 Okay, so folks, we are going to do a walk-through through two Senate bills, which S219 and S119, they're both regarding policing. We don't actually have the bills yet. The Senate is still working on them, but we should have them either later today, they would be messaged over or tomorrow, but we thought it was important to at least get an understanding of them. And so we could hopefully move forward on them. And we also thought it'd be best if both committees could hear the testimony together as it would be most efficient. So I'm gonna start with Bryn. Good morning, Bryn. Morning committee. Can everybody hear me okay? Yeah, great. So Bryn, thank you. Thank you so much for your flexibility. I imagine you are in high demand today and have a long day, so I appreciate it. So folks, do you have S219 and S119 in front of you? Sorry, I should have asked that already or have access to it. Okay, great. And Bryn, I think probably the best thing to do would be if you could walk through both bills and then we'll have witnesses speak to both of them. I think it might be more efficient that way and you won't jump around as much. And a full committee member, certainly, I'm speaking to both committees. If you have questions for Bryn as she's going along, certainly raise your hands and we do have witnesses this morning and this afternoon. So, okay, thank you. Okay, good morning committees for the record. Bryn here from Legislative Council. Here to talk about S119 and S219. Does the committee have a preference on which bill I begin with? I think that S119 might be on the agenda first. I didn't know if there was a preferred order. Right, you're right that it is. How about S219? Because I think S219 might be a little bit more straightforward. Sure. Thanks. Okay, so you should have two documents for S219. There is a Senate Judiciary Amendment, the 10-page bill as it came out of Senate Judiciary. And then there's also a two-page individual amendment that was made by all five members of the committee that amends their amendment. So I'm gonna start with that two-page bill because that's actually the first section that will wind up being the first section of S219 as it comes to you. So if everybody has that, it's an instances of amendment and the first amendment adds the section A1 to the bill, which is a legislative intent section. So I'm just gonna keep going and hope that you all have that in front of you. So it's a two-part legislative intent section, the first part, subsection A references the work of the General Assembly over the last several years on addressing systemic racism and disproportionate use of force by law enforcement. And it specifically goes through several bills, Act 54 from 2000, many of these are gonna be familiar to these two committees, perhaps especially the DevOps Committee. So 2017, Act 54, that was the ARDAP bill that created the Racial Disparities Advisory Panel. 2018, Act 9, that was the act relating to racial equity and state government that created the position of the Executive Director of Racial Equity. 2013, Act 180, that is the act that relates to tasers, the use of tasers by law enforcement and the associated training requirements. 2016, Act 163, that is the act that required that the Law Enforcement Advisory Board create a model policy for the use of body cameras. 2017, Act 56, that is the professional regulation of law enforcement bill. And then also references S338, which doesn't have an active number yet, that's the Justice Reinvestment Bill. And then lastly, on the bottom of the page there, it references the fact that several committees continue to study these issues and specifically also working on requiring a model policy for the use of body cameras. And so in conclusion, this act represents just one step in the legislature's ongoing effort to address racial bias and increase accountability and policing. So that whole section is sort of designed to say this is a continuation of the legislature's work, not the culmination of its work. Subsection B says that it's the intent of the General Assembly that law enforcement agencies in Vermont use community policing strategies to develop collaborative partnerships between communities and law enforcement and adopt policies and practices that adopt or reflect a guardian mindset towards the citizens that law enforcement serves and to establish a culture of transparency and accountability that both promote public safety and foster public trust. And to that end, it's the intent of the General Assembly that law enforcement used the escalation strategies first prior to using force in every situation. So sorry about that. If you hold on one second, I can let the dog out, I'm sorry. It's fine, my dog is looking around saying, where's that coming from? So I do see that some of you are having difficulty finding this and actually, I'm sorry, I should have posted on our website. I found it on Senate Judiciary's website yesterday. And it's, let's see, I think it's document 1.2 under 219, but that's where I found it. Okay, so is it, does everyone has that document? Am I talking about documents that people don't have? Okay, great. On today for GovOps, too. It is on your, okay, great, thank you. Yeah, I don't see it on, I didn't see it on our website, but you can get it at Senate Judiciary. I would assume we're looking at draft 3.1. Two, well that's for 219, but the actual. 2.1. The actual intent language is separate. Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Good morning. Morning. Sorry, I'm late. No worries. We're just starting with the walkthrough of 219 and Bryn is gonna do walkthroughs of both of the bills together, not as reflected on the agenda. So, okay, great. Go ahead, thank you, Bryn. Okay, so subsection B there really reflects some of the concepts that are incorporated in the 21st century policing report without specifically naming it. Just to be clear. And then the second instance of amendment there, I'm just strikes out some language in 219 that refers to a new crime. I think it will be easier if I explain that once we actually get to that section of 219. So I'm gonna end with that instances of amendment there and move on to 219 itself unless there's any questions. Yeah, actually, I see a hand and I have a question as well. Was there any discussion about whether or not to actually name the 21st century reporting this? No, that wasn't specifically discussed in committee. The desire of the committee was to make it clear that law enforcement, it was the intent of the General Assembly that law enforcement used de-escalation tactics prior to using force. And to flush that out, we went ahead and added some language that came from the 21st century policing report, but there wasn't this conversation about specifically naming it. Okay, thank you, that's helpful. And I folks, I do wanna let people know that I actually have spoken with Senator Sears and I very much appreciate this intent language because I think it's important for the body and for others to know that this really is a continuation of a larger conversation and a larger body of work and building on what we've done before and also looking forward. And I know that there are at least three bills in the Senate that are moving forward and certainly we have bills in the house. So I do appreciate seeing this language in here and let's sort of bookmark the idea of naming 21st century policing because I think it's something that is recognizable and understood by law enforcement and get some testimony on that. Okay, Martin, I see your hand. Yeah, Bryn, looking at subsection A, the 2016 act, number 163, an act relating to model state policy use of body cameras by law enforcement officers. I see that that act actually required a report proposed legislation by the end of December of 2016 and was anything ever done with the proposed legislation? Did those model policies that this act required, did they get put into effect? So there is a model policy, LEAB model policy on the use of body cameras but no further legislation resulted from that report. So model policy exists, but there's not a requirement currently that law enforcement agencies adopt that policy. Okay, well, I guess this is then a comment for folks just to perhaps mark this that it doesn't seem like we should put that one in there as something that we've accomplished when we haven't finished accomplishing that. I mean, it suggests that we have model policy that is required and that's not the case. So I would just flag that as a possible. I think it's questionable to put that in as one of the things that we've really accomplished. I would just add that I know that the Senate government operations committee is working on some language right now that may require that be a state required policy, that specific LEAB model policy. Yeah. I'm not seeing any other hands but I wanna make sure I'm not missing anybody. Anybody just jump on in if you do have a question for Bryn. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. So I'm gonna move to S219. That's the amendment that came out of Senate Judiciary. It's the 10 page document that's draft 3.1. So letting you all get to that. The first couple of sections of this bill deal with law enforcement race data collection. Next thing, can I ask a real quick question? I just wanna get clarification on the amendment that we were looking at before. Is that draft number 2.1? Is that what you're looking at? Okay, thank you. So section one of S219 makes state grant funding to law enforcement agencies contingent on the secretary of administration, confirming that the law enforcement agency has complied with race data reporting requirements that are set forth in statute, at least six months prior to the secretary's review. So within the last six months, law enforcement agencies have to have complied with those race data reporting requirements in order to receive state grant funding. The section two is a related section. I'm on page two now that requires the secretary of administration to notify all law enforcement agencies about this new requirement that you set forth in section one by August 1st of this year. And it requires that the secretary let law enforcement agencies know that this requirement takes effect on January 1st of 2021. And beginning on that date, law enforcement receipt of state grant funding is going to be contingent on there having complied with the race data reporting requirements set out in statute. Any questions there? Can I move on to section three? Also about race data reporting. I'm sorry, I do see two hands up. I see representative Hooper and representative Burtitt. I have a question on section three. So I'll defer until then. Sorry. Thank you. And it's nice to hear another voice besides all of our song. Brent, as far as the reporting goes now, what are the, I don't know if their recommendations or requirements that police departments pass along this information. So we're going to look at that statute in the next section. Right now it is required that law enforcement report this gather certain information at every roadside stop and report that information to certain entities on an annual basis. Okay. So it is required by law currently. Okay, great. Thank you. So Brent, before you go into it on three, my concern or question I guess is when you get down to E1 between B and C, it almost seems like, you know, if the reason for the stop is a tail light and the type of search it was conducted, you kind of miss a step in there, maybe that would be valuable reporting and what the probable cause was for the actual stop. You make a kind of a jump from, I've got you on the side of the road to I'm in your trunk. And I'd kind of like to know why. Right, that has not dated that has historically been collected as far as I understand. I think that it may be the reason for the stop includes the probable cause that the law enforcement agency had or the reasonable suspicion, but I'm not sure. Specifically if we're talking about how people get into trouble, that's kind of one. Maybe somebody else on the committee has an opinion. Or also we will be hearing from DPS. So perhaps we could wait for our witnesses. Okay, I see Representative Harrison. Thank you, friend. If you go back to section one, it says the secretary shall approve grants only if they have complied with the race data reporting six months prior, but I thought you just said it was required annually. Does that potentially run into a problem where maybe they submitted the data seven months ago and now not available for the grants? They're still complying with the annual requirement. Right, so I think that the idea is that they have complied with those race data reporting requirements within the last six months, meaning they are up to date in terms of submitting that data annually so that it's not further out than one year. Does that make sense? Maybe it does, I'm just trying to get it through my head where there's a potential break. It seems to me that it should be the same period. Either it's one year and that's concurrent with the reporting requirement or it's six months and we change the reporting requirement to every six months. That may make it clearer if it's within the last year. I think the idea was that they have complied, meaning they have submitted the data on that annual basis within the last six months. So I think essentially it gives them a six month cushion. Okay, okay, I'll accept that, thank you. Thank you, I agree with you. Tom. Yeah, Bryn, are we gonna get into any information about how, well, it wouldn't be how well they're doing, but how the departments are doing as far as passing this information along? So that, I think that you're gonna hear from witnesses about that. That would have been my guess, but thank you. Okay, go ahead, thanks Bryn. So I'm gonna move on to section three. This is on page two. So this is the, this statute sets out what data collection law enforcement agencies need to do at roadside stops. And what the language here does at the bottom of page two is requires that roadside stop data that's collected to include use of physical force, data about the use of physical force. So it provides that whether physical force was employed or threatened in effectuating the stuff. And if so, what type of force was employed and whether that force resulted in serious bodily injury or death. And later on in this section, we're gonna talk about what physical force means. We've put some parameters around physical force. So I'll get there in a moment. I'm gonna turn to page three now. Excuse me, I do see Martin's hand is up. I think that's a quick question. What is effectuating the stop mean? Does that mean the whole course of the stop or only just the getting the card to pull over? What does that mean? There was testimony from law enforcement that they interpret that to mean carrying out the stop. So getting the card to pull over and what occurs after that. So I understand that it may be a bit clear for laypeople to say effectuating or during the stop that may make more sense from a layperson standpoint. But my understanding is that law enforcement understands that term to mean carrying out the stop in its totality. But that may be a question for you wanna confirm with law enforcement. Great, thank you. So page three, subsection two adds, you'll see that the executive director of racial equity is added to the stakeholders that have to work with law enforcement agencies on collecting uniform data, adopting uniform storage methods and ensuring that any data collected, it can be analyzed. Subsection three right below that requires that the executive director of racial equity receive the data in addition to the vendor that's chosen by the criminal justice training council for analyzing it. So it ensures that that individual is receiving this roadside stop data collected by law enforcement. Bottom of the page, line 20 required as a requirement that the data be posted in a manner in a manner that is user friendly. And then top of page four requires that the agency that's receiving this data from law enforcement agencies report it annually to the general assembly. And then in subdivision five there on the top of page four, you'll see that there are some parameters around what physical force means. And it refers to the force that's employed by a law enforcement officer to compel that person's compliance with the officer's instructions. And that includes compliance, contact controls, compliance techniques, defensive tactics and deadly force. And those are all I believe terms of art in the law enforcement world. And I can talk a little bit about what those mean. If the committee would like contact what all those terms mean. And before you do that, I do see two hands. I see Reps LeClaire and Nott. So Rob, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Bryn, I'm looking just to bounce back to, I guess it's page three, section two, where it talks about the Executive Director of the Racial Equity. My question here is they're talking about choosing a vendor. So is there not the database currently in place that we're using? Or are they looking to, I guess, buy a different one or get a different one to do different things? So that's existing law that talks about who the law enforcement agencies have to work with on. Well, I see. So the only difference is we're just adding the Executive Director of Racial Equity. Got you, sorry. Okay, thank you. Sure. Thank you. Let's see, Will. Thank you. My question is same page down a little bit, section four. The term user-friendly, how are we determining what qualifies as user-friendly? I'm just thinking it's a very big term. And for example, someone who's used to analyzing law enforcement data might find something much more user-friendly than, say, a community action group. So I'm just wondering how or when we define what qualifies as user-friendly. We don't. And I don't disagree that it's a term that could have multiple meanings. Thanks. Okay, great. Not seeing anybody else. Okay, go ahead. Thanks, Bryn. Sure. So I'm going back to page four. We're on that description of what physical force means at the top of the page. And it refers to these sort of terms of art. And so this was an addition that was made in the Senate to sort of describe with some specificity what physical force means. And this was at the request of the law enforcement agencies. So contact controls are defined by the Vermont State Police as techniques with little or no pain and other low-level physical contact. Compliance techniques refer to the use of tasers, aerosol spray, impact weapons, empty hand controls, empty hand body strikes or takedowns and police use of police canines. Defense tactics, defensive tactics are defined as impact weapon strikes, empty hand and defensive strikes. So that comes directly from law enforcement. I would suggest that if there are more specific questions about those types of techniques that that may be a question for law enforcement. Thank you, Bryn. Is it possible to have those definitions posted on our committee pages, please? Yes, I can forward, Mike, the testimony that was received by Mark Anderson, which is where those definitions came from. Thank you. Let's see. Tom, I, right? Yeah, yeah, I just, so Bryn, with these contact controls, compliance techniques, defensive tactics, all those already have definitions? Yeah, so those are terms of our use in law enforcement that have, I think, generally associated understandings about them. But not necessarily definitions in law? No, those were not specifically defined here. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm gonna move on then to the next section, section four. We're now moving into a section that deals with prohibited restraints, types of restraints that are prohibited by this bill by law enforcement and the unprofessional conduct chapter. So, section four, we're in the criminal justice training council chapter of title 20 now, sub chapter two deals with unprofessional conduct. So you'll see here that the 24-01 category A conduct is left as is, no changes there. But if you turn to page five close to the bottom, we get now into category B conduct. This is the definition of category B conduct, gross professional misconduct. And the changes here, if you turn to page six, provide that there are two additional types of category B professional misconduct. The first is using, is law enforcement officer using a prohibited restraint on a person, and that is defined down at the bottom of the page. We'll get there in a moment. The second additional type of category B misconduct is failing if an officer fails to intervene when the officer witnesses another officer using a prohibited restraint or using excessive force. So those are two new types of category B misconduct for which the council can take disciplinary action on a law enforcement officer. Excuse me, not our see your hand is up. Yeah, thank you. I just have a quick question. When it comes to intervening, how is there any sort of definition of what intervention looks like when another officer is observing excessive force? Does it require, does it require that officer to stop the other one or does it require him or her to make a notification to the supervisor? Is there anything further on that? There's no, nothing further besides the word intervene. So I imagine that that would be open to interpretation by the council. Thank you. So I'm going to move on to that definition of prohibited restraint. You're going to see this definition a couple more times in the bill defines prohibited restraint as the use of any maneuver on a person that applies pressure to the neck, throat, windpipe or carotid artery that may prevent or hinder breathing, reduce intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain. So I'm reading that definition because you're going to see it a few times since it is prohibited by the bill. Any questions there before I move on to 2407? Okay. So I'm going to move to page seven now top of the page. This is 2407 is an existing law that limits the criminal justice training council's ability to sanction an officer for a first offense of category B conduct. So the new language that you see there on line six through 10 basically carves out those two new category B misconducts from that limitation. So a first offense of use of a prohibited restraint or a first offense of a failure to intervene may be sanctioned by the council according to this new language. Martin. So to help me understand what 2407 really means, I mean, I went back and looked at the whole provision of misconduct. I'm just trying to understand when this would come into play. And I guess that requires me to understand really what is the council doing with these complaints? Because it seems to me that so long as the local law enforcement agency has done an appropriate investigation as defined here, what is the council's role? Do they, does it, it just wasn't clear to me. If there's, if, let's just say that there's a category B conduct is alleged or complained against somebody. How does the process play out and what is the council's role? So because this 2407 exists, this limitation on when the council can become involved. I think I'll just start there. My, and this is, again, this is a statute that the government operations committee is probably pretty familiar with and they may understand this. But my understanding is that law enforcement, this existing law was something that law enforcement lobbied for. And the argument was that we should let the law enforcement officer, law enforcement officers agency discipline that officer prior to having the council step in and impose any professional misconduct sanction. So let that first, that first instance of misconduct be handled by the law enforcement agency. Let it be a learning experience before it rises to the level of unprofessional conduct. So in the instance of a second offense when the council does step in, there's multiple different actions that the council can take to recommend an officer. And that includes a written warning. It could include everything from a written warning to a permanent de-certification of for the law enforcement officer. But there are things that could happen in between those two as well. So that, so the council, whatever the council imposes is in addition to whatever discipline the local agency is imposed. Is that correct? Yes, that is my understanding. So category B conduct in under existing law, second offensive category B conduct can result in, again, that myriad of sanctions from the council, a written warning, a suspension, a revocation of the law enforcement officer's certification with the option of recertification at the council's discretion, or a permanent revocation of that law enforcement officer's certification. All right, so I did have one other question. Did the Senate, I guess it's the way I'll put this question, did the Senate consider expanding the exception to this first offense, to the prohibited conduct or not, you know, to the category B conduct, excessive use of force? It seems like if you're gonna have this exception for a prohibited restraint and failing to intervene, excessive use of force seems to be kind of equivalent badness or even the biased enforcement. And was there any discussion of why just these two instead of expanding it to C and D, the excessive use of force or biased enforcement? There was some discussion about that. And it was decided that Senator White would deal with that in her committee in the Senate Government Operations Committee. So it's my understanding that that is an issue that that committee is working on right now. Okay. Yeah, there's, I don't know if it's in S-124, but that is a bill looking at that kind of conduct and I believe that House Government Operations will look at that as well. So as I said, these three bills really do go together and there's quite a bit of overlap. Okay, Representative Hooper. Sorry to be so questioning, but Bryn, I'm looking through this and a lot of this is based on first offense, second offense, where's the language that requires agencies to report to the training council when that first click has happened so that they know they're dealing with something that is a second offense as opposed to. You know, I've, this is not, Title 20 is not a title I work in with regularity. So I can't tell you off the top of my head where that language is, but I can find it and get back to the committee. You think it exists? I do, yes. If only Betsy Ann were here, she would know immediately and be able to answer you. I'm sorry. That's a frightening thing. And no apologies for questions. That's why we're here. So I appreciate your questions. Okay Bryn. Okay. So I'm going to move on to section five now. So this adds a new crime to Title 13 that's law enforcement use of prohibited restraints. We start out by defining law enforcement officer. And this is a pretty broad definition of law enforcement officer that's in the general provisions of the criminal justice training council chapter. It's a definition of law enforcement officer that we use quite regularly. Again, we see that definition of prohibited restraint. It's the same one that exists in the unprofessional conduct section. And then the serious bodily injury definition same as we use throughout Title 13. And the new crime provides that law enforcement officer acting in the officer's capacity as law enforcement who employs prohibited restraint on a person that causes serious bodily injury or death shall be imprisoned for not more than 20 years or find not more than $50,000 or both. And then you'll see subsection C there provides that nothing shall be construed to limit or restrict the availability of the justifiable homicide defense. And that subsection has been struck by Senate Judiciary in that instances of amendment that we looked at earlier. So that will no longer be there when you get S219 from the Senate. Brin, I actually see two hands. And also, Brin, will you be talking about the conversation around justifiable homicide that I think is happening? I'd be helpful too just to update us on that. So we've got Tom and Nutter. I would defer to Nutter first because if he's gonna say something around the same issue. Okay. Sure, thank you. Thank you. My question, at first I was glad to see that justifiable homicide section was in there. But now I'm learning that it's gone and I was wondering if there's any conversation, if you can enlighten us from the Senate's testimony as to why they decided to take out that section. Yes, sure thing. Committee, I'm going to need to take a brief five minute break after I answer this question if that's okay. I'm getting some questions from the Senate that need to be answered before they go on the floor. Absolutely. Thank you. So the conversation about the justifiable homicide defense was that statute, justifiable homicide, it's at 13 BSA 2305, if anyone wants to look at it, is a statute that comes from, I have the history of it, I believe it was enacted in the mid 1800s. It has quite a bit of language that needs updating and subsection C of that statute provides that essentially it provides a defense for law enforcement in their use of force to suppress riots or essentially to carry out any of their functions. And so there was a conversation in Senate judiciary about whether or not it made sense for that specific defense to exist in combination with this new crime because it may actually be considered that the legislature implied the repeal of that specific subsection because they are so diametrically opposed to each other. So Senate judiciary is planning on taking up the justifiable homicide statute on Thursday in addition to another statute that sort of sets forth that law enforcement may use force in order to carry out its functions. And so the idea was that by removing that reference, by removing the incorporating that statute by reference and subdivision C that law enforcement will still have all of the common law defenses available to them, the self defense, common law defense and also the justifiable homicide defense and subsections one and two which are essentially provide that if a law enforcement officer wounds or kills another person in defense of themself or a whole host of other individuals then they shall be guiltless or if a law enforcement officer, sorry. I'm sorry, which section is that in? That's in the 2305 subsection one. There are three subsections under 2305. The first. I thought you were quoting a different statute, but okay, thank you. Sorry. No. So essentially that's a long-winded way of saying that common law defenses are still available to a law enforcement officer under this new crime. But it was the decision of the Senate Judiciary Committee that that justifiable homicide statute needed some work before it would be incorporated by reference into the new crime. Thank you.