 Thank you, Fall, for coming to, I guess I should say this to the camera, the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. Let us, we should go around the room and introduce ourselves. Do you want to start? Heather Sonders, Department of Corrections, I'm here for Commissioner Menard. And hi, I'm Karen Bastini, I work in the Commissioner's office at the Department for Children and Families. David Chair, Assistant Secretary General. James Pepper, Department of State Services and Chariffs. Don Stevens, Chief of the Naliga Network. Jessica Brown, I'm one of the Attorney General community appointees, and I also work for the Public Defender Office. Rick Gawthier, excuse me, Executive Director of the Criminal Justice Training Council. Lieutenant Gary Scott, and I'm here on behalf of Commissioner Anderson for the Department of Public Safety. And I'm A-Ton Ness, Redmond Longo, the Chair. Oh, and on the phone, I'm sorry. Rebecca, hi. Introduce yourself. Oh good. Okay, we'll talk loudly, I hope. Thank you all for turning up. As I say, I think this may be a fairly short meeting because the discussion of reducing racial disparity, which we keep tabling, really is, at least in my view, it takes a lot of people to kind of have a good discussion about the various sections of the report that everybody was sort of going to take on and read. So, you know, if we have to table again, we will. I know that you had a, you, James, had a lot that you wanted to bring up about that report in particular. Well, yes, I mean, we're going to be ready for that. Well, we're going to be ready tonight, I think. I mean, I'm hoping. The only announcements that I have are regrets. The first is Major Jonas, who cannot be with us tonight. Oh, no, that was the only one, because Rebecca's here in a virtual way. So, that's it. Will Sheila be joining us? Oh, I haven't heard from Sheila. And let me make a final check of my email. I have no email from Sheila at all, so I don't know. But I think we should just get going. Yeah, I don't know where Jeff is. I haven't heard. The only regrets that I have are from Major Jonas. What you have, what I've handed out, the first, at first let me apologize. I don't have access to a colored printer, which makes that somewhat annoying. On the other hand, the first page after the agenda is from Chief Donstein. And he, you really can see what he did. The only thing that is perhaps not clear is about three quarters of the way down the first version is the comment from the word comment on is in red. I have a copy just in case. Grant, if people want to see it in color, I'm sorry, I don't, it didn't occur to me. You prefer the first version, correct? The second page after the agenda is from, and I should say, I guess in introducing this, I took the liberty of giving this also to Karen Richards, since she was so helpful to us in this discussion. And she then sent this back to me, also in color. But she, her changes are all over strikes and underlined. So in addition to the color, so you're not going to have as hard a time figuring what she said. Her email to me says she has a slight preference for the second version. So I think we have a fair amount to look at here. I am hoping other people have other comments, concerns, and so on, and that I'm not going to hold forth for the whole time. Jane? I think one thing that is important to note is that Sheila was discussing a lot of frustration that she felt with the responsiveness of HRC in dealing with these issues. And I think that one thing that it might be good to note that it's really important to have these additional investigators to speed up the process so that people that are the kind of victims of racial disparities in these cases are being investigated, feel like they're being attended to, and that these six-month periods, you know, maybe there's a way to speed up that investigation period. So you'd like to see some copy in here, that's about... I'm happy to provide some language too. I think it's a chance. But I think that, you know, if the legislature is going to take this seriously, they might want to know why we're asking for these additional staff members. Great. Sure, write it up. Sure. That would be wonderful. Okay. Yeah, as I said, I just put this together as from the minutes and from my own notes from last meeting and just, oh, I totally skipped over one of the important points because I'm not looking at the right agenda. But let's just keep going. We'll deal with the minutes later. Other, yes. So I liked what Chief did to the first version, but one thing that Karen included in her version that feels important is the restorative justice process. Yes. So, and then also the coordinating outreach education and training. And I think that speaks to Pepper's point, actually, that the HRC is not really in a position to always respond to things unless it's really significant. Okay. And that I'm wondering, Pepper, that could, if this role really is more expanded to include this other piece with the coordinating outreach education as well as the restorative justice process, whether that will also help to meet the community members' frustrations that it's going to respond and you can't always get a response unless there's something significant that's happened. Right. Okay. So that would just, I don't know if that can be incorporated, but I think we at DCF think they both look great. Okay. Great. But that would be great. So I don't know. I'll take a stab at writing something and then circulate it. Great. Great. You have the sort of the list of everybody. Yeah, I'll apply all to what the chief sent. Okay. Great. This is going well. Other corrections, concerns, issues? The only comment I had was just making sure that we have in whatever version we end up doing, that we have the clearinghouse concept clearly stated. I think, my sense of the prior meetings was that was something that folks liked. It wasn't necessarily the case that HRC is going to do all of the investigations of every complaint, but that they are a repository that can at least be a data source. Right. And they were going to direct things to traffic cop position. Also, that's probably not the best analogy, but the works. But the but yeah, having them be a clearinghouse in a direction and a sort of data holding. Okay. And you do have that in the second one. Yes. Whichever, whatever version is final, it's important to have that. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? I'm making those. Then, oh, chief. I just wanted to check to see if Karen has striked out what I also suggested that we want to make sure to take out the word race related. She did. I think because apparently she that was one of the problems we had with the systemic racism right now is that it shouldn't be based on race. It should be based on qualifications. Well, if I'm looking at if so, this second page that you provided us tonight is Karen's. And so in the in the first version, she didn't strike race related, but it looks like she added and other cases. Is that am I reading that? Am I understanding that correctly? Did she add? Did she add the parts that are underlined? Yes, she added the parts that are underlined and then struck out. So she didn't strike race related. She add she added and other cases. That being said, it was also clear that the Human Rights Commission as it is presently constituted is not adequately staffed to handle an increase in race related and other cases. So she didn't. Oh, I'm interpreting that correctly. And it's always race based to lower down as well that she added. I think where her comment was, is that she couldn't specifically assign one person to race related. They had to spread it over all of them because that would then be some sort of bias because they were getting preference race, racial issues would get preference. So I think she said she had to spread it over all of the investigators and couldn't specifically design one person to handle just those cases. She right? Yeah, she writes here. The panel believes in agreement with the HRC that one or two additional positions are needed to prioritize race related outreach and the anticipated increase in race based cases. And that would seem to support what you're saying in terms of what she was viewing. Race related being not given to one person in particular. David might I she actually has in the first version. Act as a clearinghouse. She's even got your language. Oh, great. Okay. Finally, and again in conjunction with the HRC, the panel recommends that the HRC act as a clearinghouse to direct complaints to the appropriate state agencies that may have their own complaint processes based on guidelines developed by the HRC. They would also follow up on the outcomes of these referred to. That's already there. But is that or? Yeah, that's right. That's what I was hoping. Okay. I think just a comment on the race related issue. My understanding of the law, which is basic on this area, is that you can certainly pay attention to complaints that are racial related because that is the purpose is being careful when you're talking about hiring, right, feeling having individuals fill racial categories. That's for hiring purposes or purposes. That's where you get into trouble. But paying attention to complaints that where there's unequal treatment on the basis of race, that's fine. That would be fun. Wouldn't that's the job with the HRC part and part. Right. So I mean that was so that's the distinction, I think. So you don't write the job description based on the first part of what you said. Well, the issue is that you couldn't that you might get in trouble. And this is a complicated stuff, but you could get. So for example, let me give a more concrete example. The racial equity panel that was debated in the legislature last year started with having language saying that there has to be a person who filled a certain race. And that is almost certainly going to be struck down by a court wherever to be litigated. So that type of selection for positions on the basis of race is problematic. But obviously paying attention to complaints on the basis of race is fine and is the job of this. That would be my fault because I didn't send it out. What we got via email is Eton's first draft and chief Don's edits, right? And then Eton just handed out Karen's edits. Karen's came yesterday late. Okay, I will I will send them out her version out. But I didn't really have time because it came in about five o'clock yesterday evening. Sorry. Any any other details in either version? Because I think what we need to do is talk about which do we want to do you want to put something together using both of them? Or do you want to just take one of them that you feel is better? I that's open. I'm just asking a question. I was planning on just adding a couple lines that you could be added to either one of them really. But so I think it's appropriate question if we're going to go with first version or second version. Any conversation about this? I personally think I mean I like the first version but I but I almost want to defer to HRC because they're the ones who are we're suggesting do this and she picked the language for a certain reason. I don't know what that is but I almost would like to defer but make sure that there's language in there that they work with a legislative body because you never know when it might change you know like they might need more resources or whatever or work with a systemic racism panel so there's not duplication of efforts or you know so I have no preference either way okay but I but I just want to make sure that the HRC is okay with whatever that is. She in her email to me said well via the miracle of technology and a profligate use of tungsten and other rare metals. She wrote give me a moment. I have a slight preference for the second version but obviously it is up to the panel. I guess that's all she wrote. I thought she wrote more than that. I'm sorry I got this late and didn't read it as closely as I had hoped. That's it. She has a slight preference for the second but it's up to us. That's it. That was the big build up. We can do what we want. I'm just trying to get us to a point where we have something down that we can consider quote unquote finished and we can move on to like six feet. So that's that's all I'm trying to do here. Say may I make a suggestion? Please I'm hoping. I think that if this paper right wants to take a stab at this I think if he can look at one which which Karen had kind of leaned more to but then see what might be missing that that's in the second that could be added great then you can kind of have the best of both worlds right I mean that and then send that out. Okay sounds like a plan to me. Everybody on board with us? Yes. Yes. I mean we don't really need to have a vote. There's just not that many of us here. I'm hearing the s okay so pepper I'll take a stab at it great great and we'll send that out then and again feel mark it up mark it up I really would like as much input on this as possible from as many of us as possible so that it's that we can all get behind it at least more or less anything else wow well we've gotten part of the report on or we're making great strides towards it I think you're all so excited. Yes I guess I would add is that we still don't you know what agencies do we sort of see pumping information into this I guess we don't know all is it going to be all state agencies that kind of have the ability to funnel in that was that's how we look at it yeah and then so we really don't know how these agencies are handling these complaints right now so we still I think that kind of leaves that sort of out there what is happening maybe we could as we start this we still don't know exactly well how one agency is handling it and where they may be so if it's a clearing house you know I think that's one of Karen's concerns was is it just coming in and going out and there's no touch of it you know can kind of create some complications for her internally of how that sort of I mean I I guess we leave that up to her they're at position figures that out but we still don't know what the actual scope of what that looks like coming in I think we should if we can figure out what that looks like I don't know if that's something is that too big of a task or I'm wondering yeah I don't know but I just thought I mean as we kind of look at this we don't know what we don't even have the list of agencies that would be dumping information into this I'm wondering if that if we're getting too much into micro management I don't know I mean this is an advisory panel we're writing a report for the legislature I'm assuming that Karen or somebody will testify before them once again and this will come up and I don't I think that might be in the the details I I don't know I'm throwing I'm I'm speaking questioningly for those of you who know better it might be I mean I I'm just not sure like how big this really looks okay I think our charge was just to create a centralized process for reporting that was pretty much it so by saying I mean we could go as short as saying we're directing into HRC and our charge will be done on that yeah but we're just going more into detail because it's really up to them to figure out what they need and resources ask the legislators for those resources and we're supporting that decision I could be wrong I would hope um I mean not knowing exactly how they operate other than through Karen's description when we put him that they're acting on a clearing also I would say HRC would decide if it's a complaint that comes in that they should look out and contain right but they would exercise that authority on the other hand they look at and say this is something pass it on pass it on to the agency without going into the details of what the agency has right she did qualify by saying guidelines developed by HRC right so and I think personally if nothing else even if they're just a clearinghouse and passing it on say the Vermont State Police or or HUD or somebody else they can gather statistical data so that way people can make comprehensive decisions later on about what is coming in and nothing else um and that might even help the systemic racism panel because they're that's they're going to need data right and and I think that even if it's just a pass through I think they could capture who the complaint is what type where to go and then you at least have something analyze you can analyze it okay um anything else on this before we're we're just gonna let Pepper come up with what he's going to come up with and we're gonna do this again so that all right all right I'm assuming we should I took this completely out of order I was so excited about actually having something to work on that we missed the approval of the minutes you have a scattered chair this evening it's hot so can we look at the minutes can we go backwards for a moment before we go on to the discussion of reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system and take care of what I missed um you all I sent those out I know I did um that I know uh so any changes addenda I'm gathering no would anyone like to make a motion regarding the minutes motion to approve any okay all in favor high all opposed all abstention motion carries minutes are approved David will you take care of getting them up on the the website um that was easy now having done that let us go back to or down to the discussion of reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system um Pepper I seem to be bothering you this evening I'm sorry I I just know that like two meetings ago you you were like you were really clear that there were things you wanted to say well I just didn't want to be missing out on that discussion I had something I couldn't get around last meeting go for it because if you've got it go for it because we've already started that discussion yeah well so I I did read my section okay prosecution um and if David you want to jump in at any point feel free because we have concurrent jurisdiction over a lot of issues but I think that uh what this section really speaks to is prosecutors have a lot of areas where they would be considered high discretion high impact in the in the courtroom a lot of public interest groups consider prosecutors feel like powerful uh player in the courtroom um you know we don't necessarily agree with that position right but uh there certainly are a lot of decisions where we kind of set the tone um that includes failed decisions uh using diversion and alternative justice um of course charging decisions and uh sentencing decisions we kind of make recommendations and all of those um plea bargains right you know the the section of the report kind of lays out the various areas where prosecutors have a lot of discretion and with what the report says is it's really important um that these the kind of decision-making be transparent that uh that we you know they don't necessarily say that you need to have strict guidelines because each case is uh very fact specific but um at least that your decision-making process is transparent and that people can see why a prosecutor maybe made a plea decision in this set of circumstances and not in that even though they may on their face look to be similar um uh it it suggests that there's kind of this national district attorney's association standards um they kind of lay out the various roles of the prosecutor and win and how to use uh discretion wisely that's a good it's a good document that I've looked at um there's a link to it in footnote 56 um we've shared with all of our prosecutors in the past um it's you know it's tough I will say that it is somewhat tough that prosecutors are individually elected um the state's attorneys are elected um so a lot of you know our department is there and we control their budgets but we can't necessarily tell them how to act um we do have trainings every single year um year annual trainings where I and I delivered the kind of legislative updates all of them and I kind of explained to them that you know if we if there isn't some consistency or at least transparency in the way that you guys are making decisions that um there will be legislative initiatives that take away prosecutor's discretion for things like diversion referrals um or sentencing there's a um sentencing commission that we also serve on um that's looking at kind of reducing sentence ranges reducing mandatory minimums for instance for certain crimes and those are not those are areas where the prosecutor has some discretion but you know it's going to be reduced if there isn't more consistency and so that's a message that I like to drive on as much as possible of these annual trainings um kind of thing um can I ask a question sure have you any sense of how successful those trainings have been in well it's interesting because the one thing that this says is to really kind of collect data on on these things and the attorney general's office actually does collect data on our diversion referrals and there was a somewhat recent change um in the law that says that um a lot of kind of lower-level offenses will be presumptively referred to diversion unless the prosecutor states on the record why they wouldn't be referred to diversion um and there's a number of reasons why a whole offense wouldn't be referred to diversion um well you know that's again part of this transparency where you know we'll have to stay on record why um and the attorney general's office um keeps track of that those numbers and I think that's very helpful and it helps prosecutors you know know knowing that they're being kind of looked at and that they need to kind of justify this and we've actually added a section to our case management software that allows prosecutors can't move forward um with a case until they've kind of chosen from a drop-down list of options why someone wouldn't be referred to diversion when there's a non-referral so we can now easily track and pull a report from our case management software all the non-referrals to diversion and then what's that for the reason why they weren't so that's um so that that kind of you know that kind of observation principle works and changing behavior I think right um and it's it has been helpful to have that and this presumption has been working we've seen double-digit increases in diversion referrals over the last two years because of this presumption is that up to date too is what the cases are is there any backlog of delay in that as far as the software so that case management we had to train on it first we only really only have one annual training you know or everyone's in the room together so we couldn't really uh put it as a mandatory field it was there people were using it but it's now mandatory and I can't move forward without it and that's that kicked in in June so we don't have a fully full year we have a couple months of solid data I guess my other point is how much what are other data points are you collecting on that that right as far as I know that's the only one related to kind of the discretionary points yeah I can say the AG's office does collect um data for the diversion referrals um through our programs that run diversion it's not as it's and this is actually one of the things that I was going to talk about on on this piece it doesn't collect all the data that might be helpful for us in understanding racial disparities issues it is sort of a basic basic but just starting right now this is just a new program that's been no it's not a new program the version's been around for a long time obviously but those softwares um the software is the newest change this this change in terms of the presumption has been around for what is it now yeah or like 16 months anyway it's been around for a little over a summer between a year and two years so that was a big change uh and our data that we collect which again is raw numbers type of data does show a very large increase statewide the differences between counties remain um but every county has increased and the overall increase has been like a doubling of diversion referrals uh there was one new diversion program that got added called the tamarack program and it's intended for people who may have longer criminal records but who are clearly behaving the way they are because of substance abuse and mental health issues other interventions haven't worked so it's sort of giving prosecutors any tool it's saying if other things aren't working give us a try doesn't matter what their prior record was uh you can try to put them into this program that really focuses on treatment so that is a new thing we got instituted at the same time the presumption was instituted that's partly why the numbers have gone up so much I would say another go ahead no go ahead well I was going to shift topics so go ahead now mine's more broad um so another high impact high discretion area that the report focuses on mostly or at least the prosecution section is on bail determinations again this is an area where I think prosecutors have been doing pretty well um you know we had a big uh bail reform package that passed last year um that um really focused on making sure that especially low level offenders were not being held merely for their inability to afford bail um and I think that that is going to have a substantial impact that we'll see play through um but you know one thing that I the only reason I say I think the prosecutors have been doing pretty well is because we did see a DOC report and I'm sure there's ways to kind of look at data um in different ways but the DOC report did show that for a kind of misdemeanance um that there were not a huge number of people being held for lack of for their inability to pay you know there's a there's a number of detainees I think around 400 it's been 400 right around that area for decades um and 400 400 pretrial detainees okay um and you know there weren't a lot there were the data didn't indicate it was just a snapshot from a single day but it it showed that there was probably maybe about 25 people um that were in strictly because their inability to pay to afford bail but but it really was deeper than that you know right it was hard to show that maybe you know they might have been people that were trying to get time served for instance um so it you know the data showed some positive signs about the bail system in in Vermont and with these new kind of bail the new bail package we're going to see I think an even even better outcome okay just to follow up the discussion on bail that number that Pepper mentioned the 400 it has been about the same for it's been flat yeah 12 years goes up and down a little bit but not much and that's usually about 30 35 female male population um about a year ago the after-hours bail decisions had been I don't want to say all had been made by court clerks but a lot of them had and we've switched that out as a result of another committee that most of us are on involving pre-trial services in so the judges are now the only ones that are authorized to set monetary bail okay after hours um so that's been about a year hasn't changed the the numbers a lot of the snapshot that Pepper's talking about was done sometime in the spring we just did another one or doc provided another one recently and there was one we looked at this issue about four or five years ago six years ago numbers are surprisingly the same but the snapshot that Pepper was talking about about 400 roughly half of them were held without bail okay and that has remained again fairly constant in terms of percentage and the next group a large group were serious felonies usually involved violence but down to about 20 somewhere around 20 to 25 misdemeanors about half of those were domestic violence cases so people didn't ordinarily question a judgment on those types of cases so it really only left about 12 to 15 cases that were misdemeanors um and even then you would have to go into each one of those cases to understand better why bail was set and there could be a number of reasons it might be a misdemeanor offense $200 bail um it may be that there's an underlying probation um violation right they're being held without bail on and they're just setting bail on a shoplifting charge somebody's out on probation so they're getting credit on that um and there are other circumstances that um just the number alone doesn't tell you the whole story right so for whatever reason that number has remained pretty constant over the years and um it's it's one we just can't seem to change but the numbers were pretty consistent with about six years ago the same thing about 20 to 25 cases that we looked at and so they're for the most part they are misdemeanors okay what happens if they can't make bail I mean they just they stay there right okay that's what I thought so I could just say two other areas I think they would I also serve on other committees that are dealing with um we you know DOC is working on a racial disparities and sentencing practices and they have a report that's about to come out which I've seen in early copies of and they say there's not really too much of a variation amongst among sentencing practices based on race so that's a good sign um that report I think is coming out November 1st and they'll be in front of the Joint Justice Oversight Committee um to talk about that um and I'm sure we some Commissioner Minnar would be happy to present it to this panel too I will um and then another committee thank you another committee that I'm on is um around expungement and that's another area where prosecutors have a fair amount of discretion um in granting expungements or stipulating to expungements and again you know our state's attorneys are actively seeking to expand expungement opportunities they're holding expungement clinics around the state and I think that um it's an area where you know we're talking about kind of getting people that have kind of demonstrated that their life is back on track and the only thing holding them back from getting a good job or housing or something is a criminal charge it's you know five to seven years old they're older um I think that that is something that state's attorneys are more than happy to um take off people's records what's the cost associated with that expungements yeah are you talking about societal costs you're talking about actual for the person that yeah dollars and cents a person who kind of doesn't depend I think it's 190 there's a 90 dollar filing fee request expungement but there is a way that the courts to waive that fee there's that kind of informal populist form okay people can fill out um and then the courts will usually just waive it yeah take all the time they go on okay all right reduce the report fee waiver they have to file a form essentially financial yeah they'd same type of affidavit we use a lot of other things for waiver right so it's not here it's specifically to explain I'm channeling Sheila here what is it is that something that's easily found the information for that is made very much available about the expungement and the form and I mean that's something she's awfully concerned as we all know with accessibility and things being easily found in the process and I'm just wondering if that's something but I'm going to say no okay for the following reason when I first went on the bench expungements were extremely rare okay if any so there's been a real evolution revolution in expanding expungements so I think a lot of people with the old records weren't aware of it and they've long since forgotten about even the possibility of not exist right so this whole idea of now expunging and going back is something that is relatively new and particularly in the last year two three different counties have had essentially what they call expungement days when the state's attorneys make themselves available to meet with folks to see if they qualify okay initially so there's movement around that yeah okay on that in that respect I think the most that we can do is try and publicize these expungement days as widely as possible our state's turns are getting radio I know that TJ Donovan when he was a state's attorney did a driver restoration day he and the governor were kind of yelling from the rooftops about it to get people interested in this and it's one of those things where it's really kind of on the person to know that expungement exists and when they're eligible and those kind of things we are part of our charge in this other committee I'm working on is to look at creating an automatic expungement which is difficult and what we're trying to do is create what would be considered a petitionless expungement whereas our case management software if all the criteria are met you know the five years as a lapse and as a qualifying crime and there hasn't been there haven't been any new convictions you know all the rest of the criteria that have been met then our case management software would automatically generate a petition that our state's attorneys could then review the case and sign off on it they're stipulate to it so automatic is kind of not the correct term but that's what the charge asked us to look at and so we're trying to develop something like that we don't have the technology just yet and you know there's a lot of issues around expungement and making sure that court fees are paid and that restitution has been paid to the victims that we would need to be able to speak to the various systems in order to have this work but that could be a potential way where people don't have to know about it and they could just kind of have some sort of petitionless right expungement okay that it for I think that's it for my section I'm happy to have a broader conversation about the role of the prosecutor in this but you know this section of the article really focused on bail right issues around the ones I've covered okay David is there anything you want to James has covered a lot of the detail a lot of the areas in detail I think a couple things that I would add one um TJ isn't afraid to say that the prosecutor is the most powerful person he does say it a lot um and I think so that so that individual discretion piece is really important you know the high-impact high discretion part of a prosecutor's job is important to keep in mind the other thing that I think we always try to think about is if if all you think about is the prosecutor's decision-making power you can find yourself walking into a corner where you're saying well the only way we can change the system is by changing people's mind and behavior and that's obviously a very important thing to do right but there are also systematic things that we can do to change things and ever wrap a lot of them up with it it's fun Prince is one thing bail is another thing these are things we have been working on um so in other words sort of cabineting that discretion a little bit making it a little less wide than it is now while still leaving people with the tools to deal with folks or genuinely dangerous um so so that is something that we always think about and struggle with in the best ways to do that obviously discretion is necessary to the system um uh but promoting fairness is both changing minds and also changing systems so that's right so that's just sort of a very broad conceptual thing in terms of how we think about these things but we've been working together on a lot of these specific ideas around expungements obviously bail is a big piece last year um the piece that I'll add is on the attorney general's office program specifically which are our pretrial alternative justice programs um both the version uh which we were talking about tamarack which is a new version of diversion that's a confusing phrase and yeah pretrial services which is a relatively new not as new as tamarack it's been around maybe three four years now but uh our office took it over um I think officially in late 2016 and we've been really working to make that more robust there have been issues around actually having that be a workable program um and that is one where folks are still on the normal path to being adjudicated but they have an opportunity to engage in services and successful engagement the argument goes could potentially lead to better outcomes if you can show judges and prosecutors that there has been engagement uh where substance abuse mental health may have been part of the issue one thing that we haven't been doing we we have a lot of data on we have a lot of numbers on it one thing we haven't been doing is having any data that would tell us whether or not decisions are being made uh in racially disparate ways right the most specific example is our staff decides when somebody's successful at completing diversion or not it would be a fair question to ask if those uh if across the whole system um people of color maybe I don't know if this is happening but it could be the case that people of color are being deemed to complete diversion successfully at a lower rate that would be in accordance with other numbers we see right but um I don't know that to be true and we don't have the data one way the other to say if that's true so I think that's something that we have to think about and we will think about in terms of um being able to check ourselves and how our programs are operating okay just a quick question is I know that a lot of things when it comes to judge discretion prosecutor discretion sentencing discretion and all of these are all based on uh opinion or perception or how somebody feels in other words that's kind of a non-biased uh I just is there anything that maybe there's not maybe everything is like depending upon the situation and depending upon the victim what they have to say and is there any measurement to be able to take some of that opinion out of the mix I don't know I don't know I'm not part of the whole justice system but it seems like one of the things that we always come back to is you know implicit bias or something because you know people it's they're they're not thinking that they're doing anything that's biased but it's just kind of ingrained and all of these things regardless of people thinking they may be doing okay is there an inherent bias that they wouldn't be aware of that's because it's all opinion-based it's all how do I feel about or yeah they feel I feel like they've completed it or given a good effort or I mean how do you remove some of that out I don't know it's just a question I mean I don't know if you can because it's human nature right I mean a lot of stuff but I'm just is there any non well some of those some of so an example of one way that you might try to counter um for example sentencing being entirely up to you know the judge based on his or her perception of the case might be as in the federal system to develop what are referred to as sentencing guidelines where for a certain conviction for a certain offense various factors are sort of like numerically considered and calculated and you end up with a result in a certain range right but and the federal system did that many years ago and the problem with that is that for example crack cocaine convictions guidelines are much higher than you know regular cocaine conviction guidelines and that often breaks down on a long race line so I totally hear what you're saying but like sometimes the responses to how do we make it more consistent for everybody where like their implicit bias can't come in and uh like our justice problematical most it's really challenging I mean so some of the some of the comments in this report about what what the criminal defense bar can do I mean so reading this was interesting because like we we and I mean our system in general not just the criminal defense bar already do some good things right so we um you know everyone who is requesting court appointed counsel in our system has a public defender from the first appearance in court so um so that you know so so someone advocating for bail or you know identifying um you know advocating and trying to make sure that everyone regardless of race or where they're from or you know whatever is has advocacy at that first stage um I think the defender general and the criminal defense bar in general well I mean we do a lot of training you know we have CLE requirements and I certainly know that there have been some panels in recent years on implicit bias for example I think we probably could be more intentional about really um regularly doing trainings to identify and address racial disparities and how we can you know sort of more systemically as a defense bar kind of try to challenge things it's really hard because everything is on such a case-by-case basis it people I find are hesitant you know whenever I try so when I for example try to say you know here are sentences that other people have gotten for this offense in the past um you know that are consistent with what I'm asking for for my client I I tend to find that prosecutors and judges are resistant to try to make those comparisons because every case is different right yeah I suppose every case is different but it sure seems like all the black guys who get charged with selling drugs are getting more harsh sentences than like the white women uh who are getting charged with you know who are getting convicted of selling drugs so it's very challenging and I don't what's hard is to to think about how there might be a systemic way to address this versus every individual criminal defense attorney having to you know I mean we all do file motions when we think that a car stop was based illegally based on race or you know but that's very individual and it's harder to think about in a big picture way I don't know Rebecca if you're there do you have anything to add about the report Rebecca let's see if this is even on okay can you hear me yes to be I was uh saying that that's what's important that's an area that the report identified as uh increasing public trust is having transparency um we haven't trained on that per se but uh I'm open to ideas on that um I mean having strict guidelines I think doesn't make sense because you know again these are going to be very fact-based situations but um uh you know being open and on the record I think as to why a charging decision was made or I don't know it's it's something that I'd be very open to discussing and and I I just want to say I'm trying to dig a little deeper right because one of the things I noticed in this report was say for instance say it starts out where maybe somebody's profile and get stopped right and then they don't have a lot of money so they get assigned a public defender well that public defender may have a super amount of caseload so he's trying to pump through as much as he can so that may be more of a reason to take a plea deal because the guy can't pay so all of a sudden now when it gets to another item now he shows that he's got multiple convictions so now he's going to get a harsher sentence or no bail because he had to plea in order to get back and you know just take a deal and go so I so part of I think what I was reading from this report is at each stage how do you kind of look at that and try to um root that out because like I said to tell me you know if a poorer person can't afford to be in to fight a certain charge and he's got a public defender and he the guy says well just take a take a plea and you're out of here tomorrow you get back to work feed your family just keep your nose clean and then all of a sudden something else happens and now he's got two convictions right and now the other guy might be still appealing or fighting the other so that's where that's what I'm thinking because from a judge he just sees there's three there's three prior plea deals and now this guy now there's he's he's now habitual right so we're not gonna we're gonna up it or create more bail because we know that he might be a repeat offender but in reality you know that's because he had to take a plea because he couldn't afford to defend I don't know I'm just throwing that out there like how do we I mean maybe that's not our issue but how do you how do you get to that um that building because this report was saying one builds on the other right builds on the other which now builds on the other so that's the thing that we have to look for in order to break that down that's why I wouldn't when pepper says well sometimes we don't look at the prior ones we just base it on this case and has there been an issue because that's kind of cool right I mean because on a on a nonviolent charge it might be okay like okay we're taking it out of merit as it says its own case right I mean it's only based on its own merits not the totality of okay how many conditions or you look at what those other pleas were and how does that play and I don't know maybe you do that now but I would say we always look at the criminal history I mean uh the extent it exists I mean again the expungements are there to kind of remove when someone is shown right when the when these criminal charges no longer have any value predictive value and they we try and get them off but I would say we always look at a criminal history when we're making charging decisions because to me it'd be kind of cool to say okay this guy's got three convictions when he he put in waivers for all three of them because it couldn't afford it right okay well does that have something to do with it or maybe you're not maybe that's too much work but anyway I'm just too much work but you'll never get it you'll never know you'll know whether the person pled because they were being detained and the economic circumstances are they wanted to get out so they took a plea and that's why these individual sentences without knowing all of the facts behind them it's hard it's hard to compare one sentence to another without knowing what all the circumstances are I mean that and you don't have time to research all that either I mean I don't think well in terms of research I mean depending on the nature of the case 90 95 percent of all criminal cases filed that was all plea agreement okay now the court has the authority to reject the plea agreement or you know hold to it to some extent and and that happens but I would say a great deal in part because by the time the case gets to the court on a plea agreement all I have in front of you is it is the the original affidavit of what the circumstances were that brought the incident to the attention of the police and resulted in a certain charge by the time it gets to me with a plea agreement the prosecutor and the defense attorney know that case factually probably better than I ever will so it's not just a matter of of rejecting a plea agreement because you don't like it you you should be asking the state and the defense why do you want me to accept this agreement and hopefully I will get the information from both sides as to why it's truly a plea agreement they've achieved they're both recommending to me so although I have the authority you want to be careful in exercising that authority that you don't what you see in an affidavit that may be a year old by now and you know maybe situations it's certainly not uncommon for a victim to in talking with the the prosecutor they don't want to go through the process right so the there are any number of ways the cases come to us by way of plea agreement and there are others where it's a contested sentencing and usually those are the more serious cases where a pre-sentence investigation by the department of correction is requested and they can either make a recommendation or not that varies from judge to judge so there's a significant amount of discretion that the court has but as I said 90 to 95 percent of these cases are resolved on plea agreements some of which may be exactly what you're saying that the the prior record which is a fact that we look at we don't know why the person pled guilty to three other similar charges they may have been economic circumstances may have been lack of witness it could be any number of issues I'm not familiar with the study that you said is coming out I knew they were the I think it's Karen Burnett's group no is this DOC data you're saying on the sentencing yeah yeah I don't know who's doing the study I'm not familiar with it there was one study back in 2014-2015 sentencing study that did not indicate that they couldn't find evidence of racial bias was there also a bail study a few years ago as well Rebecca do you know this topic just came up at a meeting I was at earlier today um about trying to collect data about racial disparities and setting bail and someone said that she thought that there had been a study done where I the defender general's office and DOC actually provided data a few years ago and maybe um like Vermont criminal research group maybe you should report if there is such a report I'm not familiar with it on bail the CRG or the old group whatever their name was did the sentence study that I was referring to but I'm not familiar with the bail study Rebecca does that ring any bells for you okay um Rebecca were you done there was that appear no no no no no not that's not what I meant I just it's hard to know when you're not here yeah okay my just to shift this slightly but not really um this is really to my mind extremely fruitful but I'd like us all to bear in mind um that we have to translate this into some kind of series I'm assuming of recommendations that go into the report that we're producing um six we just we were talking about 6a but before that it's um that's something that's included and made very specific is 6a which we were just talking about but the report is about recommendations to address systemic implicit bias in Vermont's criminal and juvenile justice system so it seems to me that we need to bear in mind I mean as I say this is very fruitful but we've also got to figure out how we're going to translate this actually into a report into text um and I I want to keep that in mind here as we have this discussion I'm not trying to curtail its fruitfulness but I'm just trying to direct it in a certain sense that maybe what we need to do I know that the idea of subcommittees is not particularly popular but I also know that there are people with different expertise sitting around the table and it might be useful for those people to clump together and actually produce some some actual recommendations that they can bring to the whole body and we can discuss and I just want to put that out there before we go any further that um I think that that's something to bear in mind here um that we really have to make very specific recommendations to the general assembly they didn't function particularly well from what I'm gathering the last time that was tried um but I'm I'm just floating it again yes I am but I also went back a little further to just six not a b or c to say a b and c are including so we've done one of the inclusions but this this whole conversation seems to me to be part of a broader um fund of recommendations that might well be put into the report and I'm just trying to figure out how we translate this conversation into specific recommendations I mean a couple meetings ago Lieutenant Scott was floating the idea that we needed more data from different agencies in order to do that that I I don't know where did that go I I don't even remember what happened to that but I just I don't want to stop this but I also want to focus us a little bit on we've got to figure out how to take this really great conversation and make it concrete one thing to look at is the potentially I don't know if this is the help or not but looking at the earlier sections of our charge there's one through six yeah we decided to start there right but in terms of your I think entirely correct comments that we're talking about big issues here and maybe that you know and we want to include them maybe the case that we can find pieces of those other sections that fit neatly into some of our conversations and then decide that we sure will do a report on six but you know our report can always include something from their sections and we could choose where we want to focus energy and I'm getting help here great you know which sections maybe most helpful because I haven't reviewed them very recently okay that's a general idea for directing us without completely trying to address everything right right because we're not gonna I mean that's just we know always education is always something that everybody's going to recommend no matter what you're doing so that is almost a given that like you said once instead of once every five years or once every one year that there's more cultural competency training or something along those lines right but I also don't know that at a low cost or only some of these time that like maybe maybe attorney general's office send something like a survey monkey out to their people and say what would you do or what do you see or or what how would you improve just a bullet point four five questions so people are you know maybe the maybe the court system does the same maybe the department of corrections hey what have you seen what how would you improve this situation come up with a list of those questions and then get that feedback and maybe because it's hard when you got three people making a decision for an entire department right right I mean even though they're the heads but it might be nice to see what's coming from the front lines or what's coming from the bottom up make maybe because I mean if you were doing a mail or yeah that'd be expensive but a survey monkey if you already have the email addresses of the state departments you might be able to do a hey we'd like to your survey and you might get 20 return but at least it's better than zero percent right I don't know suggestion and might give some insights maybe not okay I don't know what people think about that but I mean you can formulate the questions yeah well I appreciate and Rebecca suggestion that you can't just have a training right I think that we're done that actually building in you know institutionalized opportunities to assess our own behavior to assess our own decision-making I think that has to be part of that and I think that has to be coupled with training and I have seen really strong inventories that are more focused on an organization and how you can look at where you are in terms of a number of things and I'm imagining that there has to be something like that that would apply to the criminal justice system and the juvenile justice system out there I'm just curious whether anybody's come across something like that anybody so you mean the inventory yeah um like a cultural inventory like those assessment tools it's uh well what I actually was working on when I worked for the city of Burlington was a it was an inventory that looked at like 12 measures so it was it ranged from what is your training for staff how do you deal with clients all the way up to your hiring practices and things like that and so then you could look and see where you are and then where you wanted to move to and I just thought that actually helped us to put in some practices that I think our the organization I ran within the city felt pretty good about you know that we were moving towards being um more inclusive in our work so I'm just wondering I mean that's obviously different than what you know we're looking to do here but my feeling is that you have to be able to institutionalize something that you just can't ignore you have to keep doing you know what I'm trying to say anything else um obviously we're gonna keep going with this I mean I it's it just seems very fruitful am I wrong I mean I'm just feeling like this is bringing up a lot of stuff that could in fact result in recommendations and that we should continue the process here um well if the ultimate decision in any criminal proceeding is sentencing right if you said there's a new sentencing study coming out within the next few weeks that'd be great maybe we could start with that with that and whatever that discloses and maybe that will give us something to work on that would when is that what's the date that that's coming out that study okay that was I'm sorry I'm looking at you wouldn't know that's fine I don't know okay I mean sorry November 1st you said I think it's either November 1st or December 1st what are the first yeah it's been it's a first there's an early draft that I've seen but it's not ready for public consumption just got it I think the data is out the report is not okay that's what you're probably not even a draft in a report yet maybe just I've just seen the data we reviewed it oh she will great thank you you're welcome I'm looking forward to that all right anything else I'm just moving us along because I'm mindful of the time no pardon all right um this will come up again it'll be on the agenda next time to continue this um let's move on to public commentary and Schroeder is here and she has a very she assures me organized one page bullet pointed as we go right and I'm with the people power and you know I I'm a real novice at all this but I'm I'm I'm concerned and I one of the things that I was going to talk about was the bail which we were talking about already and um because I had seen also the 400 people and but that was out of 1700 so that seems pretty high to me correct those are the sentence ones okay so it's those are two separate numbers they are okay that what I don't know out of this 17 I think that it really want me in the picture but if if even so it seemed like a lot but then when you explain the different categories that there were not that many that were misdemeanors no very few very few that's that that was reassuring to me because I had I had read about this and I was concerned because this would affect people of poverty I mean it's just how it goes and I was also interested I mean I read about the age seven to eight bill that was passed and that will improve things that's good but places like New Jersey have gotten rid of bail completely in most cases so and so far the way it's working out it looks pretty good so I mean and it's not for people with serious serious criminal thing in fact I think they've made it harder for people with serious crimes but I also realize that getting age seven to eight through because some of the some of the Vermont senators wanted a higher limit that it may not be a time to push for anything else because they wanted like I think a thousand and it ended up a 200 or something like that so anyhow that was something I was concerned about I think that really affects people of color and because of the poverty issue another thing that I'm interested in was the you know I know you've been doing six a but going back to two and three of the charges I've been researching since last year the fair and impartial policing policy that's been one of the things that our group has been doing and I've ran across this Cleveland consent decree someone in the the general ACLU turned me on to this idea of the consent consent decrees and these are these are judicial decisions as far as I can understand against departments that have done some pretty bad things and it's I was very impressed with this it's a 110 page report and it addresses things like the model trainings that's in number two of the charge de-escalation and training ideas such as self-evaluation strategies to identify racial or ethnic profiling and problem-oriented policing procedural justice avoiding contact that may lead to biased policing it just there was an awful lot in this report and so if any I just thought I'd throw that out there I happened to run into it and I had never heard of these consent decrees the only other thing that I wanted to talk about was a little more about implicit bias and this is something that I'm from Wyndham County and in the fair and impartial policing policy that the state passed December 12th 2017 and it says employees are prohibited from engaging in biased policing which good but the Wyndham County Sheriff has added into his policy the word intentionally so it says employees are prohibited from intentionally engaging in biased policing so and to me this seems like well then the the law enforcement person would just say oh well I didn't mean to you know it kind of removes this whole implicit bias then so we've been very concerned about this and I did talk to David today and he said that they're going to be reviewing the AG's office is going to be reviewing some of the policies and I don't know what'll come up with this particular one but we've been very concerned and we're thinking of going public about this because we're this is really not good and there he has made some other changes that are also also really watering me down so anyhow thank you thank you those are my comments okay any other members of the public yes hi do you have anything to know I would just have a question and that is will the ultimate report out of this advisory committee be available to the public I imagine it'll go up on the website on the legislative website a website for the Vermont legislature that has all the reports that people submit so it'll be the easiest way to find it and hopefully yeah thank you very much yes yeah once we get it all down yeah okay um then we're done with public commentary that was fast um next meeting this it's not as simple as the second Tuesday of November because if I remember that's why I wrote this little thing after it because if I remember correctly Commissioner Menard neither Commissioner Menard or Monica Wiebels can make that day any longer am I right about that that's what I remember right so I think that's like a can of worms in a way because this is seems to work I mean everyone's kind of used to the second Tuesday on the other hand someone who is statutorily supposed to be here can't so I think I would like to just say second Tuesday and hey David get the find us a place but I don't think it's that simple review this should necessarily change the decision that we have already reserved the water very uh once again we reserved the water very place for both November and December oh did you say Tuesday November 13th yeah well yeah there it goes okay um I just that's why I wrote like that because we they informed Monica informed us of this at the last meeting and so I just figured it's a can of worms because I don't know how we're going to get all of our schedules you know if we throw it up in the air what other time can anyone meet oh that's going to be fun okay great don't for now okay for now so well that made that easy yeah I sort of second at least for the meetings where we already have rooms rooms so through December um and then maybe but yeah great so I'm not even take about people that's what we're doing okay new business what that I really want to hear where we're going next and I don't want to dominate that discussion I know that we just decided to not have Lisa in the art here for next thing that report is due on October 15th to the Joint Justice Oversight Committee um and it's uh it's about incarceration rates of um people of color and it's in it's and so it's a pretty it's a pretty good report I think from what I've seen of it and that'll be on the agenda yeah so if it's coming out on the 15th it'll be on the agenda for next month I mean the 15th it'll be available and I think that they actually have the the um researcher that put it together uh is neither Monica nor Lisa so she could maybe kind of present it that would be if I need the contact information so that and I will flow outload an invitation um and once the report is out if somebody let us know so we all have it yeah in advance of the what you said the seminar was going to forward that to me right so she said that she if you were referring to the data okay that um they have that and she get it to you and you can disseminate it okay if you were referring to a report that's not done yet right data would be great data would be fine I guess the report just asked for the data anyway so I think that okay is much more uh you know to can uh can you ask her if that the portion put together I figured if she can come she's the one who presented it so it'd be great what's her what's her name do you remember Liz I don't remember on it she's a relatively new uh oh yeah I can't remember her name okay so so the corrections data will come I'll get that out to everybody and that'll be that's one of the that's sort of upcoming I think it was around the phone Rebecca yeah didn't she say I've got that I've got that yeah I've got Rebecca down on here um anything else I mean Pepper's gonna work on the copy that we had for this meeting and I will get that back out I imagine that's probably based on you all loved what happened this meeting so I guess that'll go really well too and um be very probably a fairly quick discussion I guess which seems good um at some point I guess we're gonna have to move on to 6b and that I think is going to be a bit harder um whether and how to prohibit racial profiling including implementing any associated penalties um my sense is that's a bit more tricky I think before we do that yeah I think was the decision that once we complete 6a we would then submit are we doing a complete I thought we're doing it as we complete one we're are we sending no we were gonna we're just doing them in or we're just doing them in succession I'll do it as a bunch they'll live on my computer we'll put it all together then we'll send it um anything else that people are thinking of we've got three items continuing the discussion of racial reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system henceforth known as reducing racial disparity um Rebecca wants to present a bit on that we've got the corrections data coming that seems like a fairly full plate right there okay so expect those emails they will be coming that was the new business everybody clear on what we're doing grand can I entertain a motion to adjourn perhaps judge here so don't make a motion anyone else want to second that second it all in favor all opposed we are adjourned see you all next month on 13th in waterbury thank you