 House Judiciary, Vermont House Judiciary Committee, and we are going to be looking at S-114, which is a COVID response that the Senate Judiciary Committee has passed. I'm not sure what action the full Senate has taken on it yet. There are some probate sections that Eric will review. We have reviewed, but just will refresh our memory, and then we'll be hearing from Bryn. There are some sections in there that hopefully Bryn can help us understand. I believe that House General has looked at, but I need to understand that better, so we'll bring that up with Bryn, unless Eric, I'm not sure if you have any information on that. So hopefully people have the document or access to the document. S-114. Okay, great. Eric, welcome. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. Good morning, everybody. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Council here to talk about a couple of the sections, as the chair mentioned in S-114. I'm sure everyone has their own approach for how to view each other through Zoom and also look at a document. I don't know if this helps, but I actually use my iPad in front of me for Zoom while I simultaneously have the document open on my laptop, and that actually works fairly easily, but that's just one possible way to approach it. But that way, I'm not sort of having to toggle back and forth between the Zoom and the document on the same device. So that works pretty well. Old-fashioned. Sorry, go ahead. Old-fashioned. Oh, right. Exactly. Old school. Which I would do if I was sitting in committee as well. I like the hard copy there, but I don't have one here. So as Representative Grad mentioned, I'm just looking to discuss with you a couple of the sections, and they are sections two and three of S-114. As the chair also mentioned, I believe it was Tuesday that S-114 was voted out by Senate judiciary, and they actually received permission. The Rules Committee gave two Senate committees permission to vote out bills that day, one of whom was Senate judiciary, and they voted this one out unanimously. It has not hit the floor yet. I think there's a token session of the Senate today, and you heard they passed yesterday the resolution to permit remote voting by the full Senate, and so I think they're planning to take a couple of bills up tomorrow. I'm not sure if S-114 is one of them yet, but it is already passed out of committee, so I think the sense is that it's going to move pretty quickly. And even this is unusual in a sense, also because of the COVID-19 situation, that how judiciary is looking at the bill, I'm walking you through it. You're hearing witness testimony about it before it's even passed the Senate, but the idea there, again, is to move things along as quickly as possible to get a head start on it so that you folks have already been able to digest it, think about what your thoughts are on it, so that you won't be starting from scratch again, and having to wait until the bill comes over from the Senate. That way things can get passed even more quickly than usual and more smoothly. So that's the general idea anyway. So as far as the specific- Give me Eric. Sorry, I see Tom's hand up. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Morning, Eric. Morning. Just real quick, I'm going to assume you are spending time in Senate judiciary on this, and I don't know if you've heard any buzz, but is there going to be any amendments on the Senate floor? I'm going to assume no at this point, but just to maybe hear it from somebody that, so we're not going to be possibly working on something that's going to change. Not to my knowledge. Again, that doesn't mean that it's not possible, I guess. I might not know about it, but nothing certainly that was discussed in committee that I'm aware of. I was down there for a good chunk of the discussion. I say down there. I was actually sitting right here at my desk. I kind of knew that, but I just wanted to hear it out loud, I guess. Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. And that's my understanding as well, is that everything is by consensus. There was a section that Brinkin talked to us about that is out, because there was not agreement. I think there are actually two sections that are now out of the bill. Yeah, two that I know. Right. And I think they came from Judge Gerson, but in one instance, Legal Aid was opposed, I believe, and the other, I think, John Campbell. And I think we might have heard some of that testimony a few weeks ago. So I think that's the way things are going to continue. Okay, great. Thank you. Sure. And in that same vein, as you were mentioning, Representative Grad, a couple of weeks ago or was it last week, I went through this language, I walked the committee through the two sections we're looking at right now. The committee's already seen it once before. That was before it was passed by Senate Judiciary. And so, again, same idea of having everyone understand what's in there at the moment, subject to any changes. But as it turns out, there were no changes to the language between what I walked you through, I want to say, last Thursday or Friday, I think, late last week, between that language that you saw at that time and the language that Senate Judiciary voted out Tuesday morning, at least with respect to these two sections, there weren't any changes. So the language is identical. And it does the same thing, as I mentioned last time, that the bill that, I don't think you voted out yet. I think maybe you took a straw poll on 316, the other bill relating to witnessing of wills, remote witnessing of wills, which required the physical presence of the witness and the notary. And these two sections that you're looking at in 114 essentially do the same thing for powers of attorney and for use of deeds to transfer property that 316 did for wills. And it's the exact same concept. If you look at sections two and three, the existing language, and that's the non-underlined pieces for section two of the bill, the powers of attorney, that's lines three through five, that's existing law. And for section three, which is the deeds, that's lines, well, 20 through 21 on the bottom of page two, and then the first three lines of page three. Essentially what the existing law is the same thing as it was for wills with respect to physical presence. You see that it requires that the power of attorney or the deed both be executed in the physical presence of a notary public and one other person. In the case of a power of attorney, it's a witness. In the case of the deed, the other person is the grantor, the person who's transferring the property. But in both cases, you have a requirement of physical presence of the person executing the document, the notary public, and a third party, either a witness or the grantor. So the proposed new language does the exact same thing. And in fact, the language itself is very similar, not verbatim, but fairly close to the language you had seen for wills. And it just essentially provides that as long as the process is done in compliance with these emergency rules for remote notarial acts that have been issued by the Secretary of State's office, which means that it's done remotely through a secure audio video connection. As long as those rules are complied with, then the physical presence requirement will be deemed to have met. So it will be deemed that in the case of the power of attorney, the witness is there, physically present with the notary public and the principal executing the document. And with respect to deeds, the notary public, the grantor show and the person executing the document are all going to be deemed to be physically present in the same location, even if technically they're not. But the purposes of the statute, they're deemed to be present. And that way it addresses the problem that had come up of people now with the stay-at-home order not being able to travel to be physically present with these other parties for purposes of signing these documents. So they can do them remotely. The way we're doing it right now, Zoom would be one option or whatever remote secure connection they can establish for the purpose, but that would be permitted. And you'll see that each of the sections, the section two on power of attorney and section of three on deeds, includes almost identical language and subdivision two of each section that provides that if these procedures are complied with, if the remote notarial acts pieces of the Secretary of State's rules, if these documents are executed in compliance with these requirements, then there's a presumption that they're valid. So going forward, if there's ever something that comes up where one of the documents validity is challenged in court, there's this presumption that attaches that the documents were valid we executed. And again, a presumption can always be overcome if there's some strong evidence that there was some fraud or some undue influence that there were actual pieces of evidence that tended to show that then you could overcome the presumption, but there at least is some competence for the parties who are putting these documents together that they're going to stand up in court later on because there's this presumption of validity that attaches. Excuse me, Eric, let's say Barbara and then Will. Eric, hi, good morning. I cannot remember if we discussed this. I just was looking at my notes. Will this be, I know it would be valid upon passage, but would it be retro to the beginning of the emergency order? Yes, so that it would, as long as the, because the way the language is written, it's as long as they're executed in compliance with the orders while they are in effect. So that would be my reading would take it back to I think it was last Tuesday was when they were actually issued. But yes, they would be, they would look back to the date that the rules were adopted. That's great. Thank you. Sure. Will and then Martin. Thank you. My question is it's a bit wider net, but maybe I'm hoping the community answer and it's in regards to deeds in the land records. So I mean, I understand we can, this would allow people to finish up things electronically. But is there anything in the works that you or anyone else that's listening in is aware of as far as viewing land records? Because I've heard from my city clerk and he's been told that he can't have people in his office to view land records, which in a lot of transactions is the the start of the process or at least early on in the process. And it's holding up sales in my community and really throwing things off. So I'm just wondering it's great to have this taken care of at the bottom end. If anyone knows of anything that's going on to actually let the process carry out as far as the due diligence that needs to be done with existing records. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I have not heard of anything that's in the works regarding permission or or in some way setting up a process for people to view what's in the land records currently. It doesn't mean that some of the folks, for example, the real estate section of the bar association that they might also be thinking about that issue. But but you're right that that isn't addressed here. And I haven't I haven't specifically heard about that might be a good question for for Terry or someone from the DBA real estate section is to see what what their thoughts are on that. That's a good point. Right. And Mike, thank you informed us that Terry is watching. I don't know if she has the ability to to speak. But but Terry, I'm glad that you are that you are listening and it would be helpful to to get an update on on this information. Okay, Martin. Yeah, I just want to revisit the issue that I brought up last week. And it's I don't I'm not pushing for us to add that language in the subsections to to the will language. But I just want to ask you, Eric, if if if there's a concern if we have that language here, for the power of attorney and deeds, and we don't have the language for the wills, can that be interpreted that you know, the legislature knows what it's doing. And we did not intend to have that presumption for the wills because we did put it in for the power of attorney and deeds and left it out of the wills. And does that somehow raise a concern that that presumption would not exist for the wills because the legislature apparently knows how to make clear that there should be a presumption, since it's doing so in these other two examples. Yeah, I think that's right that. And even even even hypothetically, if if there were no power of attorney or deed sections that they didn't exist. And you still had had the wills piece that didn't have a presumption and there's there wouldn't even be one in that case because the legislature would have to expressly put it out there to say that there is a presumption. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with your interpretation but I think that the same result would apply your interpretation would be correct that even without the power of attorney and the deed pieces there still wouldn't be a presumption in the in the wills context unless the legislature expressly put it out there. So whether that's a problem or not and I think that's that's a separate question I mean you know because the the the wills language passed the Senate as it was without the presumption I think people hadn't hadn't thought of it yet but I'll let them you know offer any perspective they may have on that but I don't think it's a legal problem in the sense that it doesn't mean that the will wouldn't still be found valid. It just means that the presumption wouldn't attach and but I agree with that that would be the result yes. Okay thanks. Yeah and I should mention also that I did mention the possibility of I think Representative Laund you were the one who had brought up that one possible angle was to potentially amend 114 while it was still in the Senate to add that kind of language to to the new provision on wills but I think the thought was that they wanted everything to be as clean as and smooth as possible and there was no way to be absolutely certain sort of we had sort of explored this idea of possibly you know if if 316 were to pass first and be signed by the governor first would then you be able to sort of amend it in this bill in 114 but no one's really sure exactly the timing of these things when is that going to happen it was hard to hard to be certain of that and it just seemed like it was at the time viewed as potentially slowing things down. Right understood. Yeah but as far as the language goes I mean that's that's about it the I say it does almost the identical thing for deeds and powers of attorney as the as 316 did for wills posture wise it's past Senate judiciary and may be coming out of the Senate on Friday not sure about that yet and I think substantively that's pretty much what I have. I send an invite to Terry so she may be jumping in in a minute. Okay thank you and thank you Eric I'm not seeing any hands but I want to make sure I'm not missing anybody in terms of questions for Eric. All right looks like everybody's good okay well thank you so much Eric. Yeah sure anytime. Yeah you bet take care. You too. Okay great. Okay great so Mike I'm gonna turn it over to you to to help us with document share. All right and welcome Bryn I see you and then if we do see Terry if we have a few minutes we can ask her to weigh in on those other questions. Okay thank you. This is going to take about a couple minutes to do. You can probably all see on the bottom of your screen you've got a share screen button it's green with an up arrow the best thing to do is to Terry's coming in right now get whatever you want to show up on your screen before you press that button so now I'm going to go to share screen. Mike is that the share content button? Yes. Okay on an iPad it's on the top but okay yeah so on my computer it's giving me a bunch of options here I'm going to share the bill though so this is the one we're talking about. My suggestion would be if you have several things you want to show to try to get them all in a PDF document so you can just age from one to the next one rather than going back and forth that's just a suggestion on my part but you can do whatever you think but so I assume everybody can see this. Yeah no I'm saying that I'm just seeing the desktop one other things I'm not seeing an actual document. On me you can't see the document. I see it. I see it. Yeah I see it as well. Okay now I do okay got it thank you. That's really all there is to it is identify what you want have it on your desktop open before you share the screen and then just hit the share screen. Can I ask a question about a feature Mike or maybe I'll just try to model it. I think there oh no you just the screen sharing is disabled I think there's a whiteboard feature in the share screen functions we don't have to answer this right now but like if we ever wanted to do that collective note taking I think there's a way to do that right in the zoom platform but I haven't really had a chance to gotta find some maybe some zoom environment where I can actually play around with it but yes there is Selena we've we've used it at school board. Okay okay great so that's another I guess that's another feature we could draw on if we need it. And how about scrolling through the pages through the document so so Mike the host you would need to do that is so we can't do that individually. You can do it yourself oh I have to do it because that's sharing my screen okay so that's really all there is to it. So so whoever puts a document up will uh it'll they'll kind of uh run run it the same way a witness would from uh the witness chair and having the iPad then right okay yeah right and Bruno is actually gonna walk us through the non probate sections so might be a good time to to try it. Any other questions about this I think I'm gonna be gonna be sticking with paper my limits oh boy uh okay oh there's Terry great welcome Terry I have Terry can I just lost Terry huh I got out of the shop chair because I wanted to see if Terry was muted she's she's not muted so she should be able to talk okay great there she is great welcome Terry good morning or uh yep some morning so um hi thank you for thank you for joining I'm not sure if you had a did you do you have an opportunity to um to hear the question about viewing documents and uh can you can you hear me? I think Terry needs to turn on I think you need to turn on your audio feed Terry okay we can't hear you you don't have a little microphone yet still can't hear you Terry do you have to do that uh mic uh or is that something that's local with Terry? everything from my end says she's okay it's on her and that she needs to I just sent her a quick text that we can't hear her so um yeah she probably oh she probably can't hear that there you are there yeah I clicked it but great hi I did hear the question about land records and it is a serious issue because oh okay I I have watching it on YouTube still yeah it sounds like one has the YouTube be going because it's minutes behind fortunately there's a delay so how about if we um if we move on to um hear from then Terry um my quick understanding is that you do acknowledge the problem I know it's an issue and uh and hopefully we can hear back from you and uh if there's anything that we need to to do legislatively perfect great thank you great thank you so much okay grin hi welcome can you mute Terry please I'll just I'll just wait for a moment until thank you okay okay all right good morning committee nice to see you yeah nice to nice to see you all yeah thank you for the record Bryn here from legislative council can you hear me okay perfect yeah okay great so I'm here to talk about um senate bill number 114 I believe that the draft number is 3.2 that's been posted to your web page I'm hoping everybody has that I am not going to do screen sharing today um I have a I have requested um some help from IT but so far I just haven't been able to get my outlook to close while I'm sharing my screen so sometimes I have emails that pop up and so um I'm just I'm not going to do that today if it's okay with everybody if you have it on your own screen to go through if that's all right okay good so I know that Eric um was here to walk you through those sections two and three so I'm not going to talk about those so I'll just start with section one and this is the section that deals with the rent escrow hearings so as I think that you've all heard from Judge Grierson about administrative order number 49 that stays all non-emergent hearings with some exceptions so I just want to start there that AO 49 does allow for emergency landlord tenant hearings in the discretion of the judge that's overseeing those proceedings um so what this section does is it provides that if uh if a court did exercise its discretion to hold a hearing pursuant to 12 vsa 48 53 which is those rent escrow hearings during the state of emergency what this section does is it would give the judge discretion about whether or not to require a tenant to pay rent into court as it accrues because under current law under that section 12 vsa 48 53 a the courts are required to order that payment of back rent as it accrues during the course of the proceeding so the this all this section does is say it says that during the course of the emergency period which as you can see is defined there as the period beginning with the state of emergency declaration on march 13th um until 30 days after the governor terminates that state of emergency by declaration during that emergency period um the judges have discretion about whether or not to require tenants to pay rent into court that's all this does so so brin is um so currently it would say shall are they that's that's the only difference so current law that that language there is taken directly from that section um that section in in title 12 and currently it says the court shall order fuller partial payment into court of rent online 15 of page one okay thank you and this language again came from judge grierson is that correct yes i'm sorry i should have started um with this that the judiciary did make um some requests of the legislature to carry out um the intent of a o 49 which is essentially to stay for some proceedings and to suspend some statutory timeframes and so every um all of the all of the sections in this bill come from that request from the judiciary okay thank you and if you i don't know if you can answer this and it could wait if this is not the right time but i know that senate economic development uh looks at some of these sections and then also uh house general also has a bill and uh at some point i'd like to understand the uh the differences or similarities between between all those bills regarding uh regarding rent and housing okay yeah i'm i'm happy to talk about that we can also um david hall is the one who's working on those bills he might be the best person to talk about the nuances i can tell you that is generally what they do um guess what how they interact right now if you'd like sure that'd be great okay um so what this what the and my understanding is that the um house general committee has been sharing its language with the senate economic development committee so i believe that that section nine in the house bill is the same as what appears in the senate bill and essentially what that bill is doing is it's staying all eviction proceedings until the end of the emergency and it does talk about rent escrow in that in section nine of the house bill and essentially what it does is it limits the amount of back rent rent that can be required by the court um until the end of the emergency period or after so um that is that interacts with this to the extent that there's a time frame for which um a court can order back rent be paid and there's no time frame in this bill this bill just says um judges you have discretion about whether or not to require them to pay back rent at all can I ask a quick question uh what version of the house bill is are they at at this point i have one i have a draft and i'm just wondering if i'm looking at the you know i don't i i'm sorry i don't know the answer to that i don't know what they're looking at currently but i can find out from david and and email the committee if that's helpful okay so that's really the that's it for section one unless there are other questions i can move on to section four i'll just skip those those two sections that you just talked about with eric the powers of attorney and the deed section so section four is at the bottom of page three and this amends rule 43 and rule 43 permits the existing rule 43 requires the presence of the defendant at certain certain stages of a proceeding so what this does is it amends that that rule by adding a new subsection d which you can see on the top of page four so we're in the rules of criminal procedure right now so we're talking about a defendant's presence at certain stages of a criminal proceeding so what this new subsection does is it says that if certain criteria are met the defendant is deemed to be present at the proceeding even if their physical presence is not actually there so the criteria are set out in subdivisions a and b there so under a if the defendant after he or she has an opportunity to consult with their counsel either in person or by telephone or by video conference and then the defendant makes a right a waiver on the record of their right to be physically present at the proceeding and be their appearance at the proceeding is made by contemporaneous video or audio conference transmission then the person then the defendant is deemed to have been to be present in court pursuant to this rule and then subdivision two there just defines contemporaneous audio or video conference the way it's defined in vrcp 43.1 which defines those as an interactive audio or video technology that permits two or more individuals or groups to communicate contemporaneously and then it also provides some technical criteria for that technology that makes sense looking for uh hands uh Barbara thanks so brand here let me just try to find you um so i'm wondering because i know this came up when we were looking at video conferencing from prison that there was some issue about privacy in the conversation between counsel and um the defendant is that built into part of the ability to consult with attorney in a confidential manner not there nothing about that appears here um in this version of the bill no um but and that was not that was not something that was discussed on the senate side either thank you i do remember that coming up before um in some justice oversight meetings i'm not sure if that's been addressed in some way or not and i felt right i feel like the public defenders raised it at some point try to remember if anyone else did right and yeah and we we will be hearing from them but my understanding is that that they did agree with this language here is that correct brand that is correct yes the defender general supported this language um yes okay and again we'll be hearing from them okay so i see uh will and selena okay thank you so um in regards to uh a the the defendant makes an on-the-record waiver of the right to be physically present what would an on-the-record waiver look like a signed document some video recording it would be a my understanding is that typically it's just a verbal agreement or a verbal waiver of that right um the judge would make a statement do you understand this is your right pursuant to rule 43 and the defendant would say yes i understand that it's my right and then the judge would confirm that the person has had an opportunity to consult with their counsel and the defendant would have to acknowledge that they did have that opportunity okay thank you selena and then coach i'm trying to do so many things simultaneously uh so i was going to note just in response to what barbara said that i had asked a little bit about the um just video use of video generally the last time we heard from marshall and he he did indicate that they're good and understanding with how things are moving forward so we'll be good to hear more from him but he did give some indication that like they were okay with where things were heading to our committee as well and um i'm just wondering i've i've struggled to find these before in the past i'm just wondering for those of us who might want to dig a little more deeply into the rules of criminal um procedure like how do we find those to just look at the definition around the audio video conferencing that's been is that an is that a like newly created definition for these circumstances or was that pre-existing and no that was pre-existing although rule 43.1 was recently adopted and i'm sure it was share that with the committee um i can send you the link to that rule so you can read it are they readily like are they readily accessible online or how do you know you can google it you can google it i'm looking at it right now and it's pretty easy to find i think that through the website through your website you um the vermont legislative legislative website that there's a link to the lexus nexus um okay it's through lex court rules mm-hmm okay thank you uh coach right and then martin uh yes just a process piece madam chair um what is going to be our capability to um amend uh the the senate version you know just from a procedural perspective so uh my understanding at this point is that uh that hoping that we would not be amending uh senate senate versions and certainly we can when we hear from the witnesses we can ask them you know we can see if they if they bring up any any suggested amendments but uh that's my understanding at this time but i think you can already understand why i posed the question uh if if we get a very clear uh or identify a very clear uh exception that was missed and and it's i mean it happens to us when our bills go to their side and when theirs come to our side you know i'm not sure how that's going to work because i i i would have a little bit of a problem knowing that there's something wrong and not being able to address it right right and that's not being a jerk about it it's just right yes it's doing doing our work for sure thank you yeah martin yeah just a couple of things just in response as well to coach is i mean that's what we did with this will's issue that we talked about a little bit earlier we raised the issue of whether they should amend this bill to include the language regarding the presumption and that message did get delivered to them and and for good reasons they decided not to do so and and i would suspect if we find some issues we can send them back channel again to the senate and hopefully have them resolved before it ever comes to us that would be what i would think but i also just want to address barbara really quickly is that the the vermont rules of criminal procedure 43.1 that is referenced does have language about whether they're satisfactory provision for confidential communications between the lawyers and their clients for witnesses i mean it's in that rule that that that kind of concern is is covered so you may want to take a look at that great any i guess the the other thing just like everything else we're doing with the electronic voting and things of that sort it's it's getting used to the technology and i think that what people will find is as they get more familiar and their it divisions help them you know through that because i think the court is where you're going to see that evolve very quickly because we've been doing executive sessions at our last two meetings and we were able to move into executive session do it privately and then come back out and take the vote so it does exist you know it's just a matter of everybody just getting there i guess right and my understanding from the the speaker and i think she talked about it in her memo that that right now all the committees will have been trained i think by the end of the week and then from committees they'll be doing larger groups into it to eventually somehow accommodate 149 of us or whatever and that that's what's going to take the time is my understanding from from the speaker so but you know that was more directed to Barbara's question about on the confidentiality component okay because that's that's what we had to deal with we had a couple of contract issues that we had to bring up and so we went into executive session and that electronically shut down the live feeds and then we came back out okay so visit that with with the judge okay great great thank you so brinn back to you all right so i'll move on to section five then and section five for those tracking is on the bottom of page four so what this section does is it suspends or extends statutory timeframes for certain proceedings until a 049 is terminated so there's just some introductory language there at the bottom of the page about a 049 and the intent of the legislature is to temporarily suspend some timeframes by which certain proceedings are required to take place by statute so if you turn to the next page sub subsection one extends the statutory timeframes for bail review hearings so subsection a there applies for conditions of release review pursuant to 7554d1 and the existing timeframe for these hearings is 48 hours so these are bail review hearings for people who are detained because they couldn't abide by the conditions of release that were set for them or people who are released on an order to return to custody um or also these are hearings uh that the state can request based on like a material change in circumstances so the statutory timeframe for these conditions of release review hearings are 48 hours and what this does is extends those to seven days following applications so moves from 48 hours to seven days brinn um do you know where that language from 48 to seven days came from that that time frame seven days this is what the judiciary requested it was directly from that memo from the judiciary which if you don't have i can make sure that mic has it to post thank you uh barbra thanks vexing um so brinn seven business days or seven calendar days seven calendar days it has to say working days if it um applies only to business days after a day for a day right right um can you um just talk about what the implication is of that for um people are they then being held um in detention pending this hearing they've been picked up and they're been re um detained or they're in the community i just want to make sure i understand who who besides the judges and the lawyers does you know what's the impact on the defendant and the public right so it depends on the circumstances if there are people who have violated their conditions of release um they're there in situations where they would have been picked up and they may be detained until this hearing can be held um there also may be situations where they're not detained where for example the state requests the hearing because of material change in circumstances those people may not be detained so i think it depends on the circumstances so it could mean that instead of somebody being held pending the detent the hearing um for 48 hours they could be there a week if they were one of the people that got redetained yes i think i'm not sure i understood that question maybe could you repeat it sure so i guess again i'm trying to figure out what the range is of who loses their uh freedom for seven days and possible exposure you know increased exposure to covid 19 so you said it depends on the circumstances but some people's circumstances will mean that they are in detention for seven days instead of 48 that is possible yes or that they're out in the community for seven days in some i mean what maybe one of the conditions is don't be near a child and they're living in a house with a child in the meantime again i think if there's an understanding that they're violating their conditions that in and it may be helpful to talk to the practitioners in this area but my understanding is that if there's knowledge that they are violating those conditions they could be detained those are the kind of situations where they would be detained by law enforcement so we are going to hear from um from prosecutors and defense uh later on about these sections so so do note your questions in that way um because because again this is agreed to line which let's make sure that um that they address those in coming to this agreement and and uh we can get the answers that that we need so be great okay okay anybody else's no okay okay go ahead thank you Bryn so i'll move on to subdivision b there um and this applies for conditions of release review pursuant to 7554d2 um the existing time frame for these hearings is within five working days and that has been extended to 14 days following application so these are all other bail review hearings for people for whom conditions are of release are imposed so extends that time frame from five working days to 14 14 days following application so the next i'll wait for a minute i'll move on to the set number two here that's okay um so what this section does is it provides that um all statutory time frames um for issuing orders to seal or expunge criminal history records or to process um seal sealing or expungement petitions are suspended for the duration of the effectiveness of AO 49 and that um suspension extends for 120 days after AO 49 is terminated so all of those all um relevant statutory time frames pursuant to the expungement and sealing chapter are suspended for the duration of the emergency and then 120 days beyond and again this came from a request from the judiciary um just and i believe that the intent here is to preserve um the capacity that they have um with their limited staff at the time i'm only going to ask for clarification because taking your last point in mind Maxine so so basically somebody who was about to have their record expunged if life had continued normally um now would have to wait until the end of the emergency order and up to 120 days after that ends so all the people that are unemployed right now that might be applying for jobs might get caught i mean again that's not i understand brand i should ask the practitioners about that but i'm just thinking that's a long range of time for people yeah i don't nothing about it prevents anybody from filing those petitions um it just provides that the court doesn't have to abide by those time frames for responding to the petitions or issuing orders based on those petitions selena so so okay so i'm just trying to understand this then so someone who filed for the executive order ends someone filed 120 days you know essentially four months later they would be held to the then the then the judiciary would be held to the statutory time the current statutory time frames for processing um the ceiling or expungement request are they held to no time frame whatsoever for any requests that come in during the executive order and during those um then subsequent four months like how does that work they could they say like we're not going to get to that one for five years because they came in do you know what i mean is there any kind of parameter on when they have to respond to the requests that do come in when the time frames are suspended that come in during the state of emergency or the 120 days after right so i think one that would come in at the end of that 120 days the statutory time frames would then apply to those so if a person waited to petition until the end of 120 days after the state of emergency the regular statutory time frame would apply to those but petitions that are pending or petitions that are filed during the state of emergency the statutory time frame would not apply so my understanding is that picking up anything that came in during the state of emergency 120 days after would pick up in the statutory time frame would apply so it would be as if the person didn't apply until the 120 days following the clock would start but it's not like those could be in some kind of permanent no no okay maryne actually i think i i i i'm withdrawing my question i i think that was answered just now thanks yeah okay yes okay uh kenny do you kenny yeah so do we need to uh specify that 120 days or or could it be different so um no maybe maybe things will get back to normal quicker i think the idea is that the court has the authority to extend a 049 for as long as it needs to so right now a 049 is scheduled to expire or be terminated on april 15th but the court has the authority to extend that by order so 120 days following the termination of a 049 could be at any any point in the future based on how far the court extends the duration of a 049 does that does that make sense yeah okay thanks thanks i think what they're trying to get at was to put people back to work quicker right with the expungement right that was one of the major policy goals of the expansion of availability of expungement and sealing yes um and i think again you know judge gerson is the best to address this but my understanding is that these are sort of low on the priority for the court because so many things are piling up during the duration of the state of emergency that they're sort of trying to prioritize what needs to be done by the court first when the state of emergency ends and i think adding that 120 days um is the court's way of saying these are sort of on the back burner for this duration of time while we build back up um our capacity and deal with all of the things that we need to deal with understand thank you it's okay if i move on to subsection three here the last one in section five thank you yes okay so um this is the last suspension of statutory timeframes um under section five and what this does is it suspends just for the duration of a 049 no extension beyond it just for the duration the statutory timeframes for preliminary and merits hearings on um civil driver's license license suspensions so this applies um the preliminary so under current statute the preliminary hearing is scheduled to be held has to be held within 21 days of the alleged offense and the merit hearings has to be held within 21 days from the preliminary hearing so that's often referred to as the 42 day rule um and under current law those driver's license suspensions are effective 11 days after notice which is prior to those hearings so the second thing this section does is it says first these statutory timeframes those 21 days um or the 42 day rule is suspended and also it prohibits the superior court from suspending or disqualifying a person's driver's license um just during the state of emergency until that civil suspension hearing on the merits is held so if um so typically a person would have their driver's license suspended under these circumstances and i can talk about the circumstances if you want um prior to that hearing being held but this says we're we're suspending the timeframes and while we're suspending the timeframes um you can't have your driver's license suspended until you've had that merit hearing so what type of offenses Bryn do these apply to and when you say civil offenses right so this is we're talking about like um a criminal refusal um so that is when you've had a previous conviction for driving under the influence um and you are pulled over and um law enforcement officer who has reason to believe you're in violation of the DUI statute um requests an evidentiary test and you refuse that test that's a criminal refusal situation um that's a that's an automatic six month civil suspension under existing law um also if you are if you have a evidentiary test result that shows that your blood alcohol content is high it's that um 0.16 or higher which is double the legal limit um or if you have a second or subsequent conviction and then you're found to be operating by an evidentiary test with 0.02 blood alcohol content or higher so those are the situations where um these hearings would apply so that so that makes sense all the so those timeframes for those hearings are suspended and also it prohibits the Supreme Court from suspending your driver's license until you've had the hearing on the merits okay Martin so well I suppose we'll probably hear this from the witnesses as far as the rationale for that one so I won't ask that question but a second question is um what about other I'm sure there are many other statutory deadlines that that exist for courts um has has the court considered all of those and these are the only ones or should there be some sort of a blanket uh suspension of certain categories um there were some you may have heard that there were some other requests by the court for statutory time frame suspension um that did get removed from the initial version of the bill um but you know that would be a good question for Judge Grierson my understanding is that these were the these were their priorities that they needed suspensions for okay and again you know what I would say about that is that they that and I imagine what Judge Grierson may say to you is that meeting those that 42 day rule um for those types of hearings is is is going to be a challenge for them and that's why they requested this particular statute to be the time frame to be suspended all right thanks oh that's great I see that Mike just posted the original memo which should be helpful so I'll move on to section six unless there are other questions so this section suspends the statutes of limitations or statutes of repose for beginning a civil action um that would otherwise expire during the duration of the state of emergency so all of those civil action statute of limitations are told until 60 days after the governor terminates the state of emergency by declaration so what that word told means is essentially that um you just add that amount of time to the statute of limitations so if the statute of limitations would have otherwise run out on April 1st the duration of the um the state of emergency would be added from April 1st onward so it just is sort of a pause on those statute of limitations during the duration of the emergency some questions I I had a question and I I answered it for myself raising my hand so I would draw it okay okay so if I don't see any other ones I'll move on to the last section section seven um so this way sorry yeah just uh I just took a quick look at at the memo from Judge Greerson and he does ask for the suspension of those hearings but doesn't suggest at least in this memo uh that the suspension should not occur until that the driver's license suspension shouldn't occur until after uh the emergency order is complete or I mean that seems to have been added do you know who suggested that addition that the driver's license shouldn't be suspended during this term even though under normal circumstances it would be suspended yes um thank you for pointing that out that was not a part of the original request that in testimony the defender general requested that um those driver's license suspensions not occur if they're if there was going to be some perhaps months long wait for a person to um have their hearing held on their civil suspension for those um that would be a sort of an unintended consequence that people would not have their driver's license for perhaps months while they are waiting for their hearing to be held huh so I mean this isn't for you but this is I guess the rest of the committee that that that part troubles me somebody who is uh double the legal limit uh is getting a free pass for some number of months um and I don't know if this I mean again we don't want to be in a situation where we want to do a an amendment uh that comes over but I that so far that's the one thing that has troubled me of all these things that we we've been seen is is somebody who is especially their second DUI and they're they're driving at a certain limit that's very troublesome to me that's not for you Brynn I understand and uh again I think what what might be helpful is um folks who have these questions if uh maybe even send it ahead of time to uh to the witnesses uh so they they know that you know we want to make sure that they um that they can address them and I um again our time is limited with our witnesses and certainly we'll need to um come back but I've been hearing through the speaker that the more folks can get a heads up about concerns uh the easier it is for them to uh to address them so so should I do that should I go ahead and send that to sure yeah Greerson and Marshall and yeah I would think the ever group you know the witnesses that we're hearing from this afternoon yeah okay thanks okay okay okay so I'll move on to the last section great and this section is also you won't see this one in the original memo from the judiciary they requested this um on the last day of testimony so this kind of was a late coming request so the section does is it allows for alternative filing requirements when notarizations are required for certain filings um and it allows for those alternative filing requirements just during the state of emergency so obviously right now do the inability to obtain notary signatures during the pandemic um there is a need that has arisen for the for an alternative manner of filing so what this does is it allows parties to file documents that would otherwise require a notarization um by filing the document with just the specific language that um it has to be inserted above the signature line which you see there um and it applies to any court filings except for affidavits in support of a search warrant application or applications for a non-test test testimonial identification order so you see that language um appears let's see in lines 13 through 16 just the declaration that the that the statement is true and accurate and an understanding that it's a statement is false that the person would be subject to the penalty of perjury or other sanctions and then Martin yeah so uh could you explain what a non-testimonial identification order is yes hold on one second to get blood or take blood or something like that I think Bryn so that means identification by fingerprints um or other like reasonable physical examination like a hand writing sample or a voice sample or a photo for a lineup or something similar Selena I had the exact same question so okay um so the last section just makes the act effective on passage and then uh retitles the bill to an act relating to the emergency judicial response to the COVID-19 public health emergency and that's it thank you um so it does look like DMV testified would they have okay and I might would they would they generally testify or is this really more defense and prosecution and and judiciary I'm not sure that they um unless they wanted to weigh in on the policy aspect I'm not sure that they're implicated in any other way because it's the superior court that actually does those license suspensions um so unless they were going to weigh in on the policy I'm not sure that they would be affected otherwise okay thank you okay thank you uh feels like a lot to digest I don't know if anybody else is feeling that way and maybe that's why we're having the questions that we're having hmm I did see your witness list that looks like you have um you're hearing from everybody that the senate heard from as well as some additional people um if that's helpful so you should be able to get everyone's perspectives okay all right thank you Bryn so we do have a little time left over we can um and again I'm just thinking out loud here one thing we can do is we could review the questions that people have concerns about um would that be helpful to make sure that we as a as a committee understand them versus each committee member reaching out to specific witnesses uh and I've started an email I've started an email right now so I'm happy to make this our make this the judiciary or all of our email I mean all of our concerns in one I think that would be helpful as others other thoughts okay all right great thank you Martin so I think it'd be good to go you know section by section and then um and that way so for instance you know Barbara you could speak to your particular concerns in your sections uh so go ahead let's get back glasses all right thanks scene yeah can I just ask a process question I'm sorry too yeah um do you want us to go like section one and then everybody highlight their questions and then section two and everybody okay that's my thinking but I'm also open to if there's a another way to do it Tom has a his hand up if you have thoughts about it uh not the procedure just uh some questions that I have around section one okay all right yeah yeah um I guess I'm maybe I don't understand the section um but I'm just kind of wondering if somehow with this section can landlords uh be um well in a sense just come up short on their money because I uh I do have a friend that he owns one house uh you know he uh with the way rents are and not just renting to anybody I mean he's on uh he's on the line basically as far as losing it goes now with something like this what would happen uh um with somebody maybe not having to pay their rent or or that type of thing and uh is there any protections for him um you know uh coming up short money with his mortgage payments then and I does that apply to this section I guess how it has first right are you able to respond to that or is that more for the witnesses um I think that so this applies just in this limited circumstance of the rent to escrow hearing so I'm I don't think that this particular section addresses um the the other side the the side of having to pay the mortgage payments um I'm not sure if that is addressed in the house general bill and the senate economic development bill it may be um but I would have to I would have to connect with the legislative council there and get back to you right right I think it would be important yeah thank you yeah thank you and it would be great to know what the status of of the house general bill is and okay yeah thank you yes okay is that a question uh for the witnesses you think or is that for David for a legislative council uh bridge does that sound like more like one for David you think as opposed to the witnesses is that how I understood you um I think that I mean I think as a general matter whether or not it appears in the bill that that's a question for us um and again I'm I can connect with David to find out about that it may also be a question for the witnesses depending on the answer to whether or not it appears in that bill all right we'll I'll send it to the witnesses okay great thank you okay thank you everyone yeah anybody else on section one nope okay uh section two or three those are the okay I had the question in relation to uh section three as far as not what's on the the bill is proposed but whether or not there's any work being done to allow access to uh land records right earlier in the process great okay thank you yeah and I have one I think on section two or three I'm not um but um Glenn Jarrett one of my constituents who was an attorney had I had um emailed Eric about Glenn's concern about um the power of attorney for people from other states because in other states often they use the standard of two um witnesses um and so Glenn was hoping Eric was under the impression that this language would take care of it but Glenn was hoping that we could add language to put some belts and suspenders around that so that there isn't an issue of somebody it involves somebody from out of state and I have an email from him which will explain it more clearly than I just did because I quickly realized wait this is the section I need to have that language for um so that'd be a good question for Terry I think yes okay Maxine could I jump in there for a second yeah there you are yep sorry uh thank you thank you representative grad yeah um right sir rachel said I just want to clarify I I didn't actually and if I miscommunicated I apologize I did not intend to say uh that the uh power of attorney section takes care of the uh advanced directives I don't think it does the okay what I said was that it took care of you had a separate question that I said you asked about two things and I think it did take care of the other power attorney attorney issues it did not it doesn't address advanced directives the the advanced directive statute requires that advanced directives be executed um by the principal and two or more witnesses it does not actually require notarization at all right so so it would not be covered by rules regarding uh notarization it it's it's a separate requirement for for the person who executes the advanced directive you know the person the principal who's designating other people who can make healthcare decisions on their behalf and it has to be witnessed by two or more witnesses and I don't think that I think that's a separate issue that is not covered in any of the legislation you have in front of you right now okay and it does sound like um and Terry can answer this that it's bigger than just um Glenn's practice that practitioners use a notary just in case the client is from out of state um so that could be an issue that again I don't know if we can tack on to this or not yeah I think that's a policy decision for for you folks to um but yeah I think that's that's a I saw Glenn's email on that I I suppose that's true that that if you it's be an interesting question it's probably not immediately apparent from the language the statute requires two witnesses doesn't say anything about notaries but let's say you had two notaries be your witnesses then they would you know they could remotely notarize pursuant to the Secretary of State's rules I don't know I I don't know whether uh whether that might satisfy the statute it might but I'm not sure but Glenn Glenn also was willing to testify I think he is um trying to sit in on these hearings and might be on right now even so I know we don't have time today but I'm just wondering if Terry or Glenn can I think I think it'd be helpful to uh make sure that Terry sees Glenn's email or understands his concerns and and give us an update on whether or not they have addressed it or what their thinking is so okay great thank you so this doesn't sound like a question for this afternoon's witnesses though uh no no it'd be for Terry I think right okay uh okay section four criminal ruler procedure 43 and questions concerns about that one okay seeing any okay uh section five I think this is where we had three more questions right uh Selena sorry that's okay um so I think a lot of my questions are along the lines of um some of the questions Barbara I'll put forward here so um for the extending um the term that detainees can be held obviously with everything where that's evolving particularly over the past week in our correctional facilities that is of concern so my question would really be because I think last week we heard a lot about all the work that different players in our court systems are doing to actually reduce the detaining population and like questions are does that work adequately counterbalance this I think that's the way I would frame that question because you know an additional week for someone a week instead of a 48 hour period those those are like we don't want people to be in a situation where that difference is a let you know a life or death sentence um potentially for um for for a crime that they haven't even been sentenced for so I have those questions and then my other question um really relates similarly to representative Rachel sins to the implications of that then four month delay plus the period of the executive order on the ceiling and expungement order isn't just like what are the and you know I don't know if our witnesses are exactly the ones to answer this maybe maybe to public defenders can help with that and and um even the network and some others but like what are the implications of that on a time of such unprecedented employment um employment numbers for folks to then have this population be like really at a further disadvantage on the other side of things so that's or at a disadvantage in that they can't you know they don't have the same access to clearing records that they well right right thank you yeah Barbara gonna add to that um thank you yes so again it would be great to hear from a few people about the types of examples that this 48 hours to seven days um effects again I think I just sent um a couple of you something that the Vera Institute was touting about another state that went the other direction in terms of bail and really gave the um the defendant the the sort of the it went in the other direction like let's not make a defendant's suffer but let's assume that we can just lower bail for everybody in this time period um and conditions and I can try to find that article again um the same thing with the expungement piece I'm wondering not so much about people that are filing at the end but we didn't talk about somebody that filed were they up to date when that executive order went into place or are there people that put in a petition for expungement some time in February you know I don't know how old are the ones that are in the queue right now and now they're going to also wait another 120 days um this short be a great time to do automatic um expungement as the uh fallback rule during this period rather than extending a time period okay thank you others on this so do you want me to ask should we be doing automatic expungement because I know what the answer is on that except they're it's not automatic right now they can't do it automatically it takes personnel going from files but I'm happy to ask the question that may that may bring up some controversial debate I thought we could get some legislators to volunteer to help hey I'd do some paperwork from home to get those done well it'll be interesting just to see if these things issues were thought of and and if they were uh what brought them really would be the defender general's office um on board with this so um yeah and if they didn't if they didn't think of these things and um I appreciate all of you bringing them up okay uh anything else on five okay uh six the um so Martin this is where yeah I'm gonna add that right right anybody else on that section and how about seven the final one oh I'm sorry Selena yep I go back to six because I feel like I did understand we heard testimony from Marshall about that as a coming thing last week and I under I definitely understood their the reasoning for it and so maybe Martin as a nuance to your question is just like what does DPS need to take additional um highway are there additional highway safety measures that need to accompany that provision if it moves forward you mean the uh the suspension of driver's license or not suspending driver's licenses correct would DPS but we don't have DPS as a witness today right yeah I mean I'm just trying to get at more nuance than just like does uh is this okay you know what I mean like also like okay well what would if there's concern what would make it okay well somewhat related to that um in terms of the fact that uh restaurants can um somebody can order um liquor cocktails to go with their with their meals and so the so the whole open container law right it's just out the window so um that was interesting um you know I I understand that that's where restaurants make a lot of their money but it's it's a interesting interesting one so um yeah I think other states actually have uh well I'm pretty sure New York does other states have that uh uh law in effect all the time where you can take out uh beer and alcohol restaurants and bars and that type of thing so it's almost similar to what they do okay actually for for me this is helpful to hear everybody to go through to get into hear everybody's questions uh sorry I thank you anything else hi yes Ken can we just back up on this on these landlords thing what was it section the section one you know I'm I'm really concerned with the landlords you know they're not all rich and you've got a lot of people that things were running really really well and they probably just purchased some property and now all of a sudden they can't get paid and that puts them in a bad position I I am just really really concerned that uh that that the the landlords are really going to get stung on this stuff big time you know I realize the tenants are one thing but I think landlords are very important with this right okay well let's uh similar to Tom's question so let's uh let's make sure we get that answer um okay Barbara and then we'll need to uh adjourn we're just about a time go ahead Barbara I think in part of getting the answer that Ken and Tom um need to hear is what we're doing um sort of tax deferment payments which could help the landlords so I think in hearing the economic tools that landlords have access to that um tenants don't might be helpful for us to hear because I agree we're not trying to uh have somebody else they're the burden of the pain but my understanding was that landlords would be able to make some suitable adjustments that would help them okay thank you and again that's something that David Hall uh could also help us understand in terms of what's being done elsewhere okay so we are at time any uh Barbara your hand is okay great so anybody else before we close yeah yeah just a question on uh when we come back at what was it 230 I think it was yes whatever time it was it just wondering we probably question for Mike do we sign back in the same way we did uh this morning he sent a separate sign in it's a separate sign there okay yeah there's a separate sign in and link okay okay so I'm gonna email this out momentarily uh and if uh people if I've missed missed it somehow if you could just correct it or and copy everybody again I think that probably works fine great great thank you so much for doing that Martin yep okay all right well I'm actually listening so then and but I'm sorry what coach I didn't hear what you said we're good sorry coach I didn't hear hear what you're saying no we're good I uh I'm working on a couple of uh things with a ccd uh to try to get a couple of answers around the uh the landlord piece okay because there was some language in the governor's uh announcements for uh support for landlords who are supporting tenants okay but I'll try to dig that up between now and the next one okay great appreciate that thank you okay so we are going to adjourn and we're going to uh go off the record and