 scathing editorial by the Executive Director of the Montt Police Association. Who's the executive director of that? No, it's Mike Hall. Oh, Mike Hall. He's the Manchester Police Department. Wasn't Mike Hall an SIU? No, Mike was the Chief of Police. He's retired Chief of Police at Manchester Police Department. Mike says that basically. To sum it all up I just don't care about victims. Well, I have talked to some police who say that there are so few people in that position and they are for the most part the people who deserve to be in prison. I think that's the position of a lot of law enforcement. But the bill hasn't ended. It's hard to see how they would make that argument. Because it's not, I said this the other day, it doesn't get rid of life without parole. It just limits life without parole to the most egregious cases, which are the ones that they're referencing. Yeah. So, I don't know. Well, we had that list. I can't find that list. Was it not given to us or was it just handed around about the 16 people? Oh, yeah, we did get that. Yeah. But I can't find it in here so I don't know anything about it. It was the 16 people because I know that two of them. Two people are life without parole? I think that's what it was because Robin, what's her name from Townsend is one of them. And because she shot two people. Oh, the elderly woman. No, no, no, this is Randy Lott, Steve Lott. Isn't that his first name? And his son. She shot him. No, no, no. The elderly woman. I don't think she is. No, I know who you mean. Yeah. But anyway, we had that list and I can't find it in here. So, I have a list. I asked DOC for a list. And you just passed it around and looked at it, right? Yes. Because, you know, the defender general's office said that it might not be an accurate idea. Yeah, that's true. I have a list in my email. No, I don't really care. I was just thinking about the people that were on there. They were all convicted of aggravated. I don't think so. In 1987, the Vermont Senate rejected a bill that would have created about 21 to 8 with the former Crowley, Goodnick, Hortigan, Alusie, Manchester, Morris, and Smith voting. And the negative was to... Is that John Woodward? Yeah, John's father. And the negative can do... The negative was to have it, that penalty. Oh, to have it? Those that voted in the affirmative. The committee evidently voted it out five. No, negatively. Alusie was the spokesperson for the death penalty. I had a few remarks, and I'll ask Peggy to print these up for everybody. It's a very interesting reading. Those senators that voted in the affirmative against the death penalty were Baker, Beaumdard, Carter, Conrad Dean, Delaney, Doyle, Finn, Ghana, Hoff, Hunter, Ketchum, Little, May, Mazza, Parker, Racine, and really about Skinner, Spalding, and Webster. Were you here then? No. This was in 1980. Had Granite part of that conversation? Had Granite, he was a prosecutor? No, Granite is not listed on this bill. Webster, was that the Webster from Orange County? I believe so. But they both Skinner and explained her vote, and Walsh was presiding that day. So the testimony against it included the last prosecutor who convicted somebody? Well, that was a dramatic case. Sure. A dramatic? Yeah, I believe he was the one who electrocuted the final one in the 1950s. But then, when the Supreme Court ruled that Ramon's death penalty back then was ruled to be unconstitutional sometime in the 70s. So then they put the interesting thing, and again I'll have it made up. That was 87, you said? Yeah, 1987. So it was 82 that the same discussion was going on, and that prosecutor came to give testimony? Pretty powerful stuff. But she said, this is Mary Jess Skinner who has done the chair of this committee. Yesterday I signed up legislation calling for the option of a life sentence without parole for first degree heard. So that's the genesis of the laws that we have now. I would definitely at that time have it didn't have any like without parole laws. So the first degree, is that what we would now call aggravated? Or did they not have aggravated then? Sorry. Peggy, if you could have copy made of that for everybody and probably the audience would like them. John Bloomer, our secretary, was able to find those in our journal and make a copy for me. It's a very interesting reading. Alusia Skinner had good arguments. Obviously Alusia lost again, but that's the genesis of what we have today. So what's Draft 2.1 evidently called for? At 1.2, is there? Draft 2.1 I have. Dated 2.12. So what we've done is taken away the life without parole for the first and second degree murder, right? Yep. And kept it for aggravated murder. And to be aggravated murder you have a whole bunch of things that have to be met. Any one of which, right? Okay. We have that list here. We can get that for the committee. Do you want to have a look at that? Yep. The factor is to be aggravated. We do have it here somewhere. It's in one of your drafts. It would probably be helpful to have... Oh yeah, aggravated murder. I'm sorry, yep. It's in my mind, Brent. It's in 1.2. Aggravated murder defined. So what would still be allowed to be charged if the person were convicted of aggravated murder, they would still serve a life sentence? Without parole. So one of the things I wanted to hear was how hard it is to reach these... How high the bar is. Because if we're going to end up with more prosecutors charging aggravated murder because they can reach this... I mean, is that likely to happen where they might not have before? I would like to know how hard it is to get to one of these. Maybe a question would be how rare is it? Well, how rare is it now? But if there is not life without parole for anyone other than aggravated murder, are they more likely to then charge aggravated murder and be able to get to that so that they can get life without parole? I guess that's my question. Does that make sense? Pepper just tried to answer. Well, yeah. I don't know that he's neutral. Department of State, Surgeons, and Chairs, a lot of these aggravating factors are purely factual questions. And so if we're going to bring a charge, we have to have a probable cause for every element of that charge. Eventually we have to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. But we can't charge... A charge won't stick. A judge will dismiss a charge or require us to drop a charge down if we don't have at least probable cause for every element. So if you just take any one of these aggravating factors, the person, the first one, the defendant was in custody under sentence for murder or aggravated murder, we would have to show that the person was actually in custody under DOC's custody and then committed the murder while they were under custody. If we don't have at least probable cause, that the person was in DOC custody. But it's a purely factual question whether the person was in DOC custody. You can put on enough evidence and agreement to say that this person was in DOC custody. And DOC custody includes probation. Yes. So a lot of these things are factual questions. There's one that the victim of the murder was known by the person to be a firefighter. You could put on evidence that the person was a firefighter in their uniform performing their duties and that gives kind of notice that the defendant knew that he was a firefighter. But that is a little bit more nebulous, but as far as probable cause, it's somewhat of a low bar for a state's attorney to put on sufficient evidence to establish probable cause. But that's just the charging element. You know, one reasonable doubt would have to be, you'd have to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction. And it wasn't performing his official duties. So it isn't just that I knew you were a firefighter. You had your uniform on. Yeah, you had your uniform on. You know, a state's attorney would have to show that the person had the uniform on was responding to a call. You know, there's a fire truck there. There was, you know... About the or. The or. This is, I guess, the last part of it. Yeah. I think that's the best wording. But I think that and was performing refers to all of them. The firefighter that was the attention. Yeah. A lot of these, again, are just purely factual. You know, the person was killed multiple people, you know, that as far as charging that, you know, the prosecutor would have to have sufficient evidence to kill his multiple people. But it's not, you know, a probable cause. It's not like there's a lot of wiggle room there, you know, to, if there weren't multiple people, and the prosecutor couldn't charge aggravated murder just to plea it down. If they don't meet these... If they don't have a least probable cause for every felony. What's number four? How do the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to another person? Somebody comes in here and shoots... Me? Well, they shoot me, but they... Do they knowingly... What if they set off a bomb and it kills Alice? Almost kills Joe. Or they come in here and shoot me, but put everybody else here at risk. Because they... I don't think that would do it. No. I think it would have to be that they... They knowingly created a situation, like when a fire or a bomb would reasonably make another person a cop. Okay. Are you guys looking for your... Well, I'm seeing you guys are looking at... Two, just to get a list. We're just looking at... Well, I'm looking at the elements of aggravated murder. That's what we're trying to do. And I don't think you can forecast the behavior of... My guess is based on this drop hole that we get no bill that we don't have aggravated murder. Because I feel like I need to keep that alive to vote for it. Now, it doesn't mean that we get to the floor and I get rolled by an amendment. I just think, you know, given the testimony and all, we've heard from the victim, the state's attorney, and getting a police association for the person who was guided. I... Bryn does... Now, I've got to go back to the bill and I'll just put that in the middle of something else. Does the amendment in D on page 5 of draft 2.1, does that assure that... Yeah, we've got to get the words right here. This is Skyler texted me before the vote tomorrow. Can we get clarification from what council or whether or not the bill allows for de facto life without parole? Meaning... Well, I'll say you have a first-degree murder. It's not eligible for life without parole, but can they put on such conditions that it's de facto? Well, I think that the language in D applies only to the people who were 25 years of age or younger when they committed the offense or offenses. So that aggregate minimum to be served shall not exceed 35 years, that only applies to those people. So there are situations where if a person has received multiple sentences for multiple times and those sentences aren't posed consecutively, then a person could be in prison sort of de facto life without parole. Wasn't there... Am I... Am I going to bring wrong? I thought there was a place earlier in the draft where it talked about concurrent... Yeah, so this is the section... This is the section two with the consecutive sentences. Right. Provides that one with those sentences either consecutively or... And so the... It's far about it's only 4 minutes and 20 seconds. That's right. How often do they impose consecutive sessions? Consequent sentences. Consequent sentences. That's not... Really rare, isn't it? It would be... I mean, for instance, the wrong-way driver on 89, he got concurrent sentences for the four workers. Concurrent, not concurrent. I mean, it's really dependent on the judge. For lesser crimes where a state's attorney might be seeking, you know, might be seeking some additional supervision, you know, pre-approved furlough, and there's two misdemeanor charges, you know, the judge might send some concurrently so that he can extend beyond the two years, particularly for the supervision aspect. But it's really dependent on the judge. I see. The one thing, you know, nothing to do with murder is possible to get a life sentence. Take Madoff, for example. You know, with a series of consecutive sentences, I think he's got 400 years, which is certainly the fact of life, and that isn't even a murder case. It's just the crime... I felt them so egregious. Well, again, I would go back to... I don't know how you prevent that unless you prevent it through a state law. Well, what we've got now in terms of page five, I mean, to me, that's recognizing that you're at a young age, and you're going to serve 35 years, and that should be the maximum. So I would be for just having it that way for everybody, because otherwise you do have the possibility that a given judge decides to have the sentences run consecutively, and then, in effect, you're creating... just for murder or for everything? I'm thinking of Bernie Madoff. If we make this just for murder, you could have somebody who... Well, life without parole is what I'm... I understand what you're getting at, but I'm wondering how we encompass everything. Well, D is speaking to... is D just for... D just for not murdering. Any... Yeah, so it's everything. And I guess... I'm going out again from the perspective of if we're trying to get rid of life without parole, or de facto life without parole, then I would prefer that the draft didn't set up other ways to get there, and it seems like the aggravated is one, and I understand the dynamics around that. This seems to be another where we're... we're moving the possibility of life without parole for younger offenders, but leaving it in place if somebody's 30, that's it. The other thing, just to muddy the water stone for you, my memory is that the last time we discussed this, you indicated that... I'm not sure if you were talking about the committee or yourself, but you said there might be some flexibility in the numbers, assuming we kept aggravated. I don't know if you'd like to pick that up. I don't remember that. What do you mean the numbers? The number of orders. I took it to be the minimum, the 35. Yeah, and frankly, I... I think we better arrange for testimony on this. I don't think we should do this. I mean, I don't want to have us at... Last year, you're going to see an amendment to the S-338. Last year, when we passed the escape thing for people on furlough, still my recollection that we did not agree that any escape from furlough couldn't be prosecuted as an escape. I think we were under the impression that if it was an intentional act that it didn't intend to come back, but after the Wheelock case, the Department of Corrections said, oh, no, you can't charge anybody for the escape. So I don't want to have unintended consequences. I thought it was at the discretion of the commissioner. I did too, but evidently, they're not reading it that way. So we'll have... We can talk about that later, but I just don't want unintended consequences of a decision like this. That would, for example, if you had somebody 35 who had a series of egregious things. I can't... The only thing I can think of is Madoff. Hopefully, he would never be in Vermont to be tried by a Vermont court, but I think it's perfectly appropriate all the damage that he caused that he spent the rest of his life behind bars. And that's not a murder, but that's just me. Well, and again, to go back to what we said many times, like, getting rid of life without parole doesn't put Madoff on the street. It just gives him a chance to make his case. I understand. Oh. And he is trying to get out. Yeah, I was trying to get out. Well, I know, but... We were using him as an example. I guess I would argue that he can come under the provision and that's under the compassionate release provision, and that's going to be 38. A donation to the Trump campaign. He could get out. Yeah, he could just... Did you actually see that he pardoned somebody that made a donation to him? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he pardoned. Nobody without any money gets pardoned. Well, I don't know about Baboonovich. Baboonovich. I guess he liked his hair or something. Right, he liked his hair. The former governor of Illinois that he pardoned. But you know what that's about? Yeah. It's because it was an Obama's sentencing that he was selling. Right, exactly. So it's all about Obama. Yeah, I don't know about middle school. Anyways. So do you have an amendment that you'd like to offer and then we could ask Pepper, Matt and victims and others to testify on? So my amendment would be twofold. It would be to make D on page five apply to without age restriction. So that sentences would need to run concurrently and you'd have to hit them, the minimum, but then not beyond the minimum. They could run consecutively, but not over that... Minimum. Minimum, over that 35 years. Right, so you could have two years, two years, two years, that would be fine. But you couldn't have a 20 year, a 20 year, a 20 year. I see, yeah. And then the other would be to change the minimum from 35 to a lower number. We need to know the number, I think. Let's say 30. 30. You write that amendment and then we get it out to people and schedule it. Do we have any time open this week? This week. Was that clear for you? Yeah. 10.30 to 11.30 on Friday. To tomorrow? Oh. I mean this Friday? Yeah, I believe so. That sounds good to me. No, Senator Bruth and Senator Benning will not be here. Thursday and Friday. This Thursday and Friday? Yeah. Tomorrow. We'll be here Thursday because I told them we're not coming to Hill Crows. Oh, good. You'll be here, but he won't be here Friday. I won't be here Friday. Bruth or Benning, not here on Friday. Bruth, not here Thursday. I think we need to schedule an after-town meeting. We'll be here next week, too. But they're not here on that Friday either. No, no, no. No, no, no. This week. They're not here tomorrow. Tomorrow and Friday. I am not here next Friday. Oh, next Friday? I am here. You're Friday the 27th. You're here? Oh, okay. I misunderstood that. All right. So, well, we may have time next. The Friday the 28th we have, we're open. Okay. Well, let's actually schedule that. Joe won't be here Friday the 28th. Joe won't be here Friday the 28th. The next two Fridays, Joe won't be here. If need be, would you be able to call in on a vote? I'm going to say this. I might not want to be here. No, I do. I'm sort of locked into a no position on this. I know. But I want you to. Well, vote. You can't call in on a vote. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. You can only vote if you're in the building. It's a full-skilled jury trial and aggravated with weapons, like after murder, the next one down the line. All right. Well, that's fine. I mean, that's fine, Joe. We could be 3-1-1. We could be, I could leave. That's wrong. That's wrong. Okay. All right. We'll try to fit something in. Bryn will get an amendment around it. We don't have to kill it right now. Do you want to move this to friendly and squeeze it in there? I'm tasting. Yeah. That's a great idea. If she's available. Okay. Let me check. Pretend that Tuesday at 11, you like to do this? Yeah. But check with Rebecca. Rebecca to make sure she's available tomorrow morning on that bill. I mean Friday morning on that bill. It's next Friday, so I bet she is. That's Friday. Wait a minute. You've got me all week from Friday. No, I don't want to schedule anything a week from Friday. The Friday that Friday, I don't want to schedule anything yet but that's our last day before we leave on town meeting break and I want to make sure that we get certain bills out. The expungement, we may need time to finish our work on the expungement bill that day. Okay. So leave as is. Leave as is. If we have to, we'll deal with this bill when we come back. I thought we were doing this one Tuesday anyway. It's coming Tuesday. No, because I thought Peggy was moving her this Friday on that other bill. The non-current universal bill is going to end up in appropriations anyway. Oh, I could try that, Senator Sears. I could try and move 205 to this Friday. Yeah, that's what I thought you meant. And then move this Friday to Tuesday. This must be exciting watching for Oracle by the way. I'm sure that they're just overjoyed at watching this thing. I don't know. Well, it does give people a sense of how complicated it is to try and schedule. Yeah. Yeah. It is complex. It's gotten worse. I mean, back when I was just... Well, this committee does move more bills than those committees. That's true. Okay. So we'll find a different time. Brennan will send around a copy to the introduction parties and let them comment on that and then take testimony on it. Well, Senator Sears has a reputation for being one of the most productive legislators in the country. When did you earn that award? Yeah. Number six. Number six for the bowl. Number six. You're number six in the country for getting bills out? Yeah. Most productive state-centered country. Most effective. Is there a list for those who introduced the most bills? No. Just throw it out. Well, it's introducing bills of consequence having the past. There's an algorithm that they use nationwide. I came in number six in the All-State Center because I maintained it, but it wasn't for Ann Pugh. I've been number five. I'm getting the past artery to be Allison Clarks and she's on a million bills. Yeah. Well, it's getting bills of consequence. Yeah. And then it's getting past the law. I think they feel bad. You know, as chair of a committee, I've only got like two or three bills on the law in comparison. That's all you've got. I can't look at it. Muzzle only has one bill. Yeah. It's you. Well, actually, he has two, but he won't get any through. Oh, the other one. Just so you know, on the floor, if this gets to the floor, I'm going to be a no-vote. I'm not going to make any speeches. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Go on. We've got a short break because we're waiting for 234. Oh, do we have time to just run down to the other committee and grab something? Yes. Hi, Eric. Thank you for being here, Eric. Absolutely. Happy to be here. All right. Do you have any amendment regarding, I don't know if I'd like to reinstate the fee all the day? The lack of a better term right now, maybe somebody can suggest a better term. This amendment was proposed establishing a month. This amendment was established from September 1. Did you change the amendment after you had the conversation? No. I think we said let's hold off on it for now and then see kind of where that should allow people to hold on to it. Oh, does everybody have it? No? Does everybody have it? Yeah. Mike talked about these like this. What folder is it? What folder? 6.1. What's the number? It's S234. It should be a virgin 2.1. I don't have 2.1. This only can I have. Judiciary procedures. Is this what you're talking about? I don't think it's in the folder. Yes. What's the number? Is that it? Section 29. Is this it? Or? 100%. Oh, judiciary procedures. Wait a minute. There's two papers actually different. I think. Is that it? Yeah, that's something else. I only have one point one. I do too. This one, I guess. I don't know where this piece of paper came from. Is that what you're looking at? Correct. Okay. Oh, okay. But that does appear to be, yes, that is the language to look at. Okay. It is a good question. I don't know the answer to that one. Thank you. Thank you. Did I miss something? Oh, we just wondered where this came from. I'm assuming you came from there. You do have a meeting. Do you have another one, Peggy? I gave it to Eric. I don't think she has. I don't need one. It's the same language that's actually in the, in the, there I have it. Well, so either way, yes, that language is. Yeah. Whatever that. Okay. Let's go over this. Let's stop the administrative. This is the same thing that happened with the language. It seems like we're lack of thinking. Right, right. So what's the graph number? Just let's look at this for now. Alex, I'm just looking at this. Yep, looking. Okay. Yep. So this is a substantially similar as to what you said. You say Center Tears was in version 1.1. The dates are the same for the moment, but it does established, for lack of a better term at the moment, a reinstatement fee holiday program. So during that one month period, which of course is open to amendments, but for now it's September of 2020. And during that period, it permits a person to apply to the judicial bureau for reinstatement of their license that's been suspended for a traffic violation. And if they apply during that 30 day window during that one month period, then all fees associated with reinstatement are to be waived, shall be waived. You see that in subsection C, middle line. All fees associated with reinstatement shall be waived. And that gives some illustrative language in the next sentence. Fees to be waived include DMV reinstatement fee, any fees imposed by the judicial bureau for failure to answer the complaint or pay fees, and any surcharges imposed by the court. So you have this one month period during which you can apply for reinstatement. If you've been suspended as a result of a traffic violation, you can get your license reinstated without paying any of these fees that would ordinarily apply. Now, look at subsection D under the proposal. There is still a $10 fine associated with getting your license reinstated. So all the other fees are waived, but there is a $10 fee that is in connection with that. And my understanding is in the witnesses can probably testify, but it's similar to the way when this was done in Chittenden County, there's at least a nominal fee associated with it to cover any administrative costs that may be involved. I thought the court said that it would cost some more to administer this than the $10 that they'd be getting, and that it was ridiculous to have it there. I might be putting words in the court's mouth. No, they didn't say that. Oh, there you are. I think that's what I heard. And the last piece is an education notification piece. The idea here is obviously you want people to know about this program so that they can go participate in it. So it requires the AG and the Sheriff's Attorney and DMV to work cooperatively to notify and educate the public about the availability of the program. And this has to encourage applicants to check DMV records to make sure that the application for reinstatement covers each of the tickets that are associated with the person's operator's license. How do they do that? I'd have to check the DMV on that. I'm going to call it right now and get my DMV record checked. It seems like there might be a lot more to that than just saying they can check it. So that's the proposal. I wish that it said, except for Section D as they start reading C because somebody might read that and they're not going to read any farther. It's further. Where it says there are absolutely no fees and then there is a fee. Well, there still is in here. I know. But right now, as this is written and as it is, I think that you'd stop there and say, great, and then it turns out there is a fee. Yeah, I think we should, I'm going to judge Gerson on that. Get rid of that $10. Well, I think we should probably listen to the testing order before we... Yeah. There evidently is some opposition to this idea. To which idea? To which idea? The $10? The whole thing? The whole thing. Oh, the whole thing, yeah. Where is that from? We'll hear. All right. Thank you, Eric. Sure. Greg Mosley, Chief Finance of the Administration and the Model Ministry. Hello, Senator. The e-mail here from you that I just told you about how you're testing on that. And I have some extra hard copies of that memo if you'd like to have the hard copies now. Probably would. You don't have to do it. All of them and then I have the original for the staff. So my name is Greg Mosley. I'm the Chief of Finance Administration for the Judiciary. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Senate Bill 234 and the amendment this time. We need one more. I'll use the original. Then I'll get it to you afterwards. Okay. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about S234 and to relay some of our thoughts about this bill, in particular the amendment around the fee holiday. We have a number of concerns about how that would be arranged. The biggest one being that we have 15,000 people who are currently in payment plans. And so their licenses are not suspended. And by definition they would not be eligible for this fee holiday. And it would create a disincentive for people to comply with the tickets in the DMV process. We also note that there are fees that would need to be, that would be foregone revenue. And it impacts the judiciary along with a number of other agencies that receive the money from these different collections. So the judiciary collects a $12.50 per case administrative fee along with some late fees called failure to pay, failure to answer. It's essentially different versions of late fees. So per case it would be about $62.50 in foregone revenue for the court technology fund. But in addition to that there are other funds that get some of this revenue, which include the transportation fund, the municipalities where the tickets are written, the victim compensation fund, the domestic and sexual assault fund, and the general fund as well. So we haven't done a complete estimate on exactly how much revenue this would be. It would be based on how many people apply, of course. The other thing to mention is that the judicial bureau no longer has the accurate record of how many licenses are in suspense. DMV has that. Our records don't match. They're off by well over 100,000 different cases. And that's mainly because in 2016, an act kind of decoupled our two systems and people could reinstate their license without paying the underlying violations, which meant that DMV would reinstate the license. That information wouldn't get to the judicial bureau and we would just show that that person's license is still in suspense. So the application probably should not come to us because we don't know who's eligible and who's not. DMV has that information. What we have is the number of tickets per person. So in this amendment, it says the applications go to the judicial bureau and that people are encouraged to call the DMV to find out how many tickets they have. Those roles really should be reversed. We can't reinstate licenses because we don't have the accurate list of who's in suspense, but we do have the number of tickets that are still outstanding. We also found in the driver's license restoration program in 2016 that of the applications we received, only about half actually paid the fee. So the payment of a $10 fee creates a lot of complexity in administering this program. We will have people who apply who then don't pay the fee. And what do we do with those folks? We also need to know where that $10 goes to. Does it go to the DMV? Or does it go to the judicial bureau? Or does it go to some selection of other funds that would be negatively impacted by this fee holiday? In 2016, only about 4% of the eligible cases actually applied for that waiver. So right now I understand that the number of licenses that are suspended is about 55,000. And I don't know exactly what percentage of folks would actually take advantage of this fee holiday, but it's likely to be a single-digit percentage of that number. The application process would have to be well-defined, who's receiving the applications, what information is necessary. The $10 fee, there was mention made of Judge Gerson's comments. The $10 fee would not even come close to covering the costs for the state's attorney and sheriff's departments for the marketing of the DMV or the judicial bureau for the processing and the waiving of the debts. And I think those are major concerns with how this program would be implemented. We'll go back to the communication between DMV and the judicial bureau. So you really don't know. Our records show that we have 155,000 suspended licenses. DMV shows 55,000. I'm looking at a DMV report that shows 95,285 individuals and 49,000 of whom have been addressing for months. I can't speak to them. I don't know where the 155 comes from on Road 55. That's whatever the date was that they looked at that in January 2nd. But we were, maybe this isn't a great idea, but the two things that are holding up, many of these is the ability to, when somebody goes through the diversion program and they set up a payment plan, who's the payment to? The judicial bureau. The judicial bureau. So do you have the ability to waive the reinstatement fee for them? No. The ability to waive surcharges. Yes. The reinstatement fee is a DMV fee. So we don't have any authority on that fee or where the money goes. So when somebody goes through the diversion program, they set up their own payment plan and they still can drive? Yes. What kind of insurance do they have to get? I'm not sure if an SR-22. You have to get the SR-22 and drive. It depends on what the violation is for. I think if it's just for not paying fines, it doesn't have to be a SR-22. Not necessarily an SR-22's request. Maybe a holiday isn't the best idea, but what we're trying to do is get the number of 49,000 reduced. And I don't know what the best idea is to get there. What I'm hearing here from you is that to be somewhat unfair, people that are making, set up a payment plan a holiday for people who have not made any effort to get rid of their suspension. That is our concern, yes. I'll tell you one thing we could do to promote people doing this. You know, I went to, had to go to the Department of Labor and Vogue Rehab are both in the same place in Brattleboro. And I went over there and was talking to them. The people that work for our own state government don't even know about the diversion program and the fact that they can set it up. There wasn't one person at DOL or Vogue Rehab that knew about the program and how they could do it. So if we just worked with our own employees to get, because a lot of the people that they're working with at Vogue Rehab fall into this situation and they didn't even know anything about it. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can educate people around the diversion program that they can apply for the diversion program. Anyway, I was just appalled that, so I'm going to one of their staff meetings to talk to them about it because... And the same with economic services. Somebody with the fines can just walk into diversion instead of paying for it. So the payment plans that we set up at the judicial bureau aren't necessarily the diversion program. Right, but the diversion program is... Yes, people apply to the diversion program and they go in and they set up a... I mean, they don't have to be involved in the diversion program to be the client. No, no. They have a separate person in our diversion program anyway that handles this and that doesn't. But our state employees don't even know I have a number of people who work for a particular employer down there who she got very excited to punt this because a number of her employees were in a position to not be able to drive or they were driving, taking a chance. They set them up and it's... So we should educate our own state employees about it. One other thing that I should have mentioned was that we do have partial payments so a lot of these people that have suspended licenses may be eligible for this program may have partially paid or we may have received a tax offset. And so it would be important that this bill not require that all fees be reversed because that would set up a situation where we're refunding money. What we prefer then is that balances be adjusted to zero. Any other questions for Greg? Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. We're happy to answer more questions as they come up. There may be after Dave testified or after Dave did. Thank you very much. Good morning. We have... Pardon me? Oh, I'm sorry. Dave Evans, Chief of Driver Improvement and Department of Motor Vehicles. We have approximately 55,000 people right now that are under suspension in Vermont for failure to pay fines. That number is fluid. As... If I were to run the number this morning before I came over, it would have changed by now with people going under suspension, people reinstating, but 55,000. The department supports this initiative. We feel it's important to get people back able to drive legally. The implications this has on our department is the waiver of the read statement fee. It doesn't create, although it will create a bubble of more work over the long haul, it doesn't create more work because we would be reinstating people... We reinstate people on a daily basis. So, for a very short period of time, while this is going on, we could see... The numbers from the last time we did this didn't show a great impact. If I remember correctly, we had lists, and I think the highest day was 32 people were reinstated through this holiday. As few as five people some days. So it's not a great impact in that on the department other than, you know, there would be a little bit more coming in. I can't tell you lost revenue because, again, we don't know how many people are going to take part in this. We'd be able to tell it afterwards after the fact, but I don't think that it would be that high. I know that one of the concerns we heard the last time we did this, when they were requiring a payment of $30 per ticket to reinstate was that people couldn't afford it. You're dealing with people that can't pay tickets, don't have a lot of resources, and if they have 10 tickets that are unpaid at $30 ticket, that's $300 they need to come up with. I think the $10 fee is much more realistic, allowing those people who are vulnerable within our society to be able to pay off their tickets and become reinstate. When someone dies, do you get a notice that they're dead and they should no longer have a valid license, or are some of these people who are dead and you just don't know about them? They may well be. We don't get a notice. Many times a family will return mail to us indicating that the person has passed away or when their assets are dispersed, will receive a copy of a death certificate to transfer a title. In that case, we would put that into our record, but the Department of Health does not notify us. Do people get that their license has been suspended? They receive a letter. One? Typically, yes. Do you send out a letter to individuals if their license has been suspended in another state? We do. And they would get that notice from our Department of Health. We would. We have reciprocal agreements with other states. If I owed... I don't know if any of these didn't apply. On the day that the report was done, it was 49,000 from honors. Are any of them just because of an out-of-state? No, it wouldn't appear as an FAAF suspension. Okay, so there may be, in fact, people whose licenses have been suspended by New Hampshire, who would have to pay New Hampshire. Yes, that would be totally separate. These are just the number of people that's on the report that we gave you. Are just people that are under suspension from not paying Vermont tickets. Okay. So people should know that their license has been suspended. They should. Do you report this to insurance agencies, or are they just looking on your database? They're looking on the database. Do you have a separate data breakdown for notices that you send out that come back to you as undeliverable? We save those. We image them when they come back. Do you know how many there are in comparison to that 50,000? I up top, I couldn't tell you. I know there's a number every day. People don't update their address with the Department, but people will mail a suspension notice to a previous address, and it'll be returned to us. There are other situations. The only reason I ask this is I've got a client currently who has in an abusive relationship left that relationship that was living in a hotel in the interim. You shot yourself on some traffic violations. You wanted to be wondering what happened because she claimed that they never got notice of her license being suspended. Right. What we would do is if we were provided with information after the fact, we would mail a notice to the new address of record. But if she hadn't given you that address, it would have gone to the last known address which would have been the place where... That's correct. It would be interesting to see how you got that data available, what the number is in comparison to 50,000 people I can certainly try and get that number for you. Is there any follow-up at all to try to find an updated address? If we have it available, for example, if it's a DUI, and this is the one thing that comes to my mind immediately, and we use the address of record, we will research that if it's returned to see if there's a different address on the application or on the paperwork from the DUI, if there is, we'll mail it to that address. Many times, that's the case. Follow-up to Jill's question, is your database accessible to the public? No. Just insurance industries. Yeah. I hope they're paying for it. They are. Absolutely. Other questions? The proposal here is for the month of September. I'm curious if that would have an impact on I believe it's October 1st that you have to you have to have in order to fly to get confused. Real ID? You have to have a real ID to fly and that's the one with the little spiral. Yes. So, should it be in August? If that's a concern and I can see where that would be a concern then I would agree with you, September probably would not be the best month. Allowing someone to reinstate and then allowing them two weeks to get a get a license. Other questions for David? Thank you. Absolutely. We have a number of people in our information unit that specialize in driving we have people call every day. What do I need to reinstate my license? Do I have any outstanding tickets? That type of question is there able to get that information off the phone. Thank you Senator David share with the Attorney General's office. As the committee knows we certainly support the concept behind this bill and I think one, thinking out loud here a little bit in terms of how to move forward one thing we might want to think about is actually being a little bit less proscriptive in the statute and allowing for the administrative entities to work out exactly how this is going to happen and a second issue that I heard about today which I think is a reasonable one is with respect to the folks with payment plans essentially getting punished if you will for doing the right thing I think that's a reasonable point and I think that one thing we could do is make it easier for folks on payment plans to get out from under that as well for the sake of fairness I realize we're sort of pushing everybody into the category of getting a really good deal but if the point is to make sure that we are reinstating as many people as possible that may be a reasonable policy outcome and certainly I think one that we would support the final thing that I would bring up and I believe Judge Grierson mentioned something about this last time was the idea of essentially taking out a lot of the process and this would have to be something that the court staff would weigh in on not even having a fee at all and doing a sort of large scale we know what the list is let's not require people to come back and affirmatively ask for the reinstatement and instead just do a sort of blanket reinstatement for people who meet a certain set of qualifications that would obviously be a much more dramatic thing and may have some pushback but that is an option I think even though it's more dramatic it may actually be a little bit simpler but for the sake of moving forward it may be easier to have less detail in this have a sort of range of dates and a goal and let administrative agencies work through some of the details that were discussed today and I'm happy to continue to be a facilitator on this and trying to get this what if what if everything went through the diversion board and people went to the diversion board to make recommendations and then there are people who are on payment plans let's say I've owed $800 I don't by the way my license that's my I owe $800 I go to the I have to go to the local diversion board they make a recommendation to the judicial bureau that we this this and this because of their financial situation that would allow people who are already in a payment plan to not be treated unfairly and it would be less bureaucratic because they already know the source of where they have to go so if everything went through the local diversion board you have to create a bubble for them but it's a month where they can determine you know a guy drove up here in a Cadillac and his wife drove to Cadillac and he got out of the car maybe he doesn't need it as bad as a guy who's riding a bicycle because he doesn't have a license I don't know that's just up top of my head that everything goes through the diversion that way they already know who's in their program and who deserves to have a filter because I don't want to see I hate to see I didn't think about that so Greg testified that it is kind of unfair to those people that are currently in a payment plan would that be too bureaucratic could you check with your diversion I can certainly check with the program one thing that pops to mind immediately is that not everybody who's on a payment payment plan will have come through the diversion program so it's not as though that's sort of an obvious right people can figure people can do it on their own if they by just calling and working it out with the bureau and do they get to keep their license during the period of time they're current on their contract so it's the same thing except going through you instead of diversion maybe we should be giving them the ability to waive I mean that is actually one simple fix that I believe was asked for already is right now they're not even allowed to waive that reinstatement fee and I think that's the current proposal is basic fix I think that's what I heard is that this language in the miscellaneous motor vehicle that allows waiver of advancing it had been in law and that it was refueled for some reason we don't know why and we realize that about six months ago I've been working to train to take care of it well so that's one fix that hopefully we'll move forward regardless I think I'll check with the diversion folks and see what kind of workload they would anticipate for that again I don't think that that would actually get the full group here because at least some folks are not going through well diversion then they have that option judicial bureau yeah I mean we say if you want to you know see if you can you know just be fair to allow everybody to seems to me am I making sense I don't know I'm really thinking I'll stop my head and hear how to get it done doesn't solve the out-of-state problem and I'm not sure where you can do that do any of you have that do any of them pay off you can't unsuspend a suspended license no we can't if they pay we would take their payment and notify Vermont and Vermont DNB notifies the out-of-state agency but they could be on a payment plan or an out-of-state ticket a Vermont ticket you mean an out-of-state or no Vermont a Vermont somebody who has a Vermont license has been suspended because of violations that had New Hampshire I keep using New Hampshire because that's where that word acts and it happens because Massachusetts DNB didn't notify somebody somebody could work a payment plan out but you couldn't not just we don't take payments for out-of-state tickets we only take payments for Vermont tickets so a person sends a ticket directly to wherever in the hands of the or whatever and then they notify Vermont by completely confusion I can I will take it as my next step unless there's other recommendations to get back together with the main folks here and see if a solution may be to actually be a little bit less and for the out-of-state piece I'm not sure how much we can control that I think the best we can do is let people know but they have that issue that this was happening I don't have that I'll stop my head but I could probably find it for you I would I would guess when you said not a mass mailing it was probably 10 or 15 cents how would people know who only reads Facebook you know they never read I mean a lot of people don't read newspapers all their news comes off of Facebook as we know some of it's not true I saw an awful post about Phil Moore that I knew it wasn't true I didn't try it only one? no actually a good example is actually a good example is yesterday there was an incident in a house committee room where a particular house member went off against an advocate who was in the room and yet because the woman has a good relationship with Senator Ash she posted it as she was with Senator Ash so it looks like Ash was in the room with her when this committee member from the house showed them a name if you look at Facebook you can see that this was about cats skinning cats skinning cats well I didn't mean to get into on the records you know on the record you've been not taking the power to do it I went a little bit overboard at any rate Ash wasn't there but he's tagged in the Facebook post so it looks like he was there nobody will be correcting that I guess that's where Mark says no no I'm not correcting anything like that it's political so can we check on those three things and get back to this in a week yeah try to fill some time in that Friday the 28th is there a fiscal gratification for the DMV if you took David's suggestion of a carte blanche forgiveness for all ten times everybody I know there's one for the judicial bureau but I don't know the single digits who took them up on originally so if you just automatically did them it seems like it wouldn't have to be by a factor it's certainly more than where you had to travel to be a part of it for those locations but I mean the whole list dead people have feelings too careful that would be quite a number of dead people at least who are on the list people who are on the list that don't know who are on the list that's part of the problem I'm not sure if you kind of suspended license you know well if you move this woman in my case oh because of the address which is another issue of this bill while David was discussing and that and while you know the representative of the Governor General was here in that state Eric would you just briefly describe it but it has to do with person under 16 in possession of Maryland I think it's the issue of that the Attorney General was asking to make consistent the treatment of minors with respect to possession of all beverages and with respect to possession of marijuana and when you made it the existing law as well as a little technical amendment that you have in the version of 234 that you've been looking at makes clear that for age 60 I think it's under 60 because the language is a little unclear under 16 who's charged with possession of all beverages would go to would be a juvenile offense whereas between 16 and 21 I believe it is it would be a civil so proposal to think about is should that I guess in the first instance it's the marijuana possession should that track that because right now it's always for a person under 21 the question is do you also want to have a similar structure so that for under 16 it wouldn't be a civil violation it would be a juvenile offense I think the policy is to think about as to whether it should be one of the other really have to do with I think the AG would be able to explain this more clearly but having to do with the person's criminal record what sort of record you would have whether or not it's preferable to have on your record as opposed to an adjudication of a juvenile offense that's kind of the nature of the decision should those under 16s continue to be civil tickets in the judicial bureau or should it be a juvenile offense decision in the nutshell how long does a civil ticket hang around in terms of your record for under 16 excellent that people can answer that so we have no statute of limitations we generally don't have any process of waving or eliminating old debt with one big exception in 2016 there was a bill that eliminated civil violations that were 1990 older than 1990 so at that time they were about 25 years old but as far as the question about the debt the debt they don't simply go away if you're under 16 right now they just go to the one track of diversion first they don't even come to the judicial bureau that's civil violation civil violation for them they go to diversion they have 15 days to meet with diversion and come up with a plan or if they don't merge and file the ticket with the judicial bureau what committee is that how did juvenile get in there then why didn't she stop it with chair sorry so how did it get mixed up with juvenile you know it's a civil ticket what's the difference what choice did it get referred to in juvenile right now they don't they both know that they do but I think a couple of years ago under 16s did go to juvenile seeing that it was changed during the decriminalization bill I believe and I think the thought had been at the time that making that change sending all of them to the judicial bureau assuming they don't successfully complete the version for 16 year olds I think the thought had been at the time that that would be better for the young person in terms of their record I think now that there may be some other thinking on that now maybe that isn't the best thing for the person to record in this what are the issues before you oh anyway that's the other outstanding issue on this bill it's how we deal with that we do it now with alcohol they go into the juvenile system so have you the important thing to be understanding what are the consequences of being that do you want me to I can just speak to that really briefly for the record David shared with the attorney general's office so the Eric's right the thinking is to mirror the two and the policy impact is that some percentage of people even if they're sent to diversion don't get it done and they end up with a ticket on that record and especially with marijuana tickets and those are not expungible especially with marijuana tickets those do have serious collateral consequences for young people down the road and one area we hear about in particular is with attempting to enlist still a federal crime consumption or possession of marijuana so with the delinquency the advantage that the delinquency gives is that it has much better confidentiality protections if the person messes up and doesn't do the stuff on time they're still in the juvenile court world and it's not going to get out of that world there isn't going to be a public notation on this they'll be sent back to diversion here you'll do this or worst case scenario they may be proceed through some sort of adjudication in juvenile court although that's very unlikely so it is a significant advantage to people in maintaining confidentiality especially for young people who don't always follow deadlines as well as they should and so the idea is to return that advantage to them that they had previously and we believe was sort of accidentally taken out because people thought that was the more progressive thing to do but in fact it was removing a confidentiality screen that was really important and as a matter of sort of workflow the same people are going to deal with it it's going to be kicked over to the diversion staff to deal with it it's changing workflow all that much but it's just giving back this confidentiality protection we're going to break until 1030 and thank you very much David so when we come back to this we'll look at some different ways to deal with the suspension issue as well as they do now delinquency statutes or marijuana possession so no next time I take this bill out thank you thank you thank you thank you being so patient waiting for us to get together well I appreciate the time I know you have a lot on your plate we do this here so I thought what I would do is just talk about the origin of the bill tell you why I was interested in introducing it and then Becky Wasserman and Aaron Jacobson and I have talked quite a bit about it so Becky can take you through all the bits but I'll just say that I met Aaron Jacobson at a meeting this fall concerning various access to justice issues and Jacobson is the lead project attorney and project coordinator of the South Royalton Law Clinics Vermont Immigration Assistance Project we got to talking about what were relatively simple and straightforward pieces of legislation that could really help juvenile immigrants in Vermont one's legislation that would not we don't think take a very heavy lift and wouldn't get bogged down but could make a really clear positive difference in the lives of immigrant juveniles and their ability to seek relief and protection from the courts so it's a narrow bill for immigrant kids who have been abused neglected or abandoned because these kids are essentially an illegal no man's land their parents can't take care of them and they can't go back to their home countries so the main thrust of the bill and again I'm going to defer to the lawyer in the room Becky but as I understand it the main thrust of the bill is really to codify and statute a decision that was handed down by the Vermont Supreme Court last summer which was Kitoko versus Salomo I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right which was a unanimous decision by the court about special status so courts have the ability to issue special findings as they relate to juvenile special immigration status and they have the authority and the charge to ensure the best interests of children in Vermont whether they're immigrants or whether they're native born and Aaron Jacobson has personally dealt with about 10 of these cases in the past year and I spoke with her again this morning and she said more and more cases are coming to the clinic every month so really the main thrust of the bill is to clarify the law on how juvenile immigrants can get relief and protection and it's a rather small but important step in protecting these immigrant juveniles through giving special status in the courts so that's just wanted to frame it for you in that way I know that Sorraking is desperate to have me get back to committee so I will certainly answer any questions you have but Becky really is the legal expert on this and just really appreciate the time she is happy to come and testify and she has a list of people she can be our point of contact on this does that work or how best to do this absolutely who would oppose it she didn't think anyone would because at least this provision of the bill there are several provisions and one deals with including immigrant status in protection of hate crime legislation essentially so that piece may be more controversial but in terms of the two pieces that are dealing with special immigration status she didn't think anyone would because these cases are already coming they already have a decision from the Supreme Court saying that there is a legal path so she is an optimist by nature as I am so it's important I will ask her those questions again of who needs to be heard on the other side so yes our Supreme Court our Supreme Court not federal Supreme Court again thank you so much really appreciate it Becky take it away and I will circle back with you later thank you so Becky washerman it's important I had a toilet leak any other week toilets need to work so Becky Wasserman legislative council so this bill is relating to the special immigration juvenile status and just as an overview this is sort of a form of protection under federal law that's given to immigrant children that are there has to be some criteria but they would be under the jurisdiction of a state juvenile court they can't be reunified with one or both of their parents due to abuse, abandonment or neglect and then there's other criteria such as it has been the best interest of the child and that they are found to not be able to go home to their country adoption is one of the ways that you can be sort of subject to the state juvenile court system and be eligible for it a family that works out and they adopt them or are they given the state's custody if they are under the federal law says that they have to be under the jurisdiction of juvenile court that's defined as a court located in the U.S. having jurisdiction under state law to make judicial determinations about the custody and care of juveniles so in our state that could either be probate division or family division because you can have children under guardianship I'm confused about the immigration status because my understanding was if you adopt if you're my next door neighbor adopted one from Haiti one from Miami both persons of color and the one from Haiti my understanding is adopted by this couple so I don't so who are I keep to say who are these people but who are the kids who are still immigrants but have not received I would assume that once you're adopted by a U.S. couple you are down in America I don't think automatically I have to go through so the child from Haiti would need to go through it depends you know were they adopted in Haiti or were they adopted when they got here so it's different with different countries and I haven't done this working quite a while but it used to be that you would file for citizenship for your child for your adopted child and then you go through so it's not like you had it's sort of weird it isn't automatic when you adopt somebody on the day of adoption but if you're a mother who comes to Haiti it gives birth to a child that child was in America but if you're adopting a child they're not in America that's really weird and how about there's another category of children who come to this country to be adopted and then they get kicked out of the adoptive family so they're in custody so does this address them yeah so it's any child that is under the jurisdiction of a juvenile court so in the case of adoption the non-parent caretaker because the court is placing that child under the guardianship they are then under the jurisdiction there's quite a few of them well it depends whether they did go through an adoption within the family that adopted it bothers me well immigration has its own rules which are probably getting tighter and tighter that's weird I can be from Honduras come to Vermont have the child that child is now an American citizen but if I adopt an Honduran child and go through the adoption process that child would have to go through their own process of becoming an American citizen and that has been a second step for them and as I said I haven't been in the business in a while yeah actually I've never dealt with adoption cases for non-U.S. citizens but it's not an automatic that you get U.S. citizenship and this is giving children lawful permanent status through a court in the custody of some agencies yeah so it can be through they have to be sort of a juvenile court system so that can be through foster care, guardianship adoption sure I have an exact example of that a boy who was a very smart kid came from Ethiopia family adopted several children probably too many because a lot of the adoptions didn't work out he came into custody of the department of social services and he then went on and lived in a foster family into college age he went to college he had never been adopted legally by that family even though they brought him in and were living with him and so he had to drop out of college under the federal law because he was not entitled to be there he was a non-citizen and he got kicked out and then his papers were so screwed up that he couldn't just get everything legally to rise above the situation so I think he's still rowing around it's a while since I've seen him maybe okay now but there are a lot of those little issues that are kind of there when Becca was here she said that this woman at the Vermont law school dealt with 10 of them just this year 10 of these situations in Vermont and that they're increasing the number is increasing in other words these are children who were removed from the original family that was intended to adopt them for some reason and we could hear from Aaron, is that her name? Aaron Jacobson it happens a lot the children I brought in with whom they really have been through maybe some terrible experiences impacted for life by someone and then they can't fit into a normal family so so this sort of federal remedy is unique in that in order to file the petition with USCIS you have to have a state court order making these determinations so what this bill is doing is extending the jurisdiction to our state courts that deal with the fall under the federal definition of juvenile court in this situation to allow for them to make these special immigration juvenile status determinations such that a child can file a petition and just before I get to it the law is extended to those who are between 18 and 21 so that is why there's an additional section related to the probate division to allow for guardianship for those over 18 in this specific situation because otherwise children 18 or older would not qualify for guardianship to allow these determinations under current law so that is another change that is being made in this bill yes it's under the immigration nationality act it allows for the special immigration status juvenile status and there are federal regulations that implement that but one of the unique aspects of it is that it actually requires a state court order to be able to file the petition so it allows for it but the state court has to be able to make those determinations we're right now in the categories of sexual orientation gender we're seeing membership in any such group is that based on state law that itself is based on federal so that section of the bill is actually dealing with a separate topic so all the other sections of the bill are dealing with the special immigration juvenile status that section of the bill is extending the protected categories under the hate crime hate motivated crime injunction chapter of law so it's including in the categories of people that are protected immigration status so that is related in the sense that it's dealing with immigration status but it's not actually dealing with the special immigration we do or I say economic development we use to deal with protected categories but it seems like they could be taken up in a number of committees yeah I'm not sure that seems beyond the scope of the development I'm not clear how that's been in there that's the that's in section three of the bill section three yeah so it's adding immigration status to the definition of protection sorry it's on page two starting on line 15 to the definition of protected category in relation to an action for hate motivated crime injunction well they don't want to be here because it's a hate motivated crime but not that I'm saying we're going to do it but just we can take testimony on that too do you want me to start sure so section one is amending the jurisdiction of the family division so it is providing so if you go to line 18 on page one it is providing for concurrent jurisdiction with the probate division to allow for these special immigration judicial determinations regarding the custody and care of children within the meaning of federal law so it's referencing the immigration and nationality act as well as the 8 CFR section 204.11 are the regulations that implement that section of law and it is issued pursuant to 14 BSA chapter 111 sub chapter 14 which is the new the new chapter that's being added in this bill so it's essentially extending jurisdiction to the family division to allow them to make these determinations within the meaning of federal immigration law it's not allowing I mean we the general assembly is able to do that the federal immigration law is saying if you have a state court determination then you can petition for this federal government using this as justification to step in and say we don't like what we are extending the jurisdiction of our state courts on the immigration status which is generally the federal government's prerogative and I want to make sure if we're doing that it doesn't raise the red flag of ICE to come stepping in and say so it's not this isn't making any determination about immigration status that is your correct a federal law issue this is making a determination under state law that the child meets the requirements of being abused, abandoned or neglected and is under the jurisdiction of a state juvenile court at parts of the state this is doing what we are we do right? state courts do have jurisdiction of the kids that's abused so if the child is abused and the black people are delinquent they would go under DCF care anyway so state courts would be so this is just clarifying yeah so as Senator Ballant said this is sort of codifying the case law that says that making it clear that our state courts can make these can issue these specific orders relating to children who might be petitioning for this immigration status that petition still has to go to the federal government and they're the ones who decide on the actual immigration status our state courts are just deciding on whether you know the child abused, abandoned or neglected the child cannot be reunified with one or more parents and the child cannot be sent home to their home country for whatever reasons it has to be found to be in the best interests of the child which is also standard under state law because immigration is allowed to do that yeah I mean in order in order to have this immigration status in the state court order so I guess I'm wondering could we not do all of this with regard to the child without having them have protected status adding them to the protected class that's a different yeah that's a different isn't it that doing that would allow someone who crosses the border illegally abandoned their child so the bill is not related to the to the yeah so section 3 is related to I know but I was wondering okay go ahead I was wondering why do we have to have the immigration status under the protected category it's a two birds with one stone so that could be taken out and wouldn't be a problem right it isn't related I think that's the thing that people would question well that's what Becca said when she was here okay sorry I missed that we could take that now and still have the protection of the children yeah and in answer to the question I guess of can the courts do this I think section 5 which is sorry I'm sorry I'm page 5 section 3099 on line 5 for individuals 18 to 21 years of age I think state law actually does need to be changed to allow for guardianship for the probate division to appoint a guardian for individuals 18 to 21 years of age to allow them to make these findings in connection with those persons because otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to have a guardian appointed under the law can I ask you if the funding is made that the child has special immigration status does that by itself give the state court power to have a guardian appointed so the child would not get that status would not be given that status until the state court order is a prerequisite to having their immigration status established at the federal level so they would in filling out their form so it's not usurping the authority setting up something that's subordinate to that authority but requisite for the application it's a prerequisite for the application it's part of the documentation that they would have to submit to the federal government to make a determination about their immigration status it is not in and of itself making any determination about immigration status but if they're brought into the jurisdiction of the state court they can then use that in the application for their federal designation they have to under the federal law they need that court order and we have a supreme court case we're codifying what they just did saying that the courts can make the special determinations they won't come is it the who's the federal prosecutor they won't come how about nanti maples wafels she's a superior court judge but she was the federal I wonder if she would have some insight I don't know I didn't realize this was going to get this complex as you want to hear from every judge because every time we tried back when we were doing that immigration it was just yes I know but she is a state judge she was a former federal federal prosecutor we could ask Judge Gerson if she couldn't come I think we're over I think so too in your case you were the legal clinic director in your case I just think this is you know this is evidently there's been a court ruling that this is just codifying what the Supreme Court ruled so in sections all except for three right and I guess just to be very clear this isn't usurping federal laws federal law in terms of granting immigration status that at the state level all the court is doing is making factual determinations that a child is eligible for the status under federal law and then it goes to USCIS for them to determine that they actually qualify for this immigration status I really understand these kids are brought here by someone to the United States with the idea of adopting the law they could also I mean I think Aaron Jacobson could give examples I'm imagining they could also be unaccompanied minors that are that have come into the United States victims of abuse or trafficking I mean I think there are probably a lot of scenarios in which this would apply okay well do you want to continue? sure so page 2 section 2 starting on line 4 this is doing the same thing for the probate division of extending concurrent jurisdiction to the probate division that is given to the family division to be able to make these special immigration determinations section 3 starting on line 15 this is a sort of separate issue of extending the definition of a protected category by adding immigration status and that's relating to hate-motivated crime injunctions because it's only related to hate-motivated crimes there are other protected categories throughout state law but this is only specific to the hate-motivated crime injunctions so page 3 section 4 this is really the meat of what these determine can be your perception it says perceived membership in any such group so if I see this actually all the time in these news reports where somebody attacks someone thinking they're from Mexico and they're from Pakistan but it's still a hate crime they're from the US they're not making robo calls right is that correct? in other words they don't have to be correct about the person's membership in the category they can be acting in the direction that someone is and still be charged I think that's correct but I would defer to Michelle because I think she was the one who who drafted this but I don't see why you would I can follow up with her on that question so this is adding the new sub chapter on special immigration status in title 14 so sub section A says the court in here we'll get to this but in subsection D the court is defined as both the probate division and the family division so the court has jurisdiction under Vermont law to make judicial determinations regarding the custody and care of children within the meaning of federal law and the court is authorized to make the findings necessary to enable a child to petition USCIS for classification as a special immigrant juvenile pursuant to federal regulations subsection B goes through the process of the findings that need to be included so if an order is requested from the court the court shall issue an order if there is evidence to support those findings which may include a declaration by the child who is subject to the petition and then the order has to include all of the following findings first that the child was either declared dependent of the court or legally committed to or placed under the custody of a state agency or department or an individual or entity appointed by the court and then the court shall indicate the date on which the dependency commitment or custody was ordered the findings also have to provide that the unification of the child with one or both of the child's parents was determined not to be viable because of abuse, neglect, abandonment or similar basis pursuant to Vermont law the court shall indicate the date on which unification was determined not to be viable so that again is a state law determination of factual determination of whether the child suffered abuse, neglect or abandonment under state law according to the provisions that we have for kids to voluntarily stay at DCF companies I can check I don't know the answer I think it attracts that I'm not sure that they can stay at L21 but there's provisions that allow kids to stay in DCF custody relatively voluntarily, does that require some of the person don't they have to be in school too or something, cooperating with school we should probably check with DCF also on this bill if we're going to check with DCF because it's any state agency or department we're an individual named by that so it could be under corrections it could be under DCF it isn't just DCF I think those are the only two or somebody would have custody oh yeah, I forgot about them it could be let me just check with the agency yeah, for all, right I don't think people say corrections voluntarily do if they want to max out it says on line 17 at the request of or with consent line 17 which page oh, we're not even there yet she's already on page 4 page 4 4c so I thought we were already on page 4 no, she's on c, on b on page 4 okay, I'm already to page 5 sorry so c is that the court determines that's not in best interest of the child to go back to their their previous country of nationality or country of last residence and then the court can include any other additional findings that are supported by evidence subsection c, on line 14 this makes any information relating to a special immigration juvenile order confidential and there's also a public records act exemption that is added here so it exempts from public inspection and copying under the public records act any information except that the information is available for inspection by the court the child who's subject to the proceeding the parties, the attorneys for the parties the child's council and the child's guardian and then finally as I mentioned court here is defined as both the probate division and the family division because they have concurrent jurisdiction for this issue right so this other section 3099 is relating to those individuals between 18 and 21 years of age and this is just specific to the probate division because it deals with guardianship so with the consent of the person proposed person under guardianship so you do need the consent the probate division may appoint a guardian for a person who is unmarried between 18 and 21 and federal law requires a person who is petitioning for this status to be unmarried so that's why that is required there and then this guardianship would be in connection with petition for this federal immigration status is that just the way it's the law is in these cases guardianship of the person of a proposed ward so are you petitioning for guardianship of the person of someone I think that I found that in other areas of the law but I will double check that it's kind of a a wordy way that's the term of art and it's like you're being given guardianship of their physical person but that's additional to them as a legal entity I mean it's almost redundant I'll double check that and see if there's a way I can make it shorter so subsection B says that the petition for guardianship may be filed by a parent relative or any other person including the proposed person under guardianship subsection C says at the request of or the consent of the person under guardianship the court may extend an existing guardianship of the person past the age of 18 for this purpose so that will so if they would have maybe aged out at 18 this allows it to be extended such that they can still apply for this special immigration status then subsection D clarifies that this section of law does not authorize the guardian to abrogate any of the rights of the person who's obtained 18 years old that they may have as an adult regarding the person's medical treatment, education, or residence without that person's express consent and then they're right to marry well they can marry but they just wouldn't be eligible for special immigration juvenile status sure so so they they wouldn't be able to apply at the federal level without this determination so they're not applying for immigration status they're just applying for the factual determinations so this is saying that those factual determinations in connection with the order that says yes this child was abused or neglected and this child can't be reunified with their parents and this child can't go home that information those findings are what's confidential but they wouldn't have to be eligible for the application at the federal level without this order from the state court so unless you get an order from a state court in all 50 states you cannot apply for special immigration status at the federal level yes so the requirements to be eligible for special immigration juvenile status one of the requirements is that you have valid juvenile court order issued by state court in the US and then USCIS regulations say what that order has to include and that's that is sort of analogous to what is in this bill we're moving right along I just need, I don't know if we can get to this discussion but if we do we need to hear from Judge Gerison from Aaron Jacobson and others that you might suggest I think we could do it I think we could do it I think it's very complicated except for that one section which is not related at all that is the only section that might raise some Joe's trouble I heard they wrote my cue from Joe's trouble I'm not familiar with this area of law but I would want to avoid is an open invitation of the feds to come in and recognize that there are many people in the state that might be able to just under those in the feds but I don't want to raise unnecessary conflict if it can be avoided I think it's the reverse they get information already I'm walking through this because us trying to change federal law and when I get the answers to questions I'm happy to move ahead but I want to walk through this and make sure I've got those questions that's why we're happy to have you sometimes after I think we should Becky you should make a copy of that are you helping with the witness list and how to get a vote and anybody get that I don't think we're going to be successful but we have the federal law can you make it do everybody believe we can have the federal law I'll send I'll send on the federal law and regulations and the decision and the federal law and the federal law and we're basically just codifying what this understanding is this is codifying what already is state law yes and in terms of the federal level it's not stepping on the toes of the federal government's ability to determine immigration status it's actually being able to fulfill one of the requirements in order to be eligible for that status thank you very much too bad now we're waiting now what are we doing we're doing this amendment that would be offered on the floor for justice for your investment tomorrow so that it's clarified while we're waiting I can give you the history of it that just two weeks ago or so a William W. Locke escaped from Phoenix those walls or vise transitional housing and cut off his ankle bracelet didn't know all the history but because he murdered a couple of us in my program there were calls from members of his family of the victims family who were upset that he's been let out, if you look at the history he's been let out like 15 times after all and it's failed each time so it led me to wonder why we kept letting him out that was one question there were a lot of questions for family but things that happened was in the bill you'll notice that there were problems getting them out for the rest signed by the commissioner and if you notice in the justice for your investment bill we have that little section on the warrants that's supposed to help with that but then when I asked the question of charging him with escape since he had cut off the ankle bracelet and gone for at least a week and been in different places threw away his cell phone bought a new cell phone and people don't realize how easy it is to find somebody who's carrying a cell phone by the way when you buy the new one video of buying the new one but anyway then I was told that he would be charged with escape because he changed the law and I remember very specifically this guy, this is the history 1987 he's arrested I've never heard of such a sentence but he was given a 17 years to life sentence with 17 to serve and probation thereafter so then he violated probation in 2003 and after third violation he was given a new sentence of 21 years to life in 2008 he was released on furlough revoked in 2009, 2012 he rolled to Massachusetts where he had an outstanding case and then returned to Vermont in 2015 in 2015 he was released to Hartford failure to return to jail he did it on his own furlough violation 2016 2017 furlough violation and then we had the current one which was released on the 28th of January so when I asked him you know because we passed that law setting up the escape Mike Doucette told us that they were they wanted the items to say that was about discretion on escapes they didn't want to charge every person who went on I think he used the example of the person who went out of bounds that surrendered and then turned himself into a probation officer and we didn't want to charge that person so we changed that but then they said well no you changed it completely you can't charge anybody on furlough so I asked to take a parent amendment she can walk us through it but that's the justice this will allow us to charge somebody who had the intent of not returning I guess there would be elements of it in this case obviously it would be a case by case basis I thought that's what we did last year I thought that's what we did too I think you're welcome to break some because they had several of those that I found out that's really common I mean they had three of them that June Baker told me about so it wouldn't automatically be a it's a technical violation it's not out of that I suppose you can be charged with just for playing state property but I'm just trying to figure out how this will end I don't think I don't think that this this requires intent I would think that's a pretty strong indicator well probably if you do that hey we'll take care of some other anyway Brennan you want to walk us through that and then we'll use the example I thought the fact that he not only cut off the bracelet but threw the cell phone away and then he's gone for several weeks and that would be at least 10 days right he clearly I think we had the example of someone versus one case somebody goes into town and has a beer and they intended to come back versus the guy that steals the car and goes to the hamper and then we did we added aggravated theft of a vehicle to the person who versus the joy ride the six-mark mystery bill versus somebody who intends to keep that for savings or out there send it overseas what was at the time when there was actually some cargo ships overseas with stolen vehicles out of Boston I'd like to ask James it's not the stand never mind that let's have a case like that is it a new crime? it's a type of attack Brennan should you walk us through this before Senator Benning puts Senator St. Pepper on the witness stand and wants to get the fence here and Brow beats him so good morning committee for the record here to talk about draft 1.2 of the amendment to S-338 so if you look at page 2 that language and subdivision 3 subdivision 3 I think was what was added last year that provides this that language that language that language was added last year that provides that it's not a violation of the escape statute if the person was on those furlough statuses excuse me so the changes here are that we remove those cross references to the furlough statuses that we repealed in 338 and it specifically provides that if the person is on a furlough status pursuant to that new community supervision furlough status that's created in 338 or treatment furlough or medical furlough in order to establish that the person has violated the escape statute there has to be a showing that the person intended to escape from furlough so I think that there's an argument to be made that if a person cuts off their bracelet and travels to another state that would be a showing of intent that you may benefit from hearing from prosecutors about how difficult that would be but it would be in a case by case they would have to determine whether they wanted to prosecute the case or not yes I tried to connect with Eric for the hearing I know that he worked on that last year to get some history that couldn't track him down before the hearing but I don't know that's what we intended whether that's what happened or did it go to the house afterwards we have our holders and maybe they got changed in the house I don't know I can go and do a little digging right now yeah so that adds the across reference to the new community supervision furlough so if a person is in other specified places indicated by the department's order under I have that temporary furlough status or the new right do you remember when the Springfield prison was built and the selection were you know lamenting everything else and liking it for some of them do you remember they said well we're worried about escapees coming into the community when the guy says I've got an old car and goes I'll leave it right at the bottom of the road with a sign on it that says take me and have a map that sends him to Massachusetts both people with keys in the prison probably don't hang around actually it is very convenient it's very convenient they said it's going to leave it right at the bottom of the road so they'll have to see it so there's keys inside probably the Massachusetts might send them back it's on the back put enough gas in to send him to Ohio are you having any questions for Brent? Brent thank you it reminds me of the westward home is there anybody who would be willing to buy a bus ticket could buy bus tickets one way bus tickets for people homeless people to California out of Vermont to California it was his his answer to homelessness send him to a warm climate far from here I mean certainly James Pepper Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs certainly their support of the amendment as drafted I think that the intent to flee the jurisdiction was meant to be maintained I remember it was Commissioner Touche who was testifying about the person who wants to go get a beer and watch Super Bowl or I don't know furlough I don't think he was discussing the Wieland case in this type of situation this is related to the kind of challenge to reduce the prison population by 250 people he had raised the idea that there are a significant amount of people that are picking up new felony charges for somewhat minor escapes but I think that this highlights the kind of opposite end of the spectrum for the kind of more serious escapes Joe he's in the witness now so I'm going to start with the evidence you showed you about the matter now and your considerations will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth should help you guys no they look as far as I know I frankly when Commissioner Touche came to us I understood he was looking for flexibility this example the Wieland situation came to my mind and on the defense attorney I wasn't going to push back but the bottom line is I think if somebody has an ankle bracelet on them they are subject to a form of confinement when they decide to remove it they are clearly expressing their intent to no longer be in that confinement and to me that's a perfect reason for somebody to be put back in jail as a sanction but the Ash program was to decrease the specific number and I think that's what Commissioner Touche was feeling at the time I'm sympathetic with giving the Commissioner the ability to have flexibility but I think there's a legitimate argument on behalf of the state to make that a person in this situation in the Wieland case for example you should have the ability to make the argument that you should be watched again but I see us getting there well that's what this does right I remember the example he used as somebody who went to his friend's bachelor party or something or watched Superbowl and slept there for the next couple of days to sleep it off and then had no intention it's a little shaky you get a couple of days in away but it still allows flexibility for the prosecutor not to charge the department to say right well I'm going to move this amendment I'm going to move that we amend S-338-5 not a draft 1.2 amendment thank you one more probably just to amend but we can on behalf of the Central Latest Move we support this amendment is there any further discussion all in favor say aye aye so you're doing on the floor thank you short notice we're fortunate we're off the record