 Great. Good morning. This is Friday, April 16th. It's 8.30 in the morning. And we are after a long night of other debate, we are turning our attention this morning again to S3, which we have had some witnesses for in some committee discussion. We have with us this morning, Will DeWight from Mad Freedom, who requested to be heard. And I'm happy to have her join us here this morning. I should say that I have had some, so Will, I wanted to say I hadn't gotten a chance because of everything that was going on yesterday to be in touch, but I've had some conversation with the chair of the judiciary committee. And so I think that there is, so we want to hear your testimony and we have not had that chance yet, but I'm hoping that some of what you've testified to already in the judiciary committee may already be influencing a draft that they're working on as well. So I'm wanting us to focus on sections five and section six this morning, which is the areas that we're primarily looking at. So with that, welcome and introduce yourself please and then we'll hear your testimony. Thank you, chair Lippert. Good morning. Good morning. House Healthcare Committee, my name is Will DeWight. I am the founder of an organization called Mad Freedom. And I started this organization because of my own personal experiences with discrimination and oppression against me, based on my having a diagnosis of a severe mental illness. This diagnosis came very late in my life and so for the majority of my life I enjoyed all the privileges of a person who was deemed sane by society but suddenly, you know, kind of after practicing law and achieving very much in my life I could no longer even be employed. I give you that background because the reason I wanted to speak on this, this bill this morning is because I felt in listening to the testimony particularly in the House Healthcare Committee that the voice of people who actually have been diagnosed or experienced with the symptoms that our society designates as mental illness, their voices have been silenced here or erased or not considered. And because the mission of Mad Freedom is to secure political power to end this discrimination and oppression of people based on their perceived mental state. This is our mission. I felt compelled to bring that voice into this, this committee room. This is not a bill that I would really want to run to speak on principle because, you know, people who have mental illnesses are always perceived as dangerous always perceived as violent. When the vast majority of us have no violent history, we have, you know, have no dangerous history, yet like other groups who are numerical minorities we are always defined by the minority within us. Majority groups don't get labeled with that, you know, although most men, most people who commit rapes or men, men are not considered rapists. However, you know, when a person who has a mental illness also commits a violent crime suddenly all people with a mental illness are violent. So my testimony here is to provide a voice for those of us who are, who are not violent, whose mental illnesses have not caused them to be violent, but who nonetheless are considered violent or bear the brunt of those attitudes in our society. So I understand that. And so I also want to say that I come to this as an as an attorney. Also as somebody who has experienced a long period of psychosis and mania. Also as a person who was a guardian, the legal guardian of a brother who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia who also was involved in the criminal justice system. Who was also a victim of a violent crime, a sexual assault. And so I feel like I can understand kind of, many of not all the tensions in this bill. But but many of those other voices have been heard and I feel the voice of people who have mental illnesses have not been heard. So I understand that you're only taking up really considering section five and six of this bill. But I feel like I need to go through, not in painstaking detail, but other parts of the bill because they inform my comments on particularly section six of the bill I won't be discussing section five of the bill. So, so, overall, the, I think, just because in the, just because I want to get through this quickly I don't want to belabor this I know you've all been up late as have I, because you know when you're on the floor, a lot of us citizens are actually watching you too. So, so we're all tired and so I'm going to try to walk through this as quickly and expeditiously as possible. So, I first want to just mention in the first section section one scope of that scope of examination. And particularly looking at subsection C one it's on page one, and it's the provision of the bill that that says who the report goes to after someone's competency or sanity has been examined, and who's excluded, and who that report is actually the person who that report is about. And that is the, that person is identified as the respondent in this bill. And so I testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee that the respondent should be listed as a person who receives a copy of the report. And if you read that bill it says that the report shall be sent to the state's attorney to the respondent's attorney if the respondent is represented by counsel into the Commissioner of mental health. And once again here the respondent has been excluded. And I want to say, I want to tell you that oftentimes in a competency examination. The respondent or the defendant does not agree with their attorney about their competency, because most defendants do not want to be adjudicated incompetent. Anyone who's been through the mental health system does not want to go through the mental health system again. Anyone who are punished more harshly. If you have both a criminal charge, and you've been, and you have a mental illness. And so, we're always striving not to be adjudicated incompetent. In fact, I faced a civil commitment hearing myself when I was in California. And after interviewing the, the lawyer who was assigned to represent me, I decided to represent myself. I did so successfully. Just as a matter of recognizing the human dignity of a person who's a defendant, I feel like they should be provided a copy of this report. And also because some defendants want want can can better assist their attorneys, if they understand what's in that report, and then sometimes relationships between attorneys and clients are not good, particularly when the client the attorney wants to challenge the defendant's competency, but the defendant doesn't. And then I want to move on to page two, the first paragraph paragraph to this is another area where I feel that the way the bill is written, it disadvantages a person with a mental illness, because in this. In this paragraph. It says and I'm looking at the last sentence of the subsection to on page two of the bill. And it reads in such cases the examination of the person sanity shall be only undertaken if the psychiatrist or psychologist is able to form the opinion that the person is destined to stand trial. So I testified in the Senate, excuse me in the House Judiciary Committee that if a person is going undergoing the competency exam and the attorney knows that they're going to be raising and sanity in evidence that it's in the best interest of the defendant and justice to allow the examiner to examine both sanity and competence at the same time, because if the person is adjudicated incompetent that could be a long delay before they ever get to trial and evidence could be lost because of that delay. I was a person who, like I said, experienced psychosis and many for a long period of time, but after it was over. No one could tell that I had been incompetent and no one could believe that I had been psychotic or manic. And all of my friends who were witness to that their memories faded. There was also a trial after I had a civil trial, following my period of incompetency. Excuse me my period of psychosis, and many of the witnesses couldn't remember things that had happened when I was psychotic and so I was less able to present my case of trial. You heard some testimony yesterday from, I think it was yesterday or maybe a couple days ago from Dr. Ravna, who testified that the American Bar Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the law were under industry standard, not to do these two examinations at the same time. And the lawyer in me caused me to go and look at exactly what the American Bar Association said and exactly what the Academy of American Academy of Psychiatry and the law says and they do not say what the testimony said. What the American Bar Association says is the examination should not be done at the same time, unless the defendant request that they be done at the same time, or unless a court orders, based on good cause shown. The American Academy of Psychiatry and the law borrows the American Bar Association's recommendation and says that these should not be done at the same time unless the defendant request, and unless the court orders. The reason they shouldn't be done at the same time is because sometimes if somebody is in a incompetency examination, they may reveal information that is incriminating. In some states don't have laws that protect a defendant from giving incriminating information during a competency exam. That's not one of those jurisdictions in Vermont we have a statute that explicitly says you can't use anything that a person says and competency exam against them. So in this case, there's no reason in Vermont, why those examination cannot be done at the same time. So to protect the interest of the defendant, it's really important if they have the ability to have those examinations done as soon as possible so it's not to lose that evidence. One of the things that was disturbing to me that when this bill has been discussed in both the Senate and the House Judiciary committees is that everybody assumes that the person who's on who's been charged with the crime is guilty of that crime. It's not the case. Like I told you my brother was caught up in the criminal justice system and he has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. And he was charged with dealing crack cocaine out of his apartment. And it was the case that crack cocaine was being dealt out of his apartment but he was not the dealer someone was taking advantage of them he was arrested. And pleading not guilty, because he did not even have the capability to sell crack cocaine and so I want you to try to keep in mind that not everybody who's accused of a crime is guilty and not everybody who has a mental illness who's accused of a crime is guilty of that crime. And so that's why I say when we want to protect the right to defendants, people accused of crime even those with a mental illness are entitled to the presumption of innocence. And so when you when you write a when you write a bill that takes away the right of a person to preserve evidence, you really do take away their right to defend themselves for trial. And then the other thing that I want to jump to in the interest of time is the provision on page. It depends on page six and goes to page seven. It's on page seven, it's subsection Jay, which would change the current law to allow the prosecution to order an examination of a person's competency. If they didn't like the results of the court ordered examination. And this is an area that really allows someone to basically shop for an opinion that they like. And I feel like it really threatens the integrity of the judiciary. But more importantly to people who have mental illnesses competency is an area that is really subject to abuse. There are much evident much law review articles written in my profession my legal profession there's much discussion about how prosecutors oftentimes use a competency assessment to shuttle somebody into the civil commitment system, because whether the law under the United States kind of just constitutional jurisprudence, a person who's been deemed incompetent to stand trial can be forcibly medicated. Even if, if they hadn't been deemed incompetent to stand trial, they couldn't be forcibly medicated, because they understand the risk and benefits of the medication. And so there's a long line of research and evidence that suggests that many prosecutors, when they feel like they can't make the case on a criminal charge, but they find the person to be a nuisance. Because maybe they've been arrested many times for disorderly conduct, for example, they will use a competency assessment to have the person declared incompetent, and then shuttle them into the civil commitment system. This is a very concerning area for people who might be caught up in the criminal justice system because of mental illness because none of us want to be forcibly medicated. And it's something I thought I should bring to your attention. On the other side of it, you know, I heard Rep. Peterson asked a witness whether that witness, whether that psychiatrist would be able to tell if somebody were faking it, or malingering. And you know the psychiatrist, I don't know if gave you a direct answer, but I think tried to reassure you that they could. I'm going to tell you, I mean there's a pretty famous study out there that showed that people were very able to fake a mental illness and get admitted into a psychiatric hospital for the purposes of a study, and the only ones who knew that they were faking were the other people there with mental illnesses. This is an area where psychiatrists can be easily fooled, but what I'm trying to reassure you is that people who actually have mental illnesses are not interested in fooling psychiatrists to adjudicate them incompetent because they understand that they will be more harshly punished in the civil commitment area than in the criminal justice system. And then there's also, there's also in this bill a provision about notifying people I understand that that provision is going to come out upon the recommendation of everybody who's testified in the bill so I'm not going to get into that today. It's been removed by both committees. Yeah. And so, so then that brings me then to the section six of the bill, which is the work group and my easy my first in kind of a simple suggestion here is that right now the bill says that you should have one person on the work group who has a lived experience of mental illness. I testified in in the House Judiciary Committee and I'm also going to testify here that one person, the voice of one person with a mental illness on this working group will never get hurt it will be very much silence. And also the, I often tell people if you met one person with a mental illness you've met one person with a mental illness. And so I'm suggesting that the number be increased to three, and also that the person not only just have a mental illness but also have some experience with the criminal justice system and the civil end or the civil system, because I feel like we are more than just informants in this process we also are kind of epistemic agents we also have knowledge that we can combine with our lived experience that will make the process. And so I'm suggesting that that the change to to up the numbers and also up the up the up the kind of price of admission to not only live the experience of mental illness but live the experience of mental illness, long with some knowledge of the criminal justice and or and our civil commitment system. In addition to the what's listed in the bill to study that, you know, Vermont has a stated preference for non forced treatment. And the competency restoration programs and other states often include forced drugging. Because the legislature has previously said that it has a value, Vermont's value is to have voluntary treatment. That I feel like the bill should also state that in studying these competency restoration models, they should include models that don't include forced drugging. And the other thing that I feel like the working group needs to consider, in addition to balancing public safety and coordination of treatment, they also need to put in that balance that a person who's been adjudicated and competent to stand out still has the presumption of innocence. And they need to balance that and way that when they're coming up with ways to improve or reform or change our criminal justice system. And I'm always wary of bills that direct a working group to study a particular system. And in this case, this bill directs the working group to study Connecticut system and if you know anything about Connecticut is vastly different from Vermont. It's wealthier. It's more dense. They do not have a patient to force medication programs such as Vermont's order of non hospitalization. I attended the psychiatry grand rounds of a few weeks ago at University of Vermont. I asked the presenter who was the doctor who testified before you, why, why she was. Excuse me. Is there somebody not on mute, other than apologies. Let's continue. Yeah, so I asked Dr. Rabner, you know, why are you, you know, suggesting that Vermont adopt this Connecticut type type psychiatric security review board, given all the differences between particularly in wealth and density and population and in mental health laws, why are you why are you advocating for this system. And she said I'm not advocating for the system and not saying that Vermont should adopt this program I don't think they should they may be able to learn things from it but primarily I'm talking about it because the system I know best. And so I don't I feel like because that system is so different from Vermont. Connecticut is so different from Vermont and if we just ask the working group to concentrate on that. We're going to come back with a recommendation for that. And that fit the months values it's it's pocketbook at all. And so I would hope that this section could be less directed and and and instead of telling them what to look into, perhaps telling them, these are Vermont values these are Vermont's, you know, constraints. These are the degrees of freedom and the degrees of less freedom and we need a system that takes all that into account. When we're designing an appropriate forensic system for Vermont. And so I will leave as I leave my testimony there and I'm happy to take questions. I have a question will that could you say something. I don't know if it's because I got distracted by what I some ancillary sound, but would you say again, in term what I'm taking from your last comment about the competency restoration models is that you, you would advocate for language that ensures that any competency restoration models explored include a model that does not include as you've put it for struggling that that that was the primary thing I heard but but you you made some secondary or I thought some secondary comment as well. And could you say that piece again because I that in terms of the consistent with Vermont's criminal justice or. So if you would just say that I don't know if you were I don't know if you're referring to the arguments I made and in support of asking this working group to make sure that they include competency restoration models that don't include for for struggling, because Vermont in its in its legislation says we have a preference for non for, you know, for voluntary treatment. And so I don't want this, the this working group to go away and only study competency restoration models that include forced and I want, and I thought it was important for the this working group to remember that a person who's been adjudicated incompetent stand trial has the presumption of innocence right and so they shouldn't be treated more harshly than people with mental illnesses who are not involved in the criminal system at least that's my value and that's how I interpret the the presumption of innocence. And I also don't think we want a two tier mental health system you know one that treats people, you know, more harshly, and when I say more harshly I mean doesn't recognize their rights of agency and dignity and you know the right to make decisions and for themselves. So that was that point there. Is that what you were referring to. Oops. I think my, my, I think you've frozen. In my internet, I think my internet froze briefly, but I think I heard your, your clarification for me, thank you. Other questions for for will do. I might just for the. Yeah. So again, as I, I haven't been able to do a full review but I think a number of your initial sec comments in the initial sections I think are being integrated into a draft that the judiciary committee is contemplating in terms of this. Let's, I appreciate your, so there are other questions for will do. I'm looking across the screen, sorry. Okay. Thank you. I really, I really appreciate your, and, and again it's, it's an ongoing important experience learning experience that we need to have all voices at the table, all the time. Right. I appreciate your attention. Thank you. Thank you. So, let me. Okay, give me just give me a minute, please, if you would. So, let me come back to this. So let's, let's turn back to some of what some committee discussion. If we don't, we may not finish this this morning but I think there may be time later in the day for us to come back and given the hour last night we're not going to press forward. In, in any way that doesn't make good sense. So, what I'd like to do is, we had done a preliminary draft, which I distributed. Right yesterday, I believe. I don't know if folks got it, I think it was posted. And what I wanted to do is to open it up for questions both about the draft. And then, because it tried to integrate suggestions from, you know, different ways as we heard today and then we want to also take into consideration the additional testimony that we've heard here this morning. So, I think, let me first just open it up broad, open up for committee quest for questions broadly. And, oh, I see that. At least on my screen I see the representative Don Hugh is. All right, let me just check. Oh, let me turn this on. Yeah, you have two things going in. And I have to say there was something a little bit creepy about seeing you with a dark figure standing over your shoulder. I didn't know what that was initially. Well, there's Janet that's a lot friendlier voice or a lot friendlier person to see. Yeah, I've gone through like big crises but very helpful people. Okay, I think I'm only on one device. I think I'm good now. Thanks everybody. For those who and it just occurs to me as I say a friendlier. I mean they're both friendly. But these are State House employees, who many of you have not had the opportunity to meet yet. But one is, I believe, I think it's chief Romeo I capital police force and Janet Miller who's the sergeant and arms for the State House. Now they've left so I can take off my both of whom are were disguised with their masks but appropriately mass. Okay, so I was just saying that we're going to take maybe the next 20 minutes or so to go over this and not try to push to a conclusion prematurely if there's need for the discussion. Then we'll go to the floor and anticipate we'll come back from the floor. Hopefully, if not we'll return to this on Monday on Monday. No, no on Tuesday. But let's open it up for some questions if there are add to the draft that was circulated. And then, and also include the testimony that we, we heard just now this morning. So, Well, first of all, did people get a chance to look at it maybe this is even premature. And if it is just please say so. I see what he's shaking his head yes meaning that it's premature. Okay, well then that answers the question because I don't want to ask you to try to discuss something which given everything we've just done in terms of hours and the lateness of distributing a draft. So here's I have a different suggestion. How about if we do how about if we adjourn our committee this morning and give people this opportunity and whatever opportunity you get to actually absorb the draft and to take in the testimony that we just heard from will to white. And then we will find a time to return to have committee discussion because that's really what is required for people to have a chance to look at things. Okay. I mean, there's, you know, we've, and I have had some conversation with as I said, earlier with representative grad, and I think that she will understand, particularly after last night, that there may need to be a little bit more time from our for our committee. Representative Goldman. I just have a timing question when you said after floor did you mean this morning or that we would come together at 115. I just wanted to be clear. Well, here's here's what I'm anticipating is that we that will take a break now we'll stop now. We'll go to the floor at 930. If the floor is going. If the floor adjourns before the noon hour, which I don't know if it will or not, you know, I honestly don't know that anybody has a sense of that at this point. It could go throughout the entire morning. If it goes throughout the entire morning, then I'm going to suggest that we come back, say 15 minutes after the floor in the afternoon but we will not convene at least until 30 in the afternoon, because I have a commitment between one and 130. Every Friday. So it wouldn't be early. Am I being clear. So if we adjourn if we if and if we bump up against the noon hour or close to it we won't try to do anything this morning. But if you check in if we if we finish on the floor this morning. If everybody could check in with Colleen or I'll have Colleen communicate what we're doing. Good afternoon. If we're still on the floor at like say two o'clock three o'clock. Then, well, you know, it's not out of the question. And plus, oh, so I just that's the other thing and just an update. I just, and I just received a communication from the speaker. I believe I'm right in this and I was trying to do two things at once. The speaker intends to take up H88 first. Thank you. I've done that so many times. Thank you and thank you, Lori. They've been correcting me over and over and over. I wonder what H88 is anyway. S88. Yeah, so the speaker intends to take up S88 first. And so that's in our interest, frankly. And it ends interest so that can be done. So then we'll check in. We'll check in in the afternoon. And if we're done in the floor before the noon hour, we'll check in again. Does that make sense? That's the best I can say because it's just undetermined otherwise. And in the meantime, see if you can get a chance to look through the draft. Great. Thank you. Thank you all.