 Good morning, Senate Judiciary. January 21st, 2021. This morning our agenda is to discuss the Justice Reinvestment Working Groups recommendations regarding probation. And we have with us Sarah Friedman from the Justice Center who will present that portion of it. And then we will talk about a bill that is still in draft form that will be introduced dealing with probation. So if we could start with Sarah. Welcome to Senate Judiciary. And Sarah is with the Council of State Governments Justice Center out of, well Justice Center is in New York City and Seattle and Austin and Washington D.C. and somewhere else. Basically all over the place because now we're all over the place. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator Sears, committee members. Just to repeat, I'm Sarah Friedman. I'm a deputy program director at the Council of State Governments Justice Center. And I'm really thrilled to be here to walk you all through the work of the Justice Reinvestment to Working Group and specifically on their probation policy options. So the Justice Reinvestment to Working Group actually had a report due to you all on January 15th. And that's what I'm going to kind of start with. The report covers a few things, including probation, but I figure for this we're focusing on probation. I can give you kind of a brief refresher background on who the Justice Reinvestment to Working Group is and then dive into the conversations that they had over fall 2020 on probation earned credit, strengthening the midpoint review process and just ways to safely help people earn discharge from probation. Would it be easier to have the screen, Peggy or Bryn or somebody put on the screen of Working Group work? Yeah, I can actually share my screen. I have it up. So let me hopefully make that happen. Here we go. Can you all see this? Yeah. Hold on. And now hopefully you see it large. Yeah, in large form. Okay. Now we do. Yep. Nice. Okay. So this is just, so when you, if folks are looking through the entire report, this is just the title page of the report that was due January 15th. There's five sections to the report. I'm really going to just briefly go over section one, just as a background introduction and talk about section two. I hope that, you know, at other dates we'll be able to walk you through the other sections of the report. My colleague, David Demorra, who you all may know, may remember, he's been kicking around Vermont for a really long time now helping with projects here. He's really the expert on the mental health and substance use pieces of this report. And at some point, I would love for him all to talk to you about that part, but I'm focusing on one and two here. Right. So, so just as a reminder about Justice Reinvestment two in Vermont, the process started in June 2019 when state leaders from all three branches of the government wrote a letter. No, one second. I'm sorry, I hope that sounded okay for you guys. My phone just dropped. I wrote a letter, you know, to the federal government, to the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance, who funds this project, really asking for the CSG Justice Center to come in, analyze Vermont's criminal justice system and help the state propose policy changes that would improve Vermont's criminal justice system. That process began the Justice Reinvestment two working group who met throughout fall of 2019 and culminated in policies that were adopted in the 2020 legislative session and turned into Act 148, which was enacted in July 2020. So this is really like the two sentence version of a huge amount of work that was done by Vermonters and the CSG Phase One CSG Justice Center staff, or what we call our Justice Reinvestment team led by Ellen Wiel and Wiest, who I'm sure you all probably remember very well. So, so that's everything that that is it in a nutshell and, you know, Act 148 has some wide reaching policy changes around presumptive parole, streamlining, furlough system, a whole bunch of stuff which is listed here. But for this conversation, the really important thing is that Section 21 of Act 148 continues the Justice Reinvestment two working group. So at the time it was an 18 member body, now it's a 19 member body, which I'll show you who's on it in just a second. And it really gave, it continued the working group and gave them additional tasks. So it said, hey Justice Reinvestment two working group, we want you to oversee the implementation of policy changes for Justice Reinvestment as that progresses. And also there are some additional studies we'd like you to evaluate additional policies moving forward. So just trying to switch the slide. So this is the Justice Reinvestment two working group, 19 member body, Senator Sears and Senator Nick Carr on it. So they know this really well, it continues to be chaired by the Chief Justice and just has people from all three branches, different actors from all across Vermont's criminal justice system putting their heads together on how to improve criminal justice policy in the state and also overseeing implementation of policies that have passed. And just to note the one change in this from the last time the working group met is that a representative of the parole board was added on to the group to make it a 19 member group. And that is Mary Jane Ainsworth represent of the director of the Vermont parole board is now on the group. So the Justice Reinvestment two phase two timeline. So once Act 148 was enacted, the CSG team kind of the phase one team who went through the working group process the first time passed the baton to my team who really focuses on implementation of policies once they've been passed. So Vermont state leaders again from all three branches had to write requesting that CSG stick around and help with implementation and DJ approved that in August. And then the working group hit the ground running again and met four times between September and January 2021 to tackle their statutory duties facilitated by the CSG Justice Center team. And while this is happening, you know, we're focusing right now on the working group and the probation policy options. But just to be clear, while the working group process is happening, your state agencies are also, you know, doing a ton of different implementation work that the CSG team is helping out with setting up data monitoring, you know, doing getting policies and procedures in place and a whole bunch of stuff preparing for January one effective dates of Act 148 policies. So the Act 148 kind of gave the working the Justice Reinvestment two working group a long list of areas to study and make recommendations. And since we were on a pretty short timeline, since there was also this January 15th report due the at the first meeting, the working group discussed how they were going to attack what they were going to tackle banner, you know, what they were going to prior prioritize specifically for the report due on January 15th. And the first thing that was decided to prioritize, which also kind of needed to prioritize and statute quite frankly, was studying earned time for people on probation, other related policy options. That was kind of required to be reported on in the January 15th, 2021 report, as opposed to other things that had flexibility to go into the January 15th, 2022 report. In addition to the probation conversation, the working group did also decide to tackle three kind of interrelated tasks related on related to mental health and substance use needs for people in the criminal justice system. And really specifically about information sharing, case coordination, collaboration, and collaboration on services for all the different agencies and people who people working with folks with behavioral health needs in the criminal justice system. So I am skimming over these now, but we are definitely happy to dig in much further into them at a later date. So this is just the really quick schedule of the four different meetings that took place in of the justice reinvestment working group. And just for this conversation, in October, the group really looked at data related to Vermont's probation system, and I'm going to give a really high level preview of what that data was. And then that conversation on probation was continued in November. We honestly kind of ran out of time in the October meeting. And so working group members continued to discuss these probation policy, you know, probation-earned credit or other related policies in the November meeting. The November meeting also dug into behavioral health, the substance use and mental health, and we discussed justice reinvestment funding and appropriation recommendations for the upcoming budget cycle should funding be available. So that leads us up just a last Monday, January 11th, where the working group came together and was presented with policy options that were adopted around all of the different policy areas that the group was studying. So when I think through the work that the working group did on the probation-earned credit, one thing that I do want to be clear about is that this has been a really long-standing conversation in Vermont that existed long before the CSG team was running around helping you all analyze your system. And it's where our understanding is that this has just been a conversation for a number of years where folks were just having trouble coming to consensus on, you know, what the best mechanism might be in order to help people earn time off of their probation sentences. So it comes out of the working group tackling it comes out of these statutory duties, but I do want to note it's a little it's a little bit different for the CSG team because we didn't tackle this policy because our phase one data analysis led us there. We tackled it because Vermonters are saying, hey, like we've been talking about this for years and we need like extra facilitation on figuring out how to get there. So that I just want to note that you're going to see a little bit of a different approach if you've heard Ellen present on these things or you know you've seen what CSG has done in the past we're taking we took a little bit of a different approach to this because we were kind of in we were coming in like midway through a very long conversation Vermont was having on this and really facilitating it, but also trying to lead you guys in a direction that you were going without I guess unduly influencing where you want it to go because honestly the data wasn't quite there for us to do our normal thing which was to you know like find the really obvious policy that you that we could say hey you should definitely do this and I'm going to walk you through that. I think it's important to if I give a little bit of a history Sarah, when we did Justice for Investment one we did make some changes to probation because what the Justice Center did find at that time was that we had around 12,000 people on probation many of them were dead others who've been on for 30 years because they hadn't paid a fine or hadn't paid a surcharge or whatever so we made significant changes and we reduced the probation population to around 8,000 and it continues to be less today with diversion and other alternative justice but it's important to know where we were back in 2010 when we did the first Justice for Investment. Thank you Senator Sears that's really helpful. So just digging in Act 148 actually had a good amount of language on this and I think these kind of questions that were in Act 148 were the result of these years of conversations about this and particularly the result of I think a pretty robust conversation that was had during the 2020 legislative session so the working group was specifically tasked with evaluating a policy for people earning one day of credit towards their suspended sentence for each day served in the community without a violation so that was kind of there was already kind of some details hammered out you can say on the basics of what an earned credit policy would look like but the working group was also asked to kind of think through a variety of questions like how would Vermont implement this policy without impacting probation the length of probation terms or suspended sentences you know if there's a credit enacted should that credit apply to the maximum or the minimum suspended sentence you know and kind of kind of walks through some pretty specific questions and along along with that says you know please study additional options for early discharge from probation including options modeled after Vermont's current midpoint review process and I point out that one specifically because the working group discussion really ended up going there which you'll see reflected so when when the CSG Justice Center team kind of hopped in to start facilitating this conversation one thing that we really wanted to talk about to the working group was hey what are your goals for this policy you know different people enact similar or different states enact these policies for a variety of reasons and if we're leading the conversation it would be really helpful to understand what Vermonters are hoping to get out of a policy or something similar so one you know and some of these are pretty easy do we know that these these policies provide people on probation an increased incentive for positive behavior change so it's kind of like the evidence-based practices tell us that incentives or you know rewards for good behavior actually are really really important for creating behavior change for people in criminal justice system and this is you can think of it as the ultimate reward if I'm doing really well if I have good behavior if I do everything I need to do and prove that I'm a good citizen while I'm in the community you know I can earn a short you know I can earn time off my sentence it's a really powerful motivator for people to increase kind of individual public safety another another really common goal for policies like these is also focused on public public safety increasing probation resources for people who are most likely to re-offend so if all the people who are really motivated and are doing really well on supervision are you know are able to earn time off their sentence and transition off then your probation officers are able to focus their time and resources and attention all the folks who are not doing well on probation the folks that need a lot of support who are messing up who kind of need that intensive supervision well now they have more time and attention for people who for people like that so it's it's really it it also is really about resource allocation often in states and asking these policies now where I think folks on the working group were kind of not all necessarily on consensus was about where in Vermont this policy was this policy for decreasing the length of incarceration for a person who gets revoked from public probation so if they're successful for a time in the community and then our revoked mess up and our revoked back to prison should this policy decrease that length of incarceration or is the goal of this policy to to decrease the overall probation term and I think a lot of people on the working group will say both definitely but I think that through the conversation there were some folks on different pages on is the ultimate goal about the amount of time someone can spend in prison once they mess up on probation or is the ultimate goal about reducing the probation term successfully and so there was conversation about that during the working group meeting so what we could do what CSG Justice Center staff could do was really we wanted to see well what what does the data tell us what can we tell you about your probation system so if you all are thinking about shortening probation length and about what happens once someone is revoked from probation then what we want to know is well how long are probation links currently and when do people tend to be revoked for probation how long are people successful on probation or you know how long until they mess up and so we did a data analysis focused on on kind of what the current probation system looks like I have a selection of slides here this is actually a good deal shorter than what we initially presented in the October meeting I'm going to try to go through them quickly to not get like too stuck in the data but if you're more interested in if you're like a really quantitative person and you want more charts about the probation system there's more there's kind of a more in-depth version of this presentation took place in October so if you look at misdemeanor probation links almost all probation links people who get misdemeanor probation have terms of two years or less and it's really consistent in Vermont and this is likely due to the fact that you do have a state law on the books that states that misdemeanor sentences are not to exceed two years unless the court deems a longer period appropriate it seems very uncommon for the court to deem a longer period appropriate so you see in this chart you know the majority or of folks get 12 month terms and the majority of folks get 12 month terms on probation and then you do also have kind of a spike at 24 months so a lot of people do get 24 month terms of probation terms but the thing about Vermont probation or Vermont probation sentences is they actually have three components you have the length of time someone is sentenced to be on probation supervision and then you also have an underlying suspended sentence that has a minimum term and a maximum term and the point of that suspended sentence is that if someone is revoked if they mess up on their supervision then that is the period of incarceration that they can serve once they mess up on their probation and so when we look at misdemeanor probation terms the minimum and maximum tends to be actually a lot shorter than the actual probation term so across all different probation term lengths people tend to have a three to nine month sentence for that underlying incarceration and if you look at these longer people who do get the longer misdemeanor probation terms you know there tends to not be a max sentence over one year so no matter how long your probation term you're when you mess up you're very unlikely to go into incarceration for over a year in Vermont and just to note also you know we're looking at these minimum maximum sentences because that was part of the statutory duties you know should a credit apply to the minimum should a credit apply to the maximum so for felony probation terms it looks a little bit different the guidance on the books for felony probation terms is that they should generally not exceed four years unless the court deems the period appropriate but in a good number of cases the court has deemed the period appropriate and you do have a decent number of folks who have been sentenced to five years on probation so you see here if you're looking at this chart kind of all the spikes of the blue bars are on the year mark so a lot of people at two years a lot of people at three years and then the next two spikes are four and five years but still in general very unusual for anyone to get over five years for a probation term generally you know people are on felony probation or sentenced to felony probation to five years or less the minimum maximum sentences do look a bit different so for folks who are sentenced to more than two years of felony probation their maximum sentence generally is the same as their probation length so your sentence to three years of probation and if you mess up they can put you in incarceration for a maximum of three years however for two years and less the maximum is actually longer so if you're so for a typical person they're sentenced to two years of probation but they could as they mess up they could actually be incarcerated for a maximum of three years so that's kind of a pretty interesting kind of what have you on how probation sentencing structures work but generally for felony probation sentences across all different felony probation sentences lengths that underlying sentence tends to be is typically one to three years so now just looking at when do when are people revoked from probation so that is really looking through what is that public safety risk so for misdemeanor probation on average across all different probation sentence lengths a person who messes up and gets revoked would will do so in their seventh month of supervision so really early on within that first year most revocations for misdemeanor probation occur well within the first half of someone's sentence so you see here on this chart it's just based on how long the probation length is when is a person typically revoked or the the average times of revocation and you know so for on misdemeanor probation so you know for folks who tend to have one year probation terms they're usually revoked with it if they mess up they mess up in their fifth month that's what this chart shows so and question about that Sarah yeah definitely please so so the the numbers on the bottom are the the amount of time they were put on probation for like the two years it they're on probation for two years and they typically screw up during the first eight months is that the way I read this yeah okay yeah exactly yep and so now we have the same chart for people who are on felony probation have been sentenced to felony probation so um so and this is actually in some ways pretty similar it's well within the first half of the sentence are people who if you're revoked you you're typically revoked well within the first half of your sentence um you have on average across all the different felony probation lengths a person would be revoked in their 11th month of supervision so again even before their first year is up um but it looks a little bit different you know based on the the length of sentence so for example this chart shows um you know if you're sentenced to two years of felony probation uh that person is typically revoked if they get revoked they're typically revoked you know within their eighth month uh on on probation sorry was there another question no thanks sorry okay so um this is to say we were able to I think dig in and kind of give give folks on the working group a pretty good picture of kind of what probation sentencing structures look like but we also knew that Vermont currently had a few different mechanisms on the book to shorten people's probation sentences and we weren't able to access any data or we we didn't really we couldn't figure out how those mechanisms were currently being used and what that looked like so just so you know there's um DOC is able to file petition anytime someone completes their conditions of supervision whenever that is DOC can petition for them to be discharged and then there's also the midpoint review process that halfway through someone's probation term DOC may file a motion to discharge people who are who are doing well so we knew these existed but we still we don't have any picture of how well they're used there's a lot of organic notes that they're used a lot or they're used a little it depends who you talk to um and and and even if the petitions are filed no idea if judges were approving them how long people were earning off their sentence etc so we kind of felt like what was currently happening around this in the state is is a black box um which is not what you know quantitative people want to hear unfortunately you know so and so what we have here on the slide is just a list of things that we really wanted the questions we we wanted answers to to really help you all have a full picture of what was going on to vermont but we weren't able to answer so you know not only what's going on with those current mechanisms but also you know um how do those minimum and maximum suspended sentences correlate with the actual amount of time someone spends in prison we only know how long they could spend in prison we don't know how long they actually do spend in prison um you know because we do know people often go from probation out onto furlough you know they're just they're just moved into a different type of community supervision um and on the same line for people who do mess up on probation go back into doc custody and then come out pretty quickly on furlough what are those you know what are their outcomes for those people on furlough um you know they just move to a different type of community supervision what does that look like you know so and then all and then a whole host of questions as i said on you know what's currently happening in the state so even though we couldn't answer all the questions we wanted to to vermont specifically what we can say is there's a lot of national data to support these policies so 38 states across the country have some form of either earned compliance credit or earned discharge for people on community supervision but of course those policies can be structured wildly differently depending on what state you're in and during that october meeting we did walk uh the working groups through three or four state examples one being montana which came up a lot but i think it was montana missouri um michigan and one other i think we were we were on an m state role apparently um where we kind of walked through what different policies states have enacted around this and how they can be structured differently um so again we didn't this isn't in this report now for the sake of kind of brevity but those are available um and then really interestingly between the third and fourth working group meeting pew released a really comprehensive study of these policies specifically was one of those things where it came out in december and the working group had just finished talking about this on november 24th and it was like oh the timing um this would have really informed the conversation so pew there's a there's now a really comprehensive study from pew that walks through the national data on these policies that help people earn time off their probation terms um and and that comprehensive study does find that many people are on supervision who are on supervision serve longer terms than are necessary for public safety and that's that haven't been there a good would it be possible for you to get a copy of the pew study to um Peggy so she could post it on our committee webpage yeah definitely we'll do and also Peggy if you were able to provide any committee members with hard copies of both the pew study and the entire justice reinvestment to working group document or be appreciated i think most committee members would would want to add the hard copies thank you no problem so yeah i will send that on it's a longer read but it's definitely worth it um it does walk through a few different states that were able to study their earned discharge or earn credit policies and found that it did not you know negatively impact public safety which is really important you know you can that that states are able to safely reduce terms um without that impact on public safety so the real kind of the conclusion of the report is that the study recommends two state policymakers that they do adopt similar policies to what vermont is considering and and this is the three kind of types of policies that pew lays out one is this goal-based supervision to prioritize outcomes as opposed to time-based supervision so as we talked about on that on the goal slide to allow people to earn to earn time off their sentence for good behavior earn compliance credits that promote do promote positive behavior change encourage compliance increase successful outcomes and reduce caseload and then also they recommend an automatic review of supervision to ensure that states use clear and definable guidelines to determine eligibility for earned discharge to ensure fairness so all things that the working group discussed and kind of was uh going towards them themselves so so coming out of this what the csg justice center team did is after the october and november conversations on earned discharge policies and midpoint reviews and earned credits um we worked since this was as we said we didn't have all the data we wanted about this policy and we were kind of jumping in midway into an ongoing vermont conversation we worked to to develop or to present to the working group two different policy options that we felt like reflected back to the working group the conversations they had in those two meetings so um usually when csg presents policy options just to you know put our cards on the table we call them policy options but we really want vermont to adopt all of them they're really you know we there there are things that we think that you all should do it was a little different this time this time we said we kind of presented two policy options and we said we really think these are either or you either do an earned credit policy or you do an earned discharge policy so time-based versus credit accrual um and the way we developed these is reflecting back to you where we think folks in the state are on these um since we don't have all of the data to model policy changes the way we normally would so option one was sticking with the credit accrual policy you know the basis of uh the statutory language in act 148 to study was that day for day credit for folks on probation there were some working group members who felt strongly about this and and the kind of the recommendation was if you all want to do a day for day credit as an ongoing has has been a conversation for a few years in vermont definitely apply that to the to the underlying minimum sentence and then there's an option to apply it to the underlying minimum sentence until there's only 15 or 30 days remaining to ensure a minimum term of incarceration is available for revocation if needed which was really a compromised way to structure the policy once the conversation and the working group meeting happened option one was not adopted in favor of option two which i'm about to present and and that is to say we did say we think you should do one or the other not both so it makes sense basically the working group chose the other option i do want to know though that there was comment and the aclu did say hey we still like the earned credit policy and we don't think this has to be either or we think this could be a both and you could do both of these and so we did kind of register that comment in the report that you know not everyone felt like it was one or the other so the option that was adopted was to strengthen vermont's current midpoint review process to make it more presumptive and encourage its use using a model of earned discharge policies from other states such as montana so and then these bullet points here kind of are a very high level if you look at vermont's current midpoint review statute you know go from doc may file a motion at midpoint review for doc shell file the motion um uh as in montana required judges to grant the request for discharge unless they determine it's not in the best interests of the person on probation or represent a risk of danger to the victim and then also to make to to make sure that even if a person is not um eligible or is not granted discharge at their midpoint they have other opportunities to earn discharge so kind of you know if if they're not doing well at the midpoint but they get their ass together that they can still kind of work their way to earning some time off the end of their sentence so that's kind of the very short version of what brin has been working on um and this was what the this is what the working group did end up adopting um there is a note that the the network against domestic and sexual violence did speak up during this and say you know that they thought it would be really important to make sure that the rights of victims are taken into consideration and that there's a proper notification and communication processes around this um as it moves forward so that's noted in the report um but this is this is kind of where consensus landed within the working group is taking a mechanism already on the books in vermont which we don't know exactly how it's working and just like really beefing it up and making it more like traditional earned discharge policies in other states so that um that that's that's really the crux of it one the one last thing is just a reminder from us that no matter how you strength you structure your probation system if you really want to reduce revocations and reduce people going to prisons you've still got to focus on strengthening the effectiveness of how people are being supervised in the community and uh ensuring that people receive the services they need especially around mental health substance use um and co-occurring disorders and increasing those you know community-based resources so just just a reminder from us we can't help ourselves that you all you know there's of you there's kind of like a a robust um and holistic way we have to be the state should be tackling this if we want people to be successful on probation and eliminating their incarcerated sentences and and this is also to say you all are doing this as part of act 148 your doc is working really hard on and proving supervision practices and making them more aligned with evidence-based practices and formalizing incentives and all of that so these are things you're doing but they all go hand in hand. Just a comment that I think this is the most critical area and given that three members of senate judiciary or on the senate appropriations committee this is where we really need to build defense around the money that's saved in from justice reinvestment too and that it's spent on community services particularly for offenders who are on probation I think sometimes we focus on other offenders who are out in the community those I throw those in for all uh perhaps but and those you know who are receiving alternative sentences like diversion I really think we have to focus on these probationers because that's where I can't think of the percentages we found in the initial report but it's what around 70% of the returns are probation for all referral. Yeah you know I should but I don't have the exact percentage off the top of my head but I think it's around 70% but really the the overwhelming majority of people entering prison are returning from some type of community supervision. So if that's you know that this is a place I might add that more we talked about the year-end credit versus this particular way to do it we did year-end credit was so complex that I thought we would get into real difficulty in trying to implement it and I personally and Joe you're probably familiar with it now no Alice is in a juvenile system we have a yearly review I think it's yearly of any child in custody so that child you know if you really have to say this is why the child should be injured in custody or you know or not and so this this is the type of review that I hope will come about as a result that would be a very serious review of whether or not that person should stay in on probation they completed it and shouldn't they be released. Sarah thanks so much I don't know if there's questions for Sarah or Bryn but it was a really good presentation of where we got to um I thought I you know it just doesn't seem to me like the we're only core meetings I felt like I was a lot more than four I'm not sure if that's good or bad but I'm not either but it just seems like I I don't know if Senator Nick has a comment on that I think it was absolutely incredible the amount of research and data that came from the council because of the work that was done I mean it was very very thorough I mean you could really look at it and figure out what is what in the system I thought I was really surprised at how much information they were able to get you know because it's not easy to gather all of that I mean we have in judiciary been receiving different things from time to time but to have this really comprehensive look was really very good and you know data driven as as they say these days all the time so thank you thank you could you expand a little bit more on the Pew report and the findings that it doesn't affect public safety to provide this yeah so that's really looking at it it's similar to kind of the analysis we started about you know when do people you know do things adverse to public safety when they're on probation so when are people tend to be revoked and and what a few states were doing and I think it's Missouri specifically is that they they tracked people so after they implemented earned discharger or credit accrual policies they trapped the folks who who earn time off their sentence and looked during when they would have been serving did those people commit new crimes or do you know things at first to public safety and they found that generally they did not so that it wasn't so even when the folks were not on supervision they you know no one suddenly got off supervision and then went back to their criminal lifestyle etc they they were made they continued to be good citizens as they had shown they did when they earned time off their sentence so there was no uptick in crime from the folks who had their sentence shortened other questions for Sarah thank you can we briefly walk through the bill with both Sarah and Bryn that might be the most helpful way to see how what CSG found is now making its way into the draft believe it's draft 1.3 that's right um draft 1.3 and if the committee wants me to put it up on the screen please let me know probably helpful since um i'm probably the only one that went out this morning okay this is blind faith i'll tell you we're signing on without ever having seen it we don't have any idea what you're saying well actually it's you can change your mind but what Sarah just reported is what's in it i suspected that so yes and to be clear it hasn't this is a bill that has not yet been introduced it's a draft um so it may yet change before prior to its introduction um okay here it is so it is drafts hold on it is draft 1.3 um and right now um all five of you are co-sponsoring it so you'll let me know if that changes after I walk through it so for the record Bryn here from legislative council um note that this draft because it's been sort of a work in progress it hasn't been edited yet so for all of your eagle eyes um that if you see something know that our editors haven't reviewed it yet so and also Sarah if you see something please feel free to jump in okay we'll do thanks so I'll go ahead and walk through it let me I'm going to start by saying um that and I think Sarah really did a great job of talking about how our statutes currently provide for this midpoint review process and and and probation in general um but I'll just start out with kind of an overview of what's happening now with respect to the midpoint review um then the changes that this bill makes will might make a little bit more sense so um current so what this draft uh changes two statutes it changes the duration of probation statute they can't hear and then the conditions of probation statute um so what the conditions of probation statute sets out currently is that the the department of correction corrections has to review the record of people who are serving probation sentence during the month prior to the midpoint of the probationers probation term um so after that review if the probationer has successfully completed a program assigned as a part of their probation sentence or has attained a goal or goals that were specified by the conditions of their probation then the department may file a motion with the sentencing court to request that the sentencing court dismiss the remainder of the probation term or requesting that the court deduct a portion of the remaining term based on um the probation or success in their programs or attainment of their goals so that's that's what's happening currently just as a reminder before we go into what this bill does so section one is the duration of probation statute as I mentioned and currently the only language um to the statute is found here um it's what is now subsection a and it just says that the court that puts the puts a person on probation that's the sentencing court can terminate that probation and discharge the person at any time if termination is warranted by the conduct of the offender and the ends of justice so what we've added here is um some language that refers um pretty specifically to the following statute which is in section two which we'll talk about next so what this says is that what the court can do changes here um upon the recommendation of the department the court shall terminate the period of probation and discharge that person prior to the expiration of their term or grant grant the specified term deduction grant a motion to reduce the term um pursuant to this following statute unless the court decides that by clear and convincing evidence discharge is not in the best interest of the person or that discharging the person will rep will present a risk of danger to the victim or to the community and it also specifically requires you see the sentence this last sentence here that the court has to set forth the reasons for denying that motion um on the record so that is the directive to the court the next section is the conditions of probation and this is where we see the directive to DOC so changes here we've just added some subheadings um I'm going to scroll down to to the substance of the change here these are all the conditions that the department can place on a person so here in subsection d this is where the changes the bulk of the changes are made so we have a we've added a subheading here that specifies that this is the subsection that's talking about um the department's review and recommendation for discharge from probation so what this language provides is that the department shall you see that word shall file a motion requesting dismissal um of the remainder of the probationer's term if no if the person doesn't have a violation within the last six months prior to the department's review of the record and is actively participating in their case plan bring yes um just a question there about the word actively uh is that meant to be a a discretionary point for the commissioner I'm not sure about its intent I do think it reads that way because if we have it in there it sounds like we're deliberately allowing the condition or more latitude than the shall would seem to indicate so if if you got rid of actively and just had participating it's less liable to argument I would think um I don't disagree with that can I follow up on that senator sears can you hear me oh okay so the other thing I think is that uh the case plan often involves oh anywhere from two to ten or twelve different um I don't know what you'd call them directives or I mean it isn't just one thing so if somebody is actively participating in seven out of ten do that mean actively or does that mean they have to be actively participating in 10 out of 10 I think that that needs a little clarification there too if I can just add a little background on this the the terms that we were using within the justice reinvestment two meeting was kind of shorthand we were saying is complying with all their conditions of supervision or has completed all their conditions of supervision and that so that language that this is kind of fleshing out like what does it mean to be I think doc might say completing all their conditions of supervision so I think that this is a plate this is definitely a place where that could be edited or modified and and having input from doc would probably make a lot of sense as to what you know like how do you define kind of with less wiggle room what it means to be compliant with your conditions of supervision and so this language is kind of a first draft of that or a first stab at that um because saying you've completed or you've been compliant with all your uh conditions of supervision also feels like it's not quite um it could be a little bit too wishy-washy or you know it's not quite clear enough but I I think that you know um also that you know having to have violated terms of probation with the court at the six months prior to consideration is six months the right amount I think that also could be a conversation with the the folks who are doing the supervising on on how they tend to how they usually look at who is being successful on probation so if I can just throw out I'm sorry I didn't know you hadn't finished your question well I just was going to throw out one more broken up or at least I've lost you you're I've lost her too um Joe why don't you go ahead and then we'll hopefully get you back yeah Bryn um and Sarah the term that you're using uh is not consistent with the court documents they're called probation conditions and we probably ought to have that term used throughout because everybody who enters into a plea agreement that has probation has probation conditions that they have to comply with and that's what the probation officer is actually supervising those probation conditions it's just to be consistent with how the court treats the language is that but isn't it part of the case plan there may be a case plan that is dealt with but the court is using the term probation conditions and that's the vernacular that the court is used to I've never heard this term here of supervision whatever it was all right um maybe uh I would suggest that we take out the word actively for now and um get an opinion from the department of corrections on what's the best way to describe the case plan or the conditions I think that judge uh Greerson would probably have a comment in this regard I mean we are working with a draft of the bill I'm just suggesting that we leave it at case plan for now is this a good time for questions for Brenner do we keep going from here no actually Bren can you scroll back to page one for a second and go down to where changes are being made and hang right there for a second um discharging a person this is line 19 discharging the person prior to the expiration of the probationer's sentence I'm uncomfortable with that term only because it it's technically the length of the probation and I'm not sure that I've ever seen or heard the probationers sentence well we can change that to term yeah I think that's that's probably going to be something that is more consistent with how the courts treat this because I'm not sure what the probationer sentence is is it the six to twelve underlying or is it the actual probationary term and I think that changing it would be much clearer okay man can we um that's good catch draft can we go back and agree to just drop the word actively and use the term case plan because that you know I think we could talk to doc when obviously they're going to testify good with me yep it's good with me I'm still not sure what a case plan is in this regard I've never heard that term used in this area but that's that's the term that that I used when I had kids on probation they had a case plan within the facility I agree that in juvenile law there is a case plan that is constantly revered reviewed but as far as an adult criminal on probation I've never heard that term used part of part of the problem with with conditions of probation is that the Vermont Supreme Court made that determination that you know had changed the terms and so forth probation I know that state's attorneys are not happy with that you know what I'm talking about yeah I think we're on the same page in what we're trying to resolve I just want to make sure the language is consistent with what probation officers actually understand purposes of introducing the bill I think fine with this terminology and then Bryn can flag that with lawyers over it you'll see I will I'll make a note about that okay thanks and there may be a little bit of a I'm just going to say that I'll probably change the order of some of these sentences in this section as I mentioned at the outset this is the work in progress so it may not look exactly like this for example this sentence the following sentence which is that the probationer will not be considered ineligible for a discharge or for a term the probationer has unpaid restitution fees or surcharges that sentence is going to move down they don't make a lot of sense there and then so just to jump back into the walkthrough the next what this next sentence provides is that if that probationer isn't eligible for dismissal because they don't meet the criteria that we talked about earlier the department may move to request for a reduction in term for conditions completed or for goals attains. Bryn can I ask another question the midterm review is that something that you've spoken with probation about I've never heard that term only because I'm generally not associated with what happens internally when somebody is placed on probation but I've never heard that term before is that something that's actually happening on every probationary case? So it's supposed to be happening according to statute it's and I can scroll up and show you the language that exists now so there's a requirement in statute currently that the commissioner review everybody's all probationers records during the month prior to the midpoint of their probation term and so I think it's generally called the midpoint review. All right but what it's it's may currently it's may go to the court and this would make it shall correct I think that's the biggest difference here. Right this is sort of creating a presumptive process here that not only does the commissioner have to review the record but they also have to file a motion with certain criteria or met. Okay and then we're getting to the end here this new subsection two says that if the commissioner doesn't file a motion pursuant to that section that we just looked at or if the court denies the commissioners motion then it directs the department to conduct a review each and every six months following midpoint review so if the probationer has not been found by the court to have violated the terms in those six months prior to the review and here's that language again is actively participating in their case plan then it just requires the department to file that motion requesting a dismissal of probation at this following six months review process and again you'll see the language here again and that if the probationer isn't eligible for dismissal for the remainder of their term but has completed conditions or attained goals then the commissioner can file a motion requesting a term reduction and again probationer is not deemed ineligible for discharge or term reduction if they haven't paid their restitution these are so charges so that just sets up another process so if the person isn't eligible for that first at that first midpoint review process it directs the commissioner to take another look six months later um and file a motion at that point if the person is eligible I have a question about that particular provision um what happens to those owed fees or charges and restitution particularly restitution if they're not if they're unpaid and the person is released from probation what we have to ensure compliance with that provision yep I'm not I don't know about that I know the person remains um responsible for paying their restitution but I understand that you're saying do they no longer have that um I'm actually more concerned with restitution and fees or surcharges at this point I know that to get expunged you have you know we've been dealing with the fees and surcharges I'm just worried about um not paying restitution if and how that impacts the person's responsibility to accept accountability for whatever they might have done right so that would be a good point to raise with the court administrator I imagine yeah and senator sears can I just ask a question on that sure why on that would not the word get around that hey in reality you don't have to pay these if this is a part of it why wouldn't just word get around say hey this isn't going to be one of the requirements so don't do it you know don't pay it why wouldn't that word get around that someone but basically you could skip it Sarah in other states have they done this well um I would say at large concern is that um if all financial obligations have to be completed in order to earn discharge you're setting up discharge by class system so people who have no financial resources are not going to be able to earn time off incarceration and people who come from you know wealthier backgrounds are able to earn you know are able to earn time off their sentence so there is like a so there's a concern there around equity um and financial backgrounds on you know people um not wanting essentially to set up a system where people can be good and that people aren't able to shorten their terms because they're from poor backgrounds but I mean I end and I believe that or for sure this should not mean that people have their financial obligations dismissed but I do understand that there could be a concern that well if they're not regularly seeing a supervision officer then are they going to actually feel obligated to pay them so I think there is a push pull there but I would just um I I would say that the concern coming from from me personally is does that mean that if you're poor you can never earn time off your sentence because you have all these financial fees you know fines and fees hanging over you and you know there is a lot of research nationally on how um how fines and fees specifically related to criminal justice system really impact people's ability to successfully re-enter and kind of and re-enter the community so that's there I think I can see that restitution could be definitely treated differently um and and you and that that could be a point of conversation um uh but I that's that's what I would note there and and why I would encourage you all to definitely um think really deeply about financial obligations and and how they impact certain people more than others see what you're saying I would I would prefer to to have restitution taken out of there and put a second sentence in there regarding restitution something to the effect that the court may um seek alternative for the restitution but shouldn't I I just like to have that flag that I think restitution is different to fees and I would have don't we consider restitution maybe I need maybe I'm not understanding something but I thought we uh considered the offender's ability to pay on restitution maybe making the offender have a plan to um pay off the restitution or something anyway flag that Joe yeah are these fees and restitution subject to a tax intercept for failure to pay thank you I know restitution is um I I'm not sure about the fees I'd have to check on that maybe we should just do um restitution separately to make clear that that that that they would pay it under a tax intercept I mean maybe made clear to the individual but they're not the the court is not necessarily waiving I'm really more I'm much more concerned about the restitution senator sears yeah can I just say that I have no idea what's going on here but it keeps kicking me off the wi-fi wow so um I've been absent for a while and um and then I have to log back in and I don't know what's going on here I think you need help from my team but I just had to invest another 40 dollars a month in an increase in better wi-fi so if you want to call your your uh internet provider be prepared to sign up for an extra 40 dollars a month for wi-fi well they just switched to to xfinity what we had so okay okay but I just wanted you to know that I'm not purposely leaving I I I hear you thank you for staying with us all right I I don't know who's just joined us anyway um can we uh any thoughts on the restitution piece I agree with you that um setting up something a little bit different for the restitution piece would be good I understand what Sarah is saying that it's an issue of equity that some people would never get out but you never get off well if if someone continues to owe the money for restitution but we allow them to get off their sentence um it seems to me that we haven't relinquished their responsibility their the tax intercept is at least one way to get that money I I'm I'm not at that point you can't get blood from a stone so if they don't have the money then when they get out of prison is a particularly bad time to demand it of them so I I like the way it's written I guess there is there is a restitution unit that is charged with the responsibility of making collections I don't think that's part of probation's responsibility anymore although I haven't thought about this in a long time I wanted to let it go like this but with the understanding that it's going to take a little more research into how we deal with restitution I would have I always thought that we had a ability to pay matter with restitution when it's first set don't we yes when it's first set but that's subject to review by the court and I believe it's the restitution department that would bring that petition not probation Peggy at some point during the discussion of this bill I think we're going to need to hear from the rest is it a restitution unit within the Center for Crime Victim Services or is it a restitution yeah it's called the Vermont restitution unit and it's within the Center for Crime Victim Services okay what I'd like to hear from them uh when we at at some point when we take up this bill to better understand the restitution I'd say leave it in the way it's written now and the way the draft is with an understanding that will take a good harvest there and I would just note that there are avenues for people who are having trouble um affording their restitution payments to return to the sentencing court and um and get a different arrangement for their payment plan I mean I understand everything Sarah and Philip have said um and I totally agree with them on the other hand when you take this plea agreement you have agreed to make restitution and that's part of the obligation I don't think responsibility for whatever you might have done. Dick if I'm correct and probation is no longer supervising the collection of restitution you may want to talk to somebody from probation as well because effectively this would be placing that question back into probation to deal with. So the restitution unit is the only unit that's responsible for collecting restitution payments it's the court that has to collect the fees and the surcharges and there's I will note that they um that restitution would remain even if the person was released from their probation supervision the restitution order would remain and the restitution unit can enforce that order as a civil judgment and um they can do that by wage withholding property lien attachment and sale of assets suspension of recreational licenses and then if they um if there's a refusal to pay then they are subject to civil contempt proceeding further. Yeah I would say based on that that I'm leaning in favor of eliminating restitution from this bill simply because you're going to require probation then to come back and be monitoring the restitution payments and I'm not sure they'd want to take that responsibility back on now that there's a restitution unit doing it for them. I think the wording here online I think I have a different age number structure when I printed it off this morning but I believe that the wording is that um the probation shall not be deemed ineligible for discharge or term reduction due to unpaid restitution fees or surcharges so it doesn't put it takes probation out of it I think it released the first they would the judge would then release the person from probation based on everything else and then the restitution unit would take over the person's bills to pay their restitution it could result in a civil judgment or contempt or whatever that way I'm hearing you friend. Yes that's how I that's how I'm I think we leave it in. Yeah it doesn't it doesn't change the status quo on that does it? No. It just it just says it can't be used as an excuse to deny somebody access to this. We uh just finished the walkthrough I think we're at section three the reports. Sure um so as Sarah mentioned this morning because there's not data there's no existing data on how these midpoint reviews are are panning out for people this is a directive to the department that they begin to collect data on the midpoint review process a year after this section would take effect so that would be the number of probation discharge discharges or term reductions the number of motions that are filed by the department to either discharge or reduce the term of probation the number of probation terms that are reduced or terminated and the amount of time it's reduced from probation terms as a result of these motions that are granted by the court and then it requires two reports um by august of 2022 and august of 2023 by the department to the justice oversight committee with the data that they've collected and any recommendations for further legislative action. Okay um any other questions for ran or Sarah on this on this particular provision not we're going to take a break until 1030 and at that time we'll come back and take up s18 which is the earned good time and hear from um family members of some victims and then at 11 we take up s7 again which is the expungement so we'll take a break till 1030 thank you hopefully i'll be back now hopefully you can get your technological technological problems fixed and thank you so much uh sarah for uh joining us this morning we really thank you sarah nice to see you good to see you we'll see you again soon my agenda um as uh taylor fontaine is our first witness and followed by pamela fontaine and then ed winter bottom and joe and winter bottom um so if we could follow that this is on s18 the bill dealing with uh earned credit or good behavior and the uh those of you who we we've dealt with this uh last week earlier this i can't remember what week we're in already um so uh taylor uh welcome to senate judiciary committee i'll introduce the committee members for you and all the other the other three witnesses and then we won't need to do that again but thank you for joining us i'm dick sears from bennington county and chair of the senate judiciary bill maybe you go next and then uh good morning i'm phil baruth i'm senator from chitlin county joe good morning state senator joe benning from caledonia county senator nithka Alice nithka from winsor county and some other towns senator white is having technical difficulties this morning um and uh are you there it's senator white she's been having technical difficulties and uh getting into the zoom uh this morning um but sure as he's listening she's from windom county taylor please go ahead hello everyone and it's um excuse me very nice meeting you um thank you for allowing me to speak in front of you sorry today regarding senate bill 18 my name is taylor fontaine i am an elementary school teacher i am a friend i am a daughter i am a sister i am a girlfriend i am a co-worker i am a volunteer i am a student and among all these things that seem normal for my age i am also a victim i was 12 years old excuse me this is still very hard for me i was 12 years old when i was drugged and molested by robert colaboss at his sleepover at his house after middle school dance i was 13 years old when i testified in front of a courtroom filled a filled courtroom on the most vulnerable time of my life after hearing all 12 jurors say the man that turned my whole life upside down was guilty of the crimes he committed my whole body shook and tears streamed down my face i was so relieved he could never violate me again or anyone else for a very long time but i would still live i have to live with this for the rest of my life an adult made a decision made the decision for me as a young girl to change my life forever in one of the worst ways i struggled and i mean i really struggled i was trying to live the life of a normal teenager and now young adult while functioning with trauma trauma created by robert colaboss i remember getting the call about the current good time rule being enacted i was sitting in the school library during my planning time i was confused at first because i had never heard of the good time rule as i learned more about what it meant my heart sank i was assured by his guilty verdict that he would be in jail for a very long time and that my bravery at such a young age helped put an evil man behind bars i relied upon his sentence to be able to try and heal to the best of my ability knowing i wouldn't have to worry about him all the wounds from the trauma i thought were starting to heal were cut open once again the big question here is why the new changes proposed to this bill should be there i want to reiterate that the one relief that i got was he was going to be in jail he wasn't going to do this to me again he wasn't going to do this to anyone else i couldn't run into him for years to come it was the one relief i got from something so traumatic the one relief an argument that i keep hearing over and over again for the reason this bill shouldn't be passed is that people change and yes people can change but what doesn't change is the trauma endured by a victim the trauma i endured at such a young age the trauma i am still going through as a survivor of sexual assault this coming may it will be 13 years since my assault 13 years later and i'm still dealing with it why should he have the ability to get out of jail earlier because of good behavior he committed a crime right he was found guilty right the trauma doesn't end for me and unfortunately it never will i don't have the luxury of behaving the way i'm supposed to so that my trauma goes away earlier i don't have the ability to reduce my survivor sentence i stand or sit rather in front of you today to share my story and advocate for victims like me now and to come in passage of the senate bill 18 i'm hopeful that the right thing will be done to protect survivors like me thank you again for allowing me to speak in front of you today thank you very much thank you taylor very much for the testimony um are there any questions for taylor my only question is what was the minimum sex provided to um the perpetrator for the looted the looted the lascivious it was 14 years 12 to 14 years 12 to 14 thank you pam fontaine did are there any questions for taylor pam did you want to testify yes please sure so hello i'm pam fontaine i'm taylor's mom sorry it takes me a second because this brings back just talking about this stuff brings back so much for taylor and for our family thank you so much for your bravery and both of you um no it's not easy thank you mr sears i appreciate that um i actually want to start by saying that taylor's bravery has helped so many people to be safe from a very dangerous man that was in our community taylor is a very courageous loving and caring intelligent young lady who has worked very hard within herself to find the peace and the strength that she needed to overcome being a victim to becoming a survivor i am very proud of her and her power and her strength i'm a parent can you imagine the moment you realize someone has hurt your child i never thought i'd experience what i did that night after taylor called crying and said she was scared asked me to please come get her now i'll never forget when i realized something more just happened to her than thinking she was just scared can you imagine that moment this story started with a phone call a phone call to me from robert colobas himself asking can taylor sleep over after the dance tonight what was about to unfold was not supposed to happen not to my daughter not to my family robert colobas was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and unlawful restraint he drugged and molested taylor can you imagine that if i told you the whole story from that phone call to today we'd be here for quite some time taylor's been through a lot our family's been through a lot when taylor just mentioned she she struggled she struggled it was real it was hard and it was strong the trauma the ptsd was like a volcano is all i can explain sometimes erupting in small spurts and other times like a like a full blown blast we were her family and we struggled and erupted right along with her every single time even to this day when taylor struggles taylor's sentence is embedded into her an event that she cannot erase one that she cannot have reduced for her good behavior no matter how hard she works no matter how many counseling sessions she goes to no matter sorry no matter how much she contributes to society she's a good citizen who deserves a sense of security and peace every day all day so we came here today in hopes that you will see and know that the senate bill 18 should come to passage to protect her and all of the other taylor's in the world because there's more of them i'll pray for you to make a mindful decision and not rush to do so so many current and future victims deserve to be protected and to feel that their rights are considered first and foremost over their perpetrator's rights thank you all for your hard work and for your consideration and for listening to us today thank you i'm sorry i muted myself i wanted to thank you for your testimony and asked if there's any question from the committee thank you both so much for testifying today and i can only imagine i i can't say i know how difficult the best of both of you as you see for government thank you senator benning taylor and pam i want to thank you as well i also want to say that i'm a criminal defense attorney for 37 years now and i've never heard the term a victims sentence that is a really powerful statement and it is one that i promise you we will all take into account in trying to deal with this bill and put out something that makes sense so thank you very much for testifying thank you thank you for old words um mr and mrs bottom you're next and uh so i i don't know which one of you wants to go first i have ned first and then um go in but i think you're muted sir yeah i'm trying to unmute them oh you muted them i did mute them uh and now i'm trying to unmute them i think we can succeed i think we got it thank you thank you for joining us this morning mr mrs one about good morning good morning my name is ned winter bottom i'm the father of laura kate winter bottom i'd like to thank you for the opportunity to testify to you today on senate bill 18 my family and i support this bill we want to especially thank attorney general tj donovan for his support and his integrity um commissioner jim baker for really listening to us um senator sears for sponsoring the bill and for all the committee members who are willing to um be open to reconsider and earn good time while we recognize the need for prison reform we strongly object to the application of earned good time to rapists murderers and pedophiles in the vermont prison system we can understand and even support some of the goals of justice reinvestment the more we learn about this subject the more we understand that these are complicated issues that you guys have to struggle with and that sometimes in trying to solve one problem perhaps another one is created we appreciate the fact there's a willingness at this time to listen to victims voices and to revisit the issues associated with earning good time keeping in mind perspective of victims our daughter laura kate winter bottom was kidnapped raped and brutally murdered and i mean brutally murdered in burlington on march 8 2005 by jerald one comery because of the brutality of this crime it was charged with aggravated murder which carries a sense of life without parole a plea agreement was negotiated under which you would plead guilty to first-degree murder we receive a sentence of 43 years to life the prosecutors informed us that if the plea agreement was not acceptable to us they would pursue the charge of aggravated murder at trial and because of the dna and other overwhelming evidence their case was very very solid we were advised that the trial would involve making all public all the graphic details of the extreme brutality inflicted upon laura and also are enduring the ordeal of listening to montgomery's council attempt to defend his savage undefensible crime against her we were assured that 43 years was a minimum montgomery would serve to serve before becoming eligible parole parole and that he would have to successfully complete a course of treatment for sexual offenders before he would be eligible parole we were not told about earning the time because it did not exist at the time we obviously were not told that 15 years later the 43 year minimum would be retroactively changed without adequate notice to potentially dramatically reduce it this was a very painful and difficult time for us and we were in deep and profound grief over laura's death we relied heavily on the representation of the state's attorney's office and the burlington police department both of whom were actually wonderful and we trusted them to seek justice for laura and act in our best interest after much deliberation and in reliance on those representations we agreed to accept the plea agreement the rape and murder of our laura were savage crimes and then deliberately committing them we believe that montgomery forfeited his right to any reduction whatsoever in his sentence learned during the course of hearings that he had previously sexually assaulted at least two other women that we know of when he took laura's life he permanently changed the lives of everyone in our family in profoundly irreparable ways i agree with that term victims of sentence and that's what we have laura is no longer has she's has a lifetime sentence she lost her life her sentence was death there is no such thing as healing from the death of a child especially a death like laura's life is never the same but you carry on it was however very important for us to know that montgomery was safely behind bars for at least 43 years and therefore we could turn not our focus not on him but rather on preventing the type of crimes he committed this certainty helped us to establish the laura kate lintabata memorial fund a vermont-based foundation with a mission of ending sexual violence and helping survivors to date with the support of thousands of people the lkw fund has raised and donated over 225 thousand dollars to organizations in vermont and programs that support that mission what we can determine from review of the legislation and the department of correction report on the legislation entitled availability of good time dated 12 15 2019 there are two primary reasons advanced for the retroactive application to earn good time system that alters the sentence and plea bargain for currently incarcerated offenders one claim that increased participation this is a quote increased participation will have a greater impact on prisoner morale and behavior of close quote and two a need to avoid quote increased administrative burden close quote we submit that neither reason is adequate to justify a system which effectively alters the plea bargain minimum sentence of a brutal murderer and serial and has the potential to release a violent repeated sexual predator and murder back into the population 6.5 years short of his minimum sentence to report the united states sentence commission to congress from 2016 to 2019 for federal prisoners shows that violent criminals and those with a serious criminal history are at a significant risk of repeated crimes with the recidivism rate of over 80 percent a bureau of justice study has shown that 10 percent of released murderers in 30 states commit another crime within six months of release and 48 percent commit another crime within five years of release the 2019 u.s. sentence commission report on recidivism among violent federal offenders shows that even release offenders over 50 years of age with a serious criminal or violent history have a 37 percent chance of committing another crime within five years of release this means that during the 6.5 years montgomery could potentially be reached earlier than his minimum sentence there is an over 37 percent chance he will submit another crime even his history of violent sexual assaults and murder there is a significant risk that he will rape or possibly murder another woman that is a risk we are not prepared to sanction on the basis of prisoner morale or avoidance of an administrative burden if we don't think the state of vermont should do that either while we understand the goal of making a criminal justice system more fair and a correction system more humane we also believe that there are offenders in the correction system such as rapists murderers and pedophiles whose criminal thinking history and propensity for violence make them a dangerous society and significant risk for future crimes many such offenders are violent psychopaths or sociopaths people for which psychologists tell us there was little if any possibility a significant positive change we have heard senators here is that a previous hearing of the joint legislative oversight committee say that we should lock up people who are dangerous not those who are pain in the neck we agree we assert that the corollary to this statement is that we shouldn't release early before they have completed their full minimum sentence those offenders who are truly dangerous like general montgomery he must make need to serve his full sentence because that is as it should be considering the severity and barbarity of his crime justice for rora and the genuine concern for the protection of society demand nothing less thank you thank you mr difficult it must be for you are there any questions for mrs winterbomb thank you i'm joanne lores mother oh james no you're fine oh okay that was somebody else so um first we want to i want to thank you for this opportunity to testify on senate bill 18 i appreciate we appreciate this opportunity more than we can possibly express uh i'm fully in support of this bill to amend earned good time our daughter laura was abducted and over several hours repeatedly raped and sodomized and then strangled manually and bludgeoned to death with a wooden board by jerald montgomery in burlington on march 8 2005 as net had mentioned montgomery was initially charged with aggravated murder and on the advice of the state's attorney's office and after much deliberation and in good faith in the integrity of the vermont judicial system we agreed to accept a plea agreement montgomery pleaded guilty to first degree murder and accepted the sentence of 43 years to life imposed upon him by judge cooper smith in support of senate bill 18 i would like to make five points one the state of vermont should be ethically and judicially obliged to honor the agreement it made with us in imposing montgomery sentence attorney general tj donovan has made it clear that he is in agreement with us in regard with us in regard to this issue and i and my family are grateful for his acknowledgement of this agreement and applaud and applaud his integrity my second point is that violent offenders and murderers should be excluded from earned good time in his attack on laura montgomery actually committed three distinct crimes abduction rape and murder the violation and bludgeoning of her were deliberate vicious and merciless the wilfulness the wilfulness and savagery of his crimes should negate his right to any reduction whatsoever of his sentence more over we learned during the course of hearings that he had previously sexually assaulted at least two other women so he was in fact a repeat offender my third point in the meeting of january 13th of this year 2021 to consider amending the policy the issue of the indelicate method used to apprise victims and their survivors of the policy was raised as well as the consideration of changing the insensitive name of the policy while these assuredly need reconsideration my focus is on sent in senate bill 18 per se fourth point in response to the comment made in the meeting of january 13 that people can change i respectfully submit that there is no unanimity of opinion among experts in the scientific community that all people can change it is a complex issue involving many factors in regards specifically just violent sex offenders like montgomery there is overwhelming evidence that they do not change their proclivities and behavior the recidivism rate for sex offenders is very high montgomery in fact as we've mentioned is a repeat offender who progressed from sexual assaults to murder releasing him into the community before his full sentences served is an assault on the principles of truth and justice that are corner stones of an optimally functioning civilized society and early release poses a risk that should not be sanctioned and my fifth point in response to the testimony given on friday january 15th i am feeling that while there was verbal acknowledgement of the rights of victims there was more concern with the rights of offenders words like disparity and inconsistency and statements regarding potential litigation around perceived unfair practices and statements regarding potential complications around plea agreements were stressed and each in reference to offenders in conjunction with the proposal to amend earned good time in my opinion and emphasis on the rights of offenders constitutes a gross and egregious imbalance of justice and power in our particular case the reality is that laura is a victim with absolutely no rights or power at all her voice cannot be heard she is dead because heinous crimes were committed against her we laura's family are advocating for her and urging the passage of senate bill 18 the current earned good time policy as it would apply to our laura's murderer disturbs us to our core and makes us feel revictimized when Montgomery and his laura's life he forever changed my life my husband's my daughter Lee's and my son Aaron's we in fact are serving a relentlessly painful lifetime sentence allowing him to qualify for an earlier release is not acceptable to us and it is certainly not in the interest or pursuit of fairness and accountability our request is simple and threefold that Vermont honor the agreement it entered upon with us when Montgomery when Montgomery was sentenced that he not be given the privilege of eligibility for good time and that senate bill 18 be passed and thank you again for allowing me to express my opinions thank you senator white has a comment or question i just um have a question and i appreciate very much all of your testimony and how painful um not only the acts were but how painful it is for you to relive them now by testifying to us so thank you very much my question is when i'm looking at s 18 is that there are a number of disqualifying events in there and one of them is manslaughter they are so i guess my question is do you support the bill as it is with all of the disqualifying events or would you um be more focused on certain um crimes that should not be given good time well i i would speak for for myself which is that i'm speaking about our case i don't for all victims there may be victims of manslaughter who feel like we do too but we're not we're not in that place i'm when we first heard about during good time a lot of people contacted us and wanted to talk to us about it and we basically said uh talk to crime victim services and maybe your voice will be heard we want to speak for ourselves about that issue and i know um attorney general donovan was instrumental in putting that list together i have a lot of faith in him the good man and if that's his judgment that's his judgment i i wouldn't question it at all thank you anyway we wouldn't report to speak for other victims i agree with what netta said thank you just to make and i know you're we're clear just to make clear um those who may be also listening when we use the term retroactive if people who were sentenced do not earn good time would not earn good time it already served toward uh january 1st 2020 so just to make clear the term retroactive some might mean that they were going all the way back to the sentences it actually begins january 1 2021 this bill passes um the uh that would add they would not earn good those folks would not earn good time but nobody who was currently incarcerated prior to December 31st 2020 would earn any good time i don't know if that was i hope that's clear to those that may be listening for us senator i we were clear about that what we meant was that though i know you were but when we use the term retroactive people might think that he would have earned good time for the 15 years he already served prior to the enactment of the bill i just wanted to make that clear anyway i think you were very clear about it that it started i thank you all four of you so much for joining us today and i really appreciate your testimony it's very important to us to hear all sides um we'll say that that some of the offenses listed here i think the biggest concern is that we not end up with unintended consequences someone who um due to an age gap and some of the offenses and that was simply why they were charged i think that was some of the subject last week that people were looking at but with that i thank you very much are any other questions for any of the four witnesses thanks so much again thank you for coming forward we will continue to work on s18 next week it's a priority for us needs to be one of those those that we get after soon thank you