 So you have two amendments in front of you. One of them has a heading at the top that says no LWOP, no life's up role. The other says LWOP for aggravated. The one that says no LWOP is the version that you looked at last week. So there are no changes to that version. The one that says LWOP for aggravated establishes that a court can't impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for any crime other than aggravated murder. So if you'd like to, we can go through this draft quickly if you'd like. Yeah, well, I mean, that's really really different. Yes, we've got the same provision in there for the de facto life without parole, which is section two, consecutive sentences. What's new is section three, it's that life without parole sentence prohibited section. We've just amended that to provide that as is true under existing law, nobody under 18 years of age can be sentenced to life without parole, and it adds nobody who's committed any offense other than aggravated murder can be sentenced to life without parole. Do we have a list of what constitutes aggravated? I know we did it someplace. It doesn't bill. So if you look at page three of your no LWOP draft, that's the aggravated murder statute is there. The murder was committed by defendants in custody of a sentence of murder, aggravated murder, at prior commencement of the trial for aggravated and convicted of other aggravated murder. Defended whistle peds of other murder, defendant knowingly gave a great risk to have 200 persons, and murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding the death of a LWOP law. There are eight potential aggravated murder cases. A person hired for such purpose in return of any mental value? No, only on the firefighter one. A firefighter, et cetera, committed by a perpetrator attempting to perpetrate sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault. Well, I mean, these aren't hands. These are oars. So at the time of the murder, the defendant committed another murder or created a great risk of death to some. So the one in Townsend, for example, was she shot two people. So that's aggravated murder. It depends on the state's attorney. Well, it is aggravated, because she was one of the people on the list of the 16 people that we were given. I mean, she shot two people. She'll probably never ever shoot anybody again. But I mean, so these aren't all. She wouldn't be allowed to have a firearm if she did that. Right, too. But I mean, these aren't all really horrible people. I should have said that. I mean, these aren't all these people that committed aggravated murder. Necessarily horrible people that. Well. So we can hear from witnesses regarding this proposal. Is that any other questions for Bryn? Next is Mary Jane Asher. That's OK. MJ, director of the Pruel Board. Good morning. Good morning. Mary Jane. Let me see you again on another bill. I know. I haven't seen you in years, and now all of a sudden, it's a daily event. I hit a DOC for many years. Mary Jane Ainsher, director of the Pruel Board. The Pruel Board doesn't really have a stance on this bill either way. I did look at the new drafts last night, and I noticed that the original, as it was introduced, I had some issues with potentially around after 25 years is when you go back to the ones that are already sentenced without parole. But other than that, the only part that I saw was on the no LWOP draft on page four, lines 18 through 20. It takes out where they shall not be eligible for parole. That was stricken out, but it leaves that they're not eligible for furlough. I don't know if it makes a difference, because there is a difference. There's an additional vetting process to go on parole that I just wanted to point that out, that there is a little confusion about whether they'd be eligible for furlough or not. I don't know if DOC would have a stance on that or not. There's no minimum term, so they're not eligible for furlough. Right, as well, if there's no minimum term, how would they be eligible for furlough? I would be eligible for furlough. Yeah, that's a good question. I haven't looked at a lot of life without parole sentences in a long time. Do you have any idea how many of them there are currently? I think that I last heard there's approximately 15 of them currently. Are the other questions for her, Jess? Thanks for making it in this morning. Oh, no, go on. Hamis, I don't know if you're on my way through. Thank you. He was here very early. Yeah. 7.30. James Tupper, the state's attorneys that share us. What do you state's attorneys feel about these two bills? So one of our, as I mentioned last time, one of our state's attorneys would actually like supports either proposal, would prefer actually to be able to resend certain folks. The vast majority support the leaving life without parole for aggravated murder. And I haven't been able to get in touch with one of our state's attorneys, but I assume that he would support the leaving in places. How often do you have any idea how often it's charged and how often people are convicted for aggravated versus other forms of murder? You know, it's interesting. The most recent example is a case out of St. John's, Surrey. There was the case before that. The Laura Sobel case was actually charged as aggravated murder, but then it was pled down to first degree murder on all charges because she was willing to agree to that so that she would have the option of arguing for something other than life without parole. And the state agreed to that. They said that they were going to argue for life without parole, but it wouldn't be, you know, it wouldn't be aggravated murder. And her attorneys argued for no life without parole. And the judge, Judge Pack, gave life without parole just on the Laura Sobel killing, not for the three others, even though they were all first degree murder charges. And were the proofs something's not aggravated? I think they were. Yeah, I can, I have the form from DOC. They were the St. John's. They were the St. John's. I think they were on that list. Yeah. So again, you know, I'm not going to just rehash my testimony from last time, but we're strongly in favor of leaving it in place for the aggravated murder situations, the very kind of once-in-generation kind of situations. You did ask me to propose some alternative language around the concurrent sentencing for people under 25, because I think that the idea is you don't want to create de facto life sentences for people under 25. But I think that what you have in these drafts, actually, it does that, for sure, but it also impacts a huge amount of cases other than the de facto life sentence, the 25 or the 24-year-old or 19-year-old is charged with both a misdemeanor and a felony or a lesser felony that the state wants to plead down, but wants just a little bit more than the maximum two years of supervision, because it's a serious felony. So what I was thinking as an alternative would be just to say that if there is a person that's charged with multiple offenses, he's under 25, that the aggregate minimum term can't be any longer and then just pick the number that you want. I mean, so 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, just say that the aggregate minimum term can't exceed this number so that you would never get to the de facto kind of stacking of 30, 50, 60, 70 years, you wouldn't get to that point. Take a Murdoch case, for example. He never murdered anybody, but certainly that's not what you're talking about, is de facto life. Right, the ones where you have. De facto life, 400 years. Yeah, exactly. And so I think that if you want to avoid that situation without creating, impacting all of the kind of lower level felony cases, then you could just say just no aggregate minimum term shot, the aggregate minimum term can't exceed X and you just decide who that X is. I think he got like, at his age, well by the way, he's asking for a compassionate release. He says it's a terrible deal. Who's that guy? Bernie Mada. Oh, yeah, that's right. Right, right, yeah. I don't want to mess with him. You're friendly to others. It's really has little to do with anything, but the Justice Center, who we've been working with so well, had a great deal of funding from the Jet Foundation. And the Jet Foundation was funded by Bernie Mada. It was one of his foundations and they lost significant amount of their non-bureau Justice Center and luckily the Pew Center and some others stuck in. But I got to know this guy who worked for the foundation and it was so sad, he was a really nice guy. I mean, he had nothing to do with all that Mada did, but some new people were impacted by it. Oh, yeah. Big, big, particularly Jewish organizations in around New York City. Anyway. I can send that language to Bernie and I haven't actually dropped it off. I just, I wasn't sure if that was part of the conversation today. Well, it really should be because you're right, in fact, though. Right. And it's odd if somebody were to do people, wasn't how people were like without parole, but somebody else did. And it ended up with so many changes and they were in secular or non-violent kind. And, you know, Alex Sobel reached out to me last night and I know he's on the list for later. I think he's in Florida, I believe. He's in Florida, right? He's a little nervous that this applies retroactively. I tried to tell him it doesn't, but I think, you know, just if he... I think other than Senator Maruth there hasn't been a push on this committee to go retroactive. Yeah, I think just, I would hope that maybe Bren or someone can just make that clear to him at the beginning, because he was pretty worked up. That was the communication between Bren and I in the draft. If you were talking about retroactive, it would be those 16 people, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we've ever... I told him that, but he just, the way that he was reading the bill, he thought it was fine. Well, that's the version that he was reading. Yeah. Maybe it's human, I don't know if you can assure him that that's not a proposal. I sent him what he was talking about, right? Yeah. I don't have anything else. Okay, thank you. The sky was scheduled next, but I have not heard from him. I assume he's... He's probably... I'll try it, huh? I put his on his way. I haven't heard from him. Well, I'm gonna try and just pull him up once more if I can't get it off. Peggy, did you get my message? I did. Yeah. Do I look like the furnace repair man? Believe me. I look like he's in wires. Did you get it fixed? Right now. All right, Alex. The Barnes guy that the service man was there yesterday, but we got home and still have a problem. There was something in some place. But anyway, the landlord sent a text message. I copied it and said, I'll show it to you. He goes, how are you on furnaces? It's like not so hot. And couldn't you do some wiring? What? You know, pull out this wire, take this wire, press this, put this, and it's like, why didn't he come and do it? He doesn't live here. Oh. But the sort of thing you call it, and the voice you have on, he's like, what was the two legs in? See what I'm gonna call it, Alex? Oh. He's bringing the ends of the wire. See, John, there you get a lot of tracutin' yourself. I got no plans, but Alex and Emily had gone down there and played around. Hello? Good morning. This is Senator Dick Sears from Bennington County. And you're joined by the Senate Judiciary Committee. We also have reporters in the room, as well as your big film. Obviously they can't only see the phone, but there's a film of a community television here. So we are dealing with life without parole. And we know you went through a horrific time a few years back, and we look forward to your testimony. We are not dealing with a bill that's retroactive, although one committee member feels that we should consider it. But right now, the two drafts that we have in front of us do not include any retroactivity. So with a press, the case of the woman who murdered your daughter. Okay, first, as a sound check, can you hear me properly? Yes. We can. Thank you. Okay, that's a good start. Yeah, all right. Chairman Sears and members of the Judiciary Committee would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I am Alex Sobel. I am the father of Lara Sobel, a state Vermont DCF worker who was murdered August 7th, 2015. I would much rather speak to you in person, but I'm currently in South Florida and unable to do so. My daughter, Lara, was stalked and brutally assassinated by Jodie Herring because she was doing a job protecting Vermont's most vulnerable children. Lara had been doing this work for the state for over 14 years, and she had recently testified in a court hearing that resulted in the adjudication and sheltering of Herring's young daughter. In acts of planned vengeance, Herring first murdered three members of her own family and then waited with a high-powered rifle in the parking lot for my daughter to leave work on that ill-fated Friday evening. I'll spare all of you the gruesome details of what followed. I'm sure you all know that all of the details were likely covered in the press during the arrest a life without parole, sentencing, and the recently denied, appealed almost one year to the day. I can't even begin to describe what our family has been through. It's been said that the single greatest loss that a human being had experience is the loss of a child. This is so true. It doesn't just change you, it demolishes you, especially under these circumstances. But I did not just lose a daughter, she was brutally murdered, stolen from me and my family by an act of unprecedented evil. From her birth, through all the years that she grew into a competent, caring young woman, I was there for all the milestones, the birthdays, the family functions, the graduations, her wedding, birth of her children, and then I was there for her funeral. My granddaughters, I was children, Julia, who was 14, and Alana, who was 11, when her mother was murdered, still can't bring themselves to confront these issues. After more than 40 years, Alana, now 16, cannot bring herself to visit her mother's grave, though has she ever seen her headstone. Both of my granddaughters will never have their mothers there for graduations. Mother's Day, to walk them down the aisles at their wedding or to be with them at the birth of their children. But today, as I speak to you, I speak to you not of vengeance, I come to speak to you about justice. I speak to you on behalf of all the victims. I speak to you in opposition to S-261 or any other bill to abolish life without parole sentencing. When an individual commits murder, there are many more victims than the deceased, or direct family and friends of the deceased. Any more victims indeed, in the case of my daughter, Lara, the entire community was a victim. All over the state of Vermont and beyond, the DCF workers began to look over their shoulders. But that happened once, why not again? One of their own was assassinated only because she was doing her job. The community suffered as the DCF serious documented difficulties performing their job. Additionally, a witness was murdered as the direct result of her testifying open court. That alone made the entire justice system the victim. There are so many victims, always. In passing the life without parole sentencing for Herring, Judge Pack made the point that judges, prosecutors, witnesses, law enforcement and DCF workers must feel safe and protected if society is to function. He plainly stated that the murder of Lara's son was system threatening and demanded no less a sentence than life without parole. Here, right now, it's important to note that Herring was neither trying nor convicted of aggravated murder for my daughter Lara, or the three members of Herring's family. Yet, the life without parole sentence was warranted on so many levels. Although a killing of a firefighter, EMT or public safety officer performing his or her duty is clearly defined in Vermont criminal code as quote, aggravated murder, unquote. The murder of a DCF worker likewise performing her duties is not considered aggravated under Vermont law. Just moments before this phone call, I received the latest version of the proposed S-261 and I have not really had the opportunity to review the bill as it now stands. However, as I previously stated, I opposed any version of the bill to abolish life without parole sentencing. And I would now like to address some of these specific points that I have been discussed during the past few weeks. The committee is considering carving out of the bill aggravated murder. On the surface, that looks like a concession to the law and order argument, although upon deeper analysis that proves not to be the case, that exclusion would present its own inequity. Could a single murderer that does not meet one of the eight specific aggravating requirements of the Vermont criminal code be so egregious that cries out for life without parole sentencing? More egregious than aggravated murder? How could that be? I say, why not? It happens in the case of the murder of my daughter. Although Herring murdered four people in one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the state of Vermont, under this aspect of your proposed bill, Herring would be ineligible to receive a life without parole sentence. However serious and brutal as aggravated murder may be, unfortunately, there can be some brutal murders that can actually exceed the aggravated threshold and brutality that falls short of the exact definition in the Vermont code. Additionally, I have been told your committee is considering compassionate release applying to those serving life without parole sentence. Anyone serving a life without parole sentence is by definition supposed to serve the remainder of their life in prison, not just until they become ill enough to meet a subjective and changing threshold for release. The rest of their life means the rest of their life. Actually, we're not considering compassionate relief for those persons who have been convicted for life without parole. I'm talking, I can talk about going forward also because I think it's valid, of course it's valid not just going back. Remember, this is not all about Jeremy Herring, this is about setting up a particular law that is mandatory sentencing, as well as other aspects, excuse me, of the law. But I'd like to point out when we talk about compassionate release, even going forward, I would remember the terrorist from the walk of the bombing and the results of his compassionate release. If you don't recall, the terrorist Ali El-Nabrahi, I believe his name was, was convicted in the Scottish court for placing the bomber boards like 103 and killing 270 people. After serving eight years in the Scottish prison, he received a compassionate release according to Scottish law because he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. To the chagrin of the rest of the free world, he returned home to Libya to a hero's welcome and lived another three years in a luxurious villa. I didn't work out too well for compassionate release. I have also had discussions about whether S-261 would apply to those previously convicted and presently serving life without parole sentences. I think you addressed, in the beginning, the retroactivity of it, but to that point, it's undoubtedly, you know by now where I stand on that issue. I will remind you that many of these cases involved plea deals and would reopen many cases for retrial. I think it's a bad idea for many reasons. Legal, maybe not about for me to say, but my guess would be probably not legal. In short, I feel strongly that limiting the judicial discretion in criminal sentencing by legislation, the flawed idea to begin with becomes further weakened by trying to clarify where it applies and where it does not. Statutory mandated sentencing has time and time again proven problematic in our society. I believe sentencing, and others believe sentencing must be left to the judiciary and its inherent appeal system and not removed by otherwise well-leaning legislation. Life without parole sentence is never handed out lightly and not without appeal. If our society is to function, there needs to be criminal sentencing that is proportional to the crime and acts as a requisite deterrent, deterrent finally needed by all Vermont law enforcement and judiciary. Again, I speak not of vengeance, but out of justice and the need to protect the victims, not just the obvious friends and family of the entire community. We were all the victims when Mara was murdered. There are so many victims. While it is noble and certainly fashionable today to pursue human rights at all levels, and I certainly agree with that, the rights of those convicted of murder must never supersede the rights of the victims, all of the victims. There are so many victims. Again, thank you for the opportunity to share views with the committee. And I open to any questions or comments or whatever. I've been very clear, Mr. Sobelin, thank you for your willingness to come forward and have that discussion with us. Obviously, all of us, as well as the state of Vermont, were sorry for that, at the horrific crime. I do want to make a point that as difficult as the, as this period of time was and continues to be for us, when this happened, we were most wonderfully supported by the entire state, the residents, the citizens, the government, state government, everyone from the governor right down the line. We couldn't have made it without you. I don't really have any questions. The compassionate release provision that you're speaking of is being contemplated in a bill which would allow for a compassionate release of persons, but is expressly prohibits anyone with life without parole for being considered for a compassionate release for many of the reasons that you articulated or why we put it that way. One, I might add, one has to be a bit careful. Again, it's slippery slope because of the, just to use McGrahey as an example, he was convicted only of, only at 27 years. He was not life without parole, but he was released as under the compassionate release law of the Scottish government. But in Vermont, under the provision that we're contemplating in the bill, it still has to go through the parole board which could refuse. It's not that it'd be automatic. Again, one really has to be careful when you get into subjective definitions, how ill is ill and how terminal is terminal, and I guess in one way, we're all terminal it's just a matter of when. Yep. Well, terminal illness is actually defined pretty clearly as 18 months by the medical community. But again, it's a subjective evaluation. Yeah. Any other questions? Mr. Sobel, any other comments? No, I'm only, if any of going forward, if any of members of the committee or yourself, Chairman Sears, if you have any issues that you want to discuss with me, I'm readily available and I welcome the opportunity to contribute something going forward. In some ways, it helps me cope with what's happened in the past. I understand that. Thank you very much. On one bright note, you're in Florida, so you're not having snow that we're having today here. I was contemplating flying up to testify, but I thought about it for about a nanosecond. Certainly a good decision and one member of the committee, unfortunately from Burlington, didn't hasn't made it in yet. So I don't know whether the interstate's closed or what's going on, but we also have a witness from Burlington. We spent last February, I said, the appeal took place one year. It was actually February 20th, I believe, 2019. So we would ask for a week in February. Not, it's not my opinion as far as whether. No, no, it's not. Well, thank you, sir, and we do appreciate your testimony and it is timely and it gives Lens another voice to our decision-making and I'm pleased, again, as I said, I'm pleased to be able to do it. Peggy has my telephone number and I welcome any further comments that you may have for questions. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much again for the opportunity. You're welcome. Bye. Bye-bye. Now who do we have? So this is Azin, he's one of the California witnesses from Scala and from Susan. Yeah, did Susan wanna testify this morning for you? Do you wanna testify, Susan? I can say, yeah, I can't say it for you. Well, I mean, I wanna, she's come all the way from California. Yeah, yeah, and these are her two. Oh, okay. These are her two and Susan's as well. We wanna introduce them and teach you know them and tell us a little bit about why we're hearing from, why we're hearing from both of them. Oh, they're completely different. They're completely different. I think they were two names, I think. You're taking Scala's place. Yes. Well, hopefully you can get him on the phone. Well, good morning, everybody. I'm glad to be here. I guess just for the record, my name is Susan Lawrence. I'm the founder and CEO for the Center for Life Without Pool Studies. And I'd like to introduce the two witnesses that I've asked to. Ladies, you have a call. We'll call on you first. Okay. Okay, yeah. I hope we're up. It's six o'clock there. Yeah, I know the second person is up. I hope I see what's up. Maybe we should try this. If he doesn't answer, we should try the second person. Can I have a little bit of my long distance? I don't know, it does take some time. That's the time of the time. Why are you cold? Yeah. I think. Hello? He's not excited. No, he takes it. He takes it when it rains, so it's kind of strange. I double checked this one, so I know I have the right number. It's the time of the time. All right. Hello? This is Senator Sears. You're with the Senate Judiciary Committee in Montpelier-Bumans. Yeah. And your name is? I'm seeing Camisa. Oh, okay. We're dealing with a bill that would eliminate life without parole. Come on. And we understand that you had some testimony to provide the committee. There are reporters in the room. All but one of the committee members are here. And you're not being filmed, but the phone is being filmed by a local cable television producer. So just so you're aware that it's a very public process. So if you'd like to tell us a little bit about why you're interested in this bill, and as I understand you personally. Yes, Azim, you and I haven't met or spoken. My name is Susan Lawrence. I'm the founder and CEO of the Center for Life Without Parole Studies. I did speak with your daughter, Tasreen, and thank both of you for being willing to testify. If it's okay with you, I'll just tell the committee just a little bit about you, and then you can, you know, expand on that. Can you hear, Susan? Eric, so you're breaking up a little bit. Can you repeat what you just said, please? Susan, you're gonna have to speak up or? I want me to sit over here and watch it. Well. No. Why don't you just start with your testimony? That might be the easiest way. Okay, so do you want me to go ahead and start? Yes, please. I'll just a little bit. Hold on. So I support the idea of balancing the idea of life without parole. I went to a case that changed five years ago, and my understanding was murdered by a 14-year-old gang member. My son was a woman at San Diego State University and brought to the streets a delivery man. And on Fridays and Saturdays, and he was lured to a bogus address by a youth gang. And in the gang station, a 14-year-old shot and killed him. He was a facility, brought my life to action. All of you are the good kids. And I went through the emotion as you would anticipate the parent to go through. I had a daughter who was not only a son. And I remember even though it was 25 years ago, those initial days were very, very difficult. And then you go through this period with hopelessness. You, I remember at one point I was even suicidal. But sometimes they need trauma. They need a spark of clarity. And what I saw in this particular tragedy is that there were victims at both ends of the gun. They could have it at other streets of the delivery man. It was a random, very dangerous. The shooter was a 14-year-old. And so I saw him as a victim. There'd be 80 of us left, a 14-year-old, who killed myself rather than the societal forces. They forced many young men and women to fall through the crack and then choose lives of gangs and crimes and drugs and alcohol and weapons. So now I'm out, hopefully I have compassion for myself, but I somehow felt compassion for the kids that took my son's life. And seeing that as a country, we were not doing enough to make sure young souls like him fall through the crack and become involved in crime. I said to the young ages, 14, they should be playing with toys and non guns. So nine months after I lost my son, I started this organization which is named after my son. It's called the Tarik Hamisa Foundation. And I learned a lot about the challenges that young men and young women face in our universities. And the mission of the foundation was to stop kids from killing kids by breaking the cycle of youth violence, essentially with three mandates. Our first mandate was to save lives of children. We do so many on a daily basis. And it's important to do it. Our second mandate was to empower them the right choices that they don't choose lives of gangs and crimes and drug and alcohol and weapons. And our third mandate was to teach the principles of non-violence, of empathy, of compassion, of accountability, of forgiveness, of peacemaking and peace building. And I thought with a simple premise that violence is a learned behavior. If you accept that as an axiom or as a truism, then non-violence can also be a learned behavior. And I didn't feel that as a country, as a society, we're doing enough to teach non-violence. And fast forward, I forget my son's killer. I invited his grandfather and guardian to join me in the foundation. And fast forward 25 years later, the foundation with the grace of God has created a safe school model. We are successfully keeping kids away from lives of gangs and drugs and alcohol and crime. And we are teaching forgiveness. We are cutting truism. We are also cutting expulsions and suspensions by over 70 percent. And our programs are very affordable. We are based in San Diego County. Although a couple of years ago, we funded our national expansion via the second site in Pennsylvania, and are now expanding. And in California, the cost of public education k through 12 is about $11,500. The cost of incarceration is $148,000, or $400, and even after spending that with 50 percent rate is over 84 percent. The foundation has developed a safe school model which has four distinct programs. And the first one is a live assembly with me and the grandfather. And we are introduced to the students, this man's grandson, this man's son. And here they are in the spirit of forgiveness, compassion, and brotherhood. He's African-American. My roots are Eastern. He's Christian. I'm Muslim. His kids kill my son and my brothers. And we're very, very committed and to make sure that kids don't end up dead like my son or end up in prison like your grandson. We have a 10-week curriculum that follows the assembly. We create a peace club on campus. And then for the kids that are honestly very slow, potentially going to be involved with gangs and crimes just like the killer kill my son, we will mention program folder. And the cost of the entire safe school program is $100 a kid a year. And compared to what they're spending in incarceration, it is very, very affordable. The kid who killed my son is now 39. His parole hearing was in November of 2017. I was there with my daughter who is the executive director of my son's foundation advocating for his release and the attitude that he's not the enemy. He has a lot of work to do, not in prison. He has to be on stage with me and think about the power of him on stage saying that he was 11, he joined the gang, he was 14, he murdered my son. And he wishes he could turn the clock back. And I know he sincerely wants to turn the clock back. And against our laws, specifically when you go for parole hearing the first time, you do not wait for parole, but the commission was very moved by saying that you now never had a victim's father and sister advocate for an offender's release and he actually went for parole. And then he left, he was likely to leave in April because he would not be willing for parole. The governor has to sign off. And then he has to be in the halfway house and just last October, he left the halfway house and is now with his grandfather. And we're participating in the foundation program. So, you know, the little testimony that I wanted to make here is to say that there are a lot of resources there, especially young people that go to prison but only that can come out and become expert witnesses. And what I can't bring myself down from the dead and I know that I can hopefully say other parents that go to the same anguish and I look, his name is Tony, I look at Tony, that he now participating with our foundation programs and he's gonna make sure that not many others follow his form of footsteps. So that was my testimony. If there are any questions, I'm happy to take them. I, your story is, and your color is really in starting a foundation after the tragic loss of your son and it's inspiring to hear. And I wish we could have met you in person. But I really appreciate that. Vermont, a couple of years ago passed a law that you could not do life without parole for anybody under the age of 18. Right. And if California had that law, obviously, I don't know what the status is. It hasn't passed. Yeah, they do have that. The California law was 16 and under and they reduced it to 14 and under in January 1st, 1995. And this tragedy happened exactly three weeks later. This year, they're going back to 16. So if it was 16, it would have been out a long time, yeah. Well, thank you. I don't know if any other committee members had questions. No, but I was really inspired by your story. Thank you. Unfortunately, Senator Barouf is not here. He's ill with the flu, so has nothing to do with the roads. So I'm sorry that he missed your testimony, but he can catch up. Okay, well, I wish you well. And I think Vermont is definitely more enlightened than we are in California. And I appreciate you moving forward and trying to get rid of this life without for a while. I think, and actually I didn't say this in my testimony, but I do work in three of our federal prisons in Leavenworth, in Milan, and in Petersburg and have inspired those forlornies to come back out and help young people not follow their footsteps. So I truly believe that there is a lot of resources and prisons and when they do come out, they can be contributing members of society and every kind of law and law is for the justice. There are five books and I feel that part of our commitment as a society is to make sure that the people, of course, you have to heal the victims, but you can't bring my son back with working with the grandfather and now also working with the killer, Kim, my son. He's meaningful to me and my family. There's less kids that are ending up dead or ending up in prison. But the second thing I think is important to do is to make sure that the offender is brought back into society as a functioning contributing member and we've done that with Tony. And the first thing is to heal the community because crime happens in the context of community and by the foundation working in our schools. And not only in our schools, but also working in the same communities, we are also healing our communities. So it's a lot more humane and a lot more better way to justice than having this community mindset. So I think that we're more definitely moving in the right direction. And I want to thank you all for the opportunity for me to speak with you and also to move forward with this effort. Thank you. And thank you for getting up really early out in California. Yes. It's 9.30 here. I know it's 6.30 out there, so thank you for being available at an early hour. You're very welcome. I'll go back in. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. At least good morning to you, Nick. Yeah, so like I was saying, the two witnesses that I wanted, I'm so grateful that you are allowing to speak. They come from a completely different perspective. So you've heard Azim, very powerful story. Nick Awadal is a former life without parole prisoner who actually contacted me after he got his commutation from Governor Brown and after he was found suitable for parole. He is a paralegal. He got a paralegal license while he was in prison and he's been out about 90 days now. He works at a law firm in Los Angeles and he works with me to do advocacy, work in California on life without parole sentences and other forms of criminal justice reform. He's an extraordinary man, a man of great integrity who has turned his life around. He was in prison for 32 years and he'll tell you his story. He's an example of why we shouldn't just warehouse people. Okay. This is Senator Dick Sears and the Senate Judiciary Committee in Vermont. Thank you for Nick. Is this Nick Woodall? This is Nick Woodall. Good morning. And thank you for taking time with us, especially at this early hour of California. Absolutely, my pleasure. Well, Susan Lawrence is here and has introduced your case to us and I believe you work with Susan. That's correct. And so please, any testimony that you have, I want to let you know that there are reporters in the room. There are other witnesses in the room and you're also, you're on the phone so they can't see you, nor can we, but there is a camera and a filming by a local cable access corporation or company. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, please go ahead. Well, good morning. I'd like to thank the Senate committee that's hearing, conducting hearings right now on Senate Bill 261. I'd like to also thank Delaney for coordinating this and certainly last but not least, I really want to thank Susan Lawrence for inviting me and getting me involved in this. And this is a fight that she's been involved with for a long time. It's my pleasure to work alongside her and I appreciate the invitation and I look forward to telling you a few things about my life as well right now. I'm here and I'm speaking today because I want to explain to those who may not know that rehabilitation is important, redemption is important and it occurs in prison oftentimes with people who never have the opportunity to demonstrate that, but we never know because many times people have sentences like life without parole in many states, especially California and I understand Vermont as well, where they never are with you to determine whether any changes have occurred since the criminal defense. And I can explain to you and testify this morning that in my particular case, I committed a heinous crime. I killed a man, Michael Edward Roy who was 20 years old and I was 20 years old and in a drug induced binge, I murdered him and I regretted that for many years and still do, but at the age of 28 years old and eight and a half years on my life without parole sentence, something changed and I began to think differently and I didn't even know where this came from and I didn't like what it was about myself that allowed me to think that it was acceptable to murder somebody and so I saw a change, I didn't know where to find that, but I saw a change despite it not being readily available to me inside. Ultimately, a few months later, I ended up accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and it changed my life. And since 1995, I've been on a road to rehabilitation because God has changed my life and created in me a new person, nothing like the old and despite not having opportunity to be reviewed or go to parole board or really essentially never having an opportunity to really have hope to get out of prison, I continue to grow and mature and rehabilitate and I'm here to testify that I'm not the only one. I was in prison for 31 years on that life without parole sentence up until Governor Jerry Brown extended mercy to me by virtue of executive cleansing and commuted my sentence of life without parole to a 31 years to life sentence and at that time I had 31 years in so I was immediately eligible for parole and I went to the parole board and I've already had 24 plus years of disciplinary free behavior, rehabilitation, maturity, growing remorse that had just been permeating every part of my being for every part of 25 years. And fortunately for me, it was evident and I was able to express as much and speak to the parole board panel until they determined that I was no longer at the present society and found me suitable for release but that would have never occurred absent the graciousness and mercy of Governor Jerry Brown and commuting the life without parole sentence absent that I would have remained in prison. So I was released only 86 days ago it feels like a year I can tell you but immediately upon release I continued my life out here with the same philosophies, the same morals and values that God had instilled in me for the last 25 years in prison as a born again Christian to where I immediately went out of work. I want to abide by laws. I want to be a community activist. I want to be involved in helping people. I was like that for the last 25 years in sight and this is just a further extension of that and so I immediately was employed working in construction for about a month and a half but I was certified paralegal by trade that I earned inside. And so I immediately got employment the first of this year working at a law firm and I'm working on a personal history law firm with the law offices of Victor Alexander and I've seen old California. They took a chance on me having been in prison for 32 years and gave me an opportunity to come in there and show my work. And fortunately for me, I had that opportunity and they accepted me and it's just doing great but it just further demonstrates that I wasn't surprised about any of this. Other people may have been but this is my life. It has been for many years but without an opportunity for review of a life without parole prisoner in California and in many other states we never get an opportunity to see that. And as a society it's important to remember that we're a nation of second chances and we believe in and given second chances and trying to understand why people commit crimes and I think that's important to do so but if we just lock the door and throw away the key we never give that opportunity for the whole number one or for an opportunity for somebody to be a productive member of society ever again or being able to get back in our own community whether it's in prison or out. And so I think it's detrimental to the prison population and society as a whole when we do so. I'm here as a relative success story and I'm happy to come and testify about that and I think that it's important for me to emphasize the fact that I can tell you I am not the only one. There's many others that are inside that are the same way. I'm not the only one. But if we don't ever take an opportunity to see what's going on in the lives of these men and women across the nation who otherwise would never get an opportunity to even be reviewed many times laws and regulations in the respective department of corrections prevent and preclude any type of review to determine such but the staff who work with those inmates in there they know I was fortunate. There was many staff who knew this about me and while I was in prison for many years after I became a warning from Christian a lot of staff recommended to the governor that I have my sense community. 96 staff put their signature down on the line but you know who didn't know a parole board you know who didn't know the warden, the governor people in a position to make decisions on that inmates future parole suitability et cetera but the staff who work with them they know I'm not an advocate to let's life without parole without a prison let me be perfectly frank I'm an advocate for give somebody an opportunity to be reviewed. We've committed life without parole inmates obviously you're getting that increase sentence because you committed a crime that society determined is that much more egregious but you know what we know as human beings there's always room for redemption there's always room for rehabilitation but if we never take the time to look and search for it we may miss it and as a result we suffer as a society. So I appreciate your time and thank you for that this morning. If there's any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Yeah I have well thank you for your testimony very helpful and your life story is certainly I'm curious how it eventually got to the governor's office you said you had 96 staff but it wasn't the warden it wasn't the people who could make the decision how did how why did your case get to the governor's desk and not 20 others? I just happened to be the opportunity came and I just happened to my actual cleavage the application was set dormant for 14 years until governor Brown began looking at him but that didn't change the fact that I was a changed person I didn't change to get commuted I had already lived that life and so by the time the governor's office you know it's very political but by the time the governor's office determined that they wanted to reduce the cleavage applications mine had been sitting there for 14 years and as a result I was still the same person I was still prepared and so I was ready when the time came for review. The many people who would have given up after 14 years I'm sure. I agree. Are you proud? Were there? The victim in your crime did he have any family who spoke either for or against you? He did not. None of his family spoke for or against me. Just a district attorney from the county I was convicted from attended the parole board hearing and spoke on their behalf. Thank you that's helpful. Any other questions for Mr. Wendell? Thank you. Thanks again for taking time with us and particularly at this hour we recognize it's here in California and it's very early there but you probably don't have snow. The easy to do is my pleasure I'm up early on my way to work right now and I appreciate you entertaining me and letting me have this time to speak with you and just speak on this very important matter and I appreciate the consideration that you're giving to this bill as well as all the people that are speaking and supportive of it right now and I'm just excited to see that people are even taking an opportunity to look at some of these laws that we need to pay attention to that they have long-term effect on our communities and our society as a whole and so I appreciate your time as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Have a good day. You too. Thank you, sister. We're having both of those folks here and I still haven't heard from Skyler's but that's okay. Bryn, do you know in Vermont could the governor communicate a sentence? Can the governor communicate a sentence? Yeah, yes. He could? Yes. How does he go about it? I wonder if he's ever, any governor's ever communicated a sentence? I can look into that and get back to the community. Or a person who hasn't passed away. I think that there's a difference, at least in California, there's a difference between a partner and a commutation. In California, a commutation is someone who's still serving time. A pardon is some, it could be somebody who's- Right, I know there's been a lot of pardons in Vermont. I don't know about any commute. What that is, can't pronounce it. And I wondered if the governor in Vermont could say, okay, you've been in prison for 31 years and we're now gonna change your sentence to 31 to life. Yeah, I don't absolutely- Which would then allow the parole board to consider parole. So, if somebody is one of those 15 boosts, whatever, for whatever reason, was in a similar situation, that's what I'm curious about if they have that ability. Yeah, I think that, I know that they have the right to pardon, but I'm not sure if they do have an explicit statutory right to just- That's what I was wondering. If they could do something to what, similar to what Governor Brown did. You know, in California, commutations, I don't know how to say this, it's like a crapshoot. It's not- Well, here's a case for sitting for 14 days. I've 14 years under Governor's desk. And even, it's a political decision. The governor makes the decision sometimes based on political factors, not necessarily on merit. So it's not the same as having a law that says he can't sentence. You know, seeing the cases in Kentucky, which are fascinating, the governor can't think of his name. Oh, yes, yes. Commuter to a whole bunch of sentences, even some that are still in the process of being dealt with. And I don't know what his motivation was, but it was like, you know, you threw me out, so now I'm gonna show you. And that was in it, I mean, that's one where it is. So you do hear it from happening when someone is going out of office? Yeah, well, those are usually partners. The question is, could they change, could the governor change a sentence that the judiciary has set down? So another, you know, if we're not, if we're saying that those people who are currently serving life without parole and not part of this film, could the governor, at some point, if he or she chose, change that sentence for those people? That's the question, really. Soon this bill passes. And it passed in either the allowing, aggravated murder or not allowing aggravated murder to be life without parole. But you're still not retroactive. And when you say you're not retroactive, how would that work? I mean, I know for the old people already since in there, but how about someone who commits the crime before the effective date of this bill? Would they come under this? Well, without the aspirin, I don't know. I think it's a policy choice for the committee, but I don't know. Usually if the crime was committed, the sentencing occurs on the effective date of the bill, the bill's effective, I guess. Right. So the, just to follow up. I would guess that it would be any current. What, go ahead. Just to follow up on that, the board, the parole board asks, is it an advisory board for the deputy, and recommends, they can assist him or her to make recommendations about who should be eligible for a part of it? A part, but not for a consultation. So in other words, what Governor Brown did in this case, which is something we might consider in this bill, the governor was able to change the sentence. Right. Now, I don't know how the judiciary would feel about that, but could the governor make it more? Well, I don't think so. Well, I mean, let's say that somebody, you know, take back the whole issues during the Casper and DeVocal. For, it was a sexual assault case, and there was white criticism for a judge who had given a relatively minor sentence for a sexual assault. And people were up in arms about it, and Fox News came into Vermont, Bill O'Reilly's program, spent a lot of time on it. The question is, if we give the governor the power to commute a sentence, could the governor in reverse go and say, well, wait a minute, that sentence, I don't think so under the Constitution, but we'll have to make sure if we do something like that, he can't change the sentence. Well, I'm going to give it 10 years because politically that would be better. Thank you, thank you for coming all the way from California on a snowy day. Oh, you're so welcome. This demonstrates how important this issue is to me. You know, I really would not miss being here, and I'll come as frequently as I can. No, not, not enough. Well. I'll tell you what, if he didn't have the authority to be, he could not increase the sentence. I don't think I should say anything about that. But the question is, should we give that power to the governor? Should it give the power to increase the sentence? No. No. The commute a sentence is the governor, like this Woodhall case in California, who could then change the sentence to 31 years to life, and then make an eligible parole. That's how he got to the parole. So we do or don't have that. We don't have that. We don't have, you can't. The parole board could recommend to the governor that he give the individual a full pardon. But politically, I'm not sure that the governor would want to give a full pardon to him in order to do something, extend your way. I don't know for sure. Or even a recommendation from the parole board, depending on the, unless there's something. On the current law, the parole board could recommend. Yes, absolutely. You could recommend what? A pardon. A pardon. But they couldn't recommend a Western sentence. So in Vermont, is a commutation different than a pardon? No, there's no ability for a commutation. There's only ability to pardon. For a pardon, okay. As I understand, the research. You haven't heard about any pardons recently here. I mean, Shulman did some pardons. Shulman did a lot of marijuana pardons. Yeah. They were called pardons. Yeah. At that point. Is there another type of term for closing the pardon? Not that I am aware of. What do you mean term? Well, I mean, Shulman has like the record seat, what we have for sealing the pardon. We have expungement. We have expungement. But that requires a certain amount of time post any parole or probation in that period. Well, unfortunately, unfortunately, I've not heard from Skyler. I hope he's okay. Yeah, I didn't know it was a minor term either. So, but I will try to reach him. And we will schedule some time next week to go over this bill and try to make some decisions. Anyone else has any comments for the walk of the abdomen in the next four minutes? Or one might look at and prove it, depending upon your point of view. We're under way. However, sometimes we do report and we don't know what to do. This report is very serious to me on the forensic because it says a lot about how the system moves forward in the future. And so I really take that part of the bill very seriously. And I hope everyone else does. But what happened is as I've talked to Eric and Katie and met with them last week, it became obvious to me that the system wasn't ready for a hold of up to three years on persons who were forensic patients and that it would really disrupt what is already a chaotic system into even more chaos. So we have the drafts in front of you. So we have the drafts in front of you. Yeah, well, I'm just gonna go ahead without them. So you have the drafts in front of you. I'm not sure what I should do with my bill. Yeah, and we have draft 2.1. Is it 3.1? 3.1. 3.1, which Katie and Eric will go over. But Eric was gonna do a side-by-side of what's missing. And when I looked at the side-by-side and said, oh my God, that's, you know, it really has changed a lot. So maybe we should work as this is a new bill. Go ahead with each of your parts. And hopefully Senator White and Nick will get back here. Right. Well, thanks, Senator Sears. Eric is patched for the Office of Legislative Council. Katie McGlenn, Office of Legislative Council. Morning again on the S183. As you mentioned, Senator Sears, there's substantial differences between this draft and the previous one. So as you may suggest, it's probably better just to look at this draft as a fresh start. There were a number of provisions in the previous one that as you said, system systemically probably wasn't really ready for that. But before we get to the forensic bed, secure residential recovery facility issue that you mentioned in the studies later on, there are still a significant provision in the beginning regarding the procedure when someone has found not guilty of our reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial. In this case, it focuses on the not guilty of our reason of insanity group. So it might help just for a moment to sort of review the section one existing laws that you see right there on page one and two is all existing law. No changes proposed to that. Thank you. So to think of the chronology of where this statute appears in the sort of timeline of a criminal proceeding, you see the very first line in the bill, in the existing section on line nine, it starts with if the court finds the person is a person in need of treatment or a patient in need of further treatment. So that's assuming you don't have to try anymore. What has happened up to that point is that a person has been found either not guilty of our reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial for a criminal offense. That's what's happened before the language you see here in the bill. Once that does happen, then the court has to make a determination. What happens to that person? They're either going to be committed to the Department of Mental Health or not. And in order for them, the person to be committed, that's where lines nine and 10 come in. It has to be a finding by the court that the person is in need of treatment and that means a danger of harm to themselves or others. So if they're dangerous to themselves or others, then they will be committed to DMH custody. That's the existing procedure. Does that make sense? No, because I lose my whole career. Well, judicial attention is an emergency. And so I've only, and Senator Cruz is out there again, to address him once, since they're banging him. I'd have to pause in the middle of the bill. It's the first time I've said no to a judge, by the way. I think we should be dealing with judicial attention. To remind you, I have to be next door in 11, 20, or 10, 20, 20. Well, that will end that. Is it an emergency? No, we're just trying to sort of have judicial attention just tonight. Well, can you be done by 11, 20, so Senator Benning can go? Because I can't. We only have three minutes. Yeah, I'll be back before that. We'll be back in a while. All right. So, that's... Oh, because of the snow. It's a bunch of lips. Yeah. I've had the longest to get here, and everybody's trying to get out. I know. You can travel all the way from... Where in the place? To the Lindenville, or East Lindenville, or wherever. All right, everyone. Sure. Okay. The start will not start completely over, but back to where you were before that corruption. So, yes, what you're looking at, is what decision the court has to make once a person has been found, not guilty of every reason that Sandy are incompetent to stand trial now. So, if you look at that existing law, go down to line 13 through 16 now. This is also an interesting point. In any case involving personal injury or threat of personal injury, committing corruption in order requiring a hearing before discharge. Well, that's just interesting because you'll see this come up during the proposed new language that Katie and I are presenting, that there's a difference in treatment there between persons who have been convicted of one offense or another, right? You already had in law the fact that, in this case, it has to do with whether the court might order a hearing. But it depends on whether the case involves personal injury or threat of personal injury. Not necessarily a requirement in terms of a hearing if it wasn't one of those kind of cases. So, these cases are being treated differently based on what you might call the seriousness of the offense. So, that's already in there. And also, if you turn over to the next page now, this is also existing law subsection C, page two. See, this talks about the procedures when someone who has been committed to the custody of DMH is then potentially being discharged. Now, what happens in one of those situations? You'll see line four, at least 10 days prior to discharge, the commissioner of mental health has to give notice of the discharge too. And this is line six now. The committing court, the court that made the commitment, the state's attorney of the county where the prosecution originated. It goes on and talk about some more procedures related to discharge. But the point here is that notice is already being provided to the state's attorney in a certain subcategory of cases. Everybody see that? Same thing, bottom of that subsection, lines 18 to 20. Prior to the hearing, oh, sorry, line 16 to 20. Again, notice of the hearing shall be given to the commissioner, state's attorney of the county where the prosecution originated, the committed person, person's attorney. And prior to the hearings, the state's attorney may enter an appearance. So you already have some procedures for state's attorneys to get notice in certain cases, certain discharges. So that's kind of the background of what is existing law. And then you move on to page three and what's the proposal involves victim notice. That's what's on the page in front of you. So you've already got this situation where the state's attorneys are getting notice in discharge situations. This says, it says the lines one through four now, this new provision regarding victim notice applies when a person has been found, not guilty by reason of insanity, that's line three. For an offense listed in 33 VSA 52048, that's the Big 12. So those are the Big 12 offenses that you already have in juvenile law. And again, there's been different attempts over the years to sort of define, well, what marks a serious felony, but this is one of the ones that the legislature often relies on when it wants to sort of make a marking spot between serious crimes, uses the Big 12 for that purpose and that's what that is. So when the offense has been a Big 12 offense and the person's been found not guilty by reason of insanity, that's when this victim notification requirement kicks in. So what is the requirement exactly? That starts on line five, similar to the language you just saw, at least 10 days prior to discharge, right? That part's similar. But it goes on, it's a little broader here. At least 10 days prior to discharging the person from a secure mental health treatment facility, and I'm sort of skipping the struck through language, I should have mentioned there that yesterday Katie and I met with Morning Fox and Karen Barber from the Department of Mental Health, and we were sort of going at this language, trying to cover what it is I think you guys were trying to cover, which is from what we had heard about last fall and corrections over, justice oversight, and from some of the witness testimony, that there was some concern that limiting it to the word discharge meant that it only applied when someone was formally discharged from the hospital. Now that may or may not be the case in practice, but I think that was the concern that some people expressed. So in order to make sure that wasn't the case, that notice would be provided, not only when there was a formal discharge, but also when someone was their care level was being stepped down or they might be being discharged not just from a hospital but from middle sex, a secure residential facility or even from community care. That's the way I would phrase that. So we want to sweep those situations in and that's what that language is an attempt to do. That covers the non-hospitalization. It does. So the way it is now discharging the person from a secure mental health treatment facility, so that's meant to include either a hospital setting or a secure residential and then it goes on to say or from the care and custody so that includes the ONHPS, yep. So in any one of those situations, at least 10 days before that proposed action happens, the Commissioner of Mental Health provides a notice of the proposed action, this is lines nine and 10 now, to the state's attorney in the county where the prosecution rigid. Now remember, some of that is a little overlap between what we just saw in the discharge in the previous subsection, but it's a similar idea. It provides notice to the state's attorney as they do in those other cases. In this case though, lines 11 and 12, the state's attorney then provides notice of the proposed action to any victim of the offense who has requested that notice be provided. So the victim makes a request to be notified when these things happen and they'll be provided with that notice by the state's attorney. Should we turn to it addressing the HIPAA issue here? Yes, I think that has to be mentioned for sure. So there was conversation about HIPAA notice last time we met. And I think there's common agreement that the Department of Mental Health is a covered entity and that information about when a person is no longer receiving treatment is protected health information. So I think there's no question that HIPAA is implicated, but Eric and I have done some research and we have a copy of our exception to HIPAA. These are the federal regulations. So we're gonna show you that specific language. And we're looking at subsection A. And this is an exception standard for uses and disclosures required by law. So it says that a covered entity may use or disclose protected health information to the extent that such use or disclosures required by law and the use or disclosure complies with and is limited to the relevant requirements of such law. Here's the definition of required by law. It's the obvious first question that would lead to mine I think. Thank you. Okay. So required by law means a mandate contained in law that compels an entity to make a use or disclosure of protected health information and that is enforceable in a court of law. Required by law includes but is not limited to court orders and court ordered warrants, subpoenas or summons issued by a court, grand jury, government or tribal inspector general or an administrative body authorized to acquire the production of information, a civil or an authorized investigative demand, Medicare conditions of participation with respect to healthcare providers participating in the program and statutes or regulations that require the production of information including statutes or regulations that require such information if payment is sought under a government program providing public benefits. So from here Eric and I looked at some case law to try to determine if there is any guidance on how to use this particular exception and what we found is there's nothing binding in Vermont or the second circuit so we were really relying on case law from other states to sort through this and there's certainly some variation across the country but it seems that there are enough cases that would allow Vermont to see this type of notice as an acceptable use of the exception to be able to kind of hang our hat on that and make an argument on that basis and of course there's no way to be certain how our courts would interpret that until it was challenged but there's certainly language in case law that says if disclosure is mandated by state law then the exception 16412A permits the disclosure even when the situation is not serious and imminent additionally there's case law that says sub paragraph one that we're looking at as an exception that stands on its own allowing a covered entity to make a disclosure otherwise prohibited by HIPAA if that disclosure is required by another law and disclosing the information the covered entity must simply comply with the requirements of the law HIPAA imposes no further conditions. But the way you have this written all that is being released is a notice of a proposed discharge. You're not releasing information about when they successfully completed the programming what the program was whether or not there's still a danger to society or X, Y and Z the only thing that the state's attorney is getting is going to be notice of a proposed discharge and that in turn is sent to the victim in a particular case. So said another way whether the person is still receiving some type of treatment or care under the custody of the commissioner. Okay. I'll just follow up on Katie's point there a couple of sort of quotes from cases that kind of reaffirmed the point I think was that this is from a Western District of New York federal case last two years ago, 2018 court said disclosure that is permitted under the required by law exception that's what that's known as the required by law exception it's where disclosure is mandatory not merely permissible. So that's a key point. If the language said may disclose it wouldn't qualify it has to be required by law. And the reason for that is that HIPAA this is a great quote about HIPAA differs to the judgment of state and federal legislators who drafted the law requiring disclosure. I'll set to hear the drafting of the law mentioned specifically. But it's deferring to your policy judgment when you make a policy judgment and they talk about that specifically that something is important enough some information is important enough to require disclosure they defer to that judgment. Isn't it safe? I've never heard of the federal government deferring to the judgment of state. So that, oh. Don't go ahead. I was gonna say that's the notice piece and if you'd like I can keep moving through to the next section. Okay. Section two hasn't changed since the committee last saw this bill but just to refresh your memory this is a reporting requirement by November of this year the departments of correction and mental health are jointly submit an inventory and evaluation of mental health services that are provided by the entity that DOC contracts with for health care services. So that in particular has stayed exactly the same since the last version. And then section three on page four line 10 this is the friends at care working group there were elements of this in the last version that you looked at but the language has changed. So our lead in language just tells us that by August 1st of this year the DMH is to convene a working group and there's language on line 12 that says including as appropriate and list various stakeholders to be consulted. The language as appropriate is added because there's a new instruction to look at options for forensic facility. And that analysis might take the expertise of different people who are maybe looking at the system overall in terms of policy and the mental health and criminal justice systems. For example, BGS probably wouldn't be weighing in on subdivision one about the policy whereas they would be weighing in in subdivision two about a facility. So the folks specifically who would be stakeholders as part of this work group would be the Department of Corrections, the Department of States Attorneys and Sheriff's, the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the Defender General, the Director of Healthcare Reform. This is specifically to weigh in on the IMD issue and to provide expertise there and the Department of Buildings and General Services. So subdivision one is, I guess, similar in concept to what you've seen before. This requires the work group to identify gaps in current mental health and criminal justice system structure and opportunities to improve public safety and coordination of treatment for individuals who are not competent to stand trial or who are adjudicated, not guilty by reason of insanity. It goes on to say that the group is to review competency restoration models that are used in other states and models that are used to balance both mental health treatment and public safety. And the example given there is psychiatric security review boards. We know that there are three states that currently have those types of boards. So that is subdivision one. And then in subdivision two, we move to kind of the physical facility question. So this asks for an evaluation of models for a state-funded forensic treatment facility for individuals that are not competent or who are adjudicated, not guilty by a reason of insanity. And then we have a list of exactly what the evaluation shall address. So in subdivision A, whether there's a need for forensic treatment facility in Vermont, and B, the entity or entities most appropriate to operate a forensic treatment facility in Vermont, and subdivision C, the feasibility and appropriateness of repurposing an existing facility for the purpose of establishing a forensic treatment facility, such as Woodside, versus constructing a new facility for this purpose. And subdivision D, the number of beds needed in a forensic treatment facility in the end. Then we go further there. I'm pointing out that I'm talking to Senator Benning about the availability of funds in the capital bill. Pretty simple to understand that probably constructing a new facility given the need for a new, you know, clear there's a need for a new women's facility for corrections, it's clear there's needs for facilities for underserved natural patients. I just want to be realistic. Hey, did you send that information? So that we're on subdivision D, line 15. The evaluation is also to look at the number of beds needed in a forensic treatment facility and the impact that repurposing an existing mental health treatment facility would have on the availability of beds for persons who are seeking mental health treatment through the community or through civil commitment. And lastly, in subdivision E, the fiscal impact of constructing or repurposing a forensic treatment facility and estimated annual operational cost considering the institutions of mental disease, the IMD waiver, waivers available through CMS don't provide for federal fiscal participation for forensic mental health patients. So those are the two pieces that this evaluation and work group will be putting together. And then the report itself is due on November 1st of this year. The Department of Mental Health is to submit the report with findings and recommendations to joint legislative justice oversight. And specifically the report is to include proposed draft legislation adapting Connecticut's psychiatric security review board to reflect Vermont's mental health and criminal justice systems. Can I ask a question? Why on the forensics working group because they're going to be addressing gaps in the system and many other issues, we only have state departments in here. We haven't asked them to consult with any of the community partners. At all. Wouldn't that make sense? Online 12 is that's including. So that's including but not limited to and there's certainly nothing that would stop you from specifically naming those groups. I think there are a lot of people outside of our own bureaucracy that have a lot of insight into this and I would hate to, I mean, I'm assuming that the Department of Mental Health would include them, but I would want to make sure that it's clear that they have to speak to the community partners and all those people outside of our own bureaucracy. I don't know how to write that. We've put another legislation and other interested stakeholders. We could pull in the DAs and the SSAs. And it might be, I don't know who they all are, but I think that we need to get it outside of our bureaucracy. That's a recommendation that's making. Make it clear that they have to work with the community groups and partners. I'll show another effort here that I'm interested in and may be attached to this bill. It's called the Stepping Up Initiative and I gave you information on that during this from the Justice Center and the attempts to get people who are mentally ill out of the correction system before they get in and so that they are the court before they set bail or put somebody in who has a serious mental illness would be dealt with in a different way. There's a number of, I think the estimates are about 50 people who are on detention with significant mental health issues are currently residing in our prisons. Probably should be dealt with in a different place. Bryn will have some information on that and I'm going to get a conversation with people in the Justice Center sometime next week. So we can probably hold this bill until after I get to see some of that language. But if you want to go on the website of the Council of State Governments Justice Center you can find the Stepping Up Initiative. It's basically designed for counties because the counties in most states are in charge of a county jail and attempts to keep people who are mentally ill out of the county jail. But because we're a unified system that makes it a little more difficult to develop those programs. I do know there was or is a mental health court in Burlington County and maybe it should be available everywhere. But anyway, so that's one thing I'd like to consider and Bryn I think is working on that. So maybe you could get three members of the board's committee on that bill. But read that as it may. We've got other people scheduled to testify, but yeah. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah, sure. What side do a rehabilitation center refer to on the page five on page 13? Is there a reason to have that reference to go on? Other than that, it seemed to me that if you were looking for a place that could be rehabilitated a little differently, I mean, it could be a forensic hospital. It just popped into my head. We could take that out. The decision could be made about that facility before these guys sit down to create this report. Who makes that decision? Well, I'm trying to figure that out. Under that gun, we keep seeing reports coming by. No general is out there saying this is the way it's going to be. We'll do it. What next week's agenda had an item on Woodside. In this committee. See the future. I see the future. Great. So smart. It is brilliant. You know, great minds think alike, John. I don't know if that means that we both have it. I just don't want to take just two. I don't want to take any chance that decisions on that facility get held up waiting for a report that some people could interpret. Well, I think we could take that out. It could just be a forensic facility is what we're looking for. It's going to be a forensic facility, is what we're looking for. Well, we could just take out Woodside and leave this existing facility. Which could be, you know, I think we still own Windsor, don't we? We do. Great. Right now. We have a lot of endicolleges. I'm an endicollegist. Well, we don't own them. No, I know. But they are existing facilities. They are existing facilities. I have to tell you, I will just give you a little sigh. We had the chair of the board of Southern Vermont College and Senator Campion and I had them in the air. And the chair of the Bennington Select Board. And that day that had been announced at the sale of Southern Vermont College to a prep school from New Hampshire had fallen through because of the old building. And I said, well, I know we're looking for a woman's prison and this sounds like an ideal place for it. You've got all that land and both of them like, oh boy. Yeah, it didn't go over as well as I hoped. So, you know, if we're looking at, it's always bothered me that we have a unified system. And if we're looking at new facilities and having to do, why don't we do some more low level spread around the state in counties? And maybe not in every county. It's a long story, but I can give you that. Well, I know why it happened. But I'm going to tell you what West Virginia did. They went to a unified system a few years ago before they became so red that they started to figure things out. But they did something very smart. They built back the counties for people who are on detention and they built back counties for people who would formally have been in a county jail. Those were people that had less than a year's sentence. So they built back the counties, the cost of providing. Yeah, that is a lot I was thinking of. I was thinking of. Well, in Vermont though, you don't have the state's attorneys, I can see you over there James, the state's attorneys, it's been said to have no incentive to not send somebody to, and the counties have no incentive, not to send somebody to jail because it's not on their dime. I know. What were you talking about? What I am talking about is that I worked, for example, I worked with our sheriff around a project that would have created a regional kind of facility that was residential secure and it was secure, but it didn't need to be prison level secure. And it seems to me that if we had some of those in the state as opposed to the prison level secure, that we could, it would be less expensive, it would be better for the people who are either being detained or incarcerated. And I don't understand why we don't look a little more creatively instead of just looking at new prisons. Well, we had 14 of those county jails. Yeah, but yeah, and their county jails are clearly not, I mean, our county jail is such a pit, but there are other options, and if you're going to build things, you could be building it more regionally and less. They started out chitin' in Woodstock, St. John's, very interrupted, were regional correctional prisoners. They're prisons. Regional corrections, so that's what they were. Yeah, well, they're prisons. Okay, whatever. That, they are. Yeah. They're not maximum security, though. No, different philosophy. All right, our next witness. Anyway, all right. Is there any questions for Erica? Sorry, but it's always bothered. It's always been. It's always been going down, no. Okay, is James Pepper, speaking of county prosecutors who represents the county prisoners? Or one voice on everything. Yeah, right, they all agree on everything. They all agree. So, James Pepper, department of state attorneys and sheriffs, we think this is a good bill. They're, the notice provision that's on page three, I think is very narrowly tailored. And the state attorneys would like to see that expanded. You know, we're talking about notice here, not, you know, extending custody or, you know, this is a much different bill than how it originally started. Yeah. But one of the gaps that I identified when we were talking about the original bill was this idea that someone's found incompetent to stay in trial. They have these charges still hanging over their head. You know, they've committed, allegedly committed a pretty serious offense. And after this original 90 day order of commitment, the state's attorney loses all track of this person. They're not given any notice if they're being released or discharged or stepped down to the community. And the state, you know, has a continuing interest in seeking a prosecution if the person is then found competent. So, but we just don't, we can't even order the evaluation because we don't know that it's, the person's being released. And so I think that the idea of this first couple of lines on page three was that, okay, well the original bill was very narrowly tailored towards people were found not guilty by reason of insanity for a murder or attempted murder. Might as well just keep this somewhat narrow to people found not guilty by reason of insanity for a big 12 offense. But I think that, you know, the gap that is there around competent, I don't see why you wouldn't extend this to people that are being discharged who are originally found incompetent to stay in trial so that the state could then seek a competency evaluation for those individuals. So. I'm confused. I thought that, I thought this is only for insanity, not for incompetence to stay in trial. This is only applies to people that were committed to the commissioner of mental health after having been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Which by the way, you know, Matt said he's queried his 300, you know, attorneys and they, this is very rare that someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity. So you don't have any problem with the 10-day notice? I don't know. In fact, I think that for people being discharged either for, they were committed originally for. Yeah. Yeah, so in response to that James, I spoke to Matt yesterday and to Judge Greerson as well. So I think you're reading the finding by not guilty of reason of insanity more narrowly than it actually applies. And according to Matt and Judge Greerson, even that does not mean to say that there's only been an adjudication or only after a jury trial or a finding by the judge that there's always a finding even when the parties have stipulated that there always has to be a formal finding prior to the commitment of person in the image. So that's why that's drafted that way. We talked about whether or not that would be, that's not addressing the competency to stand trial point. Right. At that point, I remember, I think a little background there as to what James was talking about is that when the bill was originally drafted, remember it had a lot more requirements in there having to do with shifting the burden, minimum three-year period of the person who's gonna be committed, that sort of thing. And the proposal from the state's attorneys at that time was that it only covered homicide and attempted homicide cases and only finding that it's not killed through a reason. I think what James is saying is, now that that's different, they're asking for something different. But that's what the original request was. That is correct. I mean, when there was all those extra burdens that were being placed upon the Department of Mental Health and the criminal division, the request was to have it applied very narrowly, but that didn't ever address that original bill. These folks that are being released or discharged from the Department of Mental Health, when they're originally committed to them because they were incompetent to stay in trial. And if we had notice, if the state had notice, we would likely just seek a follow-up competency evaluation to see, okay, well, if they're competent now, they can stay in trial. And if they were insane at the time, then they still have that access to the insanity defense. But if they are now competent to stay in trial and participate in their defense, then there's no reason why the state shouldn't know that. So if I'm hearing you right here proposing on line three, page three, just after having found that, could be by reason of any horror cop to stay in trial. Right. Right. Something along those lines. Was there a, was there anything else you wanted? Well, the Office of the Attorney General in our office. Can I just ask a question there, I'm rolling around in the head where you're going. If you were found not competent to stay in trial, is it all the time that such a finding is made that they are then committed to the image? There'd be a commitment hearing to see if there's, if they were a person in need of treatment. Right. If they're determined to be a person not in treatment, though, do you then lose what you're speaking? So they're not competent to stay in trial, and which is the legal standard, but then they're also not a person in need of treatment because of the departmental health standard. Yes, I mean. Peggy. I'm sorry, I was trying to say no. Yes, I think we lose that even narrower section of people, but this covers the people that are committed, at least so we have some continuing. I mean. Okay. Well, if they're not committed to the commissioner of mental health and there's no discharge, there's nothing to, yeah. Right, right. So. All right. Okay. Well, I mean, okay, I would, and then. The state's attorneys suggest. Unless I, somebody has some objections to it, I don't. Anybody has some objections? Hearing none. And then, well, again, Now we're gonna get a reception. Well, so we're just, this is something that the office attorney general and I've been speaking about for a little bit of time now since the last time this bill came up about having the court be able to require a competency evaluation. This is a separate issue of from a state, from a state's attorneys hired evaluator. So. Why would you? Well, the way that the statute is written, the way the Supreme Court is interpreted under the plain language of the statute, the state actually doesn't get a crack at evaluating an individual. This court can order Department of Mental Health to appoint an evaluator. The defense can hire an evaluation, but the state's attorney doesn't get one. So the court orders an evaluation, Dr. Wecker is brought in to do an interview. They're not the defense counsel of the state witness at that point, they're just supposedly doing a neutral evaluation. Defense always has the right to hire somebody else, they dislike that. What you're essentially asking for is the state's ability to do the same, which of course would come with a fiscal note that would tell us how much something like this would actually cost. Well, we have a line item in our budget for expert witnesses, so it would come out of our budget. Well, why wouldn't the state be true with the defender general? It is, and they have these, they've got a line item for expert witnesses as well. Yeah, it's gonna be the exact same. I do their budget. Yeah, right, right. Right, and what's interesting is that we can actually hire our own evaluation for insanity, just not competency. Let's stop, stop, help me. Who sent you? Are you referring to? I'm sorry, morning box deputy commissioner, I'm referring to the Sherrow case. So there was, and Judge Burson can also probably speak a little bit to them, or maybe not, but Sherrow case is a Supreme Court case that basically, the basic pen is my understanding of it not being a lawyer, is that you can't compel a defendant to meet with another evaluator beyond the neutral evaluator, and so once the neutral evaluation's been done, the defense has the right to have their own evaluation, but the state's attorney can't compel that defendant to engage with another evaluation. That defendant may opt to it, but. The Supreme Court or just, it was, it was like a year just over here. Is it a statutory interpretation? 2017, it's a statutory interpretation case. All right, so what you, I need to understand this fully, but so you're telling me that if it's an issue of insanity, you can hire your own witness, your own expert, who would be, but if it's an issue of competency, you can't. That's right. It doesn't make sense. It's just the way the statute was drafted, and they probably were drafted at different times and. So we should redraft the statute. I don't get it, unless there's objections to redraft it, I don't know why we wouldn't. You mean, so if the issue, if the why, maybe I need, maybe I need a lesson in law of, you know, in terms of the difference between a competency and an insanity. The person's not competent to stand trials, the question is the, excuse me, the question is, is the individual competent to stand trial? The defense gets to hire their own witness to the defendant. And, but the state can't hire anybody? Is it a competency issue? What happens is that. You have to take the. The Department of Mental Health's evaluation. Well, but then that, but in that state, then. That's technically the neutral evaluation, right? How many cracks of this apple did you then get? If your expert comes along and says, well, I agree with the neutral and the defense that this person's incompetent. We open this door, do you get another crack of that 10 months later to see whether or not they've gained competence? Well, there's, I mean, competence is of course, you know, in the moment and if they were then discharging, if they were then committed to Department of Mental Health and that we would want to seek a re-evaluation, certainly if they're being discharged in the Department of Mental Health. If there's an order of non-hospitalization and there's a person out there who's not currently facing a charge. I'm trying to see how that would pan out and wanting on to get the initial finding of incompetence. Right. Do we open that, keep that door open until the statute of limitations has expired? It seems to me you could get a number of cracks of the apple to determine if and when this person has regained confidence. Confidence. Well, if they were then committed to Department of Mental Health, I mean, I'd say it would probably be SHARER. SHARER. It's 205, VT 300. I don't necessarily disagree with you. Unfortunately, I got to run next door, but we're opening up a can of worms that you might want to share with us. We always do. This is why nothing changes in the mental health field. I don't mean that, I mean that specifically in terms of the insanity defense and not in terms of mental health, I think. No, I need to explain myself because I'm uncammered. What do you just say? I meant in terms of the insanity plea and the competencies, the ant trial and those issues because they get very complex and we never seem to make improvements. And that's what I meant by that statement. I did not mean the Department of Mental Health or any of our designated agencies never do anything right. I think they do a terrific job. So, now you may, here's your comment. So I am confused here, I guess, because. I think we all are. If, so someone is found incompetent to stand trial, then if they're put under the supervision of either on a hospitalization or non-hospitalization and then they're about to be released. So the Department of Mental Health has, or discharged or whatever the term is, Department of Mental Health has determined that they're no longer in need of that treatment. So, at that point, why would you want to have your own, I mean, now you can file your charges. We don't know about it though. That's the problem is we don't know when they're being discharged. Well, we've added that here. If you add that here, that's a huge step forward. I'm talking about your own. But then again, mental health isn't determining whether someone's competent or incompetent to stand trial. They're determining whether someone is in need of treatment. And so we would have to seek the competency evaluation. The problem is that we don't have access to the defendant to seek the competency evaluation using our own expert. Because you can't compel them. We can't compel them under the Sherrow decision in the way that the way the statute's written, really. I mean, that's what, they did it. The Supreme Court just said under the plain language, it says the court can order a competency evaluation through the Department of Mental Health, so. Right, so the court could order it, but you can't. That's what you're saying. The court couldn't order a competency evaluation using an expert that we pick. No, they have to use an expert picked by the Department of Mental Health, which is probably where it should be. Anyway, because they're the Department of Mental Health. I mean, they're the ones that are most likely to be able to. We get stale off into the sunset here. Eric and Pepper, would you work together to craft some language that we could look at the next time we take this up? Yes, please, thank you. And we'll look at the Sherrow decision and how that impacts cases and why it should be changed. And then, Sherrow to defend, I assure Matt Valerio or some other people may wish to argue why it shouldn't be changed. But until I have language in front of me, it's hard to figure out why, what we might be doing or not doing. Or what we're even talking about. Well, I think I know what we're talking about, but I think that it's hard to follow. That said, I'm gonna keep going with this particular version in front of us. If there are things that you think need to change in this version or that are concerned with the state's attorneys. No, I mean, I think that we really appreciate the notice provision. I think that closes a very serious gap. I mean, and if you add the competency discharges to the discharges that work for competency, that gives us an opportunity to try a case that is still active, honestly. We just don't know that this person is being discharged. So no, I think that's a very important step forward. Anything else? Morning boxes, next witness from the department of LL. And again, the next time we'll take up the, but I'll call it the Sherrow event or whatever. Thank you. Thank you for having me. We tried to agree on that. That's a sense on the phone. Yeah, no problem. For the record, Morning Fox, Deputy Commissioner Department of Mental Health. I'd like to start by saying, expressing my thanks for this committee for continuing to work on this bill. I've been following since its initial inception back this summer, and I've been a supporter of many of the tenants here. I too agree with the chair that this is a very important topic. That's something that has been a heavy weight for a long time. And I think it's a high time that we start to address some of these issues. And so I again, appreciate that. We did, as life's counsel mentioned, met with life's counsel earlier this week and are in support of the current language around the 10 day prior discharge notice to state's attorneys as far as the question around incompetence to stand trial and adding that language. My first initial thought is, I think we'd be okay with that. However, I have a few just caveats to that. One is when the Department of Mental Health does discharge someone from say a hospital level of care that they're no longer in need of that treatment or even if we were to determine that someone is not a person in need of treatment or a person in need of continued treatment and are looking to discharge them from the current custody of the commissioner that doesn't necessarily reflect that has a change in their competence to stand trial. Someone's competence to stand trial is not necessarily equate to their need for treatments and things of that sort. On a piece to that, knowing the Cheryl decision, that has been a barrier at times and I can appreciate where a state's attorney pepper that opinion comes from. We have seen that impact as well. In one sense, the department would also be interested in language that allowed for the department once we feel the department feels that a person has regained competence through treatment to be able to make that request to the court to have a new evaluation done. Currently, it's a request and it may or may not happen, but if it were to be the department makes a request and it shall happen, that would be something that the department would be in support of part of the language in here in the studies, the forensic studies, does speak to a competency restoration program. And so right now, the state of Vermont does not have a legislative mandate to restore competence. And we, as I have spoken in this committee and others over the years, Vermont is an outlier in how we handle forensic cases, a significant outlier if I may underline that. And having a formal competency restoration program is one of those pieces that we are lacking. And so it's important for us to include that as part of the study so that we understand exactly how that will look, take the information from other areas, but also if there are gonna be any fiscal impacts of having a competency restoration program, we need to be able to take a look at that and have it with our eyes wide open. In regards to the study in general, we're open to the members and how that gets shaked out, community members, X number of at-large community members or other folks, some other language, I'm sure we can work on crafting to satisfy all folks. We would also suggest the addition of an outside consultant to come in to help organize some of this study so that we're not just having kind of the internal conversation but that we actually bring in out external expertise. This is, in speaking with other national experts recently, these areas, psychiatric security review boards, competency restoration programs, et cetera, the national experts I have spoken with have expressed that A, yes, Vermont is a very significant outlier but to be careful and thoughtful about how it happens because other states have gone down these roads fairly quickly to try and fix gaps, resulting in unintended consequences. The Department of Mental Health has had to do many studies over the years and so we historically now say, please no more studies, but if we do ask for a study, I think committee members should rest assured that we really feel there is a need and to this end, we do feel that there is a need for this study group. Another piece of that study group, it talks about the mention of looking at evaluating the psychiatric security review boards that as legislative council mentioned, exist in a few other states already. We'd also like to add to that study that the purpose of having a purposeful look at not only the psychiatric security review boards, but also the findings of guilty but mentally ill as a possible outcome as well from a insanity defense and that taking a look at both those pieces because both of those in their own ways can address some of the gaps that have been identified and some of the concerns that people have had at different times. In addition, we'd also like to add a few other things to help continue to make this a robust bill. I appreciate the chair's comments that this is a very new bill compared to how it was originally introduced and so many things have been taken out and things have been added in. We'd like to add even just that much more which would be to consider some language around the department of mental health having party status in criminal cases when competency and sanity become an issue. The department of mental health and the attorney general's office associated with department of mental health as well as the mental health law project have the expertise and knowledge related to the systems and individual needs and would be in a better position to inform the courts as to appropriate level of care and issues of that nature. One other piece that we'd like to add is that currently when an individual is ordered to have a competency and sanity evaluation the evaluation typically occurs together and the report is one unified report. Actual standards and best practices throughout the nation are that they are separate. That competency evaluation occurs first and then once an individual has been found competent then the sanity evaluation occurs that they are separate. The basic concept behind that is if you're assessing someone's sanity at the time of a crime with someone who's incompetent to stand trial it bears to hold that the information that they're providing to an evaluator around their sanity may not be accurate, whole or otherwise influenced by the fact that they're actually not competent to stand trial and work actively in their own defense. And so those are the pieces that we'd like to be able to see added into this and would work with Lakes Council, if others saw fit to help introduce some of this other language. I'm happy to have that discussion. At some point the health and welfare committee will want to look at this bill and I'm not sure at what point that should. They just told me that way. Oh, okay. Is that where you go? Yeah. But I will, when you say you're proposing to explore. To explore. Guilty but mentally ill. We'd like to have that part of the study. Part of the study. To explore just like we're exploring the psychiatric. Because I've heard you've heard. We are waiting for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Kansas. Correct. Which did away with the U.S. And perhaps we should be exploring that as well. Yes, I would agree. Or at least. I mean, I assume following that Supreme Court is okay. Exactly. Which would come, I guess we'd know that before October. Well, you know. Should I write you out about you? Yeah, so if there was a study of that, we'd at least put that in. Fair. If we're gonna do guilty but mentally ill, we're gonna do away with it. Looking at all of the ideas. I know it's unusual for the department to enthusiastically support studies. And I know that hard on all of you. Exactly. And we appreciate that. Just to be clear too, in our request to study guilty about mentally ill, it's not our request to consider the removal of the insanity plea. But I do agree with the chair that we should be aware of what the Supreme Court decides. If we don't look at it, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Kansas, then there'll be certain moves in that direction as well. I'm not sure that there will be prepared about why you don't want to do it or why you want to. Other comments or questions for my remarks? Thank you very much for making it in today. And I guess we have WIMP or other numbers of your usual attention. You canceled tonight? No, we didn't. Oh, oh, you. Just gonna go on without the WIMPs? We're canceling one judge who has to come from Bennington. Well, that's understandable. You mean the Wimps at Bennington? No, no, no. Well, let me just explain this about that. Tell me there's something in the water down there. If my dog couldn't go to doggy day camp, the judge would be able to make it up here. You know, when they close doggy day camp. They close doggy day camp. That's the thing that, poor Marley's not able to go to doggy day camp today. I mean, he's bumped. He actually likes the snow. Oh, he loves the snow, but you know, the dog park is open to a variety of wrong questions for the day. Morning, Marley. Thank you. Thank you very much. We look forward to the next iteration. Iteration. Iteration. Iteration, Marley. It'll grow back again. David, sure. Did you want to testify? Well, I wasn't on the list, but I know there were some comments made that. Yeah, well, after David's, are you sure you can stick around for him? Thank you. I'll give a chair with the attorney general's office. I just have some brief comments. We are largely in support of what we are in support of what the state's attorneys proposed. And I know we're going to talk more about that at a future date when we have one in front of us. So I won't spend more time on that. One piece that he didn't mention that Attorney Pepper didn't mention was, we would like to make sure that the AG's office is added to the notice provision on page three of the bill, which provides that notice will be given to the state's attorney of the county where the prosecution originated. We would just want to be sure that sometimes those prosecutions are handled by the attorney general's office and we want to make sure that we are in there in case we are the ones who are handling the prosecution. So that's really- Will you get notice of all of them or just the ones where you've been prosecuted? I mean, I think it makes sense to have it following the pattern of what's there right now to have it be the ones where we've been a prosecutor. I don't see a need- You would need a cage from betting to Eric's office, for example? No, I don't think we need that notice. If they want to communicate with us, they always can. I don't think we need separate notice on that. But just to make sure that it's provided for explicitly that when we were the prosecuting agency, that is in there. And that was actually all I had to say today. I think I was ready to discuss a little bit more, but you had a good discussion with Attorney Pepper and we'll follow up on that later. Well, I'm going to ask you another question. The difference between medical reasons that a person can't stand trial are coming up more and more lately. We've got a case in Bennington. It's not mental illness, but the person says they're terminal and a trial will kill them. And then we've seen these cases in other states. Now, is this going to be the new normal? I would hesitate to make predictions on that. I obviously can't speak about specific cases that we're working on right now. I think you're right about the trend, and I think we'll have to see if that trend continues. I'm not sure I would see. Just thinking out loud, I'm not sure. I think those things will always have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and judges are going to have to make case-by-case determinations. But we'll see if this becomes a larger issue that we have to address. Okay. Yeah, when I saw Harvey going to Dine, walking in in the walker and then he climbs the stairs and somebody holds the walker and then he takes the walker and gets up there. You can't climb stairs. There's elevators. And then we have the case embedding, because I know you don't want to talk about it, but it's in the press all the time. The guy from Florida has been dying for 21 years. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Judge Grish, I'm not going to ask you about Harvey Weinstein. Thank you. I wouldn't have much to offer on that score anyway. For the record, Brian Grish and Chief Superior Judge, I wasn't listed as a witness, but I was listening to the comments both by Pepper and Morning Fox. And one of the things that was brought up was the idea of restoration services that I understand would be part of the study. And Morning made the comment that we're kind of an outlier. And I just wanted to inform the committee that last fall I was at a conference involving trial judges from around the country and with any luck, I'll be going back to one later this month around this very issue. And the other, there were about 10 trial judges and they were from Phoenix and Baltimore and Brooklyn and Los Angeles. And I was like the country mouse and the city mouse. What was interesting was that every single one of them was talking about the issue surrounding these restoration services. We were the only state there. And I was there to represent the rural states that went from criminal process to civil process on issues around competency and hospitalization. All the other states that were represented there keep the cases in the criminal process. And if someone is found incompetent, when they start talking about restoration services, at least my understanding of the discussion was that they're talking about restoring services so that they return to competency. The issue for them, and when you're looking at this issue, it's not just what do we have to do procedurally around it, but the real issue for them is where do we put these folks while they're being restored to competency because it's the age-old discussion of well, if they're mentally ill, we're not going to put them in prison and the hospitals didn't want them. So they all seem to be struggling with this issue of where do these folks go in the interim? So it's not enough to say, okay, we're going to put into play restoration services. You've got to go to the next step and say, where, if you go that route, where are they going to be as you're trying to restore competency? And so I hope to be able to go back and continue that discussion with them because obviously it's now more topical than I was the only one at the table that said, well, we don't have that concept until I came back and realized that it was now being discussed. So it's certainly an issue all around the country. It's not anything new, but the real question for those states is where do these folks go? And like anything else, it's a resource issue. So that was one thing I wanted the committee to be aware of. I would join in the comments by DMH around having them become a party at a certain point in the criminal proceedings. And in my view, anyway, it would not be at the stage where we determine competency or incompetency. It's once we have found someone to be incompetent, the next phase is this hospitalization or non-hospitalization hearing. That's where I think they could play a much larger role along with the mental health defenders, Jack McCullough. Because at that point, the focus becomes treatment as opposed to punishment. I think even if they were at the table at that point, I know there were many times when we were struggling in the criminal court, when we had somebody that was incompetent, didn't need to be hospitalized, but the issue of what services and treatment they needed, and even in the community setting, was difficult for either the state's attorney in or the public defender to identify those resources where we would contact them. I think you could still leave the state's attorney at the table because they obviously have a voice in the public safety issues, but at the same time, bring in the department of mental health at that hospitalization or non-hospitalization hearing. I think it could be important if you remember. That was in a bill a few years ago as a result of, I'll say another year long study that recommended exactly that, and it almost made it through both houses. I think it got through the house, but I don't know, it was at the end of the session. So that has been discussed, and I'll get close to it. Well, I would do a schedule with Odin, but it looks like that's unrealistic. I guess we'll go back to the drawing board, and add some things to it. And I think what the committee was hearing from Pepper about the issue of further competency in most cases, when some of this found incombinant as they moved to the next stage, in most cases, those cases are dismissed without prejudice. It's only in, well, for lack of a better term, I'll call them the high profile, listen to serious value, where the cases are left open. A lot of them would be dismissed without prejudice based upon the value of the stuff, because they're not competent to stand trial. So when they are competent, they'd be able to be tried. And so with the notice provisions you're putting in, even if the case was dismissed without prejudice earlier on, once the notice comes back, the person is no longer immune to treatment, it may trigger the state's attorney to say in this particular case, we're gonna refile, and they could then ask for the neutral evaluation of competency again. You were taking it this far, but since we're opening this prospective door, the person is found incombinant and hospitalized, and is later found to be competent. Are they getting credit for time served and where are we placed? I'm not aware that issue has ever been raised, but much like... If you extend the door, I mean, giving them separate cracks at the apple as time goes on to eventually arrive in a place where that person is competent, in the meantime, we've hospitalized them. I think there's an argument to be made that they've technically done something... It may be without, I haven't given a little much thought, but consistent with what we've been doing over the last few years with treatment pre-plead, the treatment credit and treatment credit, it may be that this is a further discussion. It's a good point that actually you could have a situation where the person has hospitalized for a long period of time, might have out extended whatever the sentence might be. So have everybody got proposals for changes that they could get them to Eric or Katie? If it's study, probably Katie. Get them to Eric and Katie. Send them to both of them, please. And then they can decide who's gonna do what. But your proposals would probably get to both of them if you could send them to us. And thank you. Did you have anything else? No, just wanted to share those. So we'll take this up to you next week or one week.