 Good morning everybody and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee. It is Wednesday, February 17th and we are continuing our consideration on H-133 and actually relating to emergency relief from abuse orders and relinquishment of firearms. Today we are going to be looking at a proposed amendment that the language was discussed last time we discussed this bill and this was a proposal from Judge Greerson when he'll be talking about it a little bit later. In terms of placement of the original language of the of the bill and Eric will do a walkthrough in just a moment. I am assuming that everybody has a copy of the proposed amendment? I do not. You don't? Okay so let's see on our committee page thank you have to refresh I just did vaccine is it draft 1.1 is that the one yes and again this is a proposed amendment here's Barbara anyway okay Tom and Bob you do you have it yes I have it yep okay great great great morning Felicia good morning everybody okay so Eric turn to you good morning thank you and if you could do a walkthrough that'd be great thank you sure happy to good morning everybody Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Council here to walk the committee through a strike all amendment to H-133 as Representative Grad mentioned it's an act relating to emergency relief from abuse orders and relinquishment of firearms this was discussed by the committee at the last the last time you got together on this bill and there's a proposal from Judge Greerson that I modified a little bit into the amendment that we'll look at today just a quick moment of background remember we're dealing with emergency relief from abuse orders emergency RFAs these are orders that the court can issue when it finds that they're that the defendant has abused the plaintiff in the past and that there's an immediate danger of further abuse so those two findings are required past abuse immediate danger of future abuse the plaintiff has to has to submit an affidavit in connection with with the petition the complaint filed with the court and if the court does issue this rfa the emergency relief from abuse order they can put restrictions on the defendant's behavior some restrictions on what the defendant can do has introduced to remember H-133 has introduced it added to that sort of list of restrictions that the court can put on the defendant's behavior a requirement that they would have to relinquish firearms that they possessed or that another person possessed on on their behalf so their amendment that you're looking at now has that same concept in it that it's the same idea that that the order this rfa this emergency rfa can include a provision requiring relinquishment of firearms from the defendant just that there's been some changes to it and I can go through those when we do the walkthrough but that's the big picture so the the relinquishment piece is still there language is very similar in fact but I'll note the changes when I do the walkthrough just now so what I'm going to do with that in mind is share the screen but if anyone has any questions as I can you make me a co-host please Evan thank you if anyone has any questions as I'm getting to the document please jump in and or even as I'm doing the walkthrough as I often say I can't see people raise their hand so just jump right in if if any questions come up so here's the the uh committee strike through amendment you see it's dated yesterday uh the if you have the right version as represented bird it was saying it's 1.1 um dated yesterday at 118 p.m the uh amendment we're still in the same statute which is the emergency relief the emergency rfa statute that's existing law that you're looking at right now at subsection a and you'll see that what I mentioned in my introduction just now you'll see right there that these rfa orders can be issued this is lines 10 and 11 exparte that means they're uh issued without notice to the defendant the defendant is typically not present it's just the plaintiff coming in um on on their own and you see in line 11 the the findings that the court has to make that that the defendant abused the plaintiff or the plaintiff's children are both so there has to be that finding of past abuse that I mentioned uh continuing on line 12 a plaintiff has to submit an affidavit in support of the order so that's to be this finding of past abuse and affidavit there's some other language about it's particular procedures for minors but we can pass over that for now um and then we get into uh line 15 you say relief under this section is limited as follows so these are the particular types of relief that can be provided and you'll see now we start subdivision one begins with some introductory language there upon a finding that there's an immediate danger of further abuse so um that's the other point I mentioned not only does there have to be past abuse there has to be a finding of an immediate danger of further abuse and if that's the case the court makes that finding then you have a list here of components that can be included in this order that would as I say restrain the the defendant's behavior you see this is all existing law still subdivision eight to refrain from abusing the plaintiff for their children or um cruelly treating any animals subdivision b refrain from interfering with the plaintiff's personal liberty or the liberty of the children that's movement that sort of thing or uh coming within a fixed distance the subdivision c the order can provide that the defendant has to stay away from the defend that sorry away from the plaintiff uh from a certain distance away and and no contact orders as well can be included that's in subdivision b the defendant can't contact the plaintiff for the plaintiff's children as well in any way Eric yeah I just had a question on um everything here is existing law right for the most part so far yes yeah so um I don't know if it's been discussed in the past it's really got nothing to do with what we're doing right now but so there's a distance uh um thing put in sometimes where the fixed distance so what happens if they just happen uh two people the two people just happen to show up say at the local farmers market and it's it's a totally by accident nobody's you know stalking anybody planning anything my understanding of those situations is that you know their discretionary on the part of the state's attorney that doesn't require that a charge be brought for violating an order for various accidental or inadvertence of the of the uh no contact or distance requirements that's sorry I meant distance not no contact um and that if it's a situation like that that there's discretion on the part of the parties themselves and the state's attorney to to not bring the charge so so if if the person who's been charged or not charged but I guess accused of abuse at this point that they uh they wouldn't have to leave necessarily uh I think that that I'm gonna I think the the practitioners in this area would would have a better sense of how that happens on the ground than I would but I think I think that there is probably if people bump into each other inadvertently for what I've heard anecdotally there is a requirement that they that somehow the both of them work out uh putting that distance into place somehow okay all right great thank you sure so as you were mentioning representative so far we've been looking at this is all existing law but you see the proposal of new law to add to this existing list is in subdivision e that starts on line 12 with the underlying language so you've got a through d of components that can be in the court's order now this proposal is to add the relinquishment I'm just going to skip ahead for a second before we even look at the substance to show you the first change here because you remember then after the e there was a subdivision two and a subdivision three under h 133 as introduced right here on page three line four that's where uh the new language was and the bill is introduced so it didn't come under that subdivision one it was its own new paragraph new paragraph four having to do with firearms relinquishment specifically now that relocating uh of the language which is what this proposal does it brings it into subdivision e here that means that it falls under this introductory language that I mentioned on page one this uh line 17 and 18 it now comes within that requirement so hit now that in that you will recall that requires that there has to be a finding that there's an immediate danger of further abuse so now uh that applies to to the firearms relinquishment language as it's proposed to be relocated into this new subdivision e it didn't apply before because it was its own separate paragraph now there were other components of the language at the time that required findings by the court I'll get into those in a minute but the uh the language as it was located at that time didn't fall under this one so it didn't actually uh require this immediate danger finding and now it does so uh that's the that's the effect of relocating the language here to e so having said that let's look at the language itself and you'll see uh the actually the first oh two and a half lines or so are exactly the same as it was in the h-133 has introduced that's uh or I should say that language was exactly in the original bill as well and that's uh that the court can require the defendant to immediately relinquish until the expiration of the order so it's not permanent the relinquishment is only in effect as long as the relief from a visa order is in in effect and you'll recall that these orders are 14 days maximum and must and then at that time a final order can be uh can be issued by the court but these emergency orders are 14-day time limited so the relinquishment can be ordered and not only for firearms that are in the defendant's possession ownership or control that's line 13 or that another person possesses or controls on behalf of the defendant and that's the same language that was in 133 as it was introduced there's two changes to the language though one an addition and one a subtraction the addition you'll see there are line 14 now and to refrain from acquiring any firearms while the order is in effect so the idea there is that you relinquish what you may what you have and and you see the refrain language there is deliberately chosen to be consistent with remember i mentioned these a b c and d that you already have used that same phrase to refrain from contacting refrain from coming within a distance of the plaintiff so the idea is to parallel that language make it consistent with what you have in existing law in terms of how it's written so but the idea is refrain from acquiring firearms in the future while the order is in effect again only while the order is in effect when the order expires then the requirement goes away so that's one change yeah i see that ken's hand is up and then and then i have a question so ken go ahead thank you ken here you can i think barbara was before me to be fair oh okay i'm sorry barbara i don't i didn't see your hand okay thank you ken okay i think mine is a quick question thanks ken so eric i just want to make sure that i understand if there was not past abuse of an affidavit cannot state that but there is danger of abuse this whole act would not apply to that person um i think i'm understanding you represent richson are you saying that that if there's no immediate danger of no further abuse then this wouldn't apply no i'm saying let's say there has not been past abuse but there is danger of imminent abuse is that a different law that would be followed because it sounds like this one wouldn't apply uh yeah you you might conceivably be able to get a stocking order or a a a restraining order generally based on on some immediate danger to the person and that would fall under sort of the court's general authority to to issue restraining orders and emergency situations but you're right that without that past abuse this this statute this law would not apply so we don't always know about the past abuse sometimes we don't know until something bad happens and then you know the former neighbor says you know he's shot my dog or so if somebody is in a relationship with someone the person gets abuse of we're starting to get abuse of the um the abuse the person who's being um who's seeking this order doesn't know that this person's ex-girlfriend also had a like there's no way to find that out or if so like when you're in that dangerous situation there's sort of a burden on the person to go figure out if this person might have been abusive with other people uh yeah i'm not sure i follow the question sorry so it may be the first time in this relationship that somebody is in danger of abuse but they don't know necessarily that the person that they are fearing may have had a history of it but we don't necessarily always know that and it might be hearsay and it would be hard to file an affidavit saying you know i know this person beat up their last three wives yeah and that even if that were the case that the statutes still wouldn't apply because if you see on lines 11 and 12 of existing law there has to be the the allegation has to be the defendant has abused the plaintiff or the plaintiff's children that past abuse of another person wouldn't qualify you for this rfa either so is it sort of fair to liken this to every dog gets a free bite i leave those sorts of characterizations to you folks i i don't all right thanks okay before i go to ken i just want to mention that that commissioner shirling is going to be coming in he's got a very narrow windows so i will i'll break to to let him testify but in the meantime go ahead ken i'll i'll wait then because if that's a case my my questions can wait and i'll have a lot of them and i'll listen to the witnesses thank you okay well he's not here yet so so if you want to we got witnesses and everything but i'll just wait it's not i can wait thank you okay all right well this is the time to ask eric questions about the language um okay then i will okay go ahead yeah okay so going back to line 12 the new language that's a really broad scope of of things isn't it that a person is in a lot of control that probably isn't that could be really really drawn out in the court you mean for example what whether whether a person is actually has control over a firearm that maybe someone else is possessing on their behalf exactly control that another person possesses i mean how how would you ever how would you ever prove that or controls on behalf of the defendant i mean how would you ever prove that well i think the i think you're right that that's a that's an issue that could well be litigated and disputed in court but it's also true that you know just there could be an easy example of that you know not to say that the easy ones are the ones that get litigated of course they don't but but an easy example that you could prove is for example the person doesn't want to have to relinquish their firearms so they give it to their friend and say you just hold on to this for me for a while and right you know that's that's an easy one where the obviously the person owns it and the other person's doing it on behalf of the defendant but you're right there might be other situations where it's less clear and that that could be argued in court but the but the word control in there is is also a big powerful word but i'll i'll stop now eric because i see the commissioners on and i'll come back to you thank you sure great thank you can and also um we can ask uh judge gurus in some of those questions as well so good morning commissioner thank you for that should i start to interrupt the representative grad should i stop screen sharing so you can see the commissioner what would you prefer um yes thank you if that's sure yep i can come back to it uh okay you know once we uh hear from the witness there we go okay good good morning madam chair yeah good morning so thank you so much i know that you have a very um tight schedule i appreciate you being here so i'm going to interrupt um our walkthrough and um invite you to to make any comments thank you sorry about uh interrupting the walkthrough uh eric does such a nice job with that i i missed the front end um for the record mike charlin commissioner public safety uh we were in invited back under i did read the um what appears to be one update to the bill um that was made and shared yesterday um i'll be quite brief just reiterate our support for the bill and our commitment to ensure that any issues related to storage that the the department of public safety is willing to step in and help any agency that has issues that relate to evidence or firearm storage uh to mitigate those issues to the greatest uh extent possible great thank you appreciate it uh barbara i see your hand is up so commissioner good morning um i'm wondering um i just asked erica question and want to make sure that we have other means of protecting people who wouldn't fall under this um bill should it be passed because they can't prove past abuse but they are in what they believe is imminent danger of abuse um i apologize i'm coming in midstream so i don't have the context of that question i i'm not sure i understand um the full scope so in this um amendment um somebody has to file an affidavit um in order to be eligible uh stating past abuse from the person they're seeking will be from abuse from and and they have to show they're in um danger of further abuse so i'm wondering about the first time somebody is having uh imminently dangerous situations with somebody do we have a law other than this that would provide these kinds of protections to that person or are we just cutting those people out at this point i may defer that to uh either remember the judiciary if they're on or to major jonas for that sort of operational um level uh assessment it's been a little while since i was on the it's been a long while since i was on the street having to uh to implement these things on a day-to-day basis okay thank you barbara uh i see any other hands i want to make sure i'm not missing anybody um judge greerson i just uh am i on here my everything okay i i think i can clarify the the issue that the representative rachel sin has been raising you you have to look at the definition of abuse under the statute and it doesn't have to be past abuse as she's used that term you look under definitions at section 11 level one abuse and then they define what abuse can mean and it can be attempting to cause or causing physical harm i think that's what representative rachel is talking about but under section b it's placing another in fear of imminent serious physical harm so if that's what the evidence is coming in there is a basis for the court to grant a a temporary restraining order based on on that as opposed to a finding that the i think what barbara uh representative rachel sin is talking about is evidence of physical harm in the past it doesn't have to be that i i hope that clarifies it thank you great yeah thank you very much thank you any other questions for the commissioner no okay thank you very much appreciate you taking time out be here thank you thank you for the flexibility and timing absolutely okay eric thanks thanks so much eric sure so i'm gonna bring the uh amendment back up right and i did have a question eric sure um okay so the language talks about refrain from acquiring what what does that mean does that mean purchase does that mean borrow yes i think acquiring is broad it can refer to any way that the that the um point of sorry defendant would obtain possession of the firearm and do we have that is that language elsewhere or uh no i think it's just here so i think it's it'd be one of those uh in terms of interpreting the term which i think is kind of what what you're asking about i think it would be a plain language approach acquiring is a broad uh broad word so it would include any any method that the defendant acquired and whether it may purchase by borrowing it from somebody else by somebody else giving it to them um i think it i think it would i think it's understood to be broad enough to include those those fact patterns okay great thank you sure so uh getting back to to the walk through though that you'll see so we were talking about what is in the bill and i mentioned that the what you were just actually mentioning as well as i've grabbed that language about refraining from acquiring firearms in the future that's new a new proposal from the from the bill as introduced but as well as this new language there's a piece that's uh not here and that you'll recall and the bill has introduced uh the relinquishment provision applied if the plaintiff's complaint or affidavit included information that the defendant had fired so and the court had to find it necessary that the removal that removal was necessary to protect the plaintiff for the plaintiff's children so where there were those two sort of prerequisites to the relinquishment order one that the that the affidavit or complaint had information that the defendant had firearms and two that removal was necessary for protection of the plaintiff for the plaintiff's children so those aren't uh in subdivision e as i mentioned e does come under one so that there does have to be this finding of an immediate immediate danger of further abuse and there has to be that in line 13 there has to be an affidavit submitted as well but the difference is that the affidavit and the finding of immediate further abuse immediate danger of further abuse don't necessarily have to specifically uh reference firearms they're more more general than that and that's the difference between h-133 has introduced and this one and the and the you may recall that that uh piece was proposed the proposal was to remove that piece out of the court's concern and i'm sure judge greerson will talk about this in more detail but it was done out of the court's concern that including it in there would limit uh the court's existing authority and it's important actually to understand this point because that sort of underlies uh the entire proposal here and that's and that's that it is already court practice to include this firearms relinquishment requirement this is done uh quite commonly and my understanding from the judge is correct uh the judges are are in agreement that uh they have the authority to do this and it's already practice is the point this is essentially this bill is codifying is putting in statute what is already court practice um and this is done without uh anything in law that i mentioned about the affidavit requiring showing that the that the defendant has firearms or that the court make findings that the removal removal of firearms is necessary to protect the plaintiff so this removal is already done currently and those findings aren't required and that's why uh i think the court was concerned that keeping those firearms in the in the language of the statute in the language of the bill would limit their existing authority because that would be putting uh requirements on the removal order that don't exist in current law so it's a it's a sort of leads to a natural and fair question is well the statute doesn't say anything about removal of firearms where does that authority come from right where if the court if the authority exists now uh which the uh judges and judiciary agree that it does but where does it come from and the answer is it comes from the the inherent powers of the judicial branch of government as as an independent and co-equal branch of government their inherent authority and power and this is a a concept that is universally recognized that the judiciary has some inherent authority just as the executive branch does and the legislative branch does and of course they're they're certainly debate about what that inherent authority includes but the fact that it exists is is universally recognized by the united states supreme court the vermont supreme court uh court throughout the country um and i just uh thought it would be helpful for the committee to hear i was looking into it a little bit and there's a a nice statement about it uh this is from a nevada supreme court decision 2007 describes it quite clearly it says the judiciary's inherent powers are derived from two sources the separation of powers doctrine and that's the idea that the the judicial branch is an independent co-equal branch of government that has some independent authority independent of what statutes say and two the judiciary's sheer existence by virtue of the judicial functions expressly created under state constitutions again that's the case in vermont as well the state state constitution creates this judicial branch of government and uh it's as the cases say that it naturally comes along with in order to perform their functions that the constitution gives to the judicial branch the same way it gives functions to the executive and legislative branch there's got to be some inherent authority to do uh other necessary actions to perform those functions uh this important proviso that i'll read that also from the case that a number of cases around the country have followed that up with this particular statement which is that a court's inherent power should be exercised only when established methods fail or in an emergency situation so that brings us back to the language because it's the emergency situation piece that uh applies here you know these are these are emergency rfa's that can only be issued upon this finding of immediate potential future harm so i don't want to put words in jedd greerion's mouth but but uh you know that's the the position that makes sense under this this inherent power argument that it's an emergency situation and in those emergency situation uh the court has an inherent authority as an independent branch of government to essentially put what orders are necessary to protect the parties who are there before the court in litigation so that's just a little background to understand it's important to understand that because that brings us to the language as i said this is putting in statute what is already the court's practice and so from the court's perspective obviously it's going to be important that that this new language be consistent with what current practice is and that's why um the language that i mentioned has been removed that the that the complaint methodated specifically talk about firearms or that the court make this specific finding about firearms removal that isn't consistent with what the current practice is so the proposal is that the language not be here uh so and the language itself as i say is basically three changes to the bill as introduced the three are one it gets relocated from in the statute so that it's now falls within subdivision one which means you have this requirement i'll go right to it again this requirement that there be a finding of immediate danger for the reviews that's change number one change number two you've added in language to refrain from acquiring firearms while the order is in effect that's that last clause on 9 14 15 and lastly uh the proposal is to strike that language about um the affidavit and the court finding specifically related to firearms those are the three substantive changes uh from the bill as introduced in this one right here the proposal to amendment one very last point that i'll add and that's just because there's been a a discussion in the committee as well about uh constitutional due process requirements and with those apply here and the answer is certainly yes they do uh you i'm sure you recall the the due process clause of the united states constitution and comparable provision in the vermont constitution basically say if a person you know cannot be deprived of uh life liberty or property without due process of law uh it doesn't mean the person can't be deprived of those things but if if it does happen by the government there has to be two process of law uh generally that means notice and an opportunity to be heard because here as you can see there is a deprivation happening there's a deprivation of a person's firearms uh does occur as a result of this language now that could be the person relinquishes it turns it over to a firearms dealer uh turns it over to a friend could be law enforcement takes possession of it i mean there's a variety of ways that it could happen but however it happens there certainly is a deprivation of the person's firearm that is only happening because the the law requires so there is state action uh i think depriving a person of property so the question then is all right is there sufficient due process given that there this deprivation is happening i think the answer to that is yes um the key point here is that uh you know generally speaking when you talk about notice and an opportunity to be heard the hearing has to be held pre deprivation that means you know before the property is deprived that's when the person needs to have an opportunity to have a hearing and argue about well here's why this shouldn't happen here you see that that doesn't happen the fire the fireman which is the property in this case uh is uh either relinquished or taken taken first and the hearing comes after it has to have within happened within 14 days after the deprivation that's what's known as a post deprivation hearing and those are permitted under under constitutional due process requirements as long as there is a prompt and meaningful hearings what the court described are prompt and meaningful hearing afterward within a meaningful reasonable period of time so that a person can still contest in other words you can't just take it and then you know wait five years or some unreasonable long period of time before the person can come in and argue why it shouldn't happen as long as there's this prompt meaningful hearing it's okay to have a pre post deprivation hearing and in this case it has to be within 14 days uh you know the courts have upheld several months had another context and um they there have been pretty uh pretty clear about not wanting to establish sort of a hard and fast time limit so they're not going to say oh 10 days is always okay or 30 days is always okay um they sort of depends on the fact and circumstances but with a maximum of 14 days here I haven't seen any cases that it's a sell that that sort of time period wasn't prompt enough so so that's why my view is that that certainly due process is implicated certainly it's a legitimate constitutional point uh but the way I read the language it it would uh likely satisfy due process requirements under current law um you know just the last point I'd mention is that you know my point about under current law you know the property does involve firearms you know that that is a unique point in that it's a constitutionally protected right individual right to possess firearms under the second amendment is also constitutionally protected so uh you know this is a sort of currently evolving field of law I haven't seen any cases that say well the standard would be different with respect to firearms but that doesn't mean that that in the future um that a court might reach that conclusion you know there I think um the the subject of firearms law is one in which we are bound to hear something about very soon from certainly from the Vermont Supreme Court because as folks probably know the the uh magazine limit that the legislature passed two years ago has been pending over at the Vermont Supreme Court the constitutionality of that under article 16 of the Vermont Constitution that has been pending since I think oral argument in two cases that were joined together one of the oral arguments was last July and one of them was in November so we're due an opinion from the supreme court and and I'm sure that we'll have something to say about about the the right to possess firearms and so you know in in that sense uh you know as I mentioned when I did my first explanation to the committee of what we as ledge counsel will say to you I can't say for certain what what the law around uh firearms possession in Vermont in particular may develop into and it could be that that it's something that wouldn't affect us but maybe not we don't know I don't think anybody knows exactly how that's going to turn out but it's something I always wanted to know to know for the committee that the we'll probably hear more about that subject in the near future so but under current standards under the current uh due process standards uh my view is that that the structure um satisfies due process so uh that's my walkthrough for today um but that's certainly happy to answer any questions or to stop sharing the screen if you want to move to something else or percent of grad whatever prefer great thank you now those those very helpful Eric I do see um two hands I see Martin and there I just got excuse me I just got an email that our committee page is down committee pages down okay thank you uh it's I'm not sure if it's the YouTube or our uh um page on uh we're still on on YouTube um I can't I'm struggling to um I just can't even get to the legislative homepage so I think it must just be a systemic thing that we're with the website hopefully temporarily yeah the documents page is well that that's part of the whole thing but it's accessible now I just I just got through but the first couple tries it didn't okay so the YouTube it's up on YouTube it's just not up through the legislative page somehow but I just jumped back up now yeah it's back up now I went right to the agenda I think we're good okay thank you okay Martin and then uh Felicia so thank you Eric and um I just had a question so the idea of the deprivation of various rights with a relief from abuse order uh even without the firearms component of it there there are rights of an individual that are being deprived essentially being able to use their home being able to contact their children there one could argue that there are certain rights related to uh you know freedom of assembly or freedom of religion or you know not that but certainly of assembly I mean there's a lot of deprivations that occur already so is that I guess is that correct I mean this is this is it's not anything new that all of a sudden we're having this deprivation of rights that um courts haven't dealt with in other contexts with uh relief from abuse orders is that correct yeah I think that's right all right thanks yep uh Felicia a question for you Eric uh while you were citing cases it seems that uh there was a good foundation for requiring the defendant um to be temporarily or permanently suspended from their rights including um their second amendment rights but I still did not hear any of that um case law how that extends to other persons so looking at the language specifically lines 13 and 14 on page two it seems that by saying in the defendant's possession ownership or control would be sufficient and we don't need to include another person who's not a defendant and not named and not a part of this rfa so can you give me any examples of areas of law that are currently in practice where an rfa would extend to a person outside of the defendant themselves and deprive a person outside of the defendant outside of the rfa of their rights in other words that is am I right in understanding that it's uh the the person who might be holding a firearm on behalf of the defendant but is not the defendant him or herself that somebody else who might have it so my point is in the language we say the defendant's possession ownership of or control right and to reiterate controls on behalf of the defendant a line later seems redundant and a little clumsy uh because it's looping in somebody completely unrelated if we're going to intend that it's already inside control why put that line in there and open it up to kind of that fishing expedition of who might have something that they could borrow because at the end of the day it's what does the defendant have have access to or control and that should be the court's purview i don't think that should start extending to what might somebody else have that they might have access to so just i'm looking for examples of where in current law as martin was mentioning defendants are already deprived of certain rights and liberties where in current law do we extend that deprivation outside of individuals stated in the rfa yes well i'll respond two ways to that first i don't know of any off the top of my head so i have to look into that further to see if there were other examples but kind of to your point and i think i'm seeing your point here more clearly thanks for explaining it um that it's kind of a i think if i'm understanding you're right that use of the word control the first time that are in the defendant's possession ownership or control already really would include uh uh if someone else were controlling it on behalf of the defendant then almost by definition then the then the defendant already controls it so in that sense maybe that second phrase is redundant not really necessary and yeah i think that's a fair point um it may not be necessary because that term control could be read to include those situations anyway yeah i appreciate um your response on that and it's kind of my personal opinion that let's be very very clear with intent here i think by saying control we are being clear that if hypothetically i am the defendant in rfa and i hand my sister all of my firearms they're still in my control but what we wouldn't be doing is having that hypothetical of who might i have access to their firearms i do not want the implication in the law to be who has firearms that surround a mystery of influence of the defendant i want it to be the defendant's firearms or controlled firearms if that's i want to make sure we're splitting that here precisely because that is deprivation of one person's rights under an rfa or the deprivation of many and i think being very clear on that is important to seeing if this is worth moving forward thank you so um so thank you felicia i appreciate that so good um looking at that language could you just give me an idea of what what you would support in terms of what you would take out if you could just read it um that'd be helpful sure um so ending at the end of line 13 control i would remove or that another person possesses or controls on behalf of the defendant removing that removes a lot of ambiguity for me and it makes the language much easier to support thank you okay great other uh bob yes good morning erick good morning so as i understand it h133 is an act relating to an emergency relief relief from abuse order uh ex parte correct yes that's right so the act and itself along with uh the amendments are still based off this order where the decision is based upon the preponderance of an evidence and not clear and convince them yes that's right okay so having said that uh judge greerson and he may be the one to answer this one erick is the courts already have this authority and my question is i guess what seems to be commonplace now within our judicial system as far as judges ordering the relinquishment of firearms does it seem to be more or less within their immediate control within their household or have they have taken have they taken that step to go outside and also look at these uh this amendment such as what we're looking at today uh i think you're right that's probably a good question for the judge i'm not really sure in practice how that's how that's unfolded you know based on the particular facts of where the firearms might be in in each individual rfa situation um uh but but uh he might have a better answer for that thank you good back anybody else can i know you had questions i don't know if um if you're waiting to hear ask some of the witnesses or so make sure you're all set for now well well some have been answered police should put it much more eloquent quently than i did would but i i guess i'm gonna ask this maybe maybe i can't maybe i shouldn't but erick if when a situation gets to this point usually it's a pretty hostile environment between usually a breakout breakout situation usually one party is probably more upset than the other whatever and you get a lot of end data you get a lot of all kinds of stuff if you have a party if you have a so-called i'm going to say an innocent if you have a person that's involved that really isn't a threat with firearms and somebody wanted to portray them as a threat with their firearms they could have those firearms taken away from a person or under somebody else's power for no reason at all that that person didn't deserve that and on top of that this person that is going after this these firearms could be with that with that with a person that could go under this guy after a person that can no longer protect himself correct did that make sense well i think uh as far as you know the facts of each individual case again i think i'll defer to Judge Pearson on that i'll just say that the whatever order the court makes under this statute it does require a finding that there's an immediate danger of further abuse and that there's been past abuse so the court is limited by the language of the rfa statute from being able to issue this order unless it makes those findings so as to what people may say in court that may be true or may not be true you know that's something that happens in all court proceedings so i can't speak to that but or i should say that's always a possibility in any court proceedings not that it always happens that sounds cynical but it's always a possibility but the findings that are required as a prerequisite for an rfa are laid out in the statute that there's been past abuse there's an immediate danger further abuse and so i think courts are used to applying those standards so let me try it another way a person is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty if all this was to happen and a person was innocent and somebody wanted to get a person he has no way of defending themselves well maybe with a kitchen knife or something like that but he's not going to have the imposition of firearms right i didn't follow that one sorry representative a person that has these firearms taken away from them and no no way to to have them is kind of a sit and duck for somebody that wanted to come after that isn't yet proven 100 that these firearms should be taken away from them well i kind of like i mentioned earlier i think i'm gonna i don't really get into those characterizations of what the statute means but i think the the legal result of a firearms relinquishment order is that the person wouldn't have firearms anymore that's that's correct so okay i just want to make can i want to make sure i understand are you are you talking about because here we're talking about an emergency an exparte emergency order that that lasts up to 14 days and that that's the period we're we're talking about are you focusing on that period are you focusing on what happens that period but i'm focusing on i guess the word that i'm that i'm not used yet is the vendetta against somebody the vendetta against somebody that's all i'll just wait for for judge greerson to talk right now yeah i think it'd be helpful to find out from judge greerson in terms of the again looking at the affidavit the findings and then and then that that actual hearing that takes place no more than 14 days one the defendant does have an opportunity it you know to appear and to uh to put on evidence uh and again these are civil proceedings that should be noted as as well um okay any anything else for eric no okay well thank you eric as as always is it's very helpful um so why don't we take a 15 minute break oh sorry somebody um why don't we take a 15 minute break and then we'll um come back in