 We're a couple minutes ahead of time and we have Representative Lalonde with us from the Judiciary Committee and so I think what I will do is, Martin, would you like to wait until Bryn joins us or would you like to go ahead and give us a fly-by of 119 on your own? You can describe the process or you can let her describe the bill or whatever your preference is. Yeah I can give a kind of a high level where we are right now. So we've heard from lots of different sides on this as you'll hear later. We heard from a lot of individuals in the Black, Indigenous, and people of color and disability rights community and we heard from a lot of law enforcement. We've tried to thread the needle and have compromises. I'll be honest that law enforcement is not completely on board with this but we think that we've ended up with a very good bill and will become better after some amendments, a couple amendments that you will see today. So the bill it establishes general standards for use of force and use of lethal force and it leaves for working out the implementation details to the policymaking process that has already begun pursuant to the governor's executive order issued in August which doesn't have a deadline on it but we will probably end up with a effective date for the standards of January 1st of 2021. The bill itself is July 1st 2021 but after consultation with our fellow members in the other body thought that January 1st would be fine but any event the idea is to give that process enough time to figure out those processes and any additional training that might be needed to comport with the standards that we have in this bill. I will say that the standards that we have and you will hear more later are consistent with and for the most part really are the same as those standards that are already in law that apply which are through cases but the bill does certainly clarify a few areas with respect to what current case law standards provide and I think in my view I think the clarification should be welcomed by law enforcement because the more I dug into the actual case law and standards you know there are some inconsistent cases even in the second circuit regarding some pretty important issues that we have in this bill. So we have worked to try to address the concerns that we've heard from the other bodies so that this can go over there and to be concurred with. I'm not sure that we have addressed them all but we've tried our best but I think that we will see it at least get to the floor over in the Senate. The two uh the couple of amendments uh I'll I'll really point to just one particular one because it is pretty important and that's the amendment uh being offered by Representative Donahue and one of the issues that we've been going back and forth with and really started with S219 on the prohibited restraint crime. A lot of law enforcement have said you know that prohibited restraint I'll just call them chokeholds more commonly known as chokeholds that that's something that law enforcement officer you know in grappling with somebody on the ground where it's a life and death situation where there's a threat of death or imminent harm that the law enforcement officer may find that a chokehold is the best way to deal with that issue. So we really tried to figure out a way to make clear that there was a defense if you use a chokehold in that situation that that that that is and it's a justified deadly force situation that the law enforcement officer will be able to use that and we did deal with that by amending the justifiable homicide statute. As it currently is in law it's probably unconstitutional so law enforcement wouldn't be able to point to that to say hey my use of the chokehold was justified but the change that we have which essentially incorporates the standards that we have in S119 into that justifiable homicide bill now that is something that law enforcement can use as a defense. The problem is is that we had a provision in S119 and it is in the bill but it will be eliminated through Ann Donahue's amendment that said that prohibited restraints can't be used for any reason which kind of adds it makes it a little bit a little confusing about whether it can be used in a situation of self-defense. We thought we had gotten around that but the more I've looked at it the more I agree with Representative Donahue is we really had to go through some contortions to do that so Ann Donahue's amendment would remove that provision and I think I'm pretty sure that we're going to find that favorable I certainly find it favorable and what that where that leaves us is we do have the prohibited restraint crime but it's now clear that there is a provision in the justifiable homicide statute that makes I think I think makes it quite clear that in the situation where really it's the last resort and the law enforcement officer finds that using that instead of using the gun or maybe the gun's not available that that they are going to be found to be justified in the use of the prohibitive restraint I think and I think that's a very important point that I'm pointing out because that's I think one of the major concerns that people have had with this bill and I do think that we have now dealt with it on the one hand making very clear that prohibited restraints that we were putting restrictions on their use including in an other amendment amendment you will see which which bans the training of prohibited restraints which is my understanding is just codifying current practice while also ensuring that that if those are used in one of those dire situations law enforcement will have a defense so I know there's a lot of other stuff there but I know that Bryn's on and she can do a walkthrough and I'm happy to answer other questions regarding our policy decisions if any come up great thank you so much Martin so I will invite Bryn at this point to take us on a jog through the bill and committee members you can find this on the house judiciary committee page and take it away Bryn. Okay good morning committee for the record Bryn here from legislative council I did want to confirm one thing with representable alone first which is I'm going to be doing a walkthrough of draw 5.1 that includes the instances of amendment that's going to be proposed is that correct? Yeah I think that that makes sense just because I'm pretty sure that the rest of the committee will find that favorable yes and I and I mean the instances of amendment that have more than one instance right right the ones that my amendment right yes exactly okay okay so so we're going to be looking at draw 5.1 I think that you should have that on your committee webpage and I can sort of point out the places where the instances instances of amendment change the language here in draw 5.1 so a lot of this is going to look familiar to the committee since you've looked at this a few iterations of of this language section one creates the new section of law in title 20 that governs law enforcement use of force and that includes force and deadly force so we start out in subsection a with some definitions of words that are going to be used throughout the standards the definition in subdivision two force is a new definition there meaning physical coercion employed by law enforcement to compel a person's compliance with law enforcement instructions and if you turn to page two the totality of the circumstances definition there is there will be a change to this definition based on the amendment that's being offered by the representative alone and that is that the second the second part of that long sentence is going to be removed so instead it's going to read the totality of the circumstances means the conduct and decisions of the law enforcement officer leading up to the use of force and all facts known to the law enforcement officer so that or reasonably available to will be gone at the time period so that including whether a medical condition and the rest of that sentence won't won't be there so it's a little tricky to think about that but if you've got the language right in front of you hopefully that's pretty clear so that second portion of the sentence will not be there and that reasonably available to language will not be there so it will just be the facts the conduct and decisions of the law enforcement officer leading up to the use of force and facts known to the law enforcement officer so then I'll jump down to subdivision b if there's not questions about that so this is the use of force section this is the these are the standards that govern govern law enforcement use of force so the the sort of key language there is in subdivision two which is at the top of page three and that is the language that provides that law enforcement shall only use the force objectively reasonable necessary and proportional to effect an arrest to prevent escape or to overcome resistance of a person the officer has reasonable cause to believe has committed a crime or to achieve any other lawful law enforcement objective so that language has been expanded a little bit since the last time you saw it so I can walk through each of these subdivisions but since you've got kind of limited time I'm going to move down to subdivision c which is the use of deadly force unless I see some other questions so the use of deadly force is found on page four and the key provision here is c one so this is the language that provides that law enforcement is justified in using deadly force if it's necessary to either defend against imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person or to apprehend a fleeing person for any felony that threatened serious bodily injury or death if that officer reasonably believes that the person will cause serious bodily injury or death to another if they're not immediately apprehended so that sort of sets out the parameters that create the standard that deadly force can only be used if it's necessary in defense of human life and then subdivision two there I'm at the bottom of page four this is the language that really puts some parameters on what the word necessary means in this context so it provides that necessary the deadly force is necessary when given the totality of the circumstances an objectively reasonable officer in the same situation will conclude there was no reasonable alternative to that use of deadly force I'm going to keep going here I don't see any questions so subdivision three on the top of page five I think this is also a new language from the last version you saw this provides that law enforcement has to stop using deadly force as soon as the subject is under the officer's control or no longer poses an imminent threat of injury or death to another person and then as representative Lalonde mentioned subdivision six is being proposed to be struck and that's the provision that says that law enforcement shall not use a prohibited restraint for any reason okay I'm going to keep going if I don't get interrupted here so section two this is the justifiable homicide statute so you might recall that s219 passed over the summer repealed a portion of this statute so what this what this what this draft does is instead amend the justifiable homicide statute so it does a few things to it including updating the language modernizing the language in subdivision one I'm on page six now and in subdivision two just sort of it makes the intent more clear of what that subdivision means and then subdivision three this is the portion that relates to law enforcement it just rewrites this this whole subdivision to provide that law enforcement are entitled to a justifiable homicide defense as long as they use force that's in compliance with some of the standards that are set that set forth in section one so it provides if they use force in compliance with b24 and five they're justified or if they use deadly force in compliance with c1 through 4 so I can talk to you specifically about what those what those cross references mean so subdivision b2 that's the standard that's the key standard that sets forth the parameters under which law enforcement may use force that objectively reasonable and necessary and proportional standard subdivision b4 provides that law enforcement that use of the decision to use force has to be objectively reasonable and that's evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation based on the totality of the circumstances and b5 provides that law enforcement knows it's long it provides sort of a duty on law enforcement that if they know that a subject's conduct is due to some type of impairment medical condition developmental disability physical limitation language barrier or some other impairment officer has to take that information into account in determining whether or not to use force and if they do use force what degree of force they should use so I didn't talk about that particular subdivision as I was going through the bill but that is an important addition that's made in in this amendment and then the deadly force parameters that are cross-referenced in the justifiable homicide statute are c1 which is that standard that we just went through that necessary and defensive human life standard and then c2 is the description of what the word necessary means c3 is that provision we talked about law enforcement has to stop using deadly force as soon as the subject's under control under the officer's control or doesn't impose a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury any longer and c4 provides that law enforcement can't use deadly force against a person who only presents a risk to themselves and not to another person so as long as law enforcement law enforcement's use of force is in compliance with those standards that are set out in section one then the they are entitled to use this justifiable homicide defense does that make sense I'm just looking to see if anybody has questions about that I'm gonna keep I'll keep going them so section three this repeals the two sunsets that were set forth and s219 over the summer if you remember you imposed a sunset on that new crime for law enforcement use of a prohibited restraint and you also sunset that provision subdivision three of the justifiable homicide statute that applies to law enforcement you sunset both those provisions in july of next year and s219 so because you've revisited the justifiable homicide statute and that use of prohibited restraint in this bill you've repealed those sunsets that you set out in s219 i'm going to move on to section four i'm now at the top of page seven this is a new section that provides a directive to dps to report back to the standing committees on the process by which they develop a model policy a model uniform statewide use of force policy for law enforcement directs that report to come in honor before february second of next year to this committee and the house and senate judiciary committees and the senate gov ops committee and it provides that the they the report has to specifically include what the process was like for dps and and developing the policy who they heard from what stakeholders were at the table and developing the policy number of times stakeholders met opportunities for public comment any outcome of that public comment and also just what the final proposed policy is and then lastly section five is the effective date section and it provides that the standards for law enforcement use of force and the changes to the justifiable homicide statute are going to take effect in jan on january first of 2021 that's another change from the provision you see here in draft 5.1 and that the remainder takes effect on passage all right any questions from committee members jim harrison thank you i don't know if this would be for brin or martin but a lot of this is in the weeds for some of us with the legal language but that's why i appreciate you both going through it i guess my my question is related to a characterization one of the media reports recently quoted the department of state's attorneys to call it the most restrictive use of force law in the country is that a fair characterization or is that just the press reporting on something that's uh perhaps fair let me take a first crack at this and brin can correct me if i'm wrong on this uh i think that that is correct if you're looking at statutory standards uh there are a lot of movements in a number of different states right now to update uh long overdue updates on statutes related to use of force i would say that in my view having looked at case law which is currently really what where the standards are the evolving standards we are consistent with that case law but as far as other statutes yes this would this i think in my view and brin can correct me uh that this is the most restrictive in large part because those statutes except for california and except for some other states that are looking at it right now haven't changed in probably decades okay thank you that's helpful any other questions from committee members for either martin or brin all right um i want to thank you both for joining us this morning and and sharing with us your work on s1 19 that will come to the floor later today i know that it has been a big lift for you all and i appreciate the hard work that you've done in in moving this policy through your committee and bringing it to the floor and look forward to to hearing about this um on the floor later today last chance for questions committee all right thank you martin thank you brin for being with us see you later on the virtual floor that's right