 Good morning. This is Wednesday, March 10th, 2021. This is Senate Judiciary. We're taking up S3, and act relating to competency to stand trial and insanity as a defense. You have before us a redraft draft 1.1 of the bill that has my name on it, but it really is a collaborative effort. Following hearing from the mother of a victim of a brutal murder in Bennington. I contacted Erica Maftage and T. J. Donovan and asked them to work together on an amendment. And at one point, following that work, Sarah Robinson contacted me about another issue from the network against domestic violence and sexual assault. And there is an amendment in draft 1.1 that's recommended by the network against domestic violence and sexual assault. That's the genesis of it. I'm going to let start off with Kelly Carroll, who is the mother of a victim of murder in Bennington, who tells us a little bit about her experience and this is really what led me to talk with Erica about some of what she has seen. Erica knew the alleged perpetrator of the crime for quite a while and has had, not knew him personally, but had a lot of contact with him. She'll explain some of the problems that she faced as a prosecutor dealing with this man. Go ahead, Kelly. Welcome to Senate Judiciary. I'm obviously Dick Sears, your state senator, joined today by Phillip Baruth, the vice chair of the committee. He represents Chittenden County. Alice Nidka, work of the committee, she represents Windsor County. Senator Joe Benning, long time member of the committee from Caldonia County, and Senator White is not here right now. She's getting her COVID shot. I guess there's a hippo violation. A lot of hippo violations these days. Yeah, so she will be with us shortly and I'm sure she can catch up. Thank you for joining us this morning, Kelly, and again, my condolences for you all. Go ahead if you wanted to discuss it. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you can hear me okay. I'm very nervous, so bear with me. Well, please don't try to be as unnervous as possible. Easier said than done. I know. You want me to be nervous. Yeah, Representative Morrissey is also here. Yes, she's been fantastic. Thank you, Senator Sears, for allowing me to speak at this. I know that this is an opportunity. It's, you know, And I know you don't like to probably talk to people like me. But I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank Peggy because she's been very, very helpful with all of my questions. Before I start, I just, I want to let you know that my camera's on my laptop, but I've got to be your screen over here. So if I look to the side, I'm not trying to be rude. Please don't take it that way. But I'm a really good person. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be rude. But this is an opportunity. It's, you know, And I know you don't like to probably talk to people like me. But I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank Peggy because she's been very, She's been very, very helpful with all of my questions. I'm a really private person. And these last seven weeks have been extremely difficult. And I know Peggy sent me the agenda. And the agenda said concerns citizen next to my name. And I guess that's, that's true. But I think here today I'm more as a, here as a grieving mother. And I'm a consequence of the actions of our laws and the ability of people like Darren pronto to get away with first degree premeditated murder without consequence. There's several disconnects between public safety and mental health. And I just want to make it perfectly clear from the get go. I am under no way, under no circumstances advocating for taking anyone's rights away. Or, you know, locking people up unnecessarily. And it's my understanding that there are top 10 or 12. Most violent offenses. I'm not an attorney. I don't pretend to be. I've learned a lot. I have a lot to learn. And, and I think basically, you know, for me, my opportunity is to tell you what happened to my daughter. Some of the frustrations with the disconnects. And then, you know, maybe part of the solution. I'm not really sure, but I'm sorry. For those of you that aren't familiar with the case, my daughter was 26 years old. She was walking through downtown Bennington at 1115 on a Monday morning. It was Martin Luther King's day. She was on the riverwalk in the bank of Bennington area. And the bank of Bennington was closed that day because it was the holiday. There was a visiting nurse that was inside of the Wulumsak part apartments, which is a senior housing complex that backs up to the bank of Bennington and the local VFW, which hopefully gets open because that's a really important part of that community. And in that area, there was a woman that was doing a home health nurse. She was a nurse. She is a nurse. And she came out of that apartment building on the side and saw Darren hovering in the trees in there and she got scared. She didn't want to walk down the walkway. So instead, she walked down the grass, the snowy grass, into the bank of Bennington parking lot and sat in her car and called her parents because she was scared. Her parents said call 911. So she called 911. And while she was on the phone with 911, my daughter came walking up the path. My 120 pound five foot two petite daughter came walking up the path. And Darren Pronto, who I have no idea who he was before this. He's a good sized guy. He's about five, 10, five, 11, couple hundred pounds, stands up, was competent enough to pull up his baggy pants, ran up behind her, tackled her, slid her throat, got up, ran away and was captured a couple hundred yards from the scene covered in her blood with the bloody knife. One of the Bennington police officers was responding to the nurses 911 call. So he was right there and just happened to be in the right space at the right time. There were two video surveillance cameras. There ended up being a second witness. There was a third camera with stills photos. And he's going to get away with premeditated first degree murder because there is a disconnect in the law. So like I said, I'm not a lawyer. I don't really understand all the details, but in my little lay person mind, it's my understanding that someone can go and commit a violent first degree premeditated murder crime. And his defense attorney gets to shop around for one non competent finding before we go to court, which is why they denied the request to have a bail hearing and what's going right to an evidentiary hearing. So he goes and he shops around and he gets one not competent finding, not like a board of anything. You know, I mean, I think that that's something that really needs to be considered. And I know S3 has the forensic working group and I would very, very much love to be a part of that. I know that I'm probably not qualified for it, but I would really love to participate and be part of the solution. But anyway, so he goes in, he gets this one not competent finding and it can be anybody. He can just go right online and he can look, you know, like I can go online and I can find the same doctor to find me to certify my Ostrich as a service animal. But that doesn't mean the TSA and the airlines are, let me take it on the plane. You know, so just because one person says that somebody is not competent doesn't mean that they should be able to get away with first degree murder. And that's what happens. They get that before they go to the evidentiary hearing. The person goes into the custody of the Department of Mental Health. The Department of Mental Health medicates, does whatever they do. And then when they feel like they're done with them, out the door, he goes with no supervision and no follow-up. And I can say this because I know it happened in pronto's case. Now he's been in the system twice before in the state systems. And you're not going to find that in the medical records. You can't because of HIPAA. And I'm all about HIPAA. I have a healthcare background. I work in healthcare. And I get the whole importance of HIPAA and everything like that. But this is a disconnect with public safety. And this is serious. And I can't find out why he was in the mental hospital the second time. And I can't find out, you know, exactly when he got out and all of that stuff because it's a, he's protected, but I'm going to tell you something. I found out because I found the victims. I found the other victims from the last time. So about two years ago. He had problems with a neighbor. One of the neighbors complained. He thought it was a different neighbor and he went and he terrorized those people. He went, he actually broke in. Threatened to slit their throats, killed their children, except the cops got there and saved them. And he went into the system and he got released with no follow-up. There's no violent, there's no involuntary medical. Medication order. You know, it's my understanding that they can, there is some medication. Again, I'm not a professional and not a lawyer. I'm not a doctor. I don't pretend to be. I don't pretend to be a lawyer. I don't pretend to be a lawyer. But if there's something that can protect the public, I really think that public safety has to take, it has to have some priority in the system. You know, I don't, I don't understand how he can, he can do this. And I'll tell you something. When you go through something like I'm going through and my family is going through. Yes, you get a lot of love and support from the community, but you also find out a lot of things that you didn't really know. I've been on Facebook in November of 2020. So this was two months before he murdered my daughter. And he went ranting and raving and bragging about how he's a murderer. He can get away with it. He was laughing at our police officers. He was laughing at all of you guys because of the laws. You know, it, our laws have enabled him. They have empowered him. He has gone around being, he has terrorized the community. He's a domestic terrorist. He may not be political, but he's a domestic terrorist. And he has been empowered by the loopholes in the laws that the defense attorneys are capitalizing on. And it really needs to be corrected before you've got another person like me begging you to fix the disconnects. And again, I am not advocating for anybody's rights to be taken away, but when you're talking about those top 10 or 12 violent crimes, there has to be something to protect the public. And if this person goes into the custody of department of mental health, there has to be something to protect the public when he comes out. There should be a notification to the victim. There should be a notification to the state's attorney. And there should be some kind of a notification to the public. And I know that that's a very hot topic with him. But you have to look at public safety. I had no idea who Darren pronto was before all of this. And I'm going to challenge each of you to research him and see what he's done. He has to be disciplined. He has to be disciplined because he's laughed at all of us. He laughs at our law enforcement. He laughs at our laws. And he gets away with it. And when he gets out this time, which he will, because it's my understanding, any of these changes are not going to impact him because there'll be grandfather, what our else was out there. And when he gets out. I'm guarantee that there will be more blood. There will be more violence. have enabled him and empowered him and all of our legislators have to take responsibility for that. I do not know all the processes but from my understanding this S3 needs to get through committee that needs to get through the floor and then it's got to get through whatever crossover is. Like I said, I have a lot to learn and then I realize it's going to be an uphill battle in the Senate. I know it was last year and the only thing I can tell you is that Emily's dead. I can't bring her back but I can be her voice and I am going to be her voice and I am going to continue to be her voice on this issue because I don't consider myself a stupid person. Probably a lot of people disagree with that but I do now consider myself uninformed and I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of Vermonters out there like me that don't realize that we have these disconnects and don't realize how much of a danger to public safety this is going to be. And when he gets out, where is he going to live? Do you think he's going to come back to Venetian County or do you think maybe he's going to go up north? Maybe he'll go to Chittenden County. Maybe he'll go up to the Northeast Kingdom. Maybe he'll go to and stay in Springfield. Maybe he'll come back to Southwest Vermont. But I'm going to tell you wherever he goes he's going to continue to terrorize because he can. We've allowed it and it's just something that we need to change. So you know, I have a lot to learn. I've learned a lot. I've tried learning about S3. The whole thing is kind of overwhelming. When we were notified of Emily's murder, BPD and the state's attorney's office were both fabulous in the circumstances. I mean, what can you do? Except right from the get go, we were being primed for no jail time. No jail time. This is going to be like the Elizabeth Teague case because of the laws. I know that you all know about the Elizabeth Teague case, so I don't need to go into that. But it shouldn't be right. He shouldn't be allowed to just get out and come out and terrorize. You're empowering other people like him. I do not know him. If there is a justified mental illness, why are there so many other people out in our community that are productive, active, you know, participants in our community, they don't go around planning his murder or murders and he planned this. He about four days beforehand carved murder time into his dining room, table or wall or something like that. Nobody called the police. For months, he was terrorizing and threatening his neighbors throughout the fall and early winter of 20, fall of 20, early winter of 2021. They called the state police multiple times. Two of his neighbors had to get stalking orders. All of it because he was threatening to slit their throats and nothing happened. The state police, there were at least four calls that Olivia and Jake made, two of which were responded, two of which weren't. I haven't spoken with the other neighbors. The victim from a couple of years ago where he got out, I have a call with this afternoon. You can't keep allowing it. You have the ability to keep us safe. You took an oath when you were elected. Your constituents expect it. I'm going to do my best to be part of the solution. I'm part of, I've asked to join the opioid response team in town. I'm part of a small group organizing a community walk. Our first one is Saturday, March 20th at 10 a.m. at the Willoom Sack Apartments, which is where the crime happened. It's not a political walk. It's geared towards bringing peace and some security back to the residents of that community. Those elderly seniors in the Willoom Sack Apartments are terrified to come out of their house because of this. Again, we've empowered people like Pronto and we need to change it. I know I'm babbling and I do apologize, but I have some questions. I want to know why he has more rights to terrorize our community than we have the right to public safety. I want to know why our laws allow DMI to release anybody at any time without notifying anybody and protecting the community. Do you want Pronto in your community? Because I don't want him back this way in mine. He's not required to medicate when he comes out. I'll tell you, we've got a lot. I am not one who reads all the newspapers, but if you look, in the past couple of months, we've had a large increase in violence in Vermont. Up in Burlington, there's been two incidences with involving guns and significant domestic violence and drugs. Pronto involves drugs. I guess one question is, if you take somebody who is out of their mind on crack and they commit a violent crime and we put them away with DMH and we eventually dismiss charges because when they go into the custody of DMH, that's the normal practice, charges gets dismissed. Why is that different than somebody that goes and drinks too much and commits vehicular manslaughter? It's not. I mean, it probably is in the sense of the legal terms and everything, but if you're going to allow somebody to take a lot of crack cocaine and then go out and kill somebody and then say, oh, I'm not competent, as a society, we're headed down a really, really bad path because we all know that there's a significant addiction problem in Vermont. And this adds to this problem. And the more that we allow people like Pronto to use this non-competent get out of jail-free card, the more we're going to have this problem. I think that's pretty much what I wanted to say. Basically, I'm a nobody. I'm not a law enforcement officer. I'm not a mental health professional. I'm just a registered independent who says that public safety is a bipartisan issue. And you need to correct that before there's more bloodshed because that bloodshed is going to be on everybody's hands for not addressing it. You're all elected for a purpose. You hear the problems. You see the problems. But I live the problems. My family lives the problems. Her friends live the problems. Our communities live the problems. There are people in Pono that are petrified he's going to get out and he's going to. And we need to fix it. So that's all I wanted to say. I really want to thank you for your time for the opportunity to speak. And I pray that this makes its way through crossover or whatever the policy is. Should this make it to the House Judiciary Committee, I would welcome the opportunity to speak at that. I would welcome the opportunity to speak on any other pertinent issues regarding addiction, criminal justice reform, mental health services in southwest Vermont, especially Bennington County. I want to be part of the solution. And I do thank you and I will shut up now. Kelly, thank you very much. Senator White has joined us from Wyndham County. And Senator White was one of the sponsors of S3 along with Senator Lyons, who chairs the health and welfare committee and Senator Clarkson from Windsor County who's also I've got a different route. And Senator Clarkson is the Senate Majority Leader. We passed this bill last year and it sat in the House. Actually, I think we passed it in 2018 before COVID hit and it sat in the House. We're hopeful that next year that the start is this bill, but also the forensic working group, as you noted, because Vermont is unlike many states without a forensic unit that's available to the Department of Mental Health. I don't know if there's any questions for you. We did converse back and forth by email. I had not met you before, but I really appreciate your taking the time with us, but also your advocacy. And one of the things that struck me in your advocacy is that you stated in one of the emails that you and I traded back with that. It really wasn't about your daughter. You just wanted to make sure nobody else had to go through what you're going through. And I thought that was really a you know, a very courageous thing for you to say. And I know you've also got grandchildren here who you didn't mention that. So I think the committee needs to know that your daughter also had two children. She has an 18. He just turned 18 months. Okay. So I think that it's important, those things to note. And you know, we're still a small state. And you know, when your letter came and the background of Mr. Pronto, I contacted Erica, who's our next witness. And Erica laid out quite a long history with this man. And I think part of it is when you don't deal with problems, they get bigger and bigger. I've always likened this to, I used to run 204 Depot on Run Depot Street. And when we had a couch with a little bit of a hole, if we didn't fix the little hole, kids would seem to enjoy making it bigger and bigger. And finally, you had to replace the whole couch. And if you don't take care of the little things, sometimes the big thing gets you. I think there's a history here of not addressing his mental illness and his violent behavior and his threats and other things. I think, are there any other questions for Kelly before we go to Erica Mathich? Thanks again, Kelly. I do want to thank you. And I do appreciate it. And I'm a realist. And I don't expect that this is going to get past this year. And I just want you to know that it is my goal to be part of the solution. And I will be advocating for the education of the everyday Vermonter on the disconnects until we can get it through the house. So anyway, I'm going to hang on and listen if you don't mind. I would like to hear that. No, absolutely not. And I would say we're determined to get this through the Senate this year. And hopefully the House will take it up. I think there's enough. I would like you all to commit to that, personally. I know that you all are on the spot. But I would like you to have, I would like you to commit to asking that. I've got a dog in the background, obviously. It's exciting. But I can't commit to what the House does. Oh, I know, I know. That's where Representative Morris, he comes in and some other questions can be heard over the house. Thank you. I'm going to go shut the dog up. But if you can start, I'll be right back. I apologize for being late. I had my second shot this morning. And I just, yeah, just got back. So good morning, everyone. So you've just heard from Kelly Carroll about the severe deficiencies in our response as a state to individuals that have the intersection of criminality and mental illness. This is not new. It's been an extremely frustrating issue for anyone that's been in law enforcement. I'm sure it's also a frustrating issue for the individuals in that work in DMH as well. It's what do we do with the individuals that have a mental illness, but have also broken the law? So I think S3 is a good start. I just want to run through some of the things that Kelly testified to and how some of the changes in S3 will address those issues. The first being the notification issue. The way it is now, I think it's C1 in the bill in the law only requires notification for specific types of orders. And then some case law in raid DC narrowed that even more. So it's really only that we get notification of these orders of someone being discharged if it's within the first 90 days of an order. So a couple of problems with that. When they're released on day 91 from a hospitalization, we don't get notification. When they're released on when they're ONH, their order of non-hospitalization lapses, we're not notified about that. And frankly, 90 days for purposes of an order of non-hospitalization is a drop in the bucket. That's like maybe barely long enough to get an initial appointment or some initial contacts and services set up for an individual. So S3 changes that and adds C2. And that requires notification. And this is a good, this is a healthy start, right? So Ms. Carol mentioned Elizabeth Teague and anybody who remembers that case knows it's 30 years later. So we used to get when I first took office, I can tell you like the second phone call I got when I sat in that chair was from the Department of Mental Health asking me if I would agree to not fight releasing Elizabeth Teague. And I got that call every year. And I remorse it was like a little inside joke. He would call me every year. What do you think this year? How about this year? And every year I would say no, because her competency was not restored. So that meant I couldn't prosecute her. I couldn't get her on any kind of supervision. And I had no information about why I was not entitled to get any of her records indicating that she was in any way any better. The last hearing we had in that case was probably, was right before actually the law changed, which made it impossible. Then I didn't have to, I didn't get notification anymore. They didn't need my permission. The last hearing we had DMH made a motion to put her in a step down placement. I put on the full case all the history she represented herself. And I can tell you that 25 years later, she was still fixated on the same people. She was talking about the same situation that led to the homicide that she committed in Bennington in the late 80s. So to me, someone that's been in a facility for, you know, 25 to 30 years and is still talking about the people that she believed were conspiring against her and what caused her, led her to commit that murder in the first place. That's the information that the state's attorneys should have because we are the keepers of public safety, not the department of mental health. And I don't say that like as a backhanded insult. It's just not the way the law is written. That is not their responsibility. It's not the lens that they're looking at these cases through. They are looking at how do we treat the person? What is the best thing we can do for this person? And that's what they should do. The mistake that we made as a state and then exacerbated it about five years ago was when we made it so that the people who are in charge of public safety are shut out. We're completely left out of the room when it comes to those negotiations. So we can't have conversations with the individual mental health treatment providers. We don't even get reports. We don't get any information. And C3, I'm sorry, C2 in that bill at least begins that process where now we're going to go back to we need to be notified. When someone has been charged with a crime and they are found not competent, and so the crime is essentially dismissed, we definitely need to know when they are now deemed to have a return to competency. And so what that helps us with is, A, we can notify victims. In the pronto case, one of the emails that I found was from one of his prior assaults, where the one that Ms. Carol spoke about was the victim contacting my victim advocate and pleading to know, where is he now? Is he being released? And the response I got from Attorney Morris at that time was, I can't tell you. And that's not okay. That's not an appropriate answer. So I think C1 is the way it currently is. Of course, that was curtailed by that Supreme Court case. But then C2 is the language that will expand that. So now we'll receive notification. And on notification, it should not be tied to offense. I know Ms. Carol spoke of the offense that he had been, you know, that certain offenses or someone's charged with a certain offense. We never know, right? Which it's really not offense driven and a lot of the other institutions are moving away from that. We're moving away from that in the juvenile world. It's not offense driven. It's dangerousness driven. We should be looking at a risk needs responsibility. That's what we should be looking at. What does this person need? What is their level of dangerousness? And how do we protect the public without locking them up if it's not necessary? I mean, if it's an individual that can and wants to be part of an O and H, then they should be given that opportunity if that's what the Department of Mental Health and the treatment team is recommending. But the issue with the O and H's as they stand now, we have no idea if they comply or not. A, because of the notification, but B, the O and H's get ordered. They're 90 days long. We have no clue if they're complying or connected to services or have supports in place. The only reason I find any of those things out is if I have a pending case and I just tell the defense attorney, look, get me anything that says this person is engaged in treatment. We had one yesterday on a calendar call where a vet who suffers seriously with PTSD committed a DUI. Okay. It's DUI. I only need to worry about public safety in as far as if I think he has access to a vehicle and is going to drink. But the reality was the conversation I had with the defense attorney was all around his treatment. Is he engaged at the VA? He's become so. He's actively engaged. What I need to know is if I'm going to say this person was not competent or they were insane at the time of the offense, I need some reassurance that I'm going to be told whether they're actually complying with those orders or not. I think that the final section of the, and I wrote it down, that's C3. C3 in section 4822 is what provides the basis for treatment providers. And typically it's the designated agency. And what's frustrating with some of the cases like Pronto was he was repeatedly on, and this was in my email to Senator Sears, Pronto was repeatedly on various conditions requiring him to engage in mental health treatment. He had a history going back, you know, eight years where competency had not become, had not come up as an issue. But I, and, but I recognize that clearly it seemed like something was an issue with him, with his mental health. So we sent, I sent him to our treatment diversion. Just get your mental health treatment. I sent he ended up on probation. His only conditions were engage in mental health treatment. He commits another offense. And then that's when his attorney starts arguing he's not competent. He had been up to that point assumed competent. There had not been a report. The defense had not requested one. So that just highlights how even here in Pronto, we were aware of the mental health issues he was having, but every single time, and he was in court probably four or five separate times where the court ordered, you need to comply with mental health conditions. Go to your designated agency, connect with them, take any, you know, required prescriptions, and those were things that he was not doing. So I understand we went around and around with this, you know, David and Pepper and TJ and I on the phone with what do we, well, what do we do with the individuals that are on an O&H? The language in C3 says, okay, now the court and the state's attorney need to be notified if they're not complying with the O&H. Well, now what? Well, the now what is we reassess whether they should continue to be on an O&H because remember when the court's ordering an O&H, the court is assuming that the person is going to follow these conditions and comply with them. So if they are not, we need to reassess whether they are an appropriate person for an O&H. The frustration that I think all state's attorneys have and police, it's absolutely true and accurate. We, I have multiple body cameras where the defendant is yelling at the police officer, you can't do anything to me, I'm not competent. I don't know why you're wasting your time. It's frustrating. And, and the reason is, is it because DMH, it's like a one-way street. They, they have an individual that comes into the DMH system from criminal criminal system and we don't know anything after that until they make the way around and we end up with them again. And, and this is something also that I would challenge everybody to look at, look at your own county and try to, try to determine if your, or ask your state's attorneys, how many of your officer involved shootings involve people with significant mental illness in Bennington? It's all of them. And that's not okay either. So to have a mentally ill person in some type of crisis that we've dealt with repeatedly get shot. That's not okay either. So I think that S3 is a good start. I think ultimately I would love to see a forensic board. I completely agree with Kelly on that. I don't know if she researched it. I have spoken with some folks in mental health, the mental health field about the, like the structure they use in Connecticut, which would be phenomenal, but it's, it's not necessarily expensive. It's, it's just making sure you have a panel or a board of people sitting at the same table, really case staffing, just like we do with all of our other, like what I do a lot of with youth. What is it that this person needs? Where do they need to be? How do we balance that public safety concern with the individual rights of the person? Because someone that's mentally ill, the criminal justice system, the purpose of the criminal justice system changes. It's not about making reparations or, you know, punishment or it's really about what do we do to keep this person from being involved in this system and harming other people and taking someone's life like Emily. So if anybody has any questions, but I think I hit kind of, the only thing I didn't touch on, because I think it makes more sense for David to address is the, the AAG or, you know, an AAG not representing DMH. I think that the language about the state being able to get its own evaluation is obviously super important. We were completely shut down when, when that last Supreme Court case came out that said, we can't get an independent evaluation. That's the other thing that Kelly's absolutely correct about. I have not heard anything from Pronto's defense attorney about competency. He did not ask for a court evaluation because one of the last court evaluations we had on him said that he was competent. So, and then I would have something to base my argument on the way it stands now. I'm not going to have anything. He's going to get an, he's going to get an expert. If he doesn't like that expert's finding, remember, he doesn't need to tell me. It's not the requirement of the state. If I get an expert and they say he's not competent, I have to share that. So, but that doesn't, it doesn't operate that way with the defense attorney. So, he can get it, he can shop until he finds one that has the opinion he wants and I can't do anything about it. So, I think that, I think that S3 fixes that too. So, thank you, Eric. I don't know if there's questions, but I want to point out while we're having this discussion, huge majority and I don't know what the percentage is of folks suffering from mental illness are not in the criminal justice system. They're people who are ill like any other illness. We all believe that. We are talking about a small, luckily small subgroup of individuals who are suffering from mental illness, who are endangered to themselves or others, significant danger to other people. They have victims, they have committed offenses which if they were not mentally ill would be very serious offenses such as this murder that we just heard about. But also, I mean, there are, I just don't want people to lose sight of the facts that we are not here kind of condemning the mental health system or our department of mental health to do an outstanding job with most people. There are folks who are dangerous, who are incompetent to either stand trial or incompetent to found to be not guilty by reason of insanity. That does not mean that the offense didn't happen and that hopefully they will not continue to be a danger. But one of the things that I saw in the emails that you wrote to me that regarding pronto case is that there was an issue of medication and I correct my recollection was that he did fairly well and on medication. But once again, the issue was once he left the department, he was off the medication and self-medicating with other drugs and that contributed to his continued violent behavior. Is that correct? It is correct and so that one of the issues that I saw with him and it happens a lot is the family members are the ones that end up calling me just because I had had contact with them previously on that case or I would have one in this case in the pronto case his sister had called not me but she had called law enforcement when he was going through the issues with the neighbors and threatening them and he she told the neighbors you know he's not on his medication and so that's part of what I think the work group would be able to look at is what is right now I think it's really differing so in Bennington we have the United Counseling Services there are designated agency however if I have anybody that's in say Manchester or north Dorset any of the areas up I send them to I had a man in Rupert who had been at second spring he'd been hospitalized his mother would call me regularly at least once a week and tell me how he was doing he actually wrote to me from second spring the number of times and not in like an awful way because I get those letters all the time but like just saying how things are going his mom moved to Rutland mental health because he was great when he took his medication but she was a small woman and he was he had actually been injured when he was logging so he had TBI and then he had schizophrenia that was on set when he was in his late 20s if he she called Rutland mental health when he was a patient that she moved him there to be a patient they all she had to do was say I'm calling I'm calling your caseworker because what they would do is send out a team two people would then come to the house convince him to take his medication if you don't you're going to have to come with us and he would always take it she said that happened once where they had to have the the individuals come to the house and and then every time after that it was just she would say you know if you don't take it John I'm going to have to call and and it made it it made it so that she could manage him um now I know that's not going to be the case in every case because there's all varying levels of mental illness what I think is missing in Vermont is the collaboration between DMH and the the agencies that are responsible for public safety I'm fine with it not being me but let's have you know it doesn't have to be a state's attorney it could be like this forensic group that like what they use in Connecticut where there's a panel of individuals that are really case working each individual because again the criminal justice system is not we can't just we are a small state we shouldn't be trying to treat everyone with broad sweeping strokes we should be looking at each individual case what is their what are their needs what is their risk and then trying to figure out how we can best monitor them without curtailing their individual freedom but to keep the public safe because the way it is now we're not protecting the public I appreciate that I think that's so even as with so many other things we don't have uniformity in the designated agencies and how they respond to various crises and that might be part of the study or to look at the variances in the different designated agencies or any you know it's probably a better way to put it than I just gave you going back to my agenda my agenda is all messed up are there other questions for Erica from anybody on the committee Erica thanks so much for your willingness to work with TJ and the States and Pepper and others to put some changes to S3 that you feel would would help you help avoid perhaps a lot of situations but your emphasis on the forensic needs to change and I thank you very much all that welcome have a nice day everybody well I've got David sure scheduled next but you and Pepper want to try to do a tag team here on us or you basically have rewritten S3 and I because I'm I'm able to I put my name on the amendment but it's really the your amendment thank you senator yeah because obviously we can't put your names on I want to explain that since we're live and that didn't come out right we can't put a non senator's name on an amendment that has to be one member of the senator entire community or whatever so my name is on the amendment but you you and Pepper actually along with Erica drafted the amendment senator white my apologies for coming in late but so we're we're not looking at S3 as it was introduced we're looking at a rewrite yeah draft 1.1 of S3 okay I have to go down and print it out because I don't I didn't see that I think we can put it on the screen if you want no that's okay I can be easier unless other people want that I can print it there much of it is the same as S3 as introduced it is not huge changes that but it does address some of the things that Kelly and Erica spoke about and I violated your hipper rights by telling people you were getting your oh no that's okay that's okay I just told them to I'll just um I thought when you said that they rewrote S3 I figured that it was a whole different it is a strike all but it it contained much of what you know this okay I'll let them kind of go through it and then we can hear from the Department of Mental Health and Jack okay well after we hear from Karen Barber which is a little part of it okay thanks yep all right maybe what you can do is start with whatever you want to do Eric did you want to kind of what do you want to Senator Sears I just wanted to ask would you want me to put the document up on the screen while while David and I think it might be easier for everybody to know what's changed what's the same and changes that they made okay and I can easily do that and as you walk through it David and James just let me know when you want me to page down or whatever whatever works okay why don't we do it that way then does everyone see the bill now yep yeah okay starting um it's a strike off um and pages until you get to page three there's no change am I correct that's right Senator Sears so maybe David you can explain why you took the Attorney General out of sure thank you thank you Senator for the record David share with the Attorney General's office we've been and just for the record also the Attorney General certainly supports the amendments that have been put forward in which will be which State Attorney Martha Jardy discussed a bit and we'll discuss a little more in a moment I want to make clear that I I did the conversation that I had was with both State Attorney Martha Jen and TJ Donovan the Attorney General and they volunteered to work together to develop this year's presentation that's right thank you Senator and the Attorney General was personally involved in discussing some of these amendments I should note that the one we're just about to discuss is not particularly substantive by comparison to the other issues that we're discussing later in the bill this is really more of a technical issue a procedural issue whereby the Attorney General's office could face conflicts with itself essentially in instances where it would be asked to represent the Department of Mental Health and also be prosecuting a case through its criminal division and to avoid that we wanted to take out the statutory mandate that we be involved in these cases you know that we'd be involved in representing the Department of Mental Health that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen it does mean that we will continue to be involved in discussions with the Department about how to make sure that the department does in fact have the representation it needs in cases I know that those discussions are ongoing and we believe we can resolve that issue administratively but in order to avoid sort of forcing the AG's office into a position of conflict with itself and potentially having issues with issues of ethical responsibility from the professional ethics rules we would ask that this provision be taken out and we will continue to work with the Department to figure out the issue of representation again that's not particularly substantive with respect to the underlying really serious issues we're discussing in the bill unless there are any questions we can keep scrolling down we're on to page five page five this right down a whole bunch of stuff that's right I mean it's a lot of text I wouldn't say it's really captured by one simple idea which is that the notice provisions are no longer going to be limited by crime type and state's attorney Martha already discussed why this is an important change we really need to be looking at issues of risk not categorizing things solely by crime type this is a change we're actually seeing all throughout our criminal codes and juvenile approach to juvenile justice as well where we really need to be looking at what are what's the risk presented what needs do people have in terms of being served and the crime type is not necessarily a an accurate stand-in for the topic of risk and that needs to be assessed separately and frankly state's attorneys and the attorney general's office needs to be able to have notice on these things regardless of crime type because there might be real risk issues involved that are not made apparent solely by the crime's presence on this list of very serious offenses so all this does is mean that notice will be required for any case where where a person's been committed pursuant to this section we want to scroll on down to yeah I guess I would add add to that this is James Pepper from the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs this notice provision that we're talking about is which will be described on the next page but it really if you're if you remember from the page up about the the current law what Erica was talking about was the way that the statute is written is that when someone's being discharged from the custody someone who's been found incompetent is being discharged from the care and custody of the commissioner that you know who's committed a crime that they'll provide notice to the state's attorney and at least 10 days prior to that discharge and that that provision has been whittled down over time through the supreme court of vermont which just says that that actually only applies to an initial order and by the way at the initial order only can last for 90 days and it doesn't apply when for instance an order is expiring so that so when if an order is renewed and then is expiring the state's attorney will never know there'll never be any bridge back to the either the criminal case or there won't be any information shared with the victim about the status of the person so what the what the next change does the screen share stop for everyone you can't see the you don't see it right now no it's gone oh strange i have it on my ipad um well let me try and start fresh see if that works is it back yep we're on page six of 11 right i think it went right back to where you left off there okay so yeah there was the language that pepper was just referring to and then moving on to here so then what what this section does which is now c2 which says when a person at least 10 days prior and then it covers all of the scenarios that have kind of been limited by the supreme court it says when a person's being kind of discharged from the care in the custody when they're moving down from a secure to a non-secure um uh you know from an order of kind of secure residential facility to an order of non-hospitalization when they're kind of going through the community care so they'll be back in the community when an order is expiring or uh if the person absconds from the custody of the commissioner then they'll be noticed provided to the state's attorney and the state's attorney will in turn notify the victim so this is important one uh to ensure that victims know when an offender might be back in the community um also it's important if if it's a serious crime for instance or the person needs uh you know if the person is restored their competency um then the essay the state's attorney can resume the prosecution if if that's appropriate i just so i understand this completely eric um and and by the way this is um what the network will be just flying against this issue of scotting and custody on line 11 prior to a supreme court decision the um state's attorney would receive notice is that correct was it was was that a question for eric a question for anybody uh yes uh the the original way that the statue was drift crafted in subsection c just said if someone's being discharged from the care and custody of the commissioner that there the state's attorney will receive notice and there'll be a discharge hearing but that has been modified over time uh to suggest one in one supreme court case that that indeterminate period that a person could be on one of these orders uh is actually limited by 90 days um and then two um at which point they can the the order can be renewed but that notice provision only applies to the first 90 days okay uh and then secondly if an order is expiring as in the the uh department of correct or the department's office not seeking to renew the order then that's not a discharge for the for purposes of the statue and so the notice provisions fall fall off so this is restoring kind of what the original intent of the section was at least uh what we consider the original intent which is that the state's attorney if someone is being released or downgraded or discharged or the term is expiring essentially if they've been restored their competency has been restored then both the victim and the state's attorney shall be notified right um i think eric if you could scroll down a little bit more to yes so subsection three so this is the part um that erica and and uh miss carol we're we're discussing which is essentially when someone is not complying with one of the orders um or that an alternative treatment has not been adequate to meet the treatment needs then both the court and the state's attorney shall be notified by the commissioner so this is just you know a lot of a lot of the orders of non hospitalization or of non hospitalization require somewhat voluntary compliance to show up to the designated agency to take the medications and so this is a provision that would say that if someone is not showing up to the designated agency or not complying with the the terms of the order that that the that the court will be notified and the state will be notified um and again what erica described is we're not sure what the next step is but at least it will trigger a reevaluation of this of the situation um senator benning but at first i want eric would you let judge gerson know of this change so that he can comment on it the next one we go to marco yes absolutely thank you senator benning uh james i'm not sure if this is necessarily just for you so i hope eric is also listening and david share as well the notice provision here i'm not sure how it dovetails or if it is impacted by hippa at all but i'm assuming the intent is if the state is provided notice that the state in turn would have the ability to notify the victim's family or at least that would be uh understood by this but we don't say that here is that something you're anticipating should happen and if we don't have something here that authorizes that to happen is there some interference with hippa it's it's interesting because this section above uh related to notice specifically spells out that the state's attorney shall notify the victim and we do not have that here so i that's why i'm not sure yeah that's why i asked it um i would probably want to just i know she's not here but katie mclean legislative council was the one that kind of was walking through some of our hippa concerns with some of these provisions and um so maybe some of the other witnesses would know whether or not this is the type of information that could be shared with a victim well why don't we pose that question for katie um eric if you could make a note of that yeah i can also preliminarily say that i've also looked at some of the hippa exceptions for disclosures and uh sort of a rough paraphrase but there is an exception in hippa for recoup for disclosures that are required to be made by state law so it can't be it can't be discretionary it can't be an authorization for information to be provided it has to be mandatory provision of information and if the state law requires that provision then there is an exception under hippa for that so that's some background for i'll also follow up with katie but yeah eric if the expectation of the state is that they should be sharing this with the victim it probably ought to mirror the language above that specifically stated that yes that that's the that's the direction the committee wants to go i think you're exactly right center bennington should be should be parallel there um that brings us to if any other questions about section three that brings us to section four right i don't think there's any changes yes that's right center sears i don't think there's any other changes at the moment and section five is the assessment of mental health services and corrections section six is the forensic working group um is there a place here for someone like kelly in the forensic working group and if not should we make sure there is uh i'll be on this section really is katie's section so i'm not okay with the details um it so it can if if you this is janette i'm reading it it says a working group of interested stakeholders including as appropriate but in it doesn't say exclusive to these members so i would think that that it could and any other interested party permitted victims or families of victims would be i don't know how you put it that would be i think helpful to to put in there clearly and do they get paid if they're none usually we do that i think we should probably do that here that little line yes we should i mean it's not going to be expensive but they should at least get the yeah the expenses assuming they're traveling to add the per diem boilerplate yeah yeah for those that are not you know the usual language yeah right um are there any questions for pepper or david i want to thank all four of you one of you's not here which is attorney general donovan for a quick turnaround of this from the time that eric and i um along with kelly began the conversation it's really good uh our next witness is um sarah robinson um shall i lead the the statute up centers here i don't think you need to okay i think it heard the issue is victim notification with somebody there is a a letter from um on our uh web page from um deborah bookfield who uh sarah will talk a little bit about or is it karen where's sarah sarah with us yes she is well she's muted and not she's presently muted sarah can you unmute yourself she can hear us she can hear us there's a letter from deborah bookfield who's a rape victim it was rape in 1989 sarah may have just stepped away for a moment and can't hear us okay that's possible sounds like that's what happens um well i guess we could go to jack mccullough under not legal aid and uh i'm back to sarah and she's with us okay thank you good morning mr chairman members of the committee thank you for having me here um can can you hear me okay yes okay great um i've been uh the director of the mental health law project of vermont legal aid since about 1994 1995 we represent uh everybody across the state in environment in uh involuntary mental health proceedings um in the family division of the superior court everywhere in the state um in civil proceedings we do not at this point represent uh defendants in hospitalization or other involuntary mental health proceedings in criminal proceedings the main reason that we're interested in this bill is in section 2b on on page three of the bill and this provision comes out of the work of uh a working group the legislature uh created back in 2018 for relating to the treatment of people of criminal defendants who have mental health diagnoses and one of the recommendations of the working group was that uh or this addresses a situation when a person is either found incompetent to stand trial in the uh in the criminal case they're charged in or they've been found uh not guilty by reason of insanity and the next step in the process under either of those situations is the court holds a hospitalization hearing and that is a hearing to determine whether the person uh will be required to receive involuntary mental health treatment either in a psychiatric hospital or in some other setting pursuant to an order of non-hospitalization and one of the things that became clear is that in those cases the the hearings the way they are now the defendant is represented by whoever the defense attorney is the uh the public defender or the um or retain counsel the state is represented by the state's attorney's office and the disposition of the hospitalization hearing really depends on the as much as anything on the knowledge and expertise relating to the mental health system and uh and so it was broadly recognized that the best way to provide the representation and provide and manage these hearings is for once there's a determination and the person is going to be uh potentially hospitalized that the someone from my office since all we do is involuntary mental health proceedings would be the more appropriate person to represent the defendant and similarly the department of mental health or an attorney from the department of mental health would be the appropriate entity to present the arguments relating to hospitalization on the side of the state um so we support the inclusion of subsection 3b or 2b in this legislation we've been mentioned to my wife last night I was when I was going to be doing this that I've been working on trying to get this through for for years and I appreciate the the chair's commitment to keep working on this one thing I should mention and I don't think it requires a change in language but I should bring it up last year when we were working on this bill there was some discussion about whether this provision was going to apply only to people found incompetent or not guilty because of a mental illness or whether it would also relate to people found incompetent because of a developmental disability or intellectual disability um and I've discussed that with the with Nancy Brydon who's the director of the disability law project at Vermont legal aid and and they represent people in the cases that the members of the committee might be aware of under I think they're called the act 64 proceedings and what what we both agreed is that it's not necessary to make these this provision apply to intellectual disability cases just mental illness cases and I think that it's good the way the language of the set the bill is draft it was probably good enough but I just want to flag that to see if if Eric or any other members of the committee think that that should be addressed before before it goes to markup and then I think the last thing I should mention is that there there will of course it will of course not be possible for my project to handle these cases without uh without additional staffing and so there would be there will be a need for uh for a fiscal review for this provision and I'd be happy to answer any questions senator white jack you said that um in the bill it doesn't talk about um intellectual disability or developmental disability but um so you don't think it's necessary to put that in here it was just you were just raising the question exactly okay and who was it that um you spoke with that said that it didn't need to be addressed here uh Nancy Brydon the director of our disability law project okay thank you you're welcome other questions for jack jack thank you very much appreciate you're welcome thanks for having me um did where you say I I should ask the I hate to ask this question are you suggesting that who would do the fiscal review um joint fiscal or are you suggesting that you have some expertise within not legal aid no I think I think we'd go to joint fiscal the last time you know a few years ago this was uh uh this was in the legislature there was a fiscal review and a fiscal note issued and I would certainly be willing to consult with joint fiscal as they're doing that okay thank you uh Eric do you want to just send a note to Stephanie Barrett to look at this yes I can yeah thank you jack would you by any chance have that note that was done if a fiscal note had been done a couple years ago would you but still be able to obtain a copy I can try um I'll look and see what I can find um I'm using the excuse that all my documents are not peculiar well yeah that's part of the problem it really is part of the problem for me but I I have access to our network even even from home so I'm I'm optimistic okay great thank you jack now let's pivot back to Sarah Robinson if we could and the letter is on our website yes uh thank you all on Denver Brookfield Sarah that's fine we all do that on zoom zoom troubles exactly good morning for the record Sarah Robinson deputy director at the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence and I'll be brief but I did want to highlight one small but meaningful change in the draft that you all are discussing today and thank you senator Sears for taking this testimony and also for noting the letter from Debra Brookfield which has been posted to the committee's website I just wanted to say that we're broadly supportive of the bill especially the provisions uh referencing victim notification and for many years as you all know the state has worked to refine and improve the process we're notifying victims through court proceedings and during periods when individuals are incarcerated under the custody of the department of corrections or on community supervision however as state's attorney Marthage and others highlighted this victim notification process has has not worked well after 90 days in cases where individuals are in the custody of the department of mental health such as um those that you've heard about today so the small piece I wanted to speak to specifically is related to individuals absconding from the custody of the commissioner of mental health and so that can be found on page six lines 15 and 16 in the draft you are looking at and in the letter that the committee received from Debra Brookfield she really outlines her stories and in essence when an individual obsconds from the custody of the commissioner of mental health there is not notification for a victim as there would be if an individual absconded from department of corrections custody and Miss Brookfield was not notified that the person who had violently assaulted her and threatened her life had absconded from the department of mental health custody had hitchhiked halfway across the state and was ultimately apprehended just a mile from her home and the way that she found out about this series of events is because the Vermont state police put out a bulletin a missing person's bulletin for this individual which truly just happened to be seen by her victims advocate so her victims advocated the department of corrections was not notified nor was the state's attorney nor was obviously miss Brookfield so this is a it's a small change of those that you're contemplating today but a very meaningful one and I'd be happy to take any questions that you might have about it are there any questions for Sarah senator of white I just want thanks Sarah I just want to be clear you're actually supporting the language that's that in the new draft very much them okay great thanks that's what I thought it was actually her language that was asserted there that hadn't been placed in by earlier by David Shurer James Tupper okay no no further questions thank you very much Sarah appreciate it morning Fox and Cameron Barber do you want to comment on behalf of the department of mental health either one of you or both I think we'll do as I think this committee has gotten used to a little tag team between the two of us I'd like to start for the record morning Fox deputy commissioner for the department of mental health I'd like to begin by saying expressing my thanks to to you Mr. Chair senator Sears for your comment earlier in the in the testimony reminding members of this committee as well as those of the viewing public that the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not the perpetrators of violent acts and in fact are at greater risk of being on the receiving end of violent and assaultive acts and so I just wanted to start by saying thank you for that reminder I also would like to thank Ms. Carroll for her testimony the experiences that she and her family have gone through no one should ever have to even imagine let alone actually go through and as Ms. Carroll mentioned around support for notifications regarding you know that are described in this bill prior to the changes that the state's attorneys and and the attorney generals worked on the department was in full support of the notifications as it was listed earlier with the listed crimes with the expansion of that I think it does bring some concerns to the department and I will be asking Karen Barber to speak a little bit more in detail about that but I just wanted to express that the the change from notification from listed crimes to any crime is is a bit concerning the sheer volume that that could be and other implications could be rather significant and I also believe that it would probably be wise to hear from Vermont care partners as to how this would impact their work with criminal court involved folks who end up on orders of non-hospitalization into the community I would also like to just mention again as Ms. Carroll mentioned the psychiatric security review board one example being the Connecticut model is something the department has been in support of exploring for use in our state and so the forensic study group I believe is incredibly important and I believe that members of this committee have heard me testify for several years now of the somewhat untenable position that the department gets placed in in regards to people being committed through the criminal court system and for the lack of a forensic facility in our state and our ability to have people who are criminally justice involved remain in a secure setting since the the flood of the Vermont state hospital and the rebuilding of the Vermont psychiatric care hospital in its replacement all of our hospitals in this state are acute care hospitals CMS certified joint commission certified and in order to continue to receive the federal participation and funding that that funds the vast majority of our psychiatric hospitals they cannot be used for public safety and so that therein lies the rub that we struggle with in that when a person's mental health concerns or issues have been adequately treated that they no longer require hospitalization for psychiatric treatment as state's attorney Marthage mentioned the public safety piece our focus is to treat the individual and we lose or face losing parts or all of our federal funding if we then restrict and keep people either hospitalized or even kept in a secure residential setting solely for a public safety perspective there are public safety connections between mental health and law enforcement that's clear however the the the piece that we really need to look at is what type of facility are are we in need of and I think it's also important I think you know Miss Carol made a great point as well around people with substance abuse and substance use disorders and I would add in developmental and intellectual disabilities as well that because those systems have no involuntary inpatient if you will or secure settings whenever there's a the comorbid connection or the dual connection of mental health and addictions mental health and developmental intellectual disabilities or traumatic brain injuries etc really the only recourse that the courts are really looking at is to place them into the custody of the of the Department of Mental Health which is not necessarily the best services for those individuals and again quickly look at does that individual need psychiatric care and once that their psychiatric issues have been treated then what and so I will kind of end end with that but you know I think the the the piece that I want to stress is that we really need to look at and really study and figure out what is going to work for Vermont and such like that but lack of of of those types of resources we're going to be stuck in this position on an ongoing basis and I'll leave it at that for now but I'll ask Karen Barber to go into a little bit more detail on some of the specifics but just to remind folks we're in support and we really truly believe that we would like people to have notification when some of the individuals are being discharged from a secure setting that's why we're in support of the original language of S3 with the listed crimes and so I just want to make sure that we understand that but that we do have some serious concerns of expanding it to any crime and and what that impact could be. I guess I want to make sure I understand that one of the frustrations that I heard was that cases are different in different counties so in Rutland County somebody who's off their medications the Rutland County Mental Health get to call they send out a team to talk to the person get them back on their medication in Bennington County that doesn't happen and this committee has worked tirelessly on issues of geographical justice seems to me like why doesn't that happen in Bennington County? I guess those are my questions that's one question understand your concern about the about all of this you know in terms of the cost but and if you're not responsible for public safety who is it starts in 20 with this gentleman the alleged perpetrator of the crime that we talked about Darren Pronto this church charged with false information to police in February of 2015 sent to a record few months later he's charged with domestic assault placed on probation with mental health conditions close to be working with UCS UCS does not share information with the state's attorney and within months he's violated his probation brought back to court given strict probation conditions again focused on mental health year later he violates his probation again he's placed on probation with mental health conditions requiring him to work with the desing mental health agency UCS again violates again within a month and now his defense attorney start to argue competency during 2018 he's admitted to the state hospital and DMA has entered in as a party to the criminal proceedings state attorney's office has not received any information from the DMH in fact we're told we're not entitled to the information defendant is now not competent the quest hospitalization hearing DMH you know inner beings this is all two years before the murder and so I guess what I'm trying to get at two things why don't we have a similar response in Bennington County that we have in Rutland County and number two is if we only look at listed crimes that we would never see these other crimes that were committed by this person and might have been able to catch this before it ended up going to murder but can I can I follow up yeah sure can I follow up on that um I'm I got I think I got a little confused here because we're was he um can was he determined to be incompetent to stand trial or um innocent by in those earlier things because if it I think I got a little confused here because if we're talking about um there are a lot of people on ONHs that um can I finish well I was going to answer your question oh okay well because there are a lot of people on ONHs that aren't in the criminal system and are we talking about notifying victims whenever someone is released from an ONH or are we talking about it only if they are in these two criminal uh system categories I'm talking about this individual during 2018 he admitted to the state was admitted to the state hospital DMH has entered as the part of the criminal proceeding state attorney's office did not receive any information from DMH in fact we're told we're not entitled to the information you're not telling us victim as to the time at the time anything about his whereabouts then the defendant is found not competent and the state attorney's office requests the hospitalization hearing DMH intervenes as a party the senator would like to I think that's you know if you'd like I'll try to answer your questions is that clear senator white I mean I yeah yeah I just didn't know if the two years leading up to that if he had not been until then until 2018 started in 2015 right it was three years and then then they found him not competent but he wasn't in one of those categories of incompetent or criminally insane before that no it was three years later right okay so in regards to the first question why are things different maybe at United Counseling Service versus Rutland Mental Health Service uh designated agencies historically have uh designed their programs as independent of one another uh in order to meet the needs of their local communities and so what typically works in Orleans County may not work in Rutland County which may not work in Washington County and so the specific of an outreach team like that may may be different there could be a lot of various reasons why that played out that way but historically that's part of the reason why the services are are somewhat different there are particular types of services through contracts and grants through the state through our funding that they're required to to provide and those are of a consistent nature as far as you know the the basic CRT services emergency services things of that nature but how they implement different pieces of the service arrays that they have are going to vary based on their regions and unfortunately as far as the the case that that people are talking about being a mental being part of the mental health system and being a mental health provider myself i can't really go into the details in my knowledge of the history and and treatment let me let me i understand that let me make clear i was raising that in response to you saying that you didn't want to deal with every crime you wanted to take the listing crimes and i was showing a three-year history there of lesser crimes right until i guess i'm not competent and then the you know that was in 2018 and 2021 he murders or or hasn't found it the weight of evidence is great but he is accused of murdering miss carroll's and and i appreciate that i guess part of my concern i'll i'll stop in a second and like i wasn't i wasn't trying to get information about that particular case i rather using that as an example of where the i don't think he was accused of listed crimes i guess part of my concern senator and i'll let again i'll let karen barber kind of flesh this out a bit more is we have someone who is committed based on an order of hospitalization or an order of non-hospitalization based off of a criminal offense of unlawful trespass and part of the finalization and resolution of the case is that the charges are dismissed and they are placed on order of non-hospitalization and my concern would be is that individuals like that now as the onh is being resolved that we we notify states attorneys that the onh is not going to be renewed or that we're going to terminate or something of that sort that they then will seek an order of hospitalization or contest that discharge and how free and i and i guess would that would that have have helped us three years down the line and you know i think we start getting some concerns when we have folks who may be in the hospital in a secure setting and we have the courts making the final decision as to whether or not a person needs to remain in a certain treatment place but i i really would like uh karen barber to kind of finish up some of those thoughts senator benning has a question yeah i i look at this as a victims protection bill so morning for me the the pronto matter is a no-brainer but let me flip it to the opposite into the spectrum for a moment i've got a local grocery store here it's called the whites market whites market has frequent occurrences where somebody comes in shoplifting and the shop lifter may be a repeat customer and all of a sudden you've got a question of mental health and the individual is given an onh and the whites market agrees they're going to simply let the charges go because the person has helped but don't they also have a right to know ahead of time to be able to watch out for this individual that may be coming back into the store to repeat the offense and if they went to corrections and there was no mental health do they have the right to know that they're coming out of corrections well if they're coming out of corrections they would have been either as a result of a plea agreement or a conviction in a trial been given a sentence that the victim would be aware of and would have some understanding of when they're supposed to be released we're working on that actually in another bill but to me this is a victims protection law and when i hear you saying you're concerned about expanding i almost have to react and say it's that's not the point the point is that people have a right to be reconnected with this system and know ahead of time who's going to be a threat to them if they've been the threat in the past or who potentially could be so i i guess i i'm not sharing as much of a concern as you're expressing here and Karen may have statistics or whatever to back up why that may be an additional problem for your office but i i can't really wrap my head around why we would have to limit it to a specific list of crimes because this is not for the benefit of the person who's going into a hospitalization order this is actually a bill for reconnecting the victims as i understand it to the process can i follow up on that senator sears uh i don't know morning what let's say respond or or for karen just yeah if i would joe said so in the case in the case that you were talking about the person is a shoplifter and they're going in and they're put they might be put on an order of non-hospitalization but have they been actually um declared incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity because those are the two the two things that we're talking about here if you if you required um every single person who moves off an onh that has nothing to do with those two circumstances to for people to be notified that's go that's going way beyond what this bill was intended to be which is those two categories of people this from what i understand because the shoplifter probably was not declared incompetent nor in this um not guilty by reason of insanity so i think that's where we're getting confused here because we're talking about only these two circumstances i believe am i i might be totally wrong here i think you're actually right i hate to admit that i know you do but thank you for it it's when somebody has been declared either not competent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity right and i doubt on a shoplifting charge right i don't think so but karen did you want to comment no worries thank you for the record karen barver general counsel in the department of mental health um and so i have um some comments but i think as senator white you touched on i think one of the department's big concerns and what deputy commissioner fox is talking about the way their language reads now is you omitted the section where it said it only applies to people that have been not competent or found guilty by not reason or not guilty by reason of insanity so the language as now which was very concerning to us is you opened it up to everyone and so it would have applied to that shoplifting case if that wasn't the intent of the committee then um i think that that really i think tailor some of our concerns because that was one of my big concerns is you really opened it up to a huge group of people did you want to say something arc all right i'll let you found sorry i was just going to know any percenters here that i wanted to respond to that because that certainly wasn't the intent i don't see that in the language but no i think it was intentionally crafted to not do that right the language i the whole bill is based upon though in my view those that are not competent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity great and i think and and one of the things that we don't have in this bill but hopefully the discussion has ensued i've been working with after john and a couple of other people is there are you know the effort to divert many of these cases to um local mental health center or whatever to try to deal with the board court cases so that that's a major part of let's solve the problems yeah and so i think kind of as a preface you know we just received kind of a forwarded copy of this yesterday afternoon so you know unfortunately the department wasn't involved in these conversations and so maybe some of my questions and concerns um are just because that we weren't part of that and so i hadn't seen the bill before and so i'm kind of waiting through and trying to understand the legal implications so you know we have comments but certainly we could use some more time to really think about them um and it would be helpful i guess maybe if i could talk to eric and katie about some of my concerns um you know i think this is a tough position for dmh to be in because you know obviously my heart goes out to mrs kelly as as a mother i can't imagine i think my job though is to kind of look at it as the legal implications and what does that mean for the department and the department is bound by federal and state laws and regulations which is what i'm kind of looking at when i'm going through this um i think one of the concerns i had about the broadened group and it sounds like it's narrowed a little bit but i i still have some concerns about it because it is quite a bit broader than we had talked about before is from a hip perspective you know um dmh is a covered entity we are required to comply with hip but which is a federal regulation and while there is a provision in there that um if it's required by by state law but i'm not sure that's a free for all where we can just kind of say that that a state can pass any sort of law and that hip is okay with that so i really need time to do some research and understand the implications of the new version that we just got yesterday to understand where that i think it's maybe i'm oversimplifying things but i think it's really simple concept if the courts have found somebody to be uh not competent to stand trial we're not guilty by reason of insanity and the state has gone all the way to to that process do victims have some right to know what's happened um and i that goes back to senator benning's comments we're narrowing it to that group i believe that the intent of i don't see david sure or james peppermere here at the mops school but i believe you know it was never our intent to go to people who might have been diverted even you know sent to diversion and um you know go to the local mental health center for counseling i don't think our attempt is to get to that never been my intent senator white so i'm sorry to talk so much here but i i think that um when i when that's new section is under this um section three it's under findings and order persons with mental illness that section doesn't talk at all about persons who are um deemed incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty because of reason of insanity it's just anybody who has is has is put under the jurisdiction of the commissioner of mental health either hospitalization or non so my i think that in the rewriting here i think that i don't i can't see it now but i think that part of that first paragraph that was in the original one was left off that says it only addresses those two reasons and i think that was left off so the way it reads now i think but i can't see it so i'm not charac go ahead charac yeah so senator white that section 4822 is lodged in title 13 only it only applies to the criminal proceedings having to do with persons found not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial doesn't it's not in title 18 it has nothing to do with the civil commitments for other persons so i i'm i'm sure that if you hear the other attorneys who practice in this area like jack and karen they'll agree with that and that if you look at the language on the new language on page six that is these new provisions about victim notification specifically says when that person has been committed under this section so it's it's very specifically tied to only only you know because there's two as you're pointing out there's sort of two ways a person can can become subject to dmh custody through the criminal system and through a civil proceeding this only applies to the folks that come in through the criminal system after a incompetence here or uh insanity at the time of the offense finding and i think eric i just want to add that if you go back to page two um specifically line 11 this entire section is premised upon an individual who's been charged on information complaint or indictment with a criminal offense so i'm i'm only hearing it from a criminal proceeding not from a civil proceeding yes that's correct is that opening so again previously and when i had talked to katie about is there a case slot out there that kind of allows this kind of hip exception we were talking about a narrow set of crimes really egregious crimes um elopement is a new factor in there so again i just need time to go back and look at you know again i just thought this yesterday so i haven't had the time to really review the hip implications for this time you need to make sure um i'm not sure because i think there are a couple other issues i'm sure if we could get a group together i think you know it's helpful when the department is at the table when these conversations happen just so that we can kind of ask these questions in advance but you know if we could pull a group together later this week i think that would be helpful oh this is wednesday cross over friday and because i think when i get into the the onh issues i think we also really need to make sure the designated agencies are at the table it also implicates hip issues but i think one of the things that this onh provision is doing is a couple things right it's taking away clinical decision making from the from the da's um you know often with these criminal onh is there's lots of prunes in there many that don't tie to mental health but are more like you can't go within a certain amount of this person or you can't drink because they're coming out of a criminal court that's not really tied to mental health treatment and there are certainly times where someone isn't complying with the exact letter of their onh but there's a clinical decision made that that doesn't justify the revocation but instead the clinical team is going to work with that person and they're going to continue you know the department's goal is to have non-corrosive treatment in the community and so what this provision is doing is really flipping in that on its head and it's making the department in the da's really more of a probation and parole function it's taking away our ability to make clinical decisions and it's also saying well okay what's the other step the step is to re-hospitalize people and it goes back to the the problem with that if someone doesn't meet clinical criteria we can't hospitalize them and use Medicaid funding right because as deputy commissioner fox pointed out we only have Medicaid funded hospitals so we would be violating the conditions of our certification and accreditation and our Medicaid funding if we're admitting folks if we're required to admit folks that don't meet this level of care but and that's kind of what this is doing and so from a legal perspective I think we have a lot of concerns about what this would practically mean and how this would work okay I have a lot of concerns about people being endangered by folks who are not being treated in the community but are in the community and folks who are coming out and the victims aren't even notified and no knowledge from the victim even beyond the lookout I have a great concern about what's happening and I think that part of the obligation not asking the department of mal health to become the department of corrections but you have a forensic population that this state is not dealt with and we keep hearing excuses why it can't be dealt with and I think we've been talking about this for a long time and I that's who we're talking about it's a forensic population again small population but when we hear that we can't protect communities and I read in the newspaper that state police officers who were shot at feel that the sentence that somebody received this morning or yesterday afternoon time served in two years because the state's journey was afraid that they were going to be found not competent to stand trial or not not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the shootings of state police at state police officers and concerns me the concerns from honors and you know that that's really I anyway I would like to proceed with this tomorrow morning but I realized that you feel like you need more time and that's a great way to operate a business here but we'll take it up Friday morning at 8 30 can I ask one more yeah I've got a few other yeah go ahead senator I just I realized that this only deals with insanity and incompetency but and maybe I read this entirely wrong but on section 48 22 it says if the court finds that a person is in need of treatment or a patient in need of further treatment as defined in 18 bsa 7101 and I think that's the section that says that they are a danger to themselves or others and they need to be on an on h or a hospitalization order and so if that if we're talking about all of those people here then we are broadly expanding it we're not just talking about and I may be reading this wrong but I thought that was the section that talks about defining a person who needs who isn't necessarily involved in the criminal system but it is defined under there so I I might be entirely confused but I do see the department's um concern that this is opening it up to everybody who's on a dnh or an order of hospitalization I could just respond there it doesn't do that okay that that statue sits in chapter 157 of title 13 it's only a reference to people that are coming in through this criminal proceedings as senator benning mentioned it flows from the previous statutes it's not referring to any of the the civil proceedings under title 18 that's the broader universe of folks that you're talking about senator white I saw jack sand up as well I think he probably could explain it better than I could but but that makes I understand now thank you I'd like to give time before we take a break to kelly carol for a brief comment on our question kelly was our earlier witness my battery running low kelly all right well why don't we sorry I wasn't able to on your typologies oh okay I just wanted to add something that that mr fox said I truly believe that this a whole issue takes a multidisciplinary approach and I just wanted to let everybody know that on monday afternoon I had a call with ahs secretary mike smith and dmh commissioner sarah squirrel commissioner of corrections james baker and chief prevention officer monica hut and senator sears you had asked mr fox what was the difference between ucs and Rutland's department of mental health and some of the services and one of the things that we had talked about most notably commissioner squirrel and I was about contractor compliance and I think that that's a big opportunity when you look at you know what some of the differences are personally I'm a food management contractor and if we don't do what my clients say we're out and um sometimes we hear uh it's the only game in town they're really nice people but I just wanted to add that um you know I support um having you know people with mental illness out in the community if they're not violent I think we have a lot of wonderfully productive people in the community that that do have um mental health challenges that they deal with and and they're completely productive and um I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew I'm not advocating for um them to be locked up but contractor compliance I think is a big issue with some of the differences and the lack of it and I just wanted to express that and again thank you very much I'm glad to know that that the secretary and and the commissioners have met with you and uh hopefully it's helpful in understanding some of the challenges I want to be part of the solution basis thank you uh jack did anybody have a question for tell your comment jack go ahead thank you mr chairman I just wanted to uh respond to senator whites question um it's true that uh these sections in title 13 4820 and 4822 do make reference to the mental health professions of title 18 particularly I think we're talking about 7101 which is the definition section but uh but the whole point of those of that reference in title uh 18 was to bring in the definitions of the terms mental illness person in need of treatment patient in need of further treatment into the consideration for uh cases that involve not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial it as I agree with Eric that the language on page on lines three to four of uh of page six provide that uh the uh notification provision only applies to someone who has been committed pursuant to 13 vsa section 4822 I do agree with uh with the comment made by uh by the department that this really does broaden possibly possibly too far the number of cases that were involved because senator white you mentioned well you don't think the person who's uh the shoplifter would have been found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity in fact under 4822 the only way you get onto an order of hospitalization or an order of non-hospitalization is if you were found not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial and it applies from everything to disorderly conduct all the way up to homicide charges so in fact in my experience the largest share of people who are found who get into the involuntary mental health system through the criminal process are charged with uh with minor and nonviolent offenses thank you you're welcome yeah I I just who else do we want to hear from on this probably Matt Valerio should be um Judge Greerson um and will mental health be ready tomorrow morning or do you want more how much time does mental health need the department of mental health if we could have until Friday that would be great um I think also we do need to regroup with the the designated agencies um I think they are someone you should hear from and I think certainly we're going to need to touch face with them and kind of talk through the implications um for them because we contract with them to to provide let's see if we can kill the bill let's see if it needs to be tomorrow morning I will do my best no um I let's um let me think about this uh can we see if we can hear from Judge Greerson and Matt Valerio tomorrow morning from 845 to 930 Peggy um we'll cancel Miss Laney's judiciary bill that's 97 and then um schedule for nine for 830 Friday morning s3 again to hear from mental health and uh I don't have time to bring in every designated agency and I don't think we need to the the issues raised here um yeah well well you want to bring in the designated agencies Karen I was just wondering if Vermont care partners might have a comment I don't think you need to bring in all the designated agencies okay Vermont care partners could speak for them I I completely agree I think if uh uh Julie Tesla as the representative from Vermont care partners I don't believe they've even seen this amendment um and so to allow them to at least speak to it I I think would be uh a good compromise I don't think you need to hear from every designated agency I think they can represent those voices okay well so we'll we'll hear from them on um Friday briefly um and uh Peggy we'll work on the agenda in time that's good after this meeting um so uh we're gonna take a a brief break come back to this bill and um and then take up s7 that um I'm sorry that we have such little time with this but I'm also sorry that it took until the other day for um a rewrite to happen because the first time we heard that we walked through this bill was January 14th and you know and I think you know we we express that too you know just just learn about this amendment yesterday in fact the language that the attorney generals put forward for page three and in resolving the potential conflict of the AG's office and representing the department to be honest that was my suggestion that was the department suggestion as far as how to resolve that because we had a collaborative conversation with the attorney general's office and so I'm sorry that this is mucking up the works and slowing things down right now and I only wish that we had been a part of this conversation from the beginning when the when the uh attorney generals and state's attorneys started to work on this and then it would have been better for us to have come in with a final package for you all today I'll take responsibility for that and I was trying to get something I'm trying to juggle 14 different interest groups at one time and that's I'm not a great juggler but we do the best we can with what we've got and meeting over zoom obviously it's not easy and I'm sorry that the the amendment didn't get to you sooner but I might also add that we will try to hear from everybody and try to do the best we can with what we not all I can do wasn't directed at trying to exclude anybody no understood and we all are juggling a million things and again we're all trying to do this while we're still in the middle of a pandemic and doing things over zoom and everything else so it's completely understandable and you know same thing I say to to my staff we just try to work with everything and try to give everyone grace because it's tough times all right so I want to we have s25 to take up tomorrow as well as s30 so those are the and this bill are the more than enough to the end so why don't we take a 15 minute break and come back at 11 continue to discuss this amendment and other bills and anybody who would like to join us at 11 but particularly David if you can work with dmh as well on on the amendment please we'll be ready to do that