 Hi, and welcome to another Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement, Evening with Legal Beagles. Tonight we have with us the Chittenden County State's Attorney, who is Sarah George, and she has agreed to do a little community discussion on a recent proposal about eliminating, at least she, would like to eliminate the request for monetary bail. And that she announced that this summer, and it has received some controversial response. So I'm here with Sarah to talk about bail and what it would mean if it was eliminated monetarily. With us also is, and Sarah, as I mentioned, is the Chittenden County State's Attorney for Chittenden County, which is an elected office, correct? But Sarah always has four years in office, right? Rather than just two. And with us also is our Mina Medic, and she can introduce herself, I think, but she works as part of the State's Attorney's Office in the office which deals with sexual assaults, right? And sexual violence, and that she has been with that office for a very long time. And I wanted her here because, maybe to talk a little bit about what she does in that office. But tonight we do have with us, again, Sarah George. And so she would like to lead this discussion about bail, correct? So we have to change places. Okay, hello, everybody. So I think what Sandy had hoped I would do is just start by giving a little background on what cash bail is, how the system works, how it's supposed to work, and how it actually works, which is an important distinction. So first of all, I am Sarah George. I'm the Chittenden County State's Attorney. I've only been the State's Attorney for about four years, and January will be four years, but I have been a prosecutor in the same office, the Chittenden County office, for 10 years. So when I first started, I was the domestic violence investigator, and then the domestic violence prosecutor for three and a half years, and then I took over a general case load, and then again became the State's Attorney, the elected position in January 2017. So I've done a lot of different policies over the years. I guess just as a little bit of a background, I actually got into law wanting to become a public defender. That was my goal. When I got my master's degree, it became incredibly clear to me how unfair and really unjust our criminal legal system is, and I wanted to be a part of fixing it. And as law school went on, I did an internship at a prosecutor's office, and then I also did an internship at the public defender's office, and it became abundantly clear to me that prosecutors are actually the people in the system that can do a lot more good, and that's no offense to public defenders. They do incredible work, but prosecutors have a lot of power and a lot of discretion, and have frankly used that power and discretion to get us into the mass incarceration problem that we're in, and can use the same power and discretion to get us out of it. So I decided to become a prosecutor, and so as State's Attorney, I've been trying to implement as many policies as I can to frankly level the playing field a little bit. We talk about equal justice, and Lady Justice has the scales that are equal, but that's not our reality at all in the system. And one place that even in Vermont, we like to think that we're immune to this, but our system disproportionately impacts people of color, black, brown, and poor people especially, and Vermont is the second in the nation for disproportionate black and brown people in our jails compared to our population. It's pretty devastating when you see the numbers of how many people, or if you ever go to a jail, and you walk around a jail, how many of them are black and brown people. And part of our system that most demonstrates that is our use of cash bail and pretrial detention. And so I think to start, I would say that cash bail is a mechanism that we have and that was put in place in order to guarantee or assure that people show up for court. So the idea behind it when it first came about was that if you think that somebody is a risk of flight, like they're not gonna show up for court, you require them to pay this amount of money and they pay that money and because they've paid that money, they have some reason to show up for court. And that's how it's been used, but unfortunately in reality, how it plays out is that it holds poor people in jail and it lets rich people out and it doesn't actually, there's been a lot of research and data done recently that shows it doesn't actually make any difference about whether somebody will come to court. So the one thing it's supposed to do, it's been proven not to do at all. And what it actually does, again, is really drive our numbers up for pretrial detention, which COVID I think highlighted for a lot of people in this state, how many people were holding that have not been convicted of any crime. And that every single one of them, at least in Chittenden County, when we got our list, every single one of them had a public defender, which means they're poor and none of them had private attorneys because if you have a private attorney, you can afford a private attorney, which means you can afford your bail. On top of that, during COVID, people haven't been required to come to court. So we are holding people in jail on cash bail because we want to assure that they show up for court and yet we're not making people in the community show up for court. So there's this added atrocity, in my opinion, of continuing this use of cash bail. Again, when we got our list, when COVID first hit and we were all trying to get as many people out of jail as we could, the first thing I would say is that I was incredibly grateful that our office has done as much as we have to keep people out of jail because our list was actually lower than a lot of other counties and we have a quarter, closer to a third of the state's population in our county and we had less people being held pretrial. So that was great. It made the work less for us. But even then when we got our list, again, not only were all of them public defenders, but a lot of them were black and brown people, which is just the reality of how cash bail plays out. And so we actually stopped asking for cash bail back in January of this year and slowly just sort of started seeing how it played out. We didn't make a big announcement of it because, frankly, that's usually what gets me in trouble is these big announcements and we just sort of did it. And as you can imagine, not only did the world not end, but well, it's a lot happened since then, but it didn't impact our cases. It didn't impact people showing up for court. It didn't impact public safety. And I think part of the reason it felt important at some point to announce it was because of that, it was because of this conversation and really highlighting for people what cash bail actually does, what it doesn't do, and why I think it's important that this become law because what we've seen in Chittenden County, even yesterday when I was in court, is judges continuing to impose it anyway. And frankly, in some ways, I think in spite of us making this really big, bold statement, I made the statement multiple times that I view cash bail as ransom and that offends some people because there's a lot of people in this state that are continuing to ask for cash bail. And so when you put it in words that are frankly disturbing and upsetting, people take it really personally. And I think our judges have done that a little bit and they're imposing it anyway, which means that then we have to file motions and then we have to really litigate to get these people out of jail. And they even say, when they're imposing the bail, they'll say, I'm holding you on $5,000 bail. And that's the problem, is that their goal is to hold the person. It's not to get the person back into their community where they have routes and ties and services. It's to hold them because they don't like the behavior, but that's not what cash bail has ever been for. I also think it's really important to point out a distinction when people think, when they hear that we're no longer asking for cash bail, they think that means that all of these dangerous people are back in the community and that we're not addressing public safety or we're putting people at risk. There is an entirely separate statute called a hold without bail statute. And that statute is made for violent felonies where we think there's a risk of public safety. We still do that. We are still limiting the amount of times we do that, one just because we don't want more people in jail, but also because we're not having trials right now. And so it's really important for us that we're not just putting people in jail on this idea that they'll have a trial within 60 days, which you're entitled to under the hold without bail statute. But also we just wanna be very mindful of who we're putting in jail right now. But we are still using that. And I just think it's an important distinction that bail has nothing to do with public safety, not just my opinion on that. The statute does not allow you to take public safety into account when you're setting bail. The only thing you can take into account is flight risk. Is this person going to flee the state? Is this person not gonna show up for prosecution? Which is actually one a really hard thing to prove because often people will travel very far to answer to their charges they think they want to. But it also, again, hasn't been proven that cash bail will do that any better. So I just, I wanna make sure that that's really clear for a lot of people. I think the only other thing I would point out is the really scary truth that when people are held on bail, they are far more likely, and there's a lot of data and research to prove this, they are far more likely to plead guilty to things that they're not guilty of because they wanna get out of jail. Where if they were in the community while their charge was pending, they would actually litigate it. And far more often than not, probably win. Or at least get a far better deal once the parties sort of understood the faults in their case, for lack of a better word. So I know a man now who has had, he had a very, very long record, a lot of charges. And he came into my office to talk about expunging a lot of his old criminal record because now he owns a business and he's doing really well. And when I went through, he was in the system at 11 and was in a correctional facility, the day turned 18. And when I started looking at all of his old convictions, I realized that he was pleading out on the day he was arraigned because he knew he was gonna be held. And he knew that if he just pled to the charge as soon as possible, he'd have a better chance of getting DOC to release him sooner. And he was saying to me that, I actually didn't do that, my buddy did that one, or maybe I did, but that one was self-defense. Like he had all of these claims to these cases and some of them he was like, yeah, I did that. But even if he had admitted that he did it, he never would have got the sentence today that he had gotten back then because the prosecutors know in that moment they know they have the upper hand. And as much as I hate to admit it, that's taken advantage of a lot and especially when people are in jail. We say that like, I know that I have said it before when I was doing domestic cases, when somebody might be in jail. And I would say, well, maybe they'll be more likely to plead this case quicker. And I didn't mean it as a like, plead to something they're not guilty of. I meant like, maybe for the victim's sake, this case will resolve sooner. But the other side to that is that people will plead to things sooner, despite maybe having a valid defense. So cash bail just makes that even worse. So that's my pitch. We do not ask for it in Chittenden County, but again, it is still happening. Judges are still imposing it. And because it is not statutory, it's not happening in other jurisdictions. And again, even if other state's attorneys decided not to, it would still allow for judges to impose it. So I think it's really important that this become a legislative fix. I wanted to ask you a question. When I was in the legislature, there was a proposal to change the laws around bail. And it was clear to me at that point for the very first time that people didn't realize that pre a plead of guilty, or pre trial and resulting in a conviction that the reason for bail at all is that people prior to trial are innocent. So that people who are presumed innocent still should not be in jail at all. So that's the reason for the question of bail, because the question then becomes should these people be held in jail prior to any guilty plea, right? That's the reason they're presumed innocent. So why then would you lock up a person who's presumed innocent? Right, and even more importantly, if that person presumed innocent has access to money, they never spend an hour in jail and could be in Mexico by tomorrow with absolutely no attachment to the money that they gave up because they have plenty more and won't care about coming to court where that same person or that same charge or maybe a much less serious charge being held on a lot less money, will sit in jail for months while their case is pending. And again, I think it's important to sort of lift up this idea that we are even more so now. People are being held in a jail that they cannot socially distance in, that they are not being given all of the proper PPE or anything else that they might need and we're not having court. So their cases are prolonged even further and longer while they are presumed innocent. Right, I have a question, Sarah. Who is responsible for paying the court when defendants go to jail for lack of bail? Yeah, and so this is a great question. I mean, I don't know if everybody heard it at home, but yeah, so the question is who's paying for people while they sit in jail and I think it's sort of ironic in some ways that all of these people are being held in jail because they can't pay a sort of arbitrary amount of money. And again, a lot of it is $5,000 or less, which means they need $500 or less to have a bail bondsman bail them out and they can't meet that. So that's the sort of imagine not being able to come up with $500 for your freedom. So while they're sitting in jail and their inability to collect $500, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars to keep them there. So in the United States every single day, we spend $40 million every single day in the United States to hold people pretrial that have not been convicted of any crimes. In a year, we spend $140 billion to hold people that have not been convicted of any crimes in our jails. Young people, a lot of young people, all poor people, a lot of people with mental health issues, a lot of people with addiction issues or substance use disorder and a lot of black and brown people. The question is, can you repeat the question because we can't hear it. But I don't know if that might have been the last one. I'll just leave it up. The question before that, I think I sort of answered or said what the question was. Barry? Back to the question, once the question is, does the whole idea of bail bondsman defeat the purpose because the person puts up 10% and says, I'm not gonna get back. So how do they have any more incentive other than to fear that the bail bondsman is gonna track them down when they go to Mexico? Right, yeah. So bail bondsman's require a 10% down payment that is non-refundable and then they cover the rest of the bail and if you don't show it for court then they come after you for that remaining portion. And you're absolutely right. So the question is sort of how does that give any incentive and the theory is that the incentive is you don't want this bail bondsman coming after you for this money. I think a lot more bail bondsmans are now doing like civil forfeitures for people, like they'll go after your car or they'll go after your home. Although a lot of people that are in these positions don't own those types of properties and so there really isn't a lot and that again goes to the evidence and data has shown doesn't actually increase one's ability or likelihood to show up for court. Yeah. How does conditions of release play into the public safety concerns or address it? Yeah. So the question is how do conditions of release play into the public safety concerns? Maybe you should explain, first of all, most people don't even have a clue how the court works. Yeah. Even in arraignment, they don't know, so. Yep. You could explain conditions of release. Yeah. So when somebody is charged with a crime, our office gets that paperwork from the police department and we look through it and just determine what we're going to charge, if anything, and whether or not we're gonna divert it to a restorative justice program or a diversion or drug court or whether we're actually gonna charge the case and go through our normal process. If we do that, then we also fill out this conditions of release form, which means these are the conditions that we think this offender should have to agree to in order to be released. It's somewhat of a, everybody is getting released, so it's probably not a great use of the term. But anyway, and some of them are only, you need to come to court when you're told to or you need to tell the court when you change your address, those types of things. But some of them, we do use on more serious cases if there's a domestic violence allegation, then we might say you cannot have contact with this particular person or you must stay 300 feet away from this person or their residence or their place of employment. We might give them a curfew. You have an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew where you have to be at a court-approved residence. They can be very restrictive. The law requires that they're the least restrictive while still serving public safety purposes. So we have to be mindful of that and be careful that we're not just asking for a lot of conditions because frankly that sets a lot of people up to fail. And then we've just got new violation of conditions charges and that doesn't do anybody any good. But that's an important factor for us, especially if we're not asking for bail, to make sure that we have the conditions in place we need to ensure public safety while also making sure that we're not setting offenders up for further charges. So if somebody is found with a felony amount of heroin on them and admit to the police that they use heroin and that they need help, back in the day we used to then ask for a conditional release that you not possess heroin. We don't do that anymore because that is a setup for that person. We know that person is struggling with addiction. To say overnight, okay you just got found with this so now we're gonna make sure that if you possess it anymore it's another charge. When really if they possess it again, it's just another possession of heroin charge. They don't also need a violation of conditions of release charge. So we try to be really cognizant that we're not setting people up but we're also making sure that we can do what we can to help them in the meantime which is also complicated by COVID when we don't have all the services available that we typically would for those people. Yeah. What are the steps to making your position on their law? Yeah, so the question is what are the steps to making to eliminating cash bail legally or by law? So it would be like any other loss. So I think it was two legislative sessions ago. They did some bail reform and that limited the number of cases we could ask for bail in but not by much. It was really, it limited really low level offenses that I didn't know people were asking for bail on. So it really didn't impact our office at all because we just weren't doing that but it was sort of a, from my perspective, it started out as this big bail reform legislation and it just got watered down like most things do. Ironically, this is actually a very easy one because in my opinion just needs to be the elimination of it and the policy is one sentence. It's actually the easiest policy I've ever written. So you would just, you know, we'd have either the House or the Senate would need to introduce a bill that just flat out said, you know, the elimination of cash bail that prosecutors, judges cannot, prosecutors can't request it, judges can't impose it and it would need to pass the House and the Senate and then it would become law. Just. Yeah, that's it. That's all we have to do. But yeah, it's simple in its steps. Yeah, in reality, I think there's just a lot of misunderstanding about what cash bail is for. I mean, I cannot even tell you how many times people will say to me like I can't believe you let this person out. I can't believe you didn't hold them on bail and like you don't hold people on bail. That's the point. The point is to get out. It's just that we get this money and we don't get it. So another important, like we don't get that money. The court gets that money and the bail bondsman gets that money. We don't get that money. So there's a lot of misinformation. It would take a lot of educating, even the legislators I think and people that will use a lot of fear tactics and a lot of fear mongering to get people to think this is gonna make us less safe. That's the hard part, you know. Yeah. Go ahead. Is there any national context with that that's just happening here? Or is this kind of a move on a foot? Yeah, good question. So the question is, is this a national conversation or is this just happening here? So again, when I first became state's attorney, there was a lot of national conversation around bail reform, which happened in a lot of jurisdictions. Rachel Rollins and Boston are remember making like a lot of really big waves around bail reform and Larry Crasner in Philadelphia, Kim Fox in Chicago. There was conversations there in all of those places where they really significant, they got elected on those really bold policies and then they really limited the amount of cases that their prosecutors could ask for bail in. Basically misdemeanors, low level or nonviolent misdemeanors. The actual idea of eliminating cash bail, I had never really heard before last summer when Chesa Boudin in San Francisco was running for state's attorney, as a district attorney as a public defender whose parents are in cart or his mother isn't anymore. Both of his parents were incarcerated his entire life and his father still is in New York. And Tiffany Caban and she was running for Queens district attorney at the time and they were talking about the elimination of cash bail. And talking about misinformation and I was like, whoa. And I mean, I am a very progressive prosecutor and reform minded and I was like, that's a lot. And then Tiffany didn't win her race, but Chesa did. And in January, he implemented the policy in San Francisco. So he was the first district attorney in the country to eliminate cash bail, which is when I started, when he was announcing it, I really delved into it. Like I basically was like, if San Francisco can do this, we can do this. And that's when I really did a ton of research on it. I talked to Chesa a lot about his policy and that's when I told staff that we were gonna start to do it. So I'm the second in the country to do it. There are however, at least five district attorneys who won their primaries this year around the country and will take office in January that have promised to do it as well. And they're in pretty big jurisdiction. So, and two of them are in Texas. Yeah. So it's coming. You know, I mean, it is a really big conversation. And, you know, I think that it's coming. I think Vermont would be a leader in it if we did it this legislative session, this one coming up. But before long, you know, like most things, people will realize that the world doesn't end. And in fact, we save a ton of money by doing this and we're no less safe. Did you have a question? You're saying one. Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought it had been passed in other states. No, I think, and, you know, New York last year or two years ago, like also did a lot of bail reform that is already like being pedaled back in their legislature. And there's like this really big battle because then basically the New York police unions just they have a lot of money and a lot of influence. Well, I think quite it. Because even police don't fully understand what cash bills actually for. They want it to be used to hold people. And I mean, and we have done that. I mean, it's, we have done that as an office. We've done that as a state where we get calls from these people that are just continuing to pick up charges. They're expending a ton of resources but they're low level cases and the police just get really tired and fed up and they want them in jail and the only way to keep them in jail is to set bail. And that has become a very common practice around the state, around the country. It's very misunderstood and it's very abused. Well, there's no presumption. There's no understanding that people who are in jail are pretrials yet. There's no understanding of that. How many people have even thought of that, right? That pretrial, they're not guilty of anything at that point, right? So they're innocent. But yet they're in jail and they're still presumed to be innocent. So that's where that, but... And a lot of times are offered that if they plead, they will get out of jail. So, you know, that's, so we think that they're dangerous to the community and need to be in jail before they're left guilty. But if they plead guilty, somehow they're no longer a risk to the community and that's just not, it's not true and it's unethical and it's unconstitutional. And the only way I think to really, you know, we, every county in Vermont, there's 14 counties and everyone has their own state's attorney and we all view things very differently. And the unfortunate reality to that is that justice has, you know, there's 14 levels of justice in Vermont and that's really unfortunate that if you pick up a charge in one place, if you pick up a charge here, you will not be held pre-trial on bail unless a judge does it over our objection, but then hopefully it will be quick and we can get you out. But if that same thing happens, 15 miles up the road in St. Albans or, you know, down in Bennington or Rutland, you're gonna sit in jail. That's, oh yeah. And then I think maybe Ellen had a question as well. What are the arguments for having cash bail? It's so, it's so obviously disadvantageous, poor people, it's blatant and no one questioned it before. Hi, Ellen, you may want to mute your mic. It looks like she did. Hi, Ellen. You know each other? Ellen, yeah, absolutely. I haven't seen her for a long time. What are the arguments for having cash bail? I mean, I think that is the question. And I think, you know, going back to passing legislation, that's the question because what I have found as a quote unquote progressive prosecutor is that I, when I make decisions or when I implement new policies, there's this demand that I show evidence and data and support or evidence and data that supports that policy. And yet nobody ever demands the same for a system that doesn't work and policies that have no evidence or data to support them. So, you know, when I talk about ending cash bail, my question back is always show me how it works. Show me the data or evidence or research that says people are more likely to show up if they give me this or the court, this arbitrary amount of money because it doesn't exist. I've checked, I promise you, I have checked and there is no evidence to support it. All it does is keep poor people in jail. Rich people get out and are just as much of a public safety risk if they are a public safety risk and poor people sit. So, you know, what are the arguments for having it? People will say, they will continue to say, regardless of the research that it's the only way to guarantee people will show up for court. They will often, as many do when they think that a reform is somehow contrary to victims' rights, they will say that victims will be in more danger or that people won't show up for court and so victims won't get their day in court. But none of that is based in any evidence at all. So, would you, I think there was another question, Ari. Would you say why you think then that there are so many disproportionately people of color in jail in Vermont, even though it's one of the whitest states in the union? Why do I think it? I mean, I think we just are not, we over police black and brown people and we overcharge them and we over prosecute them and we over incarcerate them. And I- Or sentence to? Yeah, yeah. And I don't, the why, why does anybody? I mean, that's just, it's clearly, I think that Vermonters still have this play into the racism involved in an out-of-state New York plate driving up the interstate in a nice car must be a drug dealer from Brooklyn. I mean, it's, as much as we would really love to say that that's not happening, the data shows it is. And then we get that person and I think some of this goes back to cash bail. We get that person and they have a New York plate and so we quickly will say, well, they're not gonna show up for court. It's like, Brooklyn's like five hours away. Like it's not, it's actually a really easy drive. They might, we don't have any reason to think they won't. But we'll impose that cash bail really quickly to make sure they do. And then we think, well, they live in New York and so we don't have, why would we put them on probation or why would we do community partnerships when they don't live here? So we're gonna put them in jail and our sentence is gonna be a jail sentence. You know, I think it just, at every step, we come up with some justification for it and then that gets really easy to do. And it's a lot harder to like really figure out the why, the real why. Also, in this community, there are many black and brown people who are also poor. So, I guess that's why. That's why they're pre-trial in jail. Yep, and I mean, this is like a whole nother conversation but that then means our juries are mostly white. And so. Is that still the case? Yeah, and I, you know, I've wondered a lot of, you know, last summer I was a trial on a Stephen Burke going case and so we had like 400 juror questionnaires that got sent out to the community and that we were, you know, going through and then we had 250 over a few days coming in and out of the courtroom to pick our jury. And there was a handful of black and brown people of all of those. And so then I started, after the trial, I started delving into like, well, how do we get these people? And it's, you know, car registrations and home ownerships. Potential jurors, right. Right, potential jurors. Car ownerships and home ownerships and voter registration, which are all things that poor communities and communities of color don't always have. It's just, you know, we're constantly feeding into the problems that create the disproportionate impacts. But is it also true that we are creating more poverty if we are posting, if we are giving bail to defendants that we're creating more poverty by putting their families through that? Yeah, not even just more poverty. I mean, if you, you know, the moment you take somebody out of their home, literally their home, and put them in jail, you disrupt their, yeah, you potentially, they could lose their rights to their children. They could lose their job. They could lose their housing. Their partner might lose their housing or their financial assets, their community resources, their roots in any particular community. And then you're creating an additional stress for the people that are left behind to come up with this money or to not come up with the money. And then the additional guilt that goes with that of your loved one sitting in jail, well, your home, and that all makes us less safe. That all makes us less safe because that person's life is disrupted. All of these bad things happen. And then like I was saying before, they either post the bail and they're right back out but don't have a job or don't have, you might not have their housing left or they have to then fight to get their kids back or all of these things that we for three months, six months thought was really important that they sit in jail and they lost all these things. And it's just a terrible, terrible system. And it makes everybody less safe. Is there anybody that's on Zoom that wants to ask a question? If you do, you can just unmute yourself and ask. Can you hear me? You might want to work on it. If anybody has a question that they didn't put in the chat but are on Zoom and want to just unmute yourself and ask a question, please not. Anyone from the unmute? Just going back to the theme of how to change the laws and how to change the system. Do you have any ideas to what public opinion is or isn't about cash bail or about changing the cash bail system whether people tend to support that change or not? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that when I announced it. Do you want to repeat? Oh, so the question is, do I have any sort of inclination about what the reaction might be about eliminating cash bail? And I'll say that when I announced it, there was an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, letters, emails, calls about it. And the only negative feedback that I got was like trolls on Twitter, the trolls on Twitter that like don't like anything I do ever. And I really did and even frankly from law enforcement because one, we started it in January. So they, although I didn't announce it, a lot of them knew clearly and they're getting used to a lot of this stuff but they also knew that what we were doing was not what bail was for. And so it's not, they know that we were doing it wrong, that everybody's doing it wrong. You know, the federal system hasn't used bail in, I think it was like 1993 or something that they eliminated cash bail federally. Washington, DC, they eliminated cash bail. They only have, they don't have like, they only have an attorney general, they don't have a state system, but so there really wasn't any negative feedback there was definitely some victims or some people that wondered how that might impact their cases. A couple of our homicide cases that people were being held on really high cash bail, but that was by agreement. They actually should have been held without bail but the attorneys asked us to agree to a high cash bail that they agreed they wouldn't post. So there's a long story behind that. But so some of them sort of panicked hearing, just on the media that like everybody with cash bail is getting out, which of course wasn't true, but yeah, I think that the original, there will be pushback as there always is, but if people really look at the research behind it, they shouldn't, but I'm sure they will. Well, how do you answer? Somebody will. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sure that, I mean, it's been changing for weeks, but was there any interest in any from any legislature, like just like torques about writing legislation? Yeah, yes, definitely. Yeah, so the question is whether there has already been any interest from legislators about writing the legislation. And the answer is yes, several have reached out wanting to talk about how to word it, which again, it's like, it's probably the easiest bill that a legislator could introduce. But I'm excited, I think that there's a lot of interest in it in the legislature. And my hope is that the attorney general will also help push it through. Barry? I'll have to add to my good ear. So I think I heard you say that there are times when you don't ask for bail, but the judge on the judge's own initiative will impose it. In those cases, do they make adequate findings of fact? So the question is, when a judge imposes bail over our objection? Do they make a, what did you, what was your word? I mean, a finding, right, findings of fact. So as some background, there is a lot of, there is a statutory, there are statutory factors that judges have to consider before setting bail. And they all relate to risk of flight. And again, none of them relate to their criminal history or how old they are or anything like that. It's about like, do they have ties to the community? Those types of things. So yesterday, when I was in court, there was an individual who was being, who had been held overnight and we were doing his arraignment. And the judge, as usual, asked if we were, if we wanted the $50,000 bail that had been imposed overnight to stay in place on him. And I said, no, your honor, you know, the state does not wish to keep the cash bail in place, nor does the state think that there is any justification for cash bail to have been imposed to begin with. And the judge proceeded to spend a few minutes going through this guy's criminal history and then said that he had prior failures to appear. And I made a point to say the last one was in 2003 and that he had not had any failures to appear since then. And then he made a point to talk about how this guy had just gotten released from jail, which doesn't matter. And then he imposed the $50,000, and again said, I'm gonna hold you on $50,000 bail. And I think every condition or release that there was. And on the case we had right after that, he tried to impose a responsible adult condition, which again, there's statutory cases that that can be done on. It's incredibly rare because that's a really big responsibility for somebody. And we had to point out for the judge that it's actually illegal to set a responsible adult condition on this type of charge. So the answer is no, they do not. I can think of one judge that does a really good job at making sure that if she did impose cash bail, that there, it was clear why, but she isn't in our court anymore and none of the others do. Any other questions? I do have a question. So how do you answer the question then about public safety? There is, I believe in the community, the perception that if you're letting people go, that it's a huge risk to public safety, but are there any other ways that a person who is a risk can be held? Yeah, so again, it's important to remember that that same person that's a public safety risk, if they have the money, will be out in hours if they ever go in. They may be able to post $100,000 bail that day, never go to jail and kill somebody the second that they leave. Cash bail doesn't make any difference with whether or not it mitigates your public safety risk, except for the fact that it likely will keep you in jail, which again, I think actually makes us less safe. But yeah, the other mechanism is the hold it out bail. We can only do that though on violent felonies, as it should be, when the evidence of guilt is great. And in those cases within seven days, we actually have to present evidence. We have an evidentiary hearing where we have to present evidence to show that the evidence of guilt is great. So there's a check on us very quickly, a check by us, I mean on the state, very quickly to know whether this is a baloney case that you're just gonna try to hold this person without bail for months on end. Within a week, we know how strong our case is. And what's the, isn't there a standard for that? As I recall it, clearing, convincing or something? I mean, I think it's the same as a 12D, so it's like the light and favor, light and most favorable to the state, it would be more likely than not. Yeah, I mean it's- More likely than not that that person would be a risk to public safety. And that they committed the crime. And then they released that there's no conditions that would ensure the public safety. It's a high burden, but it should be. It should be. I mean you're taking away somebody's freedom before they've been convicted of a crime. That should be a really high burden. And the irony is that the evidence and research and data is really strong that people who commit violent offenses are actually much less likely to recidivate. People who commit low level, nonviolent offenses recidivate at much higher rates. Low level. Nonviolent. Nonviolent, yeah. Retail thefts and possessions and unlawful trespasses, those types of charges are actually much more likely for people to continue to pick up where people that commit violent offenses are much less likely to commit another violent offense. Really? Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Any other questions? What? I know, Ramina needs to speak. Well, do you want to read that statement at the end? Go ahead. Leah. The way you empathize with people suffering under this system is moving and appreciated. Thank you, Leah. Who's that? Leah Turhoun. Any other final thoughts? Perfect. I understand there may not be any evidence as far as cash bail, the effect of the debt. People seem to think or say that, you know, if you let these guys out, the world will end, they'll be offended or something. Well, there may not be any evidence about that. We have cases as I recall from California. The judge ordered it. I think like $30,000 in it. And they made the same argument. The world's going to end. Lock up your women. Lock up your children. And guess what? The crime law did go on with recidivism. So we do have evidence. And these people that were released, the distinction for them is they were convicted. So the presumption of innocence wasn't even part of it. And yet they were like that. And the world didn't end. Yeah, so are you talking about the recent release during the moment? No, this was a release that started maybe five years ago. Yeah, it's no California. It was based on over time. But the result was, I mean, the issue was the same. If you let these people out, the crime rate will go up. People will be fine. And if you were in California, you could let 30,000 more people go. Who are already guilty under the law, what about clean and carried child? And it didn't go up a percentage, but I think that was huge. As the presumption of innocence to that. It should be even higher. And it's upsetting that if the politicians or if the judges and it was their family that were part of the system, they would benefit because their family's generally a woman. But I think we do have evidence that we cannot put people in jail. And it's society doesn't end. Yeah. So the conversation is just the statement really more than a question. But it's that a lot of states, but California within the last five years has done a lot to eliminate or to minimize their prison population and have let out, I think, now with COVID, closer to 50,000 people from their jails and their crime rates have not gone up at all. And those are individuals in most cases. I think since COVID, it's more pre-trial. But at the time, the 30,000 that they had released were all convicted. And it was letting them out before their sentences had expired and it still didn't go up. So I think you're absolutely right. I think that there is this. And it's part of our national narrative. And so it's not super surprising that even Vermont has kind of got wrapped up in that a little bit. There is a narrative that people feel better about somehow, even though I would love to think people would feel better about knowing they're not any less safe. But for some reason, people get caught up in the idea that if these people get out of jail and return to their homes and their loving families and their support systems and services that they might need, that actually makes all of us more safe and it saves us so much money. We spend so much money, even in Vermont, on incarcerating people. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and sending them out of state to get COVID. And I just think that there's, this isn't totally on topic, but I just think it's important to really recognize that, maybe to Leah's statement that made me think of this, is that hurt people hurt people. And there is a lot of hurt in our jails. A lot of the people that commit violent offenses have been victims and survivors of violence themselves. And we throw a lot of weight behind victims of survivors when they're the victim or survivor and then we throw them away when they then commit an act of violence. And it's really appalling and I don't really know how we got there, but we really have to start doing it differently because the way that we respond to violent crime, I think is really appalling. We have a lot of work to do. And when I see some of the sentences that people got, back in the 80s, 90s, that they would never get today, that we would never do that today. And those people are sitting in our jails right now. And I have very little ability to do anything about it. So occasionally we're lucky, but not always. You're talking about lessening people's sentences? Yeah. Why do you have no power over that? No, so there's a separation of the once somebody is convicted, they are in the Department of Corrections hands, which is the governor's, that's an executive. It's out of sort of the judiciary, the judicial branch and it's into the executive branch. So the only way to truly re-sentence people is either to get really creative on some things, but if you really wanna do it by the book, it has to be a pardon or it really needs to go through the governor. And that's political, frankly. And that's part of the problem is it becomes political and not based on, would this person have gotten 35 years now? We think about Stephen Burgoyne from last summer. He got Stephen Burgoyne was found guilty of five counts of homicide. Was he the one that was traveling? Driving the wrong way on the interstate and hit a car head on that had five teenagers inside. They all died. We tried him last year and he got found guilty of five counts of homicide and he was given 30 years, 30 to life, which I am not complaining about that sentence. I think that's a lot of time for a very young man. But then we have cases of people that did burglaries in the 80s and got 50. They're still in jail. It's or had like a ton, you know, a lot of drugs or like that convicted of drug trafficking when really like they had a trunk full of drugs and they're still in jail. Like, you know, that to me is something we have, like it's just keeps me awake at night. It does, we have a lot of work to do. No, I mean, this actually just came up recently. Actually, this is something I've been working on a lot since I've been stated for me of trying to find some ways to get some people out of jail by resentencing them, but COVID again, like has really sparked this new conversation because when we were really looking at all the people that were serving jail in our communities and started realizing like that person shouldn't still be in jail. That was never our intent that they would serve all of that time. Why are they still in jail? They're in on a technical violation or they're in because they don't have adequate housing that we started talking about it a little more and we tried to pass legislation that would allow us to resentence it and unfortunately a lot of my counterparts in the state did not, they argued against it pretty adamantly. And again, use this idea that victims should know when this sentence happens, that it should be closure, they shouldn't have to worry that down the road a state's attorney might change the sentence and again, I just think that that's not the reality of it and we as state employees and as elected officials, I work for a victim of a crime the same way I work for an offender of a crime. I am an elected official to both and if something was done that is unjust that would not happen today, I believe it is my responsibility as a prosecutor to change it and also I would just say that most victims are okay with that. I think that it's really unfair to play into this narrative that victims just want people to stay in jail the rest of their lives. When you actually talk to them, I had one case that I was trying to resentence that I called the victim 28 years later and she couldn't believe the person was still in jail, could not believe it and was devastated. I feel like her, I was worried that I was gonna re-traumatize her by just bringing up the case. She was traumatized knowing that this person had been in jail this whole time and she had expected that he would have been let out years ago so I just think that it's, that narrative is wrong, it's false and even if it was true, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing the work it's about educating and making safety plans if they feel like they're unsafe rather than just throwing people away in order to avoid really hard conversations. I think that brings up an interesting thing about the role of a prosecutor and I guess most people think that prosecutors are hard-nosed advocates basically for the state but I always know that prosecutors represent the people, all of the people which really means the defendant as well, that the prosecutor has to consider the offender as well and be fair. That's the role of a prosecutor, that's their ethical role is to be fair to every single person including the person who's committed to crime. Yeah and especially because the person that commits the crime in 98% of the cases in Vermont at some point is going to be backing our community and so it's incredibly important that you make sure that person is returning to the community better than when you took them out of it and jail doesn't do that for one, jail does not make you a better community member, it isolates you, it makes people worse and so it's almost in some ways more important that we focus on making sure that the offender is healthy and we talk about correctional facilities, it's like they don't correct. The last thing I wanted to, I think we're almost out of time but I did want to mention something else about Vermont and that is that people in jail can vote. We are one of only two states that allow people who are incarcerated to vote and the other one is guess which one? Maine. Maine, Vermont and Maine. The only two that allow a person who's incarcerated and so I had a young man living in my house who is now in jail but his address is my house and I registered him to vote and he got his ballot. I'm gonna send it up to jail but people in jail can vote here. That was very controversial recently I think when they were picking maybe the candidates for the two parties, I think it became a lot of I guess conservatives is what we call them got really annoyed because Bernie Sanders was saying that people who are in jail have the right to vote and boy he got a lot of laugh about that. Yeah and even Senator Warren didn't think that. No Senator Warren, yeah because Bernie had to. The question came up, should the Boston bomber be allowed to vote? Well he's a citizen, I'm not certain he's a citizen but he's a citizen. Yeah and I think that if more states allowed people who are incarcerated to vote, the politicians making some of these decisions might think differently about the people that are incarcerated and might care a little bit more about their well-being. What does the Department of Corrections do to help people in prison vote? So what's their obligation? Their obligation is that they make sure they know that they can. I've heard different stories from different people who are incarcerated about what level they really go to for that. DOC says that they make everybody very aware and that they make sure that they have every opportunity to do so. The problem with the process in general and this is something I really would like to focus on for the next election is those pretrial people aren't gonna get that same opportunity because they may not know whether they're gonna be in jail two days down the road. So getting an absentee ballot or something isn't quite as easy for them. I think what I've heard from some people that really complicates it is our incarcerated population that's out of state which is unfortunately way too many people. Those people have very little ability. And again, I think Department of Corrections says that they make sure that those other jails are telling them and so they can get their absentee ballot but I don't have a lot of faith that that is happening. But with the people that we have here, if they're registered and their address is the jail, but even that like the jail, they get transferred between one jail to another with very little notice all the time. So in practice, I don't know how well it works but I think I'll find out. I'm gonna try to find out. I actually was working on a project with Kathy Fox at UVM about on that exact thing pre COVID our goal was really to like get into the jails and like register people and make sure that they could and that they understood their rights and then we're just not allowed in the jails right now. So we couldn't do that. But it wouldn't have to be you or the state's attorney's office. I think you could just get a volunteer if once you could get in the jail in the first place which you can't right now as Sarah said, but yeah. No, yeah, that definitely could be anybody. It was just something I wanted to do. Right, very good. The right to vote if you're incarcerated, I think entails also the right to unlimited access to information about issues and the candidates. And that ain't happening. No, for sure. Yeah, and you know that argument I remember being made actually I think it was probably around the presidential conversation around it where people were like, well that just means that certain politicians are gonna go in there and brainwash all of these incarcerated people. And well, and you know I said, what's the difference? Yeah, why would they do it to us? That's what happens to me every day. Like when I turn on the TV and the politician with the most money is talking at me and telling me what to think. So I think that the, you know, I totally agree with you. I think that that's a problem for all of us is finding a really good amount and reformation of candidates. Especially people who English is not their first language. People in more marginalized communities in general. That's an issue. And so why, you know, it's not surprising that our incarcerated folks would. Well, Mississippi television is probably not covering Vermont election issues very well. No, I'm sure they're not. I'm sure they're not. So what else have a question? Any final questions? All right, well thank you very much, Sarah. No, Armina. Armina. Armina's amazing. She's amazing. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is also my first in-person anything since March, so. What do you think? Wow. That's great. It's better than June. I miss people. I miss people. We all do. That's why we're doing it this way. Yeah, I think it's great. And I appreciate the spacing and the practice when it, you did for it. These guys did. So we do want to thank the Association of African Pacific in Vermont and Jacob, Oprah, and Tato for offering the space and for being co-sponsors even with this series. Thank you, Ellen. Thank you, CCTV, and thank you, CCTV and Megan O'Rourke for being here and the state's attorney's office, who is Sarah George. And the Caroline Fund is also a sponsor of this series and Vicki, which is the Vermont Institute of Community and International Development. Our next session will be next week, the 29th, where we'll be giving a talk from the Attorney General's office on the rights of a criminal defendant when somebody is charged with a crime. What happens? What does that defendant have the right to? Okay, and remember that one of the rights we're discussing tonight is that every defendant has the right to be presumed innocent until they are convicted, which is crucial, I think. It's the big thing. So thank you, everybody, for coming. I mean, thank you for coming from whatever office you're in. She is part of the attorney, the state's attorney's office, and she is involved in the investigation of sexual assault and sexual violence. So thank you, everybody, also for coming and seeing you on television. Thank you, John.