 Good afternoon and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee and this afternoon we're going to be looking at H-145, which is an act relating to amending the standards for law enforcement use of force as well as going over legislation that is now law that was passed last session. And to do a walk-through and give us some context is attorney Bryn Hare from Bryn. So good afternoon committee for the record Bryn Hare from legislative council. I believe that the way we're going to start today I think it makes most sense to start today by taking a review of S-119 which became Act 165 last session and the section one a big chunk of that act you will find in the bill that you're taking up today H-145 the standards for law enforcement use of force. So I'm going to go through that section in particular pretty carefully because much of it mirrors what you're going to see in H-145 with some a few exceptions there are some changes made in H-145 which I'll point out as I go through Act 165 if that makes sense. So I'm assuming that everybody has Act 165 2020s S-119 pulled up on your device so we can take a look at that together. Pause for a second so everybody can pull that up. And while you're pulling it up I'll just say that generally what Act 165 did was to create a statutory statewide standard for the law enforcement for law enforcement's use of force including the use of deadly force and this and many of you will remember this quite clearly but just for the edification of the new members these standards were largely modeled off of legislation that passed in California in 2019 and also crafted from different law enforcement use of force policies from around the country including Seattle, Canada, New Jersey, Washington DC and also the Burlington and South Burlington police use of force policies and broadly kind of the important thing take away just from the outset is that the standards provide that the use of force by law enforcement is lawful if it's objectively reasonable it's necessary and it's proportional and the use of deadly force is lawful if it is necessary in defense of human life. So there's kind of the overarching parameters and now we'll get into the specifics of the standards. So section one the first the first thing you'll see is a definition section. So I'm just pulling it up here on my own screen hold on a second. So the definition section sets out several definitions that are used throughout the section of law that puts these parameters on law enforcement use of force so I'm going to go through them pretty carefully because they come up over and over again in the language. So the first one is deadly force so deadly force definition of deadly force is any use of force that creates a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily injury. Force is the physical coercion employed by law enforcement to compel a person's compliance with law enforcement's instructions imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury again this language is used throughout the standards. So it means when based on the totality of the circumstances which is another phrase that we're going to get to that's defined a reasonable officer in the same situation would believe that a person has the ability opportunity and apparent and apparent intent to immediately cause death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person. So that imminent threat is not merely a fear of future harm no matter how great the fear and no matter how great the likelihood of harm but it is a threat that from all appearances must be immediately addressed and confronted. So law enforcement officer we should I'll pause here for a second. I'm just confused a little bit. So when something is underlined that's new language right. Yes and so just as a reminder this is not H 145 this is Act 165. Okay no I'm looking at H 145. Okay yes so we can take a pause here and I can talk about that this is sort of a technical thing that that I knew I would need to explain. So because H 145 amends law that has not yet gone into effect the standards for law enforcement use of force that passed in 165 were scheduled to take effect in July of this year. So that law has not yet taken effect so the way that we amend a law that hasn't yet taken effect is to repeal it and to reintroduce it with the changes that you want to make. So it looks like this is all new language in H 145 even though much of it is language that actually passed in Act 165 but at H 145 when we go through it you're going to see is going to repeal what was done in in Act 165 and re-establish it in 145. Okay great thank you. Okay I'm going to carry on the definition in subdivision five here on page two is prohibited restraint and I'm just going to note that this is one area that is this is a definition that's altered in H 145. So the way it appears in Act 165 is that a prohibited restraint means the use of any maneuver on a person that applies pressure to the neck throat windpipe or carotid artery that may prevent or hinder breathing reduce the intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain. This is a definition that is going to change in H 145 and I'll talk about that when we get to that bill if that makes sense. Next definition is totality of the circumstances this is another definition that changes in H 145. So under Act 165 it means the conduct and decisions of law enforcement leading up to the use of force and all facts known to the law enforcement officer at the time. Again you're going to see some additional language there in H 145 but that completes the definition section so I'm going to move on to the substance of the standards starting with subdivision B which governs the use of force. So this sets out the standard for lawful use of force and policing describes the general policy in subdivision one here as that the use of force should be used judiciously with respect for every human every person to be free from excessive use of force subdivision two provides that any use of force by law enforcement to achieve any lawful law enforcement objective has to be objectively reasonable necessary and proportional to effect an arrest to prevent to prevent escape or to overcome resistance of a person that the officer has a reasonable cause to believe has committed a crime or to achieve achieve any other lawful law enforcement objective. So again the key words here are objectively reasonable necessary and proportional that's those are the standards governing the use of force subdivision three this provides that the decision by law enforcement to use force has to be evaluated carefully. So there's some general language there I'm going to scroll down so now I'm on page three subdivision four this provides specifically that the analysis of objective reasonableness has to consider whether the officer failed to use reasonable and feasible feasible alternatives to the use of force subdivision five provides this this is the subdivision this got a lot of attention and committee when when you are working on the bill this imposes a duty on law enforcement when a law enforcement officer has knowledge that a subject's conduct is due to something outside of the subject's control for example a mental impairment or a medical condition or a language barrier etc the officer has to use that information in determining the amount of force that is appropriate to use on that subject if any. Okay I'm going to move on to subdivision six so this is language that really just affirms law enforcement law enforcement officers right to self-defense they don't have a duty to retreat once they're engaged. Now I'm going to move on to subsection C now we're moving into the standards for law enforcement use of deadly force so C1 describes when deadly force is appropriate it provides that law enforcement is justified in using deadly force on another person only when the officer reasonably believes based on a totality of the circumstances as we defined earlier that the force is necessary to either defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person or to apprehend a fleeing person for any felony that threatened or resulted in death or serious bodily injury if that officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or serious bodily injury to another unless the person's immediately apprehended so again I'll just re-emphasize that necessary is the keyword there and then subdivision two put some parameters around what necessary means um describes the word necessary as when in light of the particular circumstances an objectively reasonable law enforcement officer would conclude that there was no reasonable alternative to the use of force that would prevent death or serious bodily injury either to the officer or to another person okay subdivision three provides that law enforcement shall cease the use of deadly force as soon as the subject is under the officer's control no longer poses imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury subdivision four provides law enforcement shall not use deadly force against a person based on the danger that that person poses to themselves and subdivision five provides that law enforcement when feasible prior to the use of force shall make reasonable efforts to identify themselves as a law enforcement officer and warn the deadly force may be used and lastly law enforcement has a duty to intervene if the officer observes another officer using a prohibited restraint on a person and prohibited restraint was defined in the early part of the bill subsection a if you recall that was defined earlier and we're going to talk about that some more as we go through the rest of act 165 but I'll pause here to see if there are questions before I move on okay okay so I'm gonna keep going them so section two this section amends the justifiable homicide statute and it makes several changes it modernizes some language in subdivision one it makes some changes that make the intent clearer in subdivision two and then subdivision three this is really the big change that's made for those of you who haven't taken a look at this statute in a while it provides it under current law provides that in the case of a law enforcement officer who's lawfully called up to suppress riot or rebellion or to prevent or suppress invasion or to assist in serving legal process in suppressing opposition against the officer or injustice necessary discharge of their duty is is relieved of liability if they kill or wound another person in under those circumstances so it's really extremely broad language likely unconstitutional language in light of the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution that protects people against unlawful search and seizure so quite a quite a big change that is made here in section two and so the amended language here provides that law enforcement are entitled to the defense of justifiable homicide if they kill or wound another person only if they're using force that's in compliance with certain standards that are set out in section one of this act which is what we just went through so only if their that use of force is in compliance with the standard set out in section one for law enforcement use of force and I can talk more about that I'm not sure how deep you want to go here but maybe I'll keep moving if I don't see questions okay I'm going to keep going then so I'm at the top of page six now for those who are following along section three this section repealed two sunsets that were imposed by s219 which was the other bill the past last session that sort of did set for some police reform this that bill was largely in the gov ops committee I think this committee also took a look at it but the the crux of 219 was that it changed the unprofessional conduct chapter entitled 20 and it also provided it also set out the original version of law enforcement use of prohibited restraint which is the new crime that prohibits law enforcement from using a prohibited restraint as it was defined in section one and also did a couple of other things so anyway with this repeals as the sunset on that new crime because s219 imposed a sunset on that crime so it repeals the sunset on the new crime of law enforcement use of prohibited restraint and it also repealed the sunset on the justifiable homicide statute which this act 165 amended in section two so it's a little complicated I don't know if you want all of those details or not but I'll keep going lastly section four this directed the department of public safety and the executive director of racial equity to report to the standing committees in February of this year so right about now on the process and the outcome of their work to develop a statewide uniform model use of force policy for law enforcement so I believe that you're getting that report tomorrow and section for a provides that the council this is the council the criminal justice council it adds a new language there that provides that the council can't offer or prove any training on the use of a prohibited restraint except for training designed to identify and prevent the use of prohibited restraints and then lastly the effective dates and I'll just point out that this act 165 provides that the standards for law enforcement use of force and that changes to the justifiable homicide statute are both set to take effect in July of this year so I'll wait for some any questions before I move on to each 145 so just yeah go quickly so for tomorrow you know we are hearing from the commissioner and person the individual who is working on the policy I mean I'll just note that the policy is not finalized but but I think that's understood up front because that is one of the that's understood right now that that you know they've been working on it but but there are some tweaks that they're going to be asking about which will be getting into later to help them in finishing that policy but they do have a draft it's just not complete so just don't want to flag that okay thank you committee members do you want friend to go over any of that again in terms of repeals and sunsets and exit dates or just anything well well that automatically happened uh doing a walkthrough on 145 some of it probably yeah yes some of it probably will be more fleshed out about the effective dates and how things are getting repealed and enacted okay um Kate I saw your hand for a minute and now it's down I just want to make sure question or yeah no I will just I will just be really transparent and hopefully actually maybe you can tell me where maybe this is in the space I think I think I'm feeling a little lost in the language there's a there's a lot of different parts and so um are we going to have an opportunity are we going to come we're going to come back to this I imagine I think I just need to like sit with all the different versions of things and sort of get myself oriented or or I'm open to feedback on the best way to to sort of understand what what's changing here right friend do you have a well one one thing I would note is that in h145 we're going to go through the standards for law enforcement use of force again because they are all there in h145 and I'm going to point out specifically where h145 differs from act 165 so I think that to to focus on the underlining and the repeal and all that is not necessary this is um because that's just sort of technical in nature and I'll just draw everybody's attention to the places that are different between what you pass an act 165 and what's happening in 145 if that's if that's at all helpful and I'm also happy to answer any questions obviously great that sounds like a good plan thank you um tom yeah I'm just wondering if it would be helpful to anybody if we had a side by side of the act compared to uh this h145 with the changes I don't think you're going to need it because the changes as they are now I mean you may as you as you work on it yeah they are right now they are very distinct there's three places where the the standards for law enforcement use of force have changed between 165 and 145 so if you are working with a paper copy or if you have a word version of the document I'd be happy to send this out to the committee too just highlighting where the new language is nothing has been removed it's only new language inserted okay great thank you yeah that'd be great uh ken good just got answered thank you tom is your is your hand up from before yeah I was from before great okay um ken so sorry so um did did I hear where this 145 is already going to have no that's not what I said tomorrow tomorrow we are hearing from the commissioner regarding the policy that we asked for them to report uh back and I was mentioning that that particular policy it says in in this act 165 that they shall provide the final final policy and I was just noting for everybody so there's no surprise tomorrow that the the policy is not final it's a draft and there's it's a it's a still to be worked on and various components of it gotcha thank you okay great okay so before I start um just to acknowledging that there's there this is a lot for especially for the new members of the committee and there are several moving parts um I think I'll just start by by reminding everybody that um one of the big pieces of the police reform that moved during the last session like the summer and fall session and also the last regular session was the prohibited restraint language so that prohibited restraint language you see in three different places in the statutes first there's the new crime it creates a new crime for um a law enforcement officer to use a prohibited restraint on a person that results in serious bodily injury or death it's also added to the unprofessional conduct chapter of title 20 so it provides um an avenue for law enforcement to be disciplined if they use a prohibited restraint and lastly it appears in the languages that you just looked at the standards for law enforcement use of force so there are three different places where we talk about prohibited restraint and we define it so one of the big things that h145 does is it amends that definition of what a prohibited restraint is in all three of those places um that's a big thing that happens in h145 so h145 does that amends the definition of prohibited restraint and also makes a couple of other changes to the standards for law enforcement use of force um I might suggest and this is up to the committee obviously that I share my screen so I can show you the highlighted portions of h145 standards of law enforcement use of force as they have changed um from act 165 is that okay absolutely okay thank you thank you oh I'm I think I need to be made a a host in order to share sorry if Mike or Evan is able to do that easily um that would be great but if not I can do okay I'm gonna try again now it works thank you okay oops all right can everybody see um the bill is introduced h145 on their screen that what that what is appearing to everybody okay good can you can you march it just a little bit can you you're you're trying my uh bills I think you go up to I'm trying to see where you go up to to make it better I think it's a view yeah it's a view you're it's up in the top line there you can go to view and okay hold on I have to move it over here it's pretty kind of hard to to see did that do did that change it no uh lower right hand corner where it oh where there's the little 100% thing the bottom corner of the document yeah that's where you go okay did that work no I wonder if it's can you scroll I wonder if we're not seeing what's happening right now if you're like we're not seeing it so you need to know if you're seeing something else no we're seeing the bill is introduced h145 well something yeah there you go you're all set you're all set no okay sorry I have three screens I'm everybody knows okay I'm operating at my maximum capacity it was technological capability here okay is that bigger everyone can see that okay great okay so section one this is going to look very familiar this is what you just reviewed in act 165 standards for law enforcement use of force definition section everything that is not highlighted is exactly the same as what passed in act 165 so definitions of deadly force and force are the same imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury is the same law enforcement officer is the same but here's where we get to some changes the definition of prohibited restraint within the standards for law enforcement use of force is changed to mean that the use of to mean the use of any maneuver on a person that applies pressure that prevents or hinders breathing reduces intake of air or impedes the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain or the use of any such maneuver with the intent to cause unconsciousness serious bodily injury or death so you may recall that in act 165 the language was any maneuver that applies pressure to the neck throat windpipe or carotid artery that may prevent or hinder breathing reduce intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain period so it didn't it didn't include this last phrase or the use of such maneuver with the intent to cause unconsciousness serious bodily injury or death so um as you can see the definition has um is slightly more narrow than it was in act 165 so that maneuver has to actually prevent or hinder breathing actually reduce intake of air or actually impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain or there's the alternative that that use of maneuver if combined with the intent to cause unconsciousness serious bodily injury or death is a prohibited restraint so um we will return to this definition in this bill because we've changed it in two other places also as I as I mentioned that the outset uh Tom and then Martin thank you brand this probably just gone back over what you just said but but before these were may prevent or hinder breathing right yes okay thank you so could you could you explain where uh where this language came from brand yeah so this um yes I can so there was um well why won't you ask me that question more specifically but well let me I'll ask it as a leading question so is this language from what massachusetts recently passed does it kind of follow or track what massachusetts passed for use of force law I think after we passed our this past yes yes it does um massachusetts passed a pretty large police reform bill um at the end of last year and one of the things that they did was to prohibit these types of restraints and they defined the restraints in this way with the inclusion of that intent element so if if the maneuver actually caused the hindered breathing etc or if the maneuver was done with the intent to cause unconsciousness or or injury so just a follow-up question um yeah it's a good question for legislative council so um so in interpreting if if this case eventually comes before if this is what we pass and uh eventually there's a challenge and this particular definition is challenged isn't there a benefit that a larger state like massachusetts I'll ask this as a leading question as well but is there a benefit uh having a larger state that has this language because they may have interpreted it now I know it's not binding on on the vermont court but they could look at uh how another state has interpreted the same language to as kind of a persuasive authority if you could comment on that maybe I'm wrong about that but but that was my understanding as possibly one of the rationales for following the massachusetts language certainly so I think that um massachusetts may be a state that winds up litigating um this law um before vermont does just by nature they're being um being a larger population um having the big city of boston um there there may be litigation coming out of massachusetts before there would be out of vermont so um yes of any court decision interpreting the meaning of these words or these definitions um wouldn't necessarily be binding on a vermont court but it would provide some context for understanding of how a court may may interpret these these definitions thanks um so I'm going to keep going the next definition um so this is the second place where you're going to see a change to act 165 is the definition of totality of the circumstances so in act 165 this was defined as just um the conduct and decisions of the law enforcement officer leading up to the use of force and all facts known to the law enforcement officer at the time h145 adds um the person or person's involved and any bystanders so the conduct of the subject and also of anyone else present at the scene um or should also be taken into account in considering the totality of the circumstances and I think that this was really um I don't think that there was a the committee intended to um leave out those individuals um this is really just the cleanup change right thank you and you muted your talk yeah okay thank you um community I just want you to know that that this language was um came about in consultation with uh with DPS and you will be hearing from um from the commissioner tomorrow and I don't I don't know if Jennifer Morrison will be with us tomorrow or not but we certainly will we'll hear from her and she's she's very involved in in this conversation and so I um I've really appreciated their um their involvement and and their thoughts on and how to how to move this forward and get to a statewide policy so just a little bit of background uh martin yeah and I just wanted to give a little bit more background on this particular change because uh the folks who were in the committee last year will remember that we did a lot of different things with trying to figure out totality of circumstances uh we had uh some prosecutors suggested kind of a long list of of different um items or different issues or or things that should be taken or taken into account as part of the totality of circumstances and when we did that we dropped you know the behavior of the subject essentially uh down into that list and and then we decided not to have the list and we didn't put that back because when it was introduced this bill totality of the the circumstance or I should say when it came over from the senate very clearly uh said the the conduct and decisions of uh the law enforcement officer or the subject and somewhere along the lines that of the subject kind of got got lost um so it's it's really correcting that although it is adding the bystanders and and we'll have to hear testimony on why that should be added it makes some sense but but certainly folks will testify to that thank you martin uh tom yeah that was going to be my question around the the bystanders I mean I can certainly understand the law enforcement officer the person or persons involved kind of be is the kind of the subject but the bystanders has got me a little baffled so I will be looking forward to hearing a little explanation of that Jen had a good Jen Morrison did have a good explanation but we'll let let her explain it rather than getting it through me so uh ken so can I just ask a question without waiting for all the suspense is a bystander or another cop or something that's standing there watching us that's not involved if somebody was not involved it would be my understanding it could be just a pedestrian it could be just yeah it's anybody else who's not the my question was could okay so let me rephrase it because we're playing a lot of this uh whatever can it be a law enforcement officer that's just standing there observing and not doing anything I think that's a better question for law enforcement or do you have an answer to that bren um I would I would suspect that law enforcement would say that they aren't bystanders because they have described even their presence um at a situation as as a use of force of some kind um so I don't think that a law enforcement officer could be considered a bystander um but again that may be a good question for for law enforcement when they testify thank you okay so I'm going to keep going I don't see any more questions so I will move on to subsection b this is the use of force section um no changes made to sub to any of this subdivision two this is where um the standard provides that law enforcement may only use for subjectively reasonable necessary and proportional no changes there first change you um actually this is the last change now um to the languages passed in act 165 is in b4 so this is that um section that sort of describes what uh reasonableness is under these circumstances so whether um a decision of an officer to use force was objectively reasonable has to be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation based on the totality of the circumstances um which is a definition that we've amended here without the benefit of hindsight um so this language um tracks very closely with the existing federal case law um describing the standard for um for using force by law enforcement um so I'll just leave it at that unless there are any questions so that is the that's the last change that's made to um the standards for law enforcement use of force I'm not sure if you want to go through it again or not I thought maybe we should get to the rest of it just to make sure you have time but I'm happy to go through it again if you if you'd like did you mean to go through the changes again no those are those are the only three changes that are made to the standards right as they passed in act 165 I was going to move on to the rest of the bill um but I can I don't have to I can go through these standards again if if the committee I see can his his hand up so can can you go into any more detail on the benefit of the hindsight there that who's just up a little bit or we'll sure so this um b4 gonna wait on that sure so this subdivision here is kind of just trying to put put force and parameters on what reasonableness looks like so um how is somebody who's um reviewing law enforcement use of force determining whether or not that use of force was reasonable um so that's that's sort of the context of this subdivision b4 um so this adding the phrase without the benefit of hindsight really is is providing that the situation has to be examined from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation based on everything that the officer knew without the lens of hindsight so without the benefit of like 2020 vision that one has after an event has already happened so I think it really emphasizes the existing language which is that this has to be any law enforcement officer use of force has to be examined um just like the language says from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the exact same situation based on everything that the officer knew and the totality of the circumstances that existed at the time so if I was so sorry if I was the lawyer which everybody knows I'm not and I'm looking right at this the first thing I tear is somebody that says perspective a reasonable officer in the same situation there isn't anything out there that's the same situation is there that really really opens up a whole whatever somebody wants to interpolate what's going on right there's always going to be something different in a uh in in in force but I I think that so this language really comes from existing um supreme court case law that is that is sort of examining these law enforcement use of force cases um and it's true that reasonableness I think is difficult to characterize but this language really comes quite um quite closely uh is quite closely modeled after um after supreme court case law on these types of cases so I think what it I'm maybe you're getting hung up on the same situation um that that that phrase same situation is that right um yeah pretty much yeah that yeah sprint yeah because I think that um the way I read this language is to say that um somebody who's a reviewer of uh of a case of law enforcement use of force say it's um the council or or somebody within the law the department who's reviewing um a law enforcement officer's use of force is this is really guiding that reviewer to how should they conduct their analysis and their analysis should be um what was that officer's action reasonable from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation so putting a reasonable officer in that those same circumstances as they existed at the time um would that be a reasonable use of force so today is probably not today to ask this but who's uh who is it a committee that that's going to make this decision on on this officer that's involved in uh in the use of force so you're talking about the reviewer uh who is reviewing law enforcement action with respect to use of force yeah so that's that'll be a great question for law enforcement to talk about when they come in because they um there there are internal review processes that they are better equipped to describe to the committee um but a court could also use these standards a state court could use these standards um if a person did bring suit um against an officer um for having their rights violated so there are a couple different ways that these standards could be used okay thank you okay so i'm going to move on to the next section of the bill unless um i hear that you would like to go through these standards again again i'll just say that nothing else about the standards has changed um from the way that they pass in act 165 so i'll move on to section two um this is um the crime that i described earlier the crime of law enforcement use of prohibited restraint um so this appeared in s219 i can't remember the act number for that um but the change made here is once again to the definition of prohibited restraint so rather than providing that this these are the types of restraints that may prevent or hinder breathing um or reduce intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen um it provides that they do prevent or hinder breathing reduce the intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain or um using that maneuver with the intent to cause unconsciousness or injury and we can take a look at this crime if you want because there are new members of the committee who haven't seen it yet so sub subsection b here provides that law enforcement who's um acting in their capacity as law enforcement who employs a prohibited restraint that causes serious bodily injury or death to the person um that is prohibited conduct and um subjects the officer to a term of imprisonment or fine or both okay i'm going to keep going section three um this is just from section two four oh one subdivision seven this is from the unprofessional conduct chapter of title 20 uh governing how um law enforcement um law enforcement conduct is governed um internally so changes the definition of prohibited restraint there as well to the to the same thing that you've seen a couple times now and then lastly section four um as i mentioned earlier this makes changes to um to the effective dates of the justifiable homicide statute to line it up with the um date that these new standards for law enforcement use of force will take effect so if you you can see in um section six here section one which is law enforcement standards for use of force takes effect on september first so um what section four does is it provides that that just those changes to the justifiable homicide state statute will take effect at the same time september first of this year and then section five here repeals um the standards for law enforcement use of force as enacted in um act 165 because you are um setting them out here anew in h145 i hope that's clear i know it's a lot of technical aspects of this bill um so i'm happy to answer questions uh bob go ahead yes thank you and looking at this brinn i guess my question is there doesn't seem to be or maybe i missed it in my earlier years which was many years ago i have seen this this so-called prohibitive act aka chokehold or whatever else never liked it never attempted it uh but in this bill here where there's a lot of changes being made i think those are good but i don't see any uh out shall we say for an individual more importantly law enforcement officer who was faced with uh the possibility of death and and his or her only option last minute option is say they got a this prohibited act and and they're that's their only way of enforcing this because of them being attacked or whatever else it seems to be pretty solid just says you can't use this act period so um the justifiable homicide statute would still apply to law enforcement so um we went through the justifiable homicide statute in um act 165 and i would just note that um even with the changes to the justifiable homicide statute um it could still be used to justify law enforcement use of a prohibited restraint so even though these chokeholds are prohibited as a restraining technique um they can still be used where deadly force is justified and that um i would just note is consistent with the standards as they've been set out in section one here so if the officer needs to use that that type of force to prevent injury to him or herself or to um another person then they they still have that right thank you and i in that situation i'm sure anybody would would use whatever means and necessary at their disposal to save their own life so thank you not seeing anybody else questions brin not seeing any okay keep going brin so i'm really at the i'm at the end here i went through um the effective dates and that's really it for for h145 thank you so uh ken so we're not taking up 145 tomorrow at all we're just uh we're just going over the um or commissioner shirling is bringing forward um over over what's happened from 2020 right we're taking we're taking up 145 later on right i think they're i i think they're related and i think it's important for us to know that about 145 because it's it's um and um and that's 119 because they're they're they're all related and and the report was part of um 119 erect what was it 165 so um certainly we are going to um spend a lot of time i would think on on h145 in terms of um testimony and um and hearing from others but you know it will come up tomorrow i would i would think um so i i assume uh brin is going to be here tomorrow actually i don't brin you are you i don't think you're available tomorrow is that correct still um i am i'm scheduled to be somewhere else i'm i'm gonna try to join if i can okay thank you thank you what yeah so so uh these changes in 145 uh really have been suggested uh by uh dps based on their work on the policy as they were working on the policy they felt that there were these few tweaks that would help them uh put the policy for consistent with with the standards and statutes so they do just want to you know they they do interrelate you know again jen morrison who will i i believe she's scheduled for tomorrow to talk about the policy uh is is actually the person who initiated uh wanting these tweaks to the law so so yeah they're they're very much uh intermediate thank you martin uh uh tom and then ken yeah i don't know who this was for maybe brin i guess but as far as all the effective dates are those the same as they were in 165 or did they change no that's a great question i don't think i was very clear about that um in 165 the standards were scheduled to take effect on july 1st of this year and h145 bumps that date out to september 1st which was was that mainly around because dps has been so busy with the with the covid that they haven't had a lot of time to address uh the act 165 you know i would let them answer that it was a request that they be given a little bit more time to um finalize the policy before the standards go into effect and for training and and all of that yeah the the reason i ask is i do remember the commissioner talking about um you know all that he had going on with implementing the the statewide covid response so i will try to remember to ask thank you yeah and dps has been doing quite a bit of work on this right um and and again they will um they'll talk to us about as well at you know as well but um yeah so did everybody get the draft from uh from the dps i thought that it has been loaded on the website or was it just emailed to house judiciary because that shows that you know it's the first draft it shows uh who all has commented on the first draft already uh we should make sure that that's loaded up i i don't i know i haven't but i don't remember if i received it without the rest of the committee receiving it right i yeah i know i received but yeah definitely should be should be on our committee page you know i thought the whole committee had received it maybe not okay well um mic if you could um if you could please make sure that that it does get up on our committee page that'd be great thank you um okay so committee any where are folks in terms of review going through it again i think it would be handy to see that paperwork you're just talking about yeah i'm looking for it to see that i'll if i don't know if mic do you know what we're talking about as far as it should have come from presumably either the commissioner or Jen Morrison came from the commissioner i believe um i i can also try to find it and just email it to everybody uh okay do you want to go ahead while um sure yeah i just was curious if it would be possible to get uh when you were just going through the the bill brand you had highlighted the areas that were different and the bill that is on our website doesn't have that those sections highlighted i just wasn't sure maybe mic if you could upload the highlighted version just help to signify clearly what language has changed i can i can send that to mic so he can post it thank you great thank you i have the report and i'm posting it okay good yeah and again the commissioner will be the uh the commissioner will be discussing the report with us tomorrow okay sorry i'm trying to get my bearings a little bit so uh martin sent me some information i think about swine 18 and i will take a look at that but um just curious as we continue to talk about this if we'll just get continue to get a little more context about sort of where it sounds like there was a a law that was enacted or a bill that was passed and then there's there's additional changes that have been made to a bill that has not yet been actually enacted is that what i'm understanding there's like a lot the bill is that it hasn't gone into effect changes have been made prior to it going into effect is that what i'm understanding that's correct so the standards we bumped out the effective date in act 165 to july 1st of this year to give everybody time to establish the policy and get the training and um because we're amending it before july 1st it's um as if we're recreating it from scratch so and and we're also bumping out the deadline a little further to to september 1st before the standards would take effect yeah did i answer your thank you yeah no that did i didn't know it seemed like martin was gonna jump it did answer my question and i and i guess i'm curious to get context at some point in this space or maybe outside of this space about sort of what transpired between the passage of the bill and then the specific changes that are happening it sounds like clearly some things occurred in that time i'm just trying to understand that a little bit more clearly i was is representative lond are you do you want to jump i'm happy to answer that but i don't i don't know if you would prefer to answer it so ask that again kate because my mind was uh fixing on another question i was going to have a follow-up from what you were saying um so ask that again uh with with the permission of the very patient committee here i will ask the question again um so it's the the law was passed it hasn't been enacted and then within that time before in action there was a there were decisions that were made that that the language needed to be changed i think i'm just i'm trying to grab myself in the context of those changes yeah so so let me let me yeah so uh dps hired a consultant gen morrison who is a an ex-police chief to lead the effort at drafting the policy you know we've always there's there's always actually been attention as well last summer up to the time of this bill being passed between what should be in a policy and what should be in standards and statute and in fact the commissioner of dps wanted it all in policy we said no we want to establish these standards in in the statute and then have policy to effectuate them or operationalize them so uh gen morrison started working on on the policy and as she was doing so there were some areas that uh she felt uh should be tweaked you know should be modified in the statute you know once she's gotten into the the policy making uh and and that's what we're seeing there there are a couple other things i'm sure she'll bring up tomorrow that she wanted changed uh in in the statute that we did not put into this draft um uh because we just didn't agree at all i mean these other ones that she's put forth definitely want to consider and and think about uh so that's kind of where we are um my question for brinn though was so when we're presenting this eventually back on the floor we're not just presenting these three amendments are we're presenting the whole bill as as you know kind of almost like feeling like from scratch or or that's how it will appear in the calendar but i mean it's not obviously up to the member who's reporting to decide how they want to report it but i would suggest that you emphasize that um the the body passed um most of this i mean depending on how it turns out i don't know how it's gonna look once or if it will pass but um but i think it would be important to explain that even though it looks like all new language it really is not and i would note that this we do you do this all the time for the new language that hasn't gone into effect this is a this is a frequently appearing provision so right okay i appreciate that and i guess just up up front i as somebody who reported the bill and really pushed for this bill last year uh i probably shouldn't say this but i'm gonna say this i mean it from what we were hearing my view was fairly narrow on what we should change because we went through a lot last summer and a lot of testimony and it's not like we're taking this bill and really redoing it it's like we are tweaking it technical changes i'd almost call although the stuff with respect to the definition of prohibited restraint i think is is is more substantial i think it's important as well so but that's just me and that was me pontificating i probably didn't need to do that right now but i figured why not yeah i think i i do think this is helpful um right just kind of figure i i was hoping that this would be illuminating and grounding and helpful but i'm not sure and and maybe after maybe after tomorrow only hear from from DPS it'll it'll all come together i'm not sure uh mike i see your hand is up the report has been posted i posted it last week it's under reports great so all right bring anything else on this that you think or no i don't think so i'm sorry that it's uh been a bit of a confusing walkthrough i'm always available for for questions if or any way that i can provide some extra clarity i'd be glad to okay great all right thank you uh okay so this is all we had scheduled for today uh barbara is up in i say up because upstairs so if we were in we're in the building should be upstairs in appropriation she's listening to the presentation of both the defender generals and the uh state's attorneys uh portion of the budgets which are things that are within our jurisdiction so um so she's going to be um she thinks she's going to be up there for the rest of the afternoon and we see that salinas live here so i am going to recommend instead of taking a break that we that we adjourn um for the day uh kate i can um be available for you if you have any questions about your um report actually the committee also is as well if you want to have any questions to committee i can we can use this time for you uh so i'll throw that up to you okay thanks um yeah i've had a lot of really gracious offers of support martin and now we're going to connect as well um trying to think i guess i was so just procedurally it this the second reading so like tom did today right so you have the second reading and you sort of go through and and potentially get interrogated in there and then and then they vote to sort of essentially send it on to a third reading so then that's another date that would be next week or something along those lines is that right correct and um and there still could be questions on on third reading but generally um second reading is you know is the time for for the questions um yeah i feel pretty i feel pretty good certainly open to thoughts or questions with people have any concerns about it but i i'm just gonna get my thoughts straight and write them down and pass them pass them around to some folks and kind of go from there okay great no that sounds great great thank you thank you sure great else um okay so four o'clock we're going to do scheduling for next week and um you know looking at a um continuation of you know this is on 87 uh certainly um 133 this morning we have a number of witnesses that we didn't get to there's one new bill that i would look into um in terms of restitution and victims compensation bob you had asked about that um i'm putting it under 87 but that's you know that'll be a general understanding of how how those two programs work and then um be thinking about how to how to do 145 in terms of testimony so welcome people's thoughts on that uh so we'll have barba update us sometime next week about the budget um see if there's any testimony that she thinks that we need and also hear from hopefully um ken will be working with her and anybody else who works with her so we'll need to be uh flexible to fit that in so we can make sure that we get our recommendations to to appropriations so do you want my input now as far as who you might have for 145 since your schedule a little later with uh common quotes uh yeah or why don't we you know let's go offline and you know you can give me a call or you can or you can jump in at four o'clock for the uh i think kate and i might be meeting with eric yet or or do you are you calling that off kate you know i hadn't looked at the emails yet so i'm not sure but martin i think you you you don't necessarily have to be present for that yeah yeah it's more of the yeah it's more of the technical stuff that uh but i'm happy to read the report later if you want me to have to do that maxine i'm wondering if we can go right into our uh work on the agenda or not and the reason i'm i'm asking is i have a five o'clock meeting also okay and it would just give me a little more break in between sure so i'm being selfish well um so let's check in first with mike