 Hello, welcome to the Judge Ben Show. My name is Ben Joseph. I'm a retired Vermont trial judge. About once a month I do an interview with someone about a legal issue that's pending in Vermont. This is somewhat unusual again because I usually meet in the, what is it, the town meeting TV? Channel 17? Usually meet in their studio, which you can't do now because of the virus. So this is the second interview that I've taped here in, well, eight in the camera man, just taped here. In Battery Park, and we're lucky again. We got a beautiful day. And my guest today is Sarah George, who is the, what's your official title? Chittenden County State's Attorney. Chittenden County State's Attorney. And how long have you been a prosecutor? Almost 10 years. Wow. January will be 10 years. Wow. And how long have you been the State's Attorney? Three years. How many people are in your office? Yeah, 36 people. Wow. 36 prosecutors? No, there's 15 prosecutors and the rest is advocates and staff. You stay at it? Yeah. And actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it'll be four years in January that I've been in this position. Times wise. Yeah, it really does. You're having fun, huh? Yeah. Well, I recently did an interview here with Karen Tronscott Scott, who's the Executive Director of the Network against domestic violence and sex assault. And as a follow-up to that, I'd ask you to come on so we can talk about what your office has to do with these matters. It's really been very sobering to read all about this. I've done some background reading and thought about some of my own experiences on the bench. And part-time, full-time, about 15 years on the bench. So that was some of these matters. So your office, do you have assistants who deal exclusively with these matters? We do. So the office always has a prosecutor who is specifically assigned to the Cousy docket. And what is Cousy? Cousy stands for the Chittenden Unit of Special Investigations. And so they're a special unit within Chittenden County that only deals with sexual violence. And they are made up of specially trained detectives from around the county. And we also have a special prosecutor who does our domestic violence docket. So they are two dockets? Right. Domestic violence, sexual assault? They do, obviously, occasionally overlap. Sometimes they must overlap. Well, roughly, and I know you probably can't put a precise number on it, but how many of these cases do you have in each category during the year, do you know? We get, so the FY19 numbers for Cousy were 350 cases that were sent to our office for either review or prosecution or both. The domestic violence docket is a little harder to track just based on there being multiple agencies sending them. They're harder to track, but I would guess that they're closer to a thousand cases. It's a lot of work. It is a lot of work, and it's especially a lot of work for those two prosecutors who, handling all of them, is really beneficial in a lot of ways. But it is also a really emotionally jarring docket, and it's just, they're complicated legal matters and they're hard cases to prove. There's rarely witnesses. They're tough. They're really tough. Well, my experience suggested to me that delays were particularly difficult in cases like this, because this often is pressure on the complainant. Yep, absolutely. You can change your story or stuff like that. Now, currently there's been a slowdown in the court system, is that right? Yes, that's definitely correct. And I heard, early this summer, I heard that they, they've been a ban on jury trials basically for a while. And they're early this summer, I heard that they were going to start jury trials against September 1st. Is that still true? No, they have delayed that now through the end of the year. By the end of the year, what do you mean you haven't been able to do a jury trial for a year? Close to it. I mean, the court's closed on March 15th, I believe, so... Was that when the jury trial stopped? Yeah, so close to a year. You know, in Chittenden County, we're actually very lucky. We don't have a lot of jury trials. So, and a lot of other counties have a lot, so I do think that we're in a little bit better shape than some others. But if we needed to have one right now, we would not be able to, so it is concerning. Well, does it mean in some cases that delays can get in the case of trial because the defendant wants to have a jury? Right. Just as a, you know, just as a judge, having had the opportunities to look at the Vermont Constitution, which guarantees access to the courts, I'm wondering here about these delays. In fact, there is no access to the courts. Right. Yeah, I mean, the Supreme Court did lay out some pretty helpful language in, like, the reasonableness of what we're doing and the public health safety sort of trumping, for lack of a better word, the Constitution. But I, you know, our office is very cognizant of that, especially the people who are incarcerated right now and unable to have a jury trial and are really working hard, especially on those cases, to make sure that we are really needing to keep them in jail or if we can come to some agreement or if the, on other cases, if the charges don't need to be pending, knowing that this other collateral consequence is so large for so many people right now. It is very difficult, yeah. Well, are some of these people, some of the, some of the people who are pending trial are incarcerated. Right. And that's a problem in itself. Yeah. And then there are people who are out on bail, I think, and they continue out on bail because they can't get the trial. Right. Yeah, I mean, again, in Chittenden County, we don't have, we have a very small number of people out on bail. We don't, I don't personally agree with bail. So we don't have many, but, and we certainly don't have people being held for lack of ability to pay bail. But we do have a, you know, a small number of people being held without bail on pretty serious charges. And those, from my perspective, are really the cases we need to be, like, trying incredibly hard to do everything we can. Well, but if you can't have the jury, if the defendant clearly has the right to a jury trial, if you can't get the jury, you're stuck. Yep. I mean, literally, yeah. Well, the defendant is stuck. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, I don't know, I was briefly in the legislature, and I remember talking about how there should be more resources available so we can get these things done. I didn't make much of an impression, I'm afraid. I wish I had, because I think it's very important. Yeah. Very important. It absolutely is. Well, what effect has the, what effect, if any? I'll be careful with my questioning here. Leading. What effect, if any, has the COVID business had on your operation of your office? Massive. I mean, it's turned us on our heads. And they, I think that the benefit, I really tried in the last four years to decrease the number of people coming into our system at all. Putting a lot more pressure on community partners to take care of issues that really aren't criminal court issues. How do you define that criminal court? People that are just possessing drugs, and so their, their issue is a, is a substance use issue. It's not something that charging them with a crime is going to accomplish, isn't going to cure them, isn't going to get them the treatment they need, or maybe it will, but it's forced. So, or mental health issues, people that are only committing low level misdemeanor crimes because of mental health issues when they just need a service provider. Just using restorative practices far more on cases that are between two parties and there's conflict, but there's not a lot the court can do to resolve that conflict. Trying to divert more cases through all of our diversion practices, or all of our diversion services. So I think that because we've been doing that, we were in a little bit better of a position coming into this that we knew how to do that. We knew how to let communities handle a lot of their cases, and so we've, we've continued to do that. But otherwise, I mean, going from an incredibly busy office with 35 people, you know, our county has over a third of the state's population in it. It's a big office for Vermont to being, you know, having two people there every day and making it work with a couple days notice was a learning experience for all of us. I will say the court has had a harder time adjusting than we have, but you do learn or you do really realize when you're having to do things virtually how much time was wasted prior. You know, how much we really could have been doing much more efficiently that we are now forced to do efficiently. And I frankly hope there's a lot of practices that I hope remain after COVID, calling in for status conferences and not making the offenders show up. It's like, I mean, you've seen it, how many people just sit in that courtroom for an hour at a time for a 30 second status conference. And now we're all calling in from our homes. We're doing other work while other cases are being called. Private attorneys are probably not billing as much as they used to be, but it's been great for us. The downfall is, you know, we can't do evidentiary hearings in the same way. But do you do them remotely? We have been doing some remotely. Mostly when we have a witness that we feel like really can call in or doesn't really need to be present, but it really depends on the defense attorneys as well, what they're willing to stipulate to. But we have been doing them. The depositions in person are incredibly difficult. The court won't let us use any of their space. So we're having to find other spaces and that is just sometimes. Why won't I let you use some of this space? They just refuse to let us use them. They really have not been super helpful through this, to be honest. But it's different. It's everybody and, you know, we have a lot of staff with children. So they're dealing with their own stuff at home with trying to teach their own kids and trying to figure out what their schooling is going to look like and daycare issues. And so we're trying to navigate that as an office. And then we just miss each other. You know, we're a close staff and we're very social. Well, I think, and you have to, you know, not being able to talk to a colleague about a problem is very important. It is very important. I think especially in work like this, to be able to talk some of this stuff out. We do have a program called Microsoft Teams that we use and we video chat a lot on that. But it's different than just walking into someone's office and being like, what's wrong about this issue and what should I do? Or even at the lunch table, you know, having those conversations, I really miss that. But we are adjusting and I think given the circumstances, everybody's doing pretty great. But I worry about the, you know, our system's already pretty dehumanizing and I really worry about that aspect when we've gone so virtual that these offenders are not right in front of us when we're asking for them to be held or these victims are not right in front of the defense attorney when they're questioning them. It separates us even more in a system that already does that too much. Well, I just think so much of communication is not verbal. Absolutely. You know, your questioning of witness, it's important to be in the same room and see how they're reacting and what they're, what affects them as they speak. Agreed. It's very strange. It is very strange. You know, when I was on a bench in Burlington last time, I started what I call rapid referral. Yep, yep. Referring people on cases involving substances, put them immediately in some kind of evaluation and treatment. Has that gone on? Yeah. It hasn't actually, it's gotten, it's gotten picked up statewide. So now it's in the attorney general's office, runs it. It's called Tamarack now, but yeah, absolutely. I like rapid referral better. I know. I tried to keep that name just in our county, but then it got really complicated and so I finally gave in. But yeah, I do too. And you know, I think especially because people have no idea what Tamarack means and it, it doesn't have the same impact as like saying that this is a rapid intervention. This is like, we're trying to do something quickly for this particular person, but it is and it's actually been a lifesaver for us. I mean, we finally got some really good staff in there and they're really dedicated to helping people and they, you know, give them, give them all the chances they, they really need until, you know, until they can anymore. But it's really very thankful for it. Well, thank you. But I just want to, I want, I want people to understand that when I first started this, there was a three year gap between a study as to what was going on and the first nine or 10 months of the experiment. In retrospect, they found that of the people, the first 172 people who I'd put into treatment, about 15% of them got arrested again within three years. Wow. And then the, there was a control group that the Vermont Crime Information Center picked up 300 people who were charged with drug related offenses, DUI, you know, possession of substances. And in that group, in the three years following their initial contact, they didn't get treatment. So their recidivism rate was 80%. Yup. It's just, it's, it's unbelievable to me how little we take advantage of resources like that because the data is, and research is so clear that the recidivism rates are massive when we don't address the underlying issue. We just try to punish the crime, punish the behavior without addressing the underlying issues. And that goes for substances, mental health, and trauma. I mean, just the massive amounts of some, you know, every person that's sitting in our jails right now probably has some level of trauma. And being a survivor of some type of sexual or domestic violence, and that's just, it's not getting addressed. And so we, and then we wonder why they recidivate. Well, I mean, I don't, try not to make these too difficult for my guests. But what resources would you like to have available in order to deal with this? Well, one, I am a, I am an incredibly strong believer in restorative practices. I think that, like you were saying, communication, there are, there's so many cases, and I don't just mean low level offenses. I mean, like violent offenses where so many of the victims just want to talk to the person. I mean, I'll give a really good example. Talk to the perpetrators. Yeah. And find out, like, why they did this, and tell them how it impacted them. And our system doesn't allow for that. And, and frankly, even, you know, the best example I can give of that is the Stephen Bourgoin case. You know, I tried that case. I dealt with those families for three years. I'm gonna say dealt. I love them, like family now. And they ask me that all the time. Like, can we, can we just talk to him? I mean, we just want to, we just want to talk to him. Did they want to understand what happened? Yeah. And that wasn't an option. Our system doesn't want that to happen. I should explain for our viewers, the Bourgoin case is one in which the defendant is driving the wrong way on an interstate highway at a high rate of speed. And he crashed into some cars. He first crashed into one car that held five teenagers, who all died. And then he stole a cop car and crashed again, hitting several other cars and injuring a lot of people. Wow. And yeah, so I think one, I just think that we really need to humanize our system more and allow people within the process to, to communicate in a really honest way without it impacting the procedure. But I also think, you know, we need to do more within our communities to not call cops for everything and try to just resolve conflict and, and issues, substance use and mental health issues in our communities, let them handle it and really leave those other more complicated cases for the court. Because then we'd be able to actually handle them in a good way too. I mean, our, our caseloads in my office are over 250 on average, about 250 cases. You are. Per year? No, per like, at a time. At that moment? At a time. My God. And you, so you are forced to triage your cases. You're forced to. And that's a terrible thing to say about people's, like you're dealing with people's lives and you have to triage. And we wouldn't have to do that if less cases were coming to our office and communities were just able to deal with some of those issues themselves. But we've gotten so used to just, you have a, you have a conflict or an issue you call the cops and the cops are so used to coming to that conflict or issue and find, figuring out what the crime is and sending it to us. We really need to break that habit. And I think if those communities had more resources to deal with it themselves, we would all be off. Well, it's very difficult. There are times when I think it's important to get the case into court so the conditions can be set to protect the public. Yeah, although, especially right now, like they don't, you know, I mean, I think we like to think that they do. Well, that's because I retire. Right, right. They don't protect the public. I mean, it's, you know, they might, if the person violates right now, especially we're, we're doing citations eight to 12 weeks out. The person isn't expected to come to court because of the public health issues. I mean, if there's citation for violation of conditions released, it's eight to 12 weeks out? Yeah. Some cases aren't even getting set for a next court date. So it might be even more than that if the court decides to do it as a next court date. So, and also like somebody could violate a condition multiple times through the case and it's just a new charge. You know, it's, it's, I do think it's important. I, you know, but I think it's important like an RFA is important. It's, it's a court order. RFA is a relief from the use of it. Yeah, sorry. No, no, no, it's okay. We all talk in acronyms. I know, you know, it's a court order and for some people that matters and for some people it doesn't. And so again, just sort of addressing the underlying issue is far more important. Well, what would be the best way to see the thing that I always come back to is there's no best way to do things. Yeah. Because each case is unique to its facts. Yep, absolutely. And so some, some should go this way, some should go that way, but there can't be a general rule. Right. You know, there has to be a, it's, it's probably one of the most important functions of the judge is to see what the individual facts are and to try to tailor some solution to the facts of this case. Right. And you can't do it by category. You have to do it by case. Well, and I think that that's, that's a good point and it's an unfortunate truth in Vermont that our statute prohibits our restorative justice programs from dealing with domestic and sexual violence cases. And it's a, it's a blanket statement when in fact those cases have incredibly great outcomes. Why was that put in with the law? I think that the theory behind it, and Karen actually might know more about this than I do, but the theory behind it is that victims shouldn't, that that's, this is a power and control issue. And so putting them in a room or into a circle to have this conversation would be unfair to the survivor is that was, that's my assumption. But one, the research just does not support that, but also so many of those cases that we handle, that's all the survivor wants. And we as a government have said, no, we know you want that, but we're going to do this whole other punitive thing that doesn't get you any of that. The survivor wants to sort out the cause of this? Yeah, they want to just talk to them. And yes, especially in DD cases, I mean, you know, you've seen this, like we charge a case and within a day the victim wants contact again. They want to, they want to go to counseling with the person. They want to fix the relationship. And we say, no, you can't, we're like, we're stepping in, we're protecting you and we're protecting your family. And this isn't about you guys fixing this. This is about him fixing his issue. And it, in a lot of cases, it does a lot more harm to the family and the, and the survivor than, than good. So I think making these blanket rules about what cases, you know, we do a lot of nonviolent and violent for the same reason. It's like the story of practices work better on violent cases than they do nonviolent cases, but we've said, you know, well, those aren't really what this is for. This requires individual judgment. Absolutely. It requires a judge. Yeah. You know, one of the most important functions of the judicial role. Yeah. But it's, it's frustrating because I really think you need more resources. Obviously the judiciary needs more resources. You could probably use some to, you know, really. Maybe. I mean, I would really, I tell myself all the time that my function as a prosecutor is to put myself out of work. And I think that giving more of those resources to the community and giving them the power to really deal with those issues is where I would rather those resources be going. Well, I put them in hope, please. Yeah. Yeah. If you put them in the first one, you shouldn't need them in the second. You know, I think that, I mean, maybe, yeah, I'll take them, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't pass it up, but I do think that our, you know, our, our CJCs in Chittenden County are busy. Like, I keep them very busy. And I would love the community justice centers. Yeah. I would love to see them get more resources. What is the community justice center? Yeah. So they, they deal in, they are restorative practice organizations that take cases. I should tell you, I've been on the board. Oh, you have? Yeah. They take cases from their communities and do restorative circles with a person so they might have an offender if the survivor victim is interested. They will come to and they, they answer to the community. Really. They tell them what happened. They acknowledge the harm. They talk about the harm and then they try to figure out a way to restore that harm. And then it's the expectation that the offender does that. It goes out and does whatever they mutually agree will, will restore that harm, repair the harm. It's just a very difficult, difficult area of the law. You know, I've had cases where a kid was taken out of the home because of violence, put back in the home and killed. Yeah. You know, and that, that's just going to happen. It is going to happen. And I think we, Even with good judgment. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. Even though it seems to be the right thing. Yeah. One of the things I think often gets lost is this domestic violence is so harmful to the child. You know, the child grows up with this and becomes violent to herself or himself later on in the way they saw the parents made. Yep. And taking the, like separating the child from the parents or taking a parent out of it is also harmful to the children. And, you know, I did the, when I first started as a prosecutor, I was the domestic violence prosecutor for about three and a half to four years. Wow. And one, yeah, it was too long to do that docket. But I remember the first time that even within that four years, I was prosecuting a father for domestic violence against a mom and then prosecuting the son for domestic violence against his dog, his girlfriend. And I knew that that generational violence was a thing, of course, but to see it within such a short amount of time was really, was really heartbreaking. And he was young, of course. I think he was 19 and was like, what do we do to try to fix this now before he spends the rest of his life in and out of jail? And it's like, it's really, and probably seeing his father abusive his entire life was a big part of that. Well, it's so traumatic for the children. And they live with it forever. Yep. And of course, if you separate them from the parents, that's also painful. Yep. I know I read a description of the case where the kid had been terribly abused. And so they were separating him. And he leaves the courtroom crying out for mommy. Yep. Who had been so abusive to her. Yep. It's really heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking stuff. Four years of that? Yeah. Yeah. Had a lot of dues. Yeah, it was, it was hard. It was really hard. How's the, the, the COVID business with the lockdowns, which have combined people to their homes. Yeah. Has it had an effect on the incidents of domestic violence? Yeah, it's a hard, you know, it's measuring a negative. So it's, I don't, the legitimate answer would be, I don't know. But. Well, I'll take a little legitimate answer. I'm not a particular. All right. My illegitimate and really unknown answer is yes, I think so. Because our numbers of domestic violence have not gone up. Our, our cases coming in have not gone up, which, you know, at first might be a good thing. But I do, you know, speaking with some of our local partners, I do think that their calls are up. And so I think that a part of it is not, not reporting. And I think especially in the beginning when there were we were on severe lockdown and it was cold and, you know, a lot of people knew that if they called the police that one of them was going to have to leave this home and they didn't have anywhere else to go. And I think that's a legitimate, you know, concern. And it would have happened. And we had cases that came in that we didn't do the typical no contact because of that, which is also scary as a prosecutor. You know, you, like I was saying before, you want to protect them and they're reporting and then going back to the same home. That's always a really volatile time. And when it comes to the sexual violence cases, those numbers are significantly lower. Those numbers are significantly lower right now compared to last year, which in part I think is due to the bars not being open. The colleges being closed down early and then, you know, only partially reopening. There's a lot less stranger to stranger contact in general happening. So that part I think is good, but the other side to that is what you're talking about. And like all of our mandated reporters aren't seeing kids right now. And so my fear is that children might be abused or assaulted at higher rates during COVID and nobody, there's no eyes on them. So we don't know about it. And frankly going into this year, I think school counselors, especially are probably going to have to be very, very cognizant about that one day a week there in school or two days a week they might be in school. However, their schedule is to really pay attention to that stuff because there are eyes. Just to be clear for the viewers, what's a mandated reporter? Yeah, so there's just some people whose profession mandates that if they believe abuse is occurring that they call the police. That's a law. It is a law. Yeah. And so school counselors are one of them. Teachers I think in general are one of them. So with schools being out and daycare providers are one, so without daycare. I mean if a kid shows up in school with a bruise in his face, that's a trigger. Right. You got to report that. Right. And so when you're not seeing those kids in person. Yeah. That's something that I do think is being under reported, unfortunately. Well, I just think it's so important to try to address this in earnest because it just goes generation after generation after generation. You've got to try to address it. Yeah. I hope these people. I think, you know, one of the things that I thought when I was doing that business of putting people in treatment was they made a contact with a counselor. Yep. And I remember one of these people coming in saying, you know, Ben, she never came back. And I said, that's really sad. He said, no, we'll always remember within the year, I'll hear from her again. You know, once they've made that contact with a counselor who really cares about them and is not trying to lock them up. Yeah. They got somebody to talk to. Yeah. And, you know, not to get off topic, but I do think one of my biggest fears during COVID is our, is our suicide rates and our overdose fatalities. But our, our suicide rates are up. And I think and a handful of them at least have been people with really no prior mental health history. And telehealth has done really incredible things for people who are already engaged with a counselor, but for the people who found themselves meeting that support during COVID for the first time, you know, I've been to count, I've been to several therapists and counselors over the years and finding the right one is incredibly important. And so having that first, you know, session or, or meeting on FaceTime or Zoom is really hard to have that connection. And then if you're trying to talk about a personal thing and you're in your home and, you know, you're not in like a safe space, it's, it really complicates it. And I think that that is another issue that we've dealt with a lot during COVID is just trying to find people's services that will work for them when they haven't been involved in them before. It's a very important function, but do you have, do you have the personnel to do that? Yeah, I mean, our, we have really incredible pre-trial service monitors right now that that's their job. So we do an order at the, at the Raymond and that's all they do is connect people to services. How many of those do you have? We have three. That's great. Yeah. And, and they're great. Is that news that happened in Europe? So the actual pre-trial service program has been in place for maybe five, six, seven years somewhere in there. But for the first, probably four years, we, like in Chittenden County, we really didn't have great ones and they need to be great. They really need to like, they really need to know our system. They need to understand trauma. They need to understand or they need to know like partners in the community. And we've really struggled to find the right ones. But since we have, there are a lot of people that will engage in services while the case is pending and by the time we want to resolve, they've done everything that we could have asked of them. It's been a, it's been a lifesaver for us to have and for the people obviously that they're helping to get them connected. And then, and for so many people, it's just, they don't know how to take that first step. They don't even know who to call to get a particular thing. Or people just give them a phone number over and over again and it might seem like such a small thing for those of us that have our life together. But for people that are really struggling with these issues, making that phone call can be completely debilitating. So to have somebody sit there with you and call with you and set up that time and then call you to remind you to go, that really like warm handoff is, is crucial. So that's an interesting expression. Oh. Warm handoff. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I, I stand by that in general. People coming out of jail, I think need very warm handoffs because we often just release them. Well, that, that, that I, you know, amen. Yeah. I just think that personal contact is very important. It is. Just to be supportive. Yeah. Because people can get despondent and self-destructive. Yeah. You talk about increasing suicide rates. Yeah, absolutely. Or they go back to using a substance or, and then we're in the same situation we were in before. Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned that per-going thing. I, I, I've studied that case a lot. And that guy's Marijuana was extraordinary. Yeah. Absolutely. Six times the THC content that defines liberation in Colorado. And this guy was just unbelievably under the influence. And I just, I just think if someone could have gotten into, into that problem, ahead of time, I would be able to save lives. Terrible thing. Terrible thing. Yeah. Terrible thing. Well, is there anything else you wanted to cover during our... No, I feel like we got through a lot. Well, we're, you know, I'm a judge on the bench. Yeah, I know. Exactly. But we're comfortable here. I like it. You appear in front of the judge, you do a good job. Yeah. Well, look, I want to thank you very much for what you're doing. Thank you. I know it's hard. I know it's difficult. It is. I was once a different world, but it's a tough job. It is. Oh, yeah, look at that. That's great. Thank you.