 This is February 4th. This is Senate Government Operations Committee. And I will, for those of you who aren't normally with us, I will tell you kind of what our rules are. We have a few, not very many rules, but we try to have the same kind of rules that we would have if we were in the room. You know, in the state house, and that means that the committee members, the chair is in charge, the committee members and staff, our attorneys are the primary people in the, in the room. The witnesses will be called on and it's, depending on what the issue is, we sometimes just have a general round table discussion where we invite people to join. But in many cases, it's more formal than that. And we do not use chat. In our opinion, chat is like a side conversation going on in the committee room. And if we were in the committee room, we wouldn't allow those conversations. We would ask people to leave and go have their conversation in the hallway. So we don't use chat except Gail might use it for posting links or information about documents or sites that are given by people. And then she will also put those on the document record for the next day when we come back. Does that make sense, everybody? Okay. All right. So with that, we are today looking at the issue of, excuse me, public records. By around arrests. Of juveniles. And I don't know if everybody got it. There was a. I don't know if anybody else had a chance to read it. But I'm sure we'll hear the same testimony. Today. The same position on that. So. I think. I'm looking to see if there's any questions. Okay. Yeah. And editorial in there today about this. And I read it. I don't know if anybody else had a chance to read it. But I'm sure we'll hear the same testimony. Today. The same position on that. I'm looking to see, I think what we'll do is. Start with Tucker has a, I believe a. A draft. For us and we'll start with him walking through that for us so that we can. See where we are and what we're dealing with. And then we'll take testimony on that and general. Okay. All right. So Tucker, do you want to. Absolutely. Good afternoon for the record. Tucker Anderson office of legislative council. Gail, do I have screen sharing authority? Do I have the wand? I've got it. All right. So hopefully you can all see the bill on your screen. I'm going to walk you through some of the proposed draft language here. And then I'm going to go ahead and give some brief explanation of some of the clauses that are included in what they mean. For a public records act exemption and how the process plays out. And then I will show you some similar exemptions in the public records act. And I'll explain the conundrum of one VSA section three, 17 sub E. And section two of this bill. So to begin. The law enforcement exemptions. It contains. A new exemption within the law enforcement exemptions. Contained in one VSA section three, 17 C. Sub division five. As you recall the issue with this subdivision in the context of juvenile records. Is that subdivision five B. States that notwithstanding the law enforcement exemptions. Reflecting the initial arrest of a person. Including any ticket citation or complaint issued for a traffic violation. And records reflecting the charge of a person. Shall be public. And this subdivision requires that a public agency. That holds these records relating to the initial arrest of a person. Or the charge of a person. Must release those records under the procedures of the public records act. In the case of a person. This had some tension with specific protections around law enforcement in court records relating to a person. Who is under the jurisdiction of the family court. In a juvenile or juvenile diversion proceeding. This language. Would clarify this subdivision five B. And state that. A public agency. Shall not release any information. Within a record. That reflects the initial arrest or charge of a juvenile. And I'll highlight that term. So I'm not sure based on the policy choices of the committee, whether that's the right term here. That would reveal the identity of the juvenile. The policy choices that you made during your last meeting. You wanted to allow the public agency rather require the public agency. To withhold identifying information contained within the record. There are two things to keep in mind here. First, this is mandatory language. It states that the public agency shall not release any information. That would reveal the identity of the juvenile. That means that the public agency is not going to be performing a balancing test. They are required to withhold this information under no circumstances. That means that the public agency is not going to be performing a balancing test. Second, this is a moving target. The exemption applies to any information within a record. That would reveal the identity of a juvenile. And the thing to keep in mind about this type of exemption is that it triggers two types of responses. They cover a broad array of information within a record. The public agency when they are applying an exemption like this has to take into consideration the universe of information that would allow the public to identify the juvenile. So depending on the context of the record and the way that the request is submitted, the public agency is going to have to withhold any information that the public agency believes or knows would identify the individual juvenile. Senator Collamore brought this up last time when he talked about particularly small Vermont municipalities where an offender in this case may be well known based on really any information contained within the record. It would show where they live, what their name is, potentially what the offense was, the public agency is going to have to withhold all information that would lead to an identification of the juvenile. That's the mosaic response. Can I ask a clarifying question while we're on different sections? Yeah. So just to clarify, we only have jurisdiction over public agencies. It doesn't make sense to try and speak about an individual within a public agency or a private entity that was on the scene, like a towing company or anything like that. This is the only place that we're going to have this jurisdiction regardless. And is there, I'm just wondering, so when we say public agency, does that cover any individual who works in the public agency? And we just know we don't have private jurisdiction over anyone else on the scene. We'll jump off from the latter part of your question there. That is the case. This applies to public agencies, which in this case means executive branch agencies and municipalities and their officers. So when you apply and we talked last time about these express mandatory exemptions where you say you shall not release any information or the clause that is typically used is shall keep confidential. You're applying a duty of confidentiality to the public agency that has to be carried out by its officers. And last time we talked a little bit about are there any penalties associated with the unauthorized release of this information? And the answer is broadly that it depends on the type of information being released, whether the statute that mandates confidentiality has its own specific penalties for release of the information, whether there's any overlap with federal law. So for example, patient privacy and information. And whether there is any potentially negligent act that led to the release of the information by a public officer. So we discussed the mosaic response. The one other type of response that I want to highlight for you so that you are aware of the full context of this type of exemption is what's known as a GLOMAR response. GLOMAR responses are the least favored nation of public records act responses. Would you spell that for me? G-L-O-M-A-R. Hopefully I spelled that correctly. GLOMAR response is famously that the public agency can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the record. And these responses come up specifically and are triggered by types of requests. I'll give you an example. We have said here that the public agency shall not release any information within a record that would reveal the identity of the juvenile. If the requester says I would like any record relating to the arrest of John Smith in Cavendish. John Smith is a juvenile. The public agency cannot confirm that the record exists because they would necessarily be identifying the juvenile. Right? Now if the requester had submitted a request and said I want all arrests related to X subject for the last week and it happened to include John Smith, juvenile in Cavendish, they could release a record with certain information redacted. But not when the request specifically identifies the juvenile that is the subject of the record. I'll give you an example. Section two, this is optional. And another policy choice that has to be made by the committee, but I wanted to flag it for your attention. Two or three years ago, if memory serves right, the public records act was amended in one VSA section 317. To add a requirement that public records act exemptions are repealed five years after enactment or substantive amendment. Now, of course, future assemblies are not bound by this sort of statute. So if a public records act exemption passes without a repeal section expressly repealing it, it's not going to repeal on its own. So the choice has to be made every time. Whether an exemption is going to be subject to review for repeal in five years or whether you're going to say, this exemption should continue in perpetuity. We're not going to review it in five years. And for your reference, there's a list put together by the Office of Legislative Council of all of the exemptions that will be subject to review starting in 2024 will be the first year of review. And it's available on the General Assembly's website. Section three deals with custody of the records at the time that a proceeding starts in the court. It goes to the section that deals with court and law enforcement records that relate to a proceeding of a juvenile under the jurisdiction of the court. And it adds new language here that states that when a person is subject to the jurisdiction of the court pursuant to this chapter, the court shall become the sole records custodian. Important clause coming up for purposes of responding to any request for court or law enforcement records concerning the person. So what does this do? This states that at the point that a proceeding actually starts and the title 33 confidentiality provisions are triggered. The court becomes the only agency in the state that may respond to a request for law enforcement or court records relating to the juveniles proceeding. It further states here that the public agency shall direct any request for the records to the courts for response. So if any public agency in the state receives a request for these sorts of records and the proceedings have begun, the public agency will direct the requester to the courts for a response. The reason that we have this clause here for purposes of responding to any request is that custodians have more duties than just responding. So custodianship of these records for purposes of records management and preservation are still going to stay with the public agencies that are performing the initial arrest or charge. It's only the response duty of the custodian that is passing to the courts at the time the proceeding starts. The effective date here is listed as July 1, 2021. That is the content of the bill. I covered it, but I wanted to bring it up and show you in case you had any curiosity of some of the PRA existing language that may be relevant here. If we look at the C5 law enforcement exemptions, there is a similar exemption in application and operation in subdivision 5D. We talked about this last year with some of the public records act work that you were doing at the beginning of the session. This requires that a public agency shall not reveal information that could be used to facilitate the commission of the crime. Here is the important part. Or shall not reveal the identity of a private individual or a victim of a crime. There is a follow-up clause unless withholding the identity or information would conceal government wrongdoing. But this type of identity protective moving target exemption exists in statute already protecting the identities of witnesses to or victims of crimes. You may have heard testimony in the past about how this is applied differently depending on public agencies. I wanted to highlight it for you to refresh your recollection of some of the discussions last year about the Glomar responses and the Mosaic responses. And then I wanted to bring up the 1VSA 317E language in E2 here. That legislation that enacts or subjectively amends an exemption shall explicitly provide for its repeal on July 1 of the fifth year after the effective date of the exemption. So that's that section two piece that we covered. That is all I have for you unless you have questions after the walk-through. Committee does any. Senator Polina and then Senator Colomar. This is a clarifying question. I think I know the answer to it. But you talk Tucker about that this comes into play after the proceedings begin. You mentioned that phrase a couple of times. When do the proceedings begin? In other words, if I commit a crime and I'm arrested on Monday night, the proceedings begin right then and there or some later time. So I may have been in artful in that description. It's triggered. That provision is triggered when the person comes under jurisdiction of the court. And that is the. Term that is used all through the chapter, the protections apply when a person is under jurisdiction of the court. That is when the. States attorney has referred to the case for juvenile proceedings. Rather than going to. Criminal court. That would be at the very beginning of all this. In other words, a crime is committed or I'm arrested and it starts right then and there. So the timeline. You're going to have to take some testimony. Okay. About this from the experts in the area, but the timeline varies considerably depending on the type of offense in the case in question. And. For. Legislative purposes from your legislative council, what you're building here. Two. Temporal phases. First. Public agency either arrests formally charges, right? They have a record that is subject to the public records of the court. They have a record that is subject to the public records of the court. And in fact, they are a custodian that can respond. Then you have this hard temporal line. As soon as it comes, the person is under the jurisdiction of the court. The courts become the custodian. So. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought that our intent. Was, and I thought that the way this reads, I mean, that's the way it is now. That's the way it is now. And that's the way it is now. That's the way it is now. That's the way it is now. That. The arrest record. The immediate immediately. It is exempt from public records requests. That's not when it becomes under the jurisdiction of the court. That's the way it is now. And that's the problem. So there are two separate pieces. So. The identifying information in the record. Is exempt. Period. That's section one. That's section one. That's section one. That's section one. That's section one. That's the exemption. The other piece that you're tackling here. Is who is responsible for responding to the request. And the answer depends on the phase and. The reason that that. Temporal line was chosen is that there was testimony at the last meeting. That not. All cases may actually be referred to court. And we state that custodianship of all of these records belong solely to the courts. Then what happens to access to the record? Who is responsible. For these, those particular subsets of records. So that there is a record and it might be subject to public records request. But. All it could say was there was a fatal accident. On route 30. At 2 30 in the morning. And it couldn't. An unidentified juvenile was involved. Or it may be the actual, whatever the actual arrest record is with identifying information redacted. And again, that's going to change depending on the context, you know, a more populous municipality with more routine offense. You may only be redacting the name. Address and other identifying information related to the record. And you may not be able to identify the person. In other cases, you may have to redact more to protect the identity of the person. Okay. Yeah, got it. Senator column or did you have a question? I have actually three or four, but I'll start with this one. So Tucker, if this law was in effect. And I don't remember what day it was, but there was a situation. At the university mall this past week. Where there was the shooting. And the police might be able to identify the person. And the police might end up in juvenile court might not. If the state's attorney decides to file charges. How would we be addressing public safety. In kind of that same case where the police might be actually. Hoping the public could help find the shooter. If we were withholding the information. I'm also remembering a situation at fair haven high school. The police might be able to identify the person. If they were in a situation where. One of the. I don't was a student at the time or a former student. We was going to shoot up the school. But the identity of that person. I believe was, was released immediately. In hopes of finding the person so that the public safety issue could be addressed. Am I, am I correct by saying that this was an effect. Police would not have been able to. To identify the person. If they were in a situation where the police might be able to identify the person. If they were in a situation where the police might be able to identify characteristics of those, of those people. So I would question whether in either of those cases, the public agency was. Releasing information contained in a. Initial arrest record. Or a charge record. Right. This is saying that in the case that you have an initial arrest record, you're not going to be able to identify the person. You're not going to be able to identify the person. In the case of those cases, if those records don't exist yet. And the law enforcement agency is carrying out a duty related to public safety by releasing the name. You know, this is. This particular exemption you're dealing with here. Is dealing with a very. It's dealing with a specific carve out in a general law enforcement exemption. That's the reason why I think that in the case of these cases, there are no exceptions to the public records act. But in the case of arrest records. And records relating to the charge of a person. You have to release those. And we're further saying if you're going to release those particular records. And it relates to a juvenile. You have to remove identifying information. Okay. Here's another question. And I still have a couple of others, but I'll wait until anybody else wants to weigh in. So let's say that there. What's your opinion on this issue that. Is under proceeding, and it was in juvenile court. What about the issue of DMV and. Fish and wildlife situations where. The. One of the public agencies might have wanted to. Suspend a license. Or, you know, a fishing or hunting license or driving license, but they wouldn't be able to access those records because they'd be confidential. there's actually a charge, not on arrest. If there's an arrest, say somebody is charged with a DUI and they want us to spend their license, it doesn't take effect, that doesn't take effect until there's an arraignment in court. So at that time, the arrest record doesn't get rid of the driver's license or the hunting license. No, I realize that Madam Chair, but what I'm saying is if this bill didn't list all the exemptions, the outcome of the hearing, there's already been a hearing and a charge has been issued and we have a decision, but the decision is confidential. How would DMV and the Fish and Wildlife folks know about the decision that's already been made in court? If it goes to juvenile court, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is my understanding from Judiciary Committee that if it goes to juvenile court, the juvenile court can impose those sanctions that they could say you have to go to diversion, you lose your license for this long of a time, you lose your hunting license, they're going to set the parameters, but it's still a confidential record, but it isn't as if just because it goes to juvenile court, nothing happens to them. Okay. Senator Collamore, I'm going to balk at part of this and get a better answer for you moving forward about information sharing between public agencies, but what Senator White just brought up is an excellent point that the, this is not going to control the court's disclosure or disposition of the records. And if the Judicial Bureau is going to pass along some sort of, you know, consequence related to a driving license, driver's license driving permit, they can give that information to the DMV. There was another question last time that I was prepared for about whether the DMV would still be disclosing certain types of driver reports that are related to these sort of offenses and the Federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act and the Public Records Act do work together. So disclosures under the DPPA are discretionary. And Vermont law as far as discretionary release of that sort of data and information is concerned does take Vermont's Public Records Act into consideration. So if this general exemption we're put in the Public Records Act is my understanding that it would also carry over to the types of data and reports that the DMV is allowed to release under a discretionary release in the DPPA. And I can send you some citations about that. Okay. I do have one other, but I'll certainly- No, go ahead, go ahead. So I remember when I was in school and I'm talking about insurance companies now, we would get a break on rates if we had a certain great point average and all that kind of stuff. And if we had a good driving record, I remember that. If the insurance companies have no access to the driving records, how would that affect this whole landscape? In other words, the rates would be based on good driving records. They don't have any information on that. So how could insurance companies offer that service anymore? And I don't know whether Mike Pitchak or somebody from DFR might wanna weigh in on that. Those are some of the questions that I thought about over the last couple of days. Yeah, we'll hear from them on that. I'm not sure how they would do the good driver benefit if they did suspend the license. If the juvenile court did suspend the license, then they could require an SR-22 in order to get that license back. I mean, that could be part of the deal, but... What's an SR-22? Oh, I'm sorry. An SR-22 is it's a high-risk insurance pool. It's for people who've had many accidents or DUIs or it's called a sign. I always knew I didn't wanna jump in that pool. I don't know what it means, but I know it's called an SR-22. Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Any other questions of clarification for Tucker on this? All right, well, seeing no other questions of clarification, let's go then to... I'm going to... We have two members of the media with us. Speaking of media, did anybody read Bill Schubart's column the other day about social media and what on earth is social about what we call social media? It was a really good article because there is nothing social about that. But anyway, so, and then we have Sheriff Anderson and Mike Schirling. Does any... First of all, let me ask, does anybody have a time constraint here that would require them to go earlier than later? If so, just let me know. Madam Chair, I just need to be off by 2.30. I thought that was the schedule for the agenda? It probably is. But and so if we start getting closer to where people have to move and we aren't done yet, please speak up and we'll fit you in. So does the administration have a position on this at all? Are you... Do you want to weigh in or are you kind of listening to see where we go? And you're directing that to me? Yes, yes. Oh, I just... I mean, I wanted to thank you. I mean, first of all, for the record, Jay Pershing Johnson, Governor's Legal Counsel. I just wanted to thank the committee for the invitation. I just wanted to make a short statement. So it's not really at this point, weighing in on the bill. And I know that some of the explanation that Tucker has given may give rise to questions. But I just had a short, a couple of short observations generally. Do you want to give them now or do you want to wait? I don't mind giving them now, but it's really your pleasure. No, that's fine. Please do. Okay. So first of all, I did want to acknowledge that I know that lawmakers are always trying to balance competing and conflicting policy concerns. And that this task is particularly difficult when balancing concerns for confidentiality and the availability of public records. You know, I just speaking on behalf of the governor, greater transparency. And I think most elected officials, greater transparency of records is something that we've tried to reinforce across the governmental enterprise. We understand that the principles of restorative justice guide our work in the areas of child and family services, law enforcement, pretrial and diversion services and corrections. We believe our communities are safer when people, you know, especially juveniles get the services they need so that they don't repeat offenses. That said, we also value the safety of our roads and our communities and transparency in government and access by the media and all Vermonters to government records. I really, my observation is limited at this time to the VSP media policy that was originally worked out in 2017 and modified really just administratively in 2019, which I'm happy to share with the committee if they're interested. But at that time, the commissioner of public safety considered applicable law and feedback from the media and spent a great time of a great deal of time in discussions with members of the media on the policy. So that's been in place for four years. And we believe it reflects a reasonable compromise position which strikes the right balance of protections for juveniles involved in the justice system and the transparency, I think demanded by the media and all Vermonters. It is limited in what is disclosed about juveniles now, but it does currently allow the release of a name to age the gender and the town of residents of juveniles in the instances when an involved party in a motor vehicle crash is identified based on their involvement in the crash. So operator, passenger, pedestrian, et cetera. It would not address any legal status whether it would be in family court or criminal court. We would release that information for individuals issued of Vermont's civil violation complaint, I think which reflects the balancing between criminal complaints and civil complaints. And then we also release information when the release and includes a photograph would aid in locating a missing person. So really to Senator Kalmler's point as the legislature and this committee in particular undertakes the process to achieve greater clarity and consistency in the law, which we do believe is important. We urge the committee to consider testimony from all agencies, which might have a nexus with juvenile records. So such as DMV for CDL licensing, Senator Kolomer's point, DFR for automobile insurance purposes, possibly Secretary of State for licensing purposes and maybe even agency of education on teacher licensing and daycare and school employee background checks. I know some of this runs headlong into the area of the judiciary committees, which are considering matters such as sealing and expungement of records and raising the age. Right now, a juvenile is no longer 18, a juvenile will be 19. And for youthful offenders, that goes up to age 22. So it's really a matter of, you know, again, the balancing of policy concerns. So with respect to the bill, I guess if I'm reading it correctly, civil tickets and citations would still be subject to disclosure since they are not arrests or charges. And on the subject of custody of records, a delinquent act does not currently include motor vehicle offenses committed by an individual who is at least 16 years of age. So they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the family court. It seems to me in the first part, their names couldn't be disclosed potentially if it's a criminal violation, but then those records would remain, I guess with the law enforcement agency or DMV. Anyway, so I just, that may be an area where you might wanna consider greater clarity with respect to civil violations. Thank you. Okay, we'll make sure we hear from all of these other people. Senator Clarkson, did you have a question? Yeah, Jay's point about youthful offenders. And I, are we including youthful offenders in this and additional to juveniles? Or are they incorporated under the definition of juvenile? Quite honestly, I am not completely sure how the juvenile offender laws work together with youthful offenders. I believe there's a great deal of overlap, but I just, I could not tell you with any certainty, you would need to speak to someone like, maybe from the state's attorney's office who could give you more information about how that would overlap and what effect this might have. Or if we want to include them. Or if you want to expand it. Yeah, if that was your intent. Yes. I suspect that David Sher can help us answer that question we get when we get there. And my understanding is that the juvenile is going to continue to be raised successfully, successively each year. And the youthful offender, well, I'll let him, explain it, but so, yeah, we'll have David explain that when we get there. Right, because I thought our long-term hope was to raise it and I didn't realize there was a differentiation and that we were, because of what we know now about brain development, but we were slowly taking that up to age 25. I don't think- And I thought it was both youthful offenders. I thought that juvenile encompassed youthful offender. I do believe youthful offenders are often referred to family court. I can't tell you if it's the same process with respect to reference to family court as it is in a delinquency proceeding. I just don't have the expertise to address that. So instead of prolonging the conversation right now, David, why don't you just jump in? Oh, is David with us? Oh, great. There he is. Thank you. Good afternoon everybody for the record, David Sher with the Attorney General's office. Senator, as you were referencing me, I was desperately looking for a piece that I wrote for myself about the various rather complex interplays between juvenile jurisdiction and youthful offender. Let me try to give a very brief, without having found that, let me try to give a very brief overview of what the basic structure is. When we're talking about young people who are subject to either a criminal charge or potentially a delinquency petition or youthful offender petition, both of which are essentially synonyms for a criminal charge. We're just using a different term because they're going into a different court, not criminal court. The way that system works is a tiered system where different types of charges and different ages mean that a young person might be subject to different types of jurisdiction. So, most offenses, if somebody is under the eligibility age for juvenile court, which you're right is shifting upward each year, but if most offenses, if they're under that age, will be referred to juvenile court, there are a set of crimes where much more serious offenses where somebody who is a juvenile might start out instead in adult court and regular criminal court. And again, the details get very involved because there's different age strata here that come into play and I could give the committee a written writeout of all those different things. I'm just trying to give an overview of the concepts here. So, young people depending on the charge may be, are likely to be a juvenile court and more serious charges, they may be subject to adult jurisdiction. For somebody who would otherwise be subject to adult jurisdiction under a certain age, those individuals could be subject to a youthful offender petition. A youthful, once you get a youthful offender status, you are treated in almost all respects as though you are a subject to juvenile delinquency. The one difference is that if you are under youthful offender, you could be kicked back over to adult court if you're not fulfilling the terms of your, either of your pretrial conditions or more likely of your post adjudication probation or whatever sort of conditions you're expected to fulfill. A juvenile cannot, somebody who's subject to regular juvenile delinquency jurisdiction cannot ever be kicked over to adult criminal court. And the youthful people who might be able to access youthful offender are either people who are over the age of eligibility for juvenile delinquency court, but under 22. Those are people who would otherwise be charged in adult court, but a prosecutor may elect to instead charge them or make them subject to a youthful offender petition. Or if you are under that juvenile age, which keeps shifting upward and will continue shifting upward for the next year. And the law says that your initial jurisdiction was going to be in adult criminal court because you committed one of the more serious offenses. That's another time when a prosecutor may elect to charge somebody as a youthful offender. I hope that was helpful. That's a bit of an overview of how that all plays together. If I heard attorney Anderson correctly, I believe he was saying that the term juvenile as it is in this subdivision is at present not fully defined and it would be something the committee would have to think about as to how we, how you all define that to more precisely capture those various potential statuses. Thank you. Does that answer questions for people? I know it's a very complicated system. Well, it does make me think that in terms of this issue of public records that we shouldn't be including juvenile offender, youthful offenders because it's really a differentiation that's made at court about where they're going to be charged. But in terms of its impact on their life in terms of what we're talking about here, it might make sense to include youthful offenders or define juvenile for the purposes of the Public Records Act to include youthful offenders. And though the, so under this law, the way I read it is that if some, that the initial arrest record or whatever would not include defining information, identifying information, but once, if a juvenile was then went to criminal court instead of family court, that would, that's immediately a public record because criminal court, they're public records. Am I right about that, David Tucker? I would defer to Attorney Anderson on the intention behind the drafting. I will note that I'm not my read of it right now. And again, I defer if I'm off on this, is that that point you just made is not fleshed out under this proposal fully. And that is probably something we want to flesh out fully. It does seem like somebody who ends up in adult court, those normal public records rules would make sense for them to apply, but I'll let Attorney Anderson flesh that out a little more. Thank you, David. It is not fleshed out in the exemption as it's drafted. I did highlight the term juvenile for you. In earlier testimony, you've heard about the moving target of the term subject to the person subject to the jurisdiction of the court. In reviewing those chapters in title 33, I think that is somewhat intentional because the age or identifying factors for those people is going to completely change depending on which chapter the court process is taking place under, which leads me to an error in the draft that I should probably note for you. There is a clause in there that says a person who is subject to the court pursuant to this chapter. And as the discussion was happening, I think that if you're going to move forward pursuant to this chapter would have to be struck and just keep the term a person who is subject to the jurisdiction of the court because there are actually three chapters where the person is subject to the court. It's not just the general provisions trapdoor. So my apologies for that drafting error. Well, we all caught that and we were surprised. Committee, I know that this is confusing, but let's hear from Mike. Thank you, Jay. And David, are you gonna stay with us? I can stay with you. Okay, thank you. Yes. I mean, before I may just, Madam Chairman, I just ask a clarifying question, David. David, would you think about this? And I mean, I don't know how we come to, how we conclude whether we should include youthful offenders. I mean, would it be your recommendation that we include youthful offenders given in our juvenile definition? I just, in the last, since you all started talking about it is when I started reviewing the language. So I would love to have a little more time and a happy to come back and give testimony on that question in particular. I can certainly see how it would be in line with policy to include people who are ultimately end up being subject to youthful offender. But again, some of those questions about if somebody doesn't end up subject to juvenile court, what happens there? I do think that needs to be clarified. Okay, thanks. Okay. So I guess I am confused about that, but because if they're not subject to juvenile court or to family court, if they go to criminal court, their records are public, whether they're a juvenile or not, we're talking about people. Yeah, but if they're arrested and they're a little older, but they would be a youthful offender, but not a juvenile, then their record would be released. However, for the court's purpose until, I mean, well, Tucker may have a better answer than you were raising, sorry. I wanted to highlight what could become a crystal ball issue or a time machine issue here, which is that the term juveniles being used right now, you're discussing what that means in the context of proceedings that are starting later than the arrest and the charge. So the question is, how do you narrow that down to a definable known term for the public agency that's responding to a request before it is referred to court and it comes under the court's custody? They're going to have to be able to figure that out. By the time that some of these youthful offender or diversionary processes are taking place, the public agency under this bill, likely is already gonna have to respond to a request. And by that point under the bill again, is not gonna be the custodian who is responsible for responding. So you're gonna have to find a term that is defined and known to the responding public agency at that time. I think that we can do that, but I'd like to hear first from Mike and Lisa, who wants to go first here? I have six minutes, Madam Chair, before I could go. I'm sorry, Commissioner, I'm glad you spoke up. That's quite all right. For the record, Mike Sherlin, Commissioner of Public Safety, it strikes me listening to where you're at now if I might offer a suggestion that rather than having this bifurcated delineation of what happens with the initial contact and then what happens when it gets to particular courts, simply saying something like the records related to juvenile cases are public, only if and when they are charged as an adult in court or charged in criminal court or whatever that correct moniker is, that creates a single point at which there's a decision and then it restricts access to the biographical information prior to that point. Right now it's operationalizing this with a couple thousand people, three or 4,000 people and the criminal justice system is gonna be quite complicated. That said, I just wanted to also flag, I think it was Senator Kalamor mentioned, it might be helpful to have a notwithstanding clause of some sort indicating that publicity can occur at any age if there is an articulable risk to the public. So for example, the thing that happened at the University Mall, that suspect is wanted and not in custody right now, we do need to maintain the ability to put that information out publicly. And in some cases that may be for juvenile offenders as well that actually do pose an ongoing articulable risk to the public and we do need to be able to release their information to ensure an ongoing public safety. So it might be helpful to have a single line that says something like that. Yeah, Tucker, you got that right. Yeah, that makes sense. There's a difference between protecting the public and just letting people know who it was that did something. Yeah, it goes to the balance between that everyone's been focused on for so many weeks now. I had other observations, but I think that the first one that I made is sort of a synthesis of the various notes that I was making as the conversation was unfolding. So that may be the quickest way or they're the most simplistic way to get to an end without having to weave your way through lots of different minefields. Okay, that's a good suggestion. So my, thank you, Commissioner. And we will, clearly we won't finish this today. We will do this again next Thursday. Thursday seems to be the day when we can get media people here. Sounds good, thank you. Okay, all right, thank you. Mike? I think I will defer to our president, Lisa Loomis. I may be precluded from commenting further on it because I am covering this case involving the 16 year old who got the $220 fine for killing people. So I'm gonna defer to Lisa, I think, and go from there. Okay. All right, thank you. Lisa? Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. And since the press association has not seen a copy of the bill or we're just seeing it for the first time, we would like to defer and hear from others, including Commissioner Pichak. I can say generally that the press association and its member newspapers across the state are standing strongly in favor of transparency as always. And we believe in the release of public records. Shutting off public records or reducing access to them goes against our constitution and against the longstanding statement of purpose for the public records acts, as well as the attorney general's ruling and the state police policy. We stand ready. We also are having a full board issue next week to look at this and we will be happy to address this in greater ones that's taking place. Okay. Thank you. So who else do we have here with us? Sheriff Anderson. Oh, and we have Carol Dawes. Oh, I think Carol, are you here for this or for the next one? The next one. Okay. So Sheriff Anderson, would you like to weigh in on this? I think he just left. I know that he's been having trouble with and just for information, he's been having trouble with his connection and also a number of his emails, if you are expecting emails from him go into our trash for some reason. I thought he was ignoring me and in fact, his emails were in my trash bucket. Madam chair, he just sent me a note that he had to leave. Okay. All right. Well, I think that we will continue this conversation. And maybe, I'm wondering if it might also be good to have, I think Bryn is the one that deals with this to see if she can join us also for some of the more technical questions. Does that make sense? Sure. Okay. I'll pull it right here. All right, so let's make sure that we get everybody here next Thursday and everybody is prepared to, we will send out, we'll have Tucker send out the draft, whatever we have to everybody so that everybody sees it and then we'll be prepared to take testimony on it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I can't even remember what we're doing next. Oh, election.