess. Michelle is prepared to give us a walkthrough, but I really wanted to, instead of doing the usual walkthrough first and then hear from witnesses, I felt it was really important to hear from our witnesses first to really understand what this means and what this means to have those criminal records, especially in terms of marijuana and the impact on people of color. So, Michelle is here. If you do have questions while the witnesses are testifying, certainly she can answer them, but if not, again, I would like to start with our witnesses. So I wanna welcome Skyler Nash. You're here. Actually, he just texted me that he had to leave. I asked him, I told him I was gonna let him, you know that he had to leave. I asked him to jump on, so he may. Okay. Why don't we give him a minute? So you're saying he may jump back on? I'm not. Yeah, I asked him to jump on. Okay. Are you able to, could you please text him and see if he is available? I have been communicating with him and I'm just wanting to hear back from him. Okay, all right. Well then why don't, let's start with Laura. And Laura, if we do hear from Skyler, I may ask you to yield to him and then come back to you. Come on, I'm totally flexible. Okay, great. So welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. It's good to see everyone even in a virtual format for the Record Mountain, Laura Subin and I'm the director of the Vermont Coalition to regulate marijuana. I also direct the Pennywise Foundation which partnered with the Vermont Law School Center for Justice Reform, Vermont Legal Aid and some individual state's attorney's offices in developing and implementing expungement clinics that operated around the state in 2018 and 2019. And some of those were specifically organized for expunging cannabis misdemeanors. So expungement has long been a key goal of the coalition that I represent which is thousands of individuals and organizations that have been working for cannabis policy reform since about 2014. We strongly support the cannabis related provisions of S294, we view this as a critical component of a movement towards racial justice in cannabis policy and that it recognizes and aims to repair some of the horrific legacy of racism and the enforcement of cannabis prohibition laws. It's also fair common sense legislation that will create opportunities and help break cycles of poverty and criminality. So the data is clear that stops and searches for cannabis. Cannabis arrests and subsequent convictions in Vermont and across the country have dramatically disproportionately impacted black people and other people of color. We know, for example, that the Vermont police stop and ticket black and brown Vermonters at a much higher rate than white Vermonters. The black Vermonters make up only 1% of Vermont's population but 10% of Vermont's prison population and that in Burlington, Vermont's largest city, black residents are arrested more than three and a half times the rate of white residents and drug related arrests are specifically one of the four categories that make up that disparity. As related specifically to cannabis, we also know that in 2013, the ACLU issued a report that demonstrated that black Vermonters were being arrested as of the year of 2010. Black Vermonters were being arrested at a rate four and a half times that of white Vermonters. This was worse than the national average and it was much worse in some counties. 9.6 times, the disparity was 9.6 times black to white arrests I'm sorry, in Wyndham County and it was almost 17 times the rate in Rutland County. And then despite both the decriminalization and the legalization of cannabis grown at home, black Vermonters ACLU issued an updated report demonstrating that black Vermonters continued to be arrested at about six times the rate of white Vermonters. And these disparities persist despite of the fact that use rates in the two populations are consistently very similar almost exactly the same. Excuse me, Laura, I'm sorry, Laura. So I do see that Skylar to just join and I know he needs to leave at two. So I wanna just make sure to get him in and then we'll get back to you. Okay, so thank you, I really appreciate it, Laura. Great, thank you. Sorry about that. No, no, no, it's so great to see you and I know you have to go at two and if you don't get to finish today then hopefully you can join us on Friday or if not at another time, but thank you. Oh, thank you for having me. Just say good afternoon and thank you again for having me for the record, Skylar Nash, a student activist with the University of Vermont. And for the first time ever I've actually written my testimony today just when I wanted to make sure I got to all my points so I should be brief. So I just have to say that first I'm incredibly encouraged to see the increased appetite around expanding expungement on both sides or sometimes as we know in the state house all three sides of the aisle that are involved in these decisions. And the appetite to continue to limit the lasting harm traditionally associated with criminal record with a criminal record by expanding the list of expungible criminal charges. Too often as we move towards improving our justice system we do so with an exclusively forward-looking lens. What we continue to learn is that to truly and meaningfully reform our criminal justice system we have to keep an eye to the past and complete that full circle of restitution by both eliminating the harm going forward as well as mitigating the harm attached to the past. The expunging and sealing of criminal records are one of the most valuable tools in our disposal when it comes to writing the injustices perpetuated by antiquated and unduly punitive policies. Now, when I testified about the expungement bill last year and sent a judiciary, I applauded the committee for taking an important step forward. And I do so here today as well in the house. It is however concerning to me that there are many people in the community who feel like this enthusiasm around the expungements of marijuana charges specifically is being used to placate those in the community who are wholly satisfied with the focus or lack thereof on racial justice and the efforts to pass taxation legislation. Racial and social justice are not issues to visit on the back end, particularly on the issue of marijuana use. I also look at this effort being centered around the automatic expungements of marijuana charges. And while I'm encouraged by that it brings up broader questions for me. Why have we decided that any other criminal charge is eligible for expungement? Why would we create arbitrary barriers to this process? Why are we not expanding our conversation on automatic expungements beyond marijuana? How much longer are we willing to let low-income Vermonters wait before they gain full and unfettered access to this life-changing tool? Vermont Legal Aid, the attorney general in the Chittenden County State's attorney's office as I'm sure many other people have gone above and beyond to host expungement clinics to help lower this barrier for thousands of Vermonters. But I'm sure even they would tell you so many more will fall through the cracks. Often even if people are eligible to obtain expungement they may not even be aware of its availability. If they are aware, they almost certainly in the case of low-income Vermonters have neither the time nor the necessary resources to navigate the process. If you have been relegated to working multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet as a result of your criminal record will you have the time to take off from work and attend an expungement clinic? Now here we are, seven months later in the midst of a global pandemic and what assure to be record unemployment numbers this worked more important than ever. With tens of thousands of Vermonters set to struggle with unemployment and the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis it is going to be a monumental struggle for so many of us to get back on our feet and find steady employment. What chance does that leave of Vermonter who is going to attempt to navigate that minefield settled with a criminal record? Research nationally has shown that time and time again, only a fraction of the people who are eligible to receive an expungement ever apply effectively keeping them trapped in an often inescapable life of poverty. Unable to gain access to affordable housing, a stable job, thousands of Vermonters are saddled to this lifetime sentence of poverty. A study conducted by the University of Michigan Law School found that people in the state who are eligible to obtain an expungement of their criminal record only did so six and a half percent of the time. There are a number of factors that play into this and unsurprisingly many of them are economic. No one should have the opportunity to expunge their record withheld because of an inability to pay the associated charges with their criminal charge. We have more than enough data to show it that our continued criminalization of poverty has done in many cases irreparable harm to multiple generations of families. Now oftentimes opponents of criminal justice reform measures cite public safety as a reason for allowing our justice system to remain as is. The same Michigan law study also found that people who obtained an expungement of their criminal record had lower criminal behavior in comparison to the general population. It is no surprise that the expungement expansion, similar to sentencing reform and other criminal justice reform policies do not have any negative effect on public safety. If anything, a lack of sufficient use of expungement could have the opposite effect and force people to revert to petty crime as a means of survival. What we do know about public safety is that increased economic and educational opportunities lower crime. The study also found that within one year of the expungement, Michigan residents saw their potential salary earnings increased by over 22% when compared to their salary projections preceding their expungement. The data is clear, the more expungements we grant and the faster, the better the outcomes for residents and therefore the surrounding communities. Last year, Pennsylvania became the first state to move to an automatic expungement system. They saw a massive increase in expungement of records and lower government costs by removing the unnecessary bureaucracy surrounding their expungement process. California, Utah and other states are moving towards adoption of their own automatic expungement systems. I hope that Vermont will be next in line. I salute the committee for their work on this bill. We need to continue expanding the eligible criminal offenses for expungements as well as the automatic expungement of marijuana criminal offenses. We need to streamline this process. I think it's particularly important as we move forward with the legislation and subsequent taxation of marijuana as a result of recognition that the war on drugs has failed. We must, we must keep racial and social justice at the forefront of any legalization legislation, not as a backend attachment. Forget that it is good policy. Forget that it is economically practical. It is the moral and just destination for this movement. Thank you. Great, thank you so much, Skyler. And I do hope that you'll submit your testimony, your written testimony as well, if you haven't already. And I really do appreciate your points about the need to expand the crimes as well as move to automatic expungement. And I share that as a goal. So thank you. Do you have time to take questions if there are any? I want to meet your time. Okay, questions, anybody? I did not see any hands, but I want to make sure that I haven't missed anybody. Get me out of here quick. It's really great to see you. I really appreciate it. And hopefully we'll see you again as we continue this work. Absolutely, thank you so much. Great, thank you. Take care, great. Take care, Scott. Take care, thank you. Okay, Laura, thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate your flexibility. Yeah, no problem. And I absolutely agree with the points Skyler was making about automatic expungement in general. And I do think that cannabis is an issue where let's at least start here around behavior that now is generally is mostly legal and is widely accepted as not posing serious public harm threats. So I was just giving some of the background data, which I know most of this committee is very familiar with about the documented discriminatory practices that have occurred in the name of cannabis prohibition and arrests and basically all aspects of the criminal legal system. And so moving on, I know that you've also heard a lot of testimony about how criminal convictions, including misdemeanor convictions have a broad array of serious collateral consequences. And just quickly, some of these include loss of access to public housing, loss of access to supplemental nutrition assistance and other social service programs, possible loss of student loans, preclusion from purchase military, the possibility of children's services becoming involved with a family. And it is of course the people that most need these services that they have the most to lose from these policies. People with criminal convictions, especially people of color who are already confronting endemic systemic racism, also face discrimination in areas such as employment, housing and professional licensing when they have even misdemeanor criminal convictions on their records. Anecdotal evidence that was gathered by Vermont legal aid during the course of these expungement clinics that we were talking about indicate that the harms generally associated with collateral consequences of convictions are very real here in Vermont. According to a VLA report on those clinics, the most common reasons their clients seek expungement are housing and employment related issues that arise from having criminal records. And they say that many of their clients noted that they've been denied employment expressly because of their criminal records. I thought it was also important that they noted that 50% of their clinic clients had children and that clients have told them that their records impact their children in a myriad of ways. And examples of that range from lost wages to being precluded from coaching or chaperoning events for school age kids. So legal aid also says that participants frequently mentioned the stigma associated with their criminal record stating that psychological distress, the psychological distress they experienced by having a record that follows them everywhere. So we know that people struggle with the impacts of these convictions for decades and it's a lot of people. According to data from the Vermont Crime Information Center there were nearly 5,000 cannabis related convictions between 2007 and 2017. This isn't, that was an average about 500 people per year. And I'm sorry for those of you that were at the Social Equity Caucus this morning that I didn't, I'd frame that stat properly this morning. But it was about 500 people a year for that decade which means if you sort of work backwards from there there are tens of thousands of Vermonters who carry criminal convictions on their records for again behavior that's now mostly legal and widely accepted as not posing a big risk. More and more states around the country are recognizing that expanding cannabis convictions is an essential component of creating cannabis policy that responsibly addresses racial and social justice. Seven of the 10 states that have legalized cannabis also have some type of cannabis specific expungement or ceiling. Illinois, California and parts of Colorado provide for the type of automatic expungement that's envisioned in S294. And a number of states that have decriminalized cannabis are also but haven't yet legalized are also reforming expungement laws and our big neighbor in New York has automatic expungement of cannabis. So I think Vermont should join the leaders and adopt this critical policy reform. And again, as Skyler I think mentioned automatic expungement is key and that's one of the important things that S294 would do because many individuals again echoing the earlier sentiments especially racial minorities distrust the criminal legal system they won't willingly interact with it for many good reasons or they may simply not realize that they're eligible for expungement since there have been historically and until very recently costs associated with expungement including expunging cannabis crimes many assume that they couldn't afford the relief even if they were entitled to it. Many people don't have the resources for an attorney to help them navigate these questions. And so that means that even a simple petition process is often still too complex to achieve the greater goal of equity for those who have these kinds of offenses on their records. Once again, these broad concerns were we did find them in Vermont when we held when we held these clinics many expungement clinic participants share that they were unaware of Vermont's expungement law their eligibility or the expungement process before the extensive targeted outreach for the clinics that is what got them there on those particular days. Application-based systems unfairly place the onus of removing a cannabis offense and all of the associated stigma on the individual rather than on the government which created that stigma and the undue burden of a criminal record. S294 would also decriminalize possession of cannabis in amounts that are slightly above the legal threshold. So up to two ounces and four mature plants. This provision has a clear practical purpose. It will enable the court system to expand records quickly and cost effectively. As many of the state's low level cannabis convictions did not distinguish between one and two ounces and making that distinction and expunging them would be at very time consuming and cost generating prospect. But it would also protect Vermonters who may inadvertently be in possession of just over the legal limit and it would protect them from arrests and other collateral consequences. And finally, expanding decriminalization slightly is another modest incremental step towards moving cannabis policy toward equity. So we support the cannabis provisions of this bill and we think that the now at the time is right for it. We agree that prioritizing responding to the harms caused by cannabis provision has to be the leading motivation in all our efforts to reform cannabis policy. Great, thank you. Thank you very much, Laura. Just looking to see if any hands are up. I don't see any hands. I just wanna make sure I'm not missing anybody. Okay, great, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, David's share from the Attorney General's office. Join us, please. Good afternoon, good to see everybody. David's share, Assistant Attorney General with the Attorney General's office. And the Attorney General certainly supports the provisions that are being discussed this afternoon in section six and seven. We really appreciate the testimony of both Laura Souven and Scholar Nash. They've given an excellent overview of the reasons why these provisions make sense. They make sense from an economic standpoint from a socioeconomic equity standpoint and from a racial justice equity standpoint. And I think the data statistics and personal experiences that were brought forward and discussed by the prior two witnesses are really compelling. And I think they've done as good a job as I could do. And I won't go through all those again, but just to say that we are in agreement with those, that reasoning is important. And we should support these provisions. I mean, this committee should support this provisions. The Attorney General certainly does. Briefly speaking to Scholar Nash's point, the Attorney General's office has been in favor of an even broader expansion of expungement than is in section six and seven, but this is an important step and we should start here. And hopefully we hope to see broader expansions of expungement move forward. I certainly agree with the automatic expungement for these provisions. Again, as changing societal understandings around cannabis use would dictate a very smooth frictionless process for eliminating these convictions from people's records. And we think that's important and an important innovation in this policy, one that, or I should say in this bill, one that Vermont has not previously embraced with respect to the automatic expungements. And that is something we support. So my testimony is just that. It's brief, I'm happy to go into more detail. I do think the prior witnesses have done a really excellent job and said much of what I would have said, but I don't think I can repeat it any more clearly than they said it. And I will let the committee move forward. But of course I'm happy to answer any questions. Great, great. Thank you. Appreciate that, David. Again, I'm not seeing any hands, but I want to give folks a minute to put their hands up or jump in. Martin. I think this may be a question that comes after we hear from Judge Greerson, but it is possibly for David and some of the others is, I know in the past we've had the hang up or hold up we've had is the difficulty in doing automatic expungement, going back to the paper records and such. Has there been any thought or work from your side as far as how to help expedite that process like actually pointing to the individuals who are eligible for expungement and such? Cause I know we had been talking about the DLS earlier and there was this idea that the AG's office would come forward with a list of here's all the folks that need to get this relief through this DLS bill. Is that something that the AG's office or others have thought about? I think the DLS issue was a slightly different procedural issue. If I'm remembering correctly where essentially the concept was that as a way to move that forward as quickly as possible, the AG's office would get a list from either DMV or the judiciary of everybody who qualified and we'd basically submit a blanket motion. And that was more of a procedural problem that we were trying to overcome as efficiently as possible and one that we were certainly happy to participate with. I think the issue here is more just around the pure logistics of running through all the paper records that the judiciary would have. And I do think that the judiciary is gonna be in the best position to answer that. We understand we're sympathetic to the challenges that are posed by that. And I would defer to the judiciary in terms of how best to approach that. Okay, I don't see any other hands you might have given us our segue to the judiciary. Okay, I don't. Well, great. Well, thank you. Thanks so much, David. Thank you. Okay. So I don't think Bobby Sand is here. We heard that he had another has a conflict. So let's move to Judge Greerson. Good afternoon. Afternoon, welcome. Yes, good to see everyone. For the record, Brian Greerson, Chief Superior Judge. And I was talking with Eric yesterday, I don't know if it was on this bill or another one, Eric Fitzpatrick. And I was just saying how difficult it is with the three segments of the session to remember what the testimony and so forth was in the previous sessions. I would begin by saying, there isn't anything that Schuyler or David or Laura has testified through that we disagree with from a policy perspective. I mean, this is obviously a laudable effort in the judiciary doesn't take a position that we're opposed to the policy behind this. But I can tell you that in testifying before the, when it was in Senate judiciary, we took the same position, but there has to be a recognition of the fact that it is a resource issue for the court to be able to do this. And that I think was reflected in the Senate judiciary's approval of this language that at that time carried a, I wanna say a fiscal impact memo that I provided to the committee earlier this afternoon, but it's also one that was supplied last February to Senator Sears and yourself, Chair Gradd, Senator Kitchell and Representative Toll and it encompassed a number of bills involving expungement, including this one and the total requested appropriation to be able to accomplish this that was in the neighborhood of a million dollars. The Senate judiciary did acknowledge that, but when the bill went to the, and I'm just going by memory, I certainly don't know the details of what happened when it went to the Senate floor, but my recollection is that that appropriation was removed. So I don't know what, I don't really know what the status is, but in that respect, the judiciary's memo that was provided still reflects the reality of this process. And I would add to that, that there's really nothing at this point about automatic about this process, at least from the perspective of what work has to be done in order to expunge these records. If by expungement, we mean destruction of the actual records. And as Representative LaLonde indicated, we've talked about this issue a number of times that these records that need to be expunged are paper records. In other words, they predate the introduction of our new case management system. So for the most part, everything we're talking about are paper records. Some of those records probably still remain, the physical records remain in the courthouses, although probably very limited. Many of them are in storage, I think the primary storage, if not the only one is perhaps in middle sex. And some of them are going to be sold that they include microfilm where these records are kept. And so there's a process that Terry Scott will be testifying after me. And I think she can give you more detail about the actual process of what's involved in doing that. But suffice to say that there is a price tag attached to this process. And clearly a couple of things have changed with the advent of COVID-19. Not the least of which is if you recall, the bill was S114, excuse me, I don't remember what the ACT number was, but that was one of the emergency bills that was passed that included a provision, among others that said the timelines for expungement and sealing were suspended for 120 days after AO 49, the Supreme Court's AO administrative order 49 expired. Right now that's been extended to I believe at the end of this year. And depending on what happens between now and the end of the year, I cannot tell you that it won't be extended beyond that, but suffice to say at this point, it goes to the end of the year. And under that bill, that ACT expungement processes are suspended for 120 days after the end of that bill. I'd also need to remind the committee, and one of the difficulties in this is the provision that was passed. I wanna say either last year or two years before that reflected the fact that oftentimes a simple marijuana possession, the type of offense that is being eligible for expungement here may in fact be one count in a two or a three count information. And all of those offenses may not be eligible for expungement. And the statute that the legislature passed since 706.06, title 13, 7606, says until all charges on a docket are expunged, the case files shall remain publicly accessible. And that's true of ceiling. So in other words, what it requires is not only gaining access to the old files, but many of those old charges if they are part of a multiple count information may not be eligible for expungement under the current legislation. So I certainly want the committee to understand from the judiciary's perspective that we don't question the merit behind the policy, but there has to be a recognition that it's not saying it's automatic, doesn't necessarily make it automatic in terms of what is required even under this bill. It requires not only going back to locate the records, but giving notice to all of the entities that are identified as having access to this record, the law enforcement, state's attorney, VCIC, even the respondents. And I know some of the witnesses said, for instance, that the respondents sometimes are not even aware of the ability to have their record expunged. By the same token, we're not gonna have to go back very far before the notices that we send to these folks are gonna come back to us because we don't have valid addresses for them. But it's still part of the process. So if you look at the bill from the work perspective, there's a fair amount of work that has to be done. And I think as I listened to the testimony today, I have not read the, for instance, the Pennsylvania bill in detail, but I'll look at Google and to see what was listed under the Pennsylvania expungement bill. And I'll just give you one example. This is an article out of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It says they're talking about sealing of records. It's not an expungement bill. They seal the records, which is different obviously than expungement. The statement says the state had previously allowed certain criminal records to be expunged or erased after a waiting period. The new law includes a wider range of offenses, but instead of expunging, merely seals them. That means the records will still be visible to law enforcement and can still show up on background checks and so forth. So again, I have not read the bill, but to say that it's automatic in their expunge, apparently what they do is seal the records. And so they're not completely lost to law enforcement and other entities that the legislature would define who would have access to a sealing of a record. So I can't say, and Terry can speak to this in more detail than I can. I can't say that the work involved in expunging versus sealing, there's a difference, but I don't know that it's a substantial difference. It's still going to carry a certain price tag even to do that. But with the committee considering this bill, I just don't want there to be a misunderstanding of what automatic means. It's truly not automatic. There's a lot of work involved in doing this. And some folks who have those convictions under the current law would not get them expunged if they're part of a multi-coun information. The reason I bring that up is oftentimes that's what happens. Someone is stopped because of a tail light out, which leads to suspicion of marijuana. And I certainly have seen and read the evidence to suggest that people of color are more susceptible to these offenses, being charged with these offenses, but then it leads to perhaps a license being suspended or some other offense so that it ends up with a multi-count information, not all of which is available for expungement or at least expungement without a petition being filed. That's a quick summary, if you will, an overview of our view of this bill. We didn't oppose it in Senate judiciary, but certainly made Senate judiciary aware of the same issues I'm talking to you about now. And I don't know what happened when it went to the floor of the Senate. But certainly coming out of Senate judiciary, there was recognition that there was a significant resource issue and fiscal impact in doing what they wanted to do. Thank you, Your Honor. I do have a question about that though. I'm looking at the memo and it does involve four bills. And this S294, we're only looking at two sections of it. So I'm wondering in terms of are you able to say that million dollars, how much of that is attributable to this bill or was that for all of those bills? It's certainly the memo related to all those bills. I can't tell you today how much of it would relate to the two provisions of this bill other than to say that this bill, it almost goes back forever. In other words, it would be a still significant part of that. I would have to go back through the other bills to see what number one, what happened to them, but what they involved. But this was significant in part because there's really no time limit on how far back we have to go. So I think it would be significant. I cannot, obviously I can't tell you that the full million but it was significant. Thank you. Barbara. Thanks. Hi, Judge Gerson. Great to see you. Good to see you too, Representative Gerson. Good to see you forever. So I'm wondering, it looks like a lot of states are doing automatic expungement now or municipalities. And we were just hearing too about DMV and how long it's taking them per case to spend on clearing the records on their end. So again, I'm wondering if we were to, when you talk about the cost of doing this, I'm thinking about the cost of not doing it. And what does that mean in terms of societal cost of somebody not getting a job or not getting their federal grant to attend college. So I guess I, it sounds like you're in agreement with the policy and it's sort of up to the legislature to figure out how do we help government to sort of catch up with this effort. And now that California and huge states are doing it, you know, what, how did they accomplish it? And can we make it easier on our governmental agencies to do what we know is the right thing to do? I'm not sure I can answer that question completely, but I'll start by saying, again, because of the policy nature of this bill, we neither take a position in favor or oppose it, but we certainly respect the policy and understand it. But you're right, when you talk about the balance of the benefit to society as a whole, if people can get re-employed, that's really a decision for the legislature to make. You have to make that, you have to do the balancing and say, yes, we know that this is going to be expensive to do, this is a system that was created by the legislature that we maintain these records. There are any number of rules and regulations that require us to maintain these records over the years and now we're being asked to remove or expunge them. And so I agree with you that there is a balancing of the benefit to society, but there's a cost involved and it's only the legislature that can say we believe as a legislature that we recognize there's a cost involved in doing this work and there's a greater benefit if we invest that money to have these obstacles removed. Right, that's the best answer I can give. And I thought this week in particular, just looking at expungement, and maybe this is, I don't mean to make this political, but it just sort of struck me that the, and I don't remember which of Trump's sons raised the issue of the police shooting in Kenosha that the person had a police, but he had a prior police record. And again, I just think about how the stigma and bias as a society that we place on that kind of information, whether it was true or not, but I feel like it keeps coming up and being used against people and either, and again, I realize it's not something that you're gonna take a position on, but either we have faith that people can change or why are we, if we're just branding them for life, why are we bothering to just feels like we have conflicting things going on, I guess. No question, we have conflicting issues going on. I would say two things by way of clarification. I think we have to be careful in using the term expungement when I think what most of these states are really doing are sealing. And Representative LaVon knows that in the Sentencing Commission discussions that I have attempted to bring up, and it's not an issue for today with respect to this bill, but this idea of sealing and then expungement, we don't really need this two-step process. And the Pennsylvania bill, at least for what I'm reading on Google, and I'll get back to Google in a minute, indicates that what has been referred to as an automatic expungement is really a sealing that continues to allow for access for certain entities, which I think is an important difference in the two, but at the same time, when we're talking about what protection and the benefit, you have to ask yourselves, is there a benefit to having a two-step process versus simply sealing? And then I'll go back to this point, and I don't know where whichever Senate was got his information, but whether it's expunged or sealed, society now allows me to Google in a matter of minutes, while your witness was testifying to find out what was written about the Pennsylvania expungement law, and I'm assuming that if I put somebody's name in Google, I could find out if they had a criminal record and the information in that Google entry may be completely wrong, and whether it's been expunged or sealed or not, it's out there, and how can I put this? When I started on the bench, getting anything expunged was almost impossible, it was extremely rare, and we've come a long ways, and this is another step in that process, but as we expand the offenses and the timeframe involved in doing that, it does come with an attendant cost to be able to do that work and clear these records. I'm not trying to come in as the doomsayer here, I'm just saying this has to be a recognition of what's involved in doing this process. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else for Judge Gerson, before we finish up with Terry, we are at time, but I think if we could just hear from Terry, that would be helpful. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I just had to remember to unmute, excuse me. I think the term automatic, what I do wanna recognize is that the term automatic, which I think people think of as the defendants, the people who carry the records don't have to petition the court, that they don't have to, as the first young man spoke about, they don't have to come forward to work to get that done, that there would be a time element and then the court would take care of it. We right now for the cases, for the marijuana cases, right now they go back probably into, when our case management system first started keeping records and there are records prior to that, that were handwritten records that are on the old microfilm, microfilm ended in 2007. And those are the difficult ones because, and it would be great at some point to talk to, to Tanya Marshall at Public Records, at the CERA, because those, they're not able to scratch off anymore. And so, a new index will need to be kept there to ensure that nobody can access those because they just can't get them off the microfilm at this point. And again, just to talk a little bit about the process, it is like not unlike the DMV, it's about a 20, over a few days per case, we figured out it's about a 20 to 25 minute process. By the time you create your certification, your letters, you're getting information out to all of the parties, the state's attorneys and making sure the respondent gets notice. But as we've seen, we would get a lot of those letters back because the addresses we have from those older cases would mostly not be available. I think right now, I've been trying to work efficiently with my RIS department and get some information. There's a lot of cases out there. They go back to, like I said, that we can find on our system that started in 1991. But I would be happy to provide you with some numbers as soon as I get them in. And that would just be for the convictions. There were multiple, multiple charges that over time, many people attended diversion programs and also had dismissals by the state. But again, if those were a piece of a multi-count charge as Judge Gerson noted, 7606, those do remain available on the paper file. They would be removed from our case management system. So if you're just looking at a docket sheet only, there would be that blank charge number. But in the file, if somebody chooses to look at a file, they would be able to find that charge was there. So if there are other questions, I'd be happy to answer. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate your testimony. Again, looking for hands. Don't see anybody at this point. Judge Gerson, do you want to add something? I think you're muted still. I just, something Terry mentioned reminded me of something I wanted to bring up my testimony. And that is because of the change brought about by COVID-19 and the AO49 that whatever the legislature does with this bill, we could not, I can't imagine we can comply with a July 2021 date for all the reasons I testified to before. And if the committee wants, we can try to clarify the fiscal impact as it relates to this particular bill. Thank you. We can look into that further. Yeah, I think the resource issue will still remain, you know, that we will need the folks to do this because the numbers will be so extreme. And along those same lines, it really needs to be part of this fiscal year because even if our work is delayed as a result of AO49, we still need to go through the recruitment to training process so that if it begins on, let's say April 1st, we have the staff available to do that work, even if the timeline is extended. So thank you. Great, great, thank you. And it would be helpful to look at just the impact of the fiscal impact of these two sections as opposed to all the four bills. Great, okay, thank you. I just see that Bobby Sand joined in and we're, Bobby, I'm sorry, but we actually need to adjourn, but this is not the only day we're gonna be doing this. So, okay, so thank you. Okay. Being late. Great, okay. So committee witnesses, Michelle, I know we didn't get to you, but we are 10 minutes over and I didn't give us a break. So I do want to adjourn, but we will get back to this on Friday. Members, committee members, if you have questions, other folks that you would like to hear from on expungement, kind of best expungement, please do let me know. Michelle, before we adjourn, did you have anything that you wanted to say? No. Okay, great, I just saw you come on so I just wanted to make sure. Okay, great. Next time I see your hands up. Yeah, I was just wondering on the agenda, it just says to be announced, but will that be a 1030 to 1230 on Friday? The times are there, but I just wanted to make sure that those will be the times just for planning work and that type of thing. So it will, it does change next week. Catherine just finalized it. So I'll get that out to folks. But I am hoping that maybe we could lock in our times next week and that those will be the times going on. So we don't have to do a week by week. No, I was just wondering about Friday. Yeah, no, this isn't on Friday. Yeah, the reason why, I wasn't sure how far we would get today and who else we would need. So yes. Okay, so we'll plan on 1030 to 1230 Friday. Right. Okay, great, thank you. Great. Okay, anybody else? Okay. Well, why don't we go off? It's a journey and go off you too.