 We are going to get started, and we're going to start with Brooklyn and Donnie, who she's great. Before we do that, let's go around the room and have folks if they can just tell us. I'm Jerome Likani from Welcome Media. I'm Alex Smart, I'm taking notes for the women's coalition. I'm Mellie Silver, I'm with the necrastic group. Sarah Robinson with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. I'm Carolyn Houston, I'm from the Division of Children and Domestic Affairs. Derek Gomes National Rifle Association. John Walter from the State of Davis. Chris Berry, I'm with the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Sydney Ferrer, I'm from the Spaulding High School. Is it a white woman from the Spaulding High School? Chloe Gerard from the Spaulding High School. David Chair with the Attorney General's Office. Eric Davis-Gone, owners of Vermont. Mike Charling, Department of Health and Safety. Hi, I'm Lauren Davis. Chris Herrick, Deputy Commissioner for the State of Davis. Calvin Cutler with the WCAX. Great. Welcome. Welcome. I hope you'll walk through, but working on one is a great meeting and just have some narrow feedback. So, great. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Representative Ann Donahue. And I wanted to address you on a very narrow subsection of the bill that's of concern to me. So, I will focus you in on it and explain the concerns. It's Section 9 of the bill, and it is where the ability to seek an ex parte, and I'm only focused on the ex parte part, that's part of the subsection, ex parte erpo orders adding family member and household members under ex parte when applied to a risk of self harm. So, just to set the context, it's the sub part of the sub part of the sub part. And I'll spell it out, I hope, a little more clearly. So, you know, some of the issues to me, this is not the same. There have been people have said, well, you know, our current, you can get ex parte orders by family member under our current domestic abuse processes. This isn't the same as that. This is specifically adding the risk of self harm. And what's important is really needing to look at what we have in statute for risk to self harm. The other avenues that we do have that can result in immediate intervention. A person can be immediately brought to a hospital and then there's a neutral doctor who immediately says whether or not taking the person's rights away because they are risked to self harm is permissible. So, there's kind of a neutral role there that's an existing route in statute when there's that kind of a risk and includes that the person has a disorder of thought or perception that impairs their judgment. And therefore, they are a risk of harm to themselves. So, the real question is if those criteria that we have established in statute is when we intervene with a person's rights in that context, if they don't, if they're not in existence, should we be creating a removal of a person's rights? So, just to drill down a little more, I supported ERPO when the bill came through. I support it, I support the thinking behind it. And I support family or household members pursuing an ERPO in court. In the court process, filing the petition or seeking an extension, I support the language that you've added there. You're in front of a neutral fact finder in those contexts. You have somebody who's making a decision based on seeing the opportunity to respond, seeing who the petitioner is and what they're saying. And I don't oppose having an ex parte process when there's a danger of harm to others that family members can access because that is like our current law in terms of domestic abuse. We're balancing that risk to other people in an urgent situation and expanding the access to seek that to the family or household members who are the ones at immediate risk for themselves. But what I don't support is the ex parte ability of a family or household member when the issue is risk of harm to the individual. Because, and they're two really important, because as one of them I mentioned is there is actually an existing mechanism to address that concern. But the other reason is to understand the dynamics where you're involving the degree of risk of family emotion. And easiest way to guess in terms of like, you know, parents worry tremendously about their children and that's a good thing. We want parents to worry about their children, their adult children. But that worry can be really out of context of reality because that's what human emotions are about. And so when there isn't any kind of neutral assessment, you're opening up a possibility there that's really putting things out of context. And I want to give just two little anecdotes. One is about ex parte orders in general because of the situation I observed last summer and how these things can happen. And I know you're aware of this, you deal with the judicial aspects and, you know, we balance the risk of abuse of the process against the risk to others. But this was a situation where a person went to court seeking an ex parte emergency change in terms of child visits and saying that the visitation, the exchange of the child needs to happen in a neutral location because I have a real fear of my personal safety when I'm dropping off or picking up my child for visits. I am really afraid of the escalating risk of violence and the harm to myself. The last, the most recent time, this landlord who's home sharing with where the child is is so much escalating threats to me in my face. The last time, in fact, I almost fell down the porch steps trying to back away from this aggressive landlord. And so I have really fears and concerns about my own safety. And so the judge, I think, very appropriately, given the emergency ex parte request relief, the judge actually, what the judge said is this landlord, home share person cannot be present whenever the children are being picked up or dropped off. That's the way to address the safety on the emergency basis. And that all sounds great. What the judge didn't know is that the petitioner in this case was a fairly muscular 40-year-old man and this aggressive landlord that was putting him in fear for his life and safety was me. I was the person. And in fact, it was a little bit of truth in it because I had actually recently confronted him, which he really didn't like because what I said to him is, if one of the kids comes back with a bruise again, putting you on notice, I am going to let DCF know. And so after that confrontation, he went to court saying, I don't want to have to deal with this person anymore. I'm afraid for my life and safety. This is an example of how, as we know, there are ways that the process can be used when there isn't the ability to be seeing who the people are in person. So the other anecdote is on the issue of how family dynamics can play into how parents may want to protect an adult child. This also involves me. So this goes back a number of years after I was still in my recent past recovery from repeated hospitalizations around severe depression. And I lived next door to my parents and I was pretty open with them about things. And one of the things they knew, because I had shared with them this, when I had talked to my doctor about what's the most important things that I need to be doing to protect myself against relapse. And my doctor had said, you need to protect your sleep. That's the most essential thing. Protect your sleep. Got it. I got that. So Christmas comes around. All my siblings are up visiting from out of town. They're all having a good time. It's getting evening. My parents are ready to head to bed. Siblings and I talk about, let's get a movie. Let's rent a movie. You can come over to my cabin next door. We'll see the movie. Great big plan. We'll pick a movie. Everybody's going to come over to my house and see the movie and then go to bed. And then kind of one by one, my siblings, one of them calls me and pops by and says, you know, I'm actually really tired. I'm going to go to bed. I'm not going to stay up for the movie. Kind of one by one and all of a sudden it sort of falls apart. Maybe we don't step to watch a movie. And I only found out later that's because my mom went to each of my siblings and said, this is really critical that Anne's sleep be protected. You can't be a party to keeping her up a couple hours to watch this video. This is critical. We have to protect Anne and, you know, put the squeeze on them enough that they didn't want to challenge that and they all dropped out of the movie. That's how caring, very worried families operate, but it's not necessarily a balanced judgment or, you know, when you get to the point of taking someone's rights away. So that's the basis of my concern that in this narrow sub-piece, we have the avenues already in law to be able to protect a person if they are a danger of harm to themselves and it can happen right away. So we don't need this other avenue that removes any kind of a neutral ability to look neutrally at whether this family concern is really valid and should result in even a temporary removal of rights. Thank you, Anne. A couple quick questions. Can each of you refer me to the area of law where there's already the mechanism? If you have that, and if you don't have it right now, I'll be in the position to do that. I can send it to you more. The definitions of, is 18VSA 7101, but the actual process for transporting a person to a hospital is a slight, I'll send you that section. Okay. The other question is, so you're okay as far as a family member if it's not the temporary exception? Yes. Bringing the petition or asking for an extension, I am completely fine with that because it's a neutral, yeah. Thank you. So Anne, I appreciate your willingness to share your examples. And in that situation, it does sound like people having more information might have been helpful. But I want to share with you a couple of examples of things that I'm aware of happen to constituents or friends. So child is in college, roommates start calling the parents and saying, I'm really worried about Joe. I think he's going to, he's saying he's going to kill himself. In Vermont. In Vermont. Yeah. I'm really worried. I wanted you to know. Okay. So that's one example where it's like, okay, you have multiple people saying, Joe's sleeping all the time and Joe's acting all right. Like, Joe is not at home. Joe is in a dorm. Or somebody whose wife says, I'm going to blow my brains out. I'm really sick of putting up with the shit I do or whatever they're saying and not being concerned about that. We have such a high suicide rate in our state and they can be taken immediately to the hospital and assessed immediately as to whether in fact they are a danger to themselves. In both cases, if the person doesn't want to go to the hospital. That's correct. In both cases, if the person doesn't want to go to the hospital, that can happen. That's the statute. Right. Yeah. So law enforcement has to phone in and get a warrant to transport against the person's wishes. And then they have to be assessed by the doctor right away or they can't continue to be held at the emergency room. But there is therefore a neutral assessment that there is actually a danger. Whereas if the family member can immediately just get in order, there isn't any neutral assessment that this is a real danger. Wouldn't the person still go to the hospital to get assessed? In which... If the family member goes to court and asks for... For an ERPO? For the ERPO? For the part that you're saying... What I'm talking about... Right. No, that doesn't require the person to go to the hospital. That's the family member is filing for the ERPO. There's no doctor assessing the person. They're not being sent to the hospital. This is purely... But if they are going to the hospital and they're assessed and they are in danger, they're not going to be admitted. So maybe them not being in the home will sort of trigger some other steps that could end up being helpful. So I guess I'd like to hear what you see as the downside in this particular wording. I mean, you showed your example, but that... Wait, it didn't result in an ERPO. I get it sort of was a temporary state of man. So I think the downside is that a family assessment of a level of urgency is not subjected to any kind of neutral party background. It's already balancing out family members who may be overreacting. That you're removing it from any kind of neutral assessment. Which we've basically never done in law anywhere in terms of a person at risk of harming themselves. There's always some neutral piece. And even under filing the petition, there's a neutral that comes in front of the judge to assess or balance. So it's supposed to be neutral in that case? Yes, they are, but I'm talking only about ex parte. There isn't the neutral. That's the problem with the ex parte. There's no neutral role. It's purely a panicked family member without anybody saying, Wait a minute, maybe you're overreacting. There's no assessment. I'd like to say the 18 VSA records again because I clearly wrote it down at home. It's 18 VSA 1701 is where the definitions are that are defining when it's, That's where you drew actually I think two years ago the danger of harm to self being shown by establishing threatening or attempting suicide. So those are definitions. That's not the section that establishes the process and I can send that to you. It's near there in 18 VSA. And I think I'm hearing you say for the ex parte, You think it still makes sense for family members to be able to file the motion if they're concerned about harm to others, but it's just self harm. That is correct. So I'm trying to think about how we would do that in terms of language. I don't know any thoughts or we can talk to Eric at first. Yeah, I think it would just be a sub part of that and exclusion saying, just like you sub parted and said this has to be during court hours, you'd say, and this doesn't include when it's risk of harm to self. This particular. So we're not going to have a committee discussion or vote or anything. You know, and now we've got lots of testimony and we're going to be. I appreciate you hearing that. Yeah, and I want to make sure that you're able to share. Thank you. And I'm happy for people to chat informally about it. Okay, great. And I will send the citation. Great. Thanks so much. Eric, that's Patrick with the office of legislative council here to talk again about the most recent amendment to 8 6 10 and actually leading to firearms and domestic violence. I'm going to try and see if we can pull the most recent amendment up so we can see it as we do the walkthrough. Proposed amendment. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. They just used it. Oh, there we go. Okay. Is it on though? Because the light doesn't look on the projector. It might have just powered itself off. Yeah. It doesn't. Now it's washing down. No, it should work so far. Too much of a delay from the last one. Thank you. Well, just for purposes of making sure we're on the same page, literally and figuratively. The version we're looking at is draft number 6.1. Folks have had a chance to see either a hard copy or a copy that has been posted. I know it might have posted it last night. There we are. They're coming more apparent there. So again, proposed strike all amendment 8 6 10 again. Similar to what I mentioned last time, you remember that changes between this draft and the previous draft that I'm trying to illustrate by highlights. This time I've used a different color coding for subsequent highlights. The yellow highlights will show the changes that have been made last draft of the draft before that, and changes that have now been proposed to be made. This to the previous draft are in blue. So yellow prior? Absolutely. This time it worked out. Although I noticed, I don't know if anybody else had this issue, it's much easier to see this way. Whereas if you print out a hard copy, it's not really dark. So another advantage of technology, I guess, is visually much easier to understand what the blue highlighted language actually looks like. So in a successive draft, anything that is blue now will be yellow. You mean next time? If there's another one. Haven't gotten that far yet. Interesting question. It would occur to you, I wonder what color might be a little lighter on a hard copy. It's easier to read. It's not that bad. It's not that bad good. Alright. We don't green, red, and purple work. Oh really? Oh thanks. I'll keep that in mind. But maybe, you know, we'll cross after you come to it. So first provision has to do with the default procedure. Remember this issue we've talked about several times in here. This is the provision in federal law with respect to firearms transfers that permits a firearm to be transferred after three days during which period there has not been a response from the NICS system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. So ordinarily the NICS system is contacted and NICS will let the seller know if the proposed purchaser is a prohibited person, falls in one of the prohibited categories. But if within, if not, if they have no answer to that question to the proposed seller during that three day period of time it is permissible for the seller to go ahead and make the sale. So that's what essentially in a nutshell with the federal law is and Vermont firearms transfers piggybacks onto that federal law. So what you have in front of you, you remember some version of this has been in the bill since the beginning. Originally the proposal was that the transfer could not go ahead at all until there was a positive response from NICS that the person was not prohibited. So conceivably that could go on indefinitely, right? Because if the positive response never came back then the transfer couldn't go forward at all. The version that you looked at last time stepped back from the indefinitely proposal and instead proposed that, well, there was no response back within 90 days then the transfer could go forward. And the new proposal you see in front of you reduces that 90-day time period to 30 days. So that would mean that if within, if after 30 days there has been no response from NICS to the proposed seller saying, okay, the person's not prohibited, go ahead, if there has been no response, then the sale can proceed anyway. So in a sense it keeps the concept of a default proceed but the default is after 30 days, not after 3 as the federal proposed. That's just about how it works. And that's a day as a day. Yes, exactly. A day as a day, exactly. Not business days but calendar days. Just to understand the thought process, could either one of you just tell me why 30? Right, well, so I'm going to backtrack and say why 90. The 90 was based on testimony that we heard that after we heard 88 days and we heard 3 months that the FBI just stops. And we heard testimony that still that 90 days 3 months would ever seem like a long time but we also heard that the 3 days, there are cases that haven't come back within those 3 days. So 30 days seemed... So you're trying to sort of thread the needle between the two. Yeah, exactly. And knowing that other states do have time frames in that lead. Also, by leaving it open and it is introduced and it wasn't facially unconstitutional. I don't know if that's the correct term. But it seemed like we could have gone that way as introduced but again, this is just my balance. And is this consistent with states that... And if you don't know this, this is fine. I'm just trying to understand. This is consistent with states that have put a time limit that is not unlimited. Is this sort of a typical... I think New York and California have used 30 days. Other states have used shorter periods. Right. There are some other states that have used 30. Okay, thank you. 10, 30. Did you know about the assuming it's okay? Like, do the other states also assume after 30 days it's okay or do they require positive combination? I think they assume it's okay. They sort of have a default procedure but it's a longer... But it's not like what we need to hear, they're okay. Correct. It's kind of essentially just lengthening the period before the default procedure goes into effect but then the default procedure goes into effect. Right, I think that's a fair way to look at it. It might be for you and Martin or anybody who might be able to answer. Is there any numbers as far as how many more people... I mean, we've heard numbers the three-day which, of course, can be close to a week depending on weekends and that type of thing. So many... It's a large percentage of the people fall within that. 10 days, how many more people would that catch? You're 30 or 90. I mean, we... Say the difference between 10 days and 30 days, I mean, is that percent so small that it's almost insignificant? I mean, just if we wanted to dig a little deeper on the number of days. Yeah, somebody may have some answers on that. Yeah, I don't have any data on that. All right, should we move on to the Relief from These Orders section? Sections, I should say. So now we're changing subjects and this deals with Relief from These Orders, often referred to as RFAs. You may recall that I'm just going to point us to the language here real quickly but this is existing languages to refresh everybody's recollection about how RFAs work. Remember, a person can go into court and seek an order from the court and you'll see line 10 and 11 here in existing law. Actually, really line 9 through 12 is kind of what... to target your attention on. And the court can make any orders that it deems necessary to protect the plaintiff or the children or both if the court finds that the defendant has abused the plaintiff. So there has to be a finding of past abuse, right? Yeah. And that there is a danger referred to abuse or that the defendant has committed one of those listed crimes with the danger of further abuse, excuse me, the most common finding. But so this is what's in existing law. So you have this process set up where a person can go in. If there's been abuse in the past, danger of further abuse, they can get a court to order and there's a long list, you may recall, of which things the court can order. They can order the defendant to stay away from the victim to order about parental child supervision, that sort of thing. There's a long list of different factors that the court can include in this protective order that it would issue. So what the proposal has been in 8.6.10 from the beginning in one way or another is there be a requirement that the order, the RFA, the relief from abuse order, has to include some provisions related to firearms, right? That's the proposal that you've been looking at. And there's several different provisions related to firearms that are proposed to be in this order. And the first one we're looking at there, where you see the highlighted blue and yellow language has to do with relinquishment. And we've been talking about that subject under, should the order be required to include an order that the defendant relinquished firearms? As the language was when it was initially introduced, the answer to that was a very simple yes, the relinquishment was required at all. And these, I should also just a moment, remember this is the final order we're talking about. You kind of touch on this a little bit in a different context when you were talking with Representative Donahue this morning. But there's also an emergency order piece of this which is done ex parte where the plaintiff goes into court by themselves. Right now we're looking at the final order, which is when both parties have an opportunity to be in front of the court and to be represented if they so choose and have that ability. So that's the stage right now. The original language had said that the order at this stage would require relinquishment. Then there was, you'll see in the highlighted yellow language that's now struck over on the top of page five. The next concept was, because remember there had been discussion about whether relinquishment should be mandatory or not. Whether it should be discretionary on the part of the court or whether it should be required in all circumstances. That was the debate that the committee was having. So one alternative that was proposed last time was that, well, okay, relinquishment would be required unless the court makes this written finding by clear and convincing evidence that relinquishment wasn't required to reflect safety. So a different approach is proposed in this version. You see that highlighted in blue. And this is that relinquishment would generally be required if and sort of dependent upon this court finding that you see highlighted in blue, which is if there is evidence that the defendant is in possession or has access to fireworks. So again, this is at the final hearing. So this is a court hearing. You have the judge in there. Ideally both parties, not always both parties, but both parties could be there. And so that's why it's phrased in terms of evidence because you add a formal hearing. That's when the court takes evidence. If there is evidence that the defendant is in possession or has access, then the order would include a requirement that firearms be written questions. So that's the proposal. I have a question about that. So we're not sort of citing an evidentiary standard there. Converance or clear and convincing. And so when it just says if there's evidence, what is the standard of court apply? I think in that case, it's really the way it's phrased is that if there is any evidence. Any evidence? Yeah. That's the way I would read it. Same question. So I have a question about same sentence. Don't most people have access to firearms? Like, isn't that a given? I mean, unless they're on the list already in which case. So I guess I'm just wondering that, like, just undoes. Well, yeah. Oh, sure. That's a legal question. No, it probably isn't, especially if it's like preponderance of the evidence. Sure. There's a gunshot next in the next town. No, it's an interesting question about, you know, how the court would interpret the term access to, right? Interesting question. I can't answer the practical question. How many of you? Why the most people have access to firearms or not? But I suppose it depends how you read the term. Right. Which is, you know, it's an interesting point. They may want to ask the court and other practitioners how they would interpret that language when you are able to have them testify. Does everybody get a sense of that proposal? So no changes to the other pieces that are required to be in this order. You know, there's the, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In the, at least where there's no questions, there's been a couple of questions around the table that I think some clarity, some legal clarity would be helpful with. When someone is, when a relief from abuse order, a final relief from abuse order is issued. Is that, is that person no longer eligible to possess the purchase of firearm? Yes. Yes. For the duration of the order. For the duration of the order. Correct. When the order expires, then the person has the, it's legally permissible for the person to possess. That is, regardless of whether the order specifically mentions firearms or not. Correct. That's federal law. Okay. And also a proposal in the bill. Right. To make it consistent with federal law. But under federal law, if you have a relief from abuse order, that is, a final relief from abuse order that is issued, for the period that that order is enforced, are prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Yes. Okay. Thank you. There was just some confusion around sort of when that kicked in. Thank you. Right. So I can just tell it, and that's why, actually this is one of my suggestions as far as having evidence of possession of firearms. Because before we just had both in the final and in the ex parte order, actually in the final, we just said, you have to relinquish firearms. But in the rationale for that was because it's illegal to possess firearms anyway. But I still felt that we needed to, you know, have a separate order of relinquishment if there were firearms present. I don't know if that made any sense. But somewhat, but I, could I try a different way and see if that works for you? Yeah. That I'm reading this to actually make it a little bit clearer for the person that the order is issued against. Right. It reinforces the fact that a person who has a final order put in place may not know that federal law prohibits them, whereas this would make it abundantly clear that if they possess firearms, they would be in violation. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think the other part is that this component is to ensure that you get firearms out of the situation. Which they have to be anyway. Right. But that doesn't necessarily, I'm sure there are instances where an individual becomes a prohibited person. Like they are incarcerated for a felony. That doesn't mean that the law enforcement is going out and seeking relinquishments, seeking those weapons that the person may or may not have. This in the domestic violence situation, we want to have that action occur. So if there are firearms there, remove them. And the other provision means that you can't now then go to a dealer and purchase firearms. So it's remove the firearms that might be there. The other provision, even though it says possess, is really aimed at making the person a prohibited person for the duration of the order so that they relinquish their weapons. They can't just go and purchase the weapons. Do you know that Eric, if the, and I'm sorry if we've asked this in one of the other drafts, but so does the order then get put into the next system so that if, you know, I have an order issued against me, it does not mention firearms, but now I'm prohibited from, it's for the length of time of a year. So a month from now I go still wall under that order, go to a licensed firearm dealer. Will that show up in the system so that the licensed firearm dealer would be told you cannot proceed? I don't know what the court's process is for passing those down to next. My understanding is they do. I think that I know that Jeff Wallin testified they pass on convictions. And whereas it's, I don't think, correct. So I think it's, I think it's whether the court passes that information. But I'm not a hundred percent sure. There might be others who would know the answer to that question better. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. One more question. I think for Martin, on page four, line 20 and 21, I'm assuming that what you said that was your language. So I guess my question was going back to what Barbara was talking about is what was your intent for the meaning behind access to firearms? That's a good question. I'd like to hear from witnesses on that as well. I think I picked it up from another provision that we had. I took it from the provision that we had for temporary order. And that we have the same or access. And I think we need to hear a little bit more about what that means. I mean, I agree that Barbara's raised this ambiguity and we have to address that self. No, I just didn't know if you had an idea since you had it. I don't think your intent is to be as broad-brush as perhaps she was saying that because you have access through not being a person, that you're thinking of personal access. Like I can personally access at this point. That's the idea. The idea that it's a firearm. I think elsewhere we talk about the language of possesses or controls. And I think the access is maybe a little too fuzzy. I mean, we have to go to controls instead. I think that's definitely one we need to. Because access could be a family member, right? Access would be fairly easy. Just try to understand the intent. Right. So the other provisions that have to be in the final order, you see there haven't been any changes to them between the last track. The most recent one they involve is a Roman numeral two, three and four. Roman numeral two is that if the order includes a requirement to vacate, then the order has to prohibit the defendant from residing as a residence where firearms can be accessed by the defendant. Roman numeral three, it has to be this information. I think that's what you were getting at. There's information that has to be provided to the defendant. They're prohibited from possessing firearms until the expiration of the order. So the order has to contain that statement to the defendant. And lastly, that if the order does require relinquishment, include all available information regarding types and locations of firearms subject to the order. We have some language about forms that hasn't been changed. The complaint and the affidavit have to include specific provisions regarding the defendant's firearms, permitting the plaintiff to state with particularity the types and locations of any firearms in the defendant's possession ownership or control, for that another person does on behalf of the defendant. That brings us to the emergency relief section. This is, again, the ex parte provision that allows the plaintiff to go in and seek this order ex parte without the presence of the defendant. You'll see, again, similar concept here. This is, and I say we're dealing with relinquishment, similar concept in a sensible when is relinquishment going to be ordered. The same topic that the committee has been discussing all along and as well as with respect to final orders. You can see the language is similar concept. It makes sense sort of linguistically that it's a slightly different because at this stage of the game there isn't going to be any evidence presented in a formal court hearing. Remember in the final order it's phrased as if there is evidence that the defendant's possession because there's going to be evidence presented at this hearing. It's a court hearing. Whereas in the ex parte situation it's not necessarily that at all. It's someone seeking an order from the court perhaps not even during court hours. So there isn't going to be evidence referred to here. So instead the language is if the plaintiff's complaint or affidavit which has to be submitted in order to get one of these orders includes information that the defendant is in possession of or has access to firearms. So same idea, some sort of indication, but in this case the indication isn't going to come from evidence because there isn't any formal evidence taken. It's got to come from the plaintiff's complaint or affidavit. And if it includes information that the defendant is in possession of or has access to firearms then relinquishment is required. That's the proposal here. I don't understand the difference. I don't think there's a difference in terms of substance, in terms of that it's just really based on some information that's being provided. I think the only difference is sort of a context in which the information is presented. It's referred to as evidence in the first one because it's presented in an evidentiary context in a court hearing where that's not happening here. So it's just information that's in the complaint or affidavit. So you're just clarifying you don't see any significant change in that. Oh, I see what you mean. Difference between the versions. I understand the difference between indicates and includes. Oh, I agree with you. Yes, just a little bit. Sometimes you forget when the witness is sitting here. Similar provisions that we just went over in the final order are also in the temporary which is again about the vacate premises. If the order includes the requirement to vacate then it prohibits the defendant from residing at the residence where firearms can be accessed. Same language on informing the defendant that prohibited from possessing until the order expires and as well as information about the type and location of the firearms. This is Roman numeral three and four. Roman numeral five. This is connected to the sorry. Yeah, I'm actually I want to back up. Yep. If it's okay to have a discussion on that access because I'm looking at this a little further and remembering a little bit more what my thinking was at that time. The idea of saying access to firearms is really trying to do shorthand for essentially the firearms that would have to be relinquished. If you look at the top of page five it talks about defendant's ownership or possession ownership or control or that another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant. I believe the concept was that access was getting at that in a more shorthand manner that probably in hindsight is not necessarily the best approach and perhaps it actually should say along the lines of if there's evidence that the defendant possesses owns or controls firearms or another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant. I mean it's a little more awkward but I think it nails down what we're after. Should we define access then? Well I'm just suggesting that we just repeat that language instead to make it very clear. Defendant possesses owns or controls or another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant in firearms. So that's what it was trying to get at and it's probably better to be clear and have more language than just try to have access and compass all that. And that also makes it clear that access has somewhat of a different meaning when we're talking about the requirement to vacate. In that situation it's just access. It's just being able to get your hands on a firearm in that other residence. Can you say that again Martin? Well there's another, access is used again in the provision regarding, includes a requirement to vacate. Can we say prohibitive defendant from residing at a residence where firearms can be accessed by the defendant? If we have access in the other place I think we're trying to get at two different meanings of access. So there it just means being able to get your hands on a firearm. So the idea is if there's reinforcement all those firearms that the person possesses owns or controls or somebody else on their behalf possesses owns or controls should be relinquished. If they're not, you know, if they're being vacated from the premises they can't live in other residence where they have access where they can get their hands on that other resident have the firearms at that other residence. And I guess going back to the vacate thing because I had asked a question before and so if somebody vacates the residence are the guns still confiscated? Because they don't have access to them anymore. That's a good question for some of the witnesses. I don't know the answer. So Martin, with your proposed acts does it allow somebody to go to a store by again? No, that's the other provision where they become a prohibited person. But before there, because I was just trying to make sure of the emergency order. No, that's all right. So the person that's not supposed to have a gun if he has to leave his home and he goes to another person's home that person there has to give up his guns? No. The person who is subject to the order is not supposed to go to a residence where that person wouldn't have access to a gun. Resident. Resident. What happens if he has no other place to go? Presumably he should ask wherever he's or she's going to reside to make sure your firearms are locked in the safe so they're not accessible to him. Thank you. So we're moving on to another provision that is proposed to be added to be included in the emergency order. A couple other provisions actually. We were just talking about vacating the residence, that's one piece, but we'll see if you skip down to Romanum Rule 5 there. The order has to also notify the defendant that, and this goes back to you may remember, the issue of essentially it's one served, always served. Remember that concept was it's based on statute from New Hampshire that generally speaking when someone has been served with an emergency order and by served I mean that means a law enforcement officer goes and personally serves the person with the order that says you have to get out of the residence or you have to stay away from this person, whatever it may say. After the law enforcement officer personally serves the emergency one that first time, the language that you have proposed in here is subsequent orders can be served by first class mail. So subsequent orders don't have to be personally served. It can be sent in the mail to the person. So with that as background, this is a related piece to that which says that this first order, the emergency order has to also notify the defendant that after they have been served with a temporary order issued for certain to the section, so that says after they've been served, personally served, right, law enforcement officer came and served on them. After that the defendant shall be required to adhere to the provisions of any subsequent order immediately as the proposed new language here and shall be required to adhere to the provisions of any subsequent order immediately upon issuance of the subsequent order. So in other words, that order is effective when the court issues it, if they've been served personally with the emergency one. If they haven't been served personally with that emergency one, then that doesn't kick in. They still have to be served personally with the final order. Not when they've received it? Not when they've received it, though? You mean when it becomes effective? Correct, that's the proposal. The emergency one's already in effect. Right, the emergency one's already in effect. Yeah. And related to that is the next piece, you see Roman numeral six, the order has to also notify the defendant that subsequent orders may be served by first class mail. So that way they're on, they're aware of the fact, I think the committee was discussing the point that they should be made aware that they should be checking their mail just in case they would receive a subsequent order in the mail rather than it being personally served. And lastly, there's a requirement, also new, Roman numeral seven, inform the defendant that third party storage of firearms is not permitted unless the court has made the findings required by and then cites to Title 20. That's the provision that generally covers storage of firearms that have been taken in custody by the state in connection with relief from those various sort of specific provisions about what the state does with them, how they can be stored, and there's a provision that permits third party storage. In other words, not the state or firearms dealer, but you can have a third party that might be able to take a look at that for a second here. Let's see. Oh, sorry about that. Yeah. I'm not seeing that one here. Mike, is that Lincoln posted by any chance? The one I sent this morning? The, uh... Just to refresh. Did you see it for a second? It's a statute that's referred to just going to point you to the language so you can see what findings the court has to make because that's what's being referred to here. Anyway, there's some findings related in other words. You can't have a third person which would be a friend, a relative, or somebody like that. You might have to press back and then go forward. Sometimes refreshing it just refreshes the old one. You're on yesterday, you're not on today. Oh, that's the fact or two probably. Thank you. Days of day. That's right. Thank you very much. So, what finding does the court have to make? You'll see. That's in 2A there. The court may order that the person more of the person to a person other than a cooperating law enforcement agency or a dealer unless the court finds that relinquishment will not adequately protect the safety of the victim. So, the court has to... If the court finds that relinquishment to this third person won't protect victim safety, then you can't do it. So this is just kind of roping that in so that there has to be some notice provided to the defendant that you can't store your firearm with a third person unless if doing so wouldn't be provided safety to the victim, which is what's required under Title 20. Do you have other questions? Yeah, a couple of them. And they may be more for Martin or you. The idea of findings in the court, I remember there was a bit of a hang up when Judge Morrison was in here about the court making findings at this stage, at least that's the big recollection that I have of it. Are you referring to that line 20? Yes. This current... No, so it looks like the court finds as the language that's in there is that different than findings? So, the language that you just showed was... unless the court finds, is that different than the court making findings? So, you make a good point there. My concern and we'll have to hear from the judge is whether that provision is appropriate for an ex parte order because there's... when it's an ex parte order, is there going to be an ex parte who's going to store the firearms for the individual? I suppose. I mean, if the if the person, the petitioner has that information or suggests that, but I don't think that information and then we can ask the witness is even on the app of David. There would be a question of whether this is appropriate and this is something you can ask the other witnesses for the ex parte order that's something that belongs more appropriately on the final order. So, I don't know what kind of findings... unless the app of David somehow includes the information that this person is willing to take these firearms when they're relinquished, the court will have no basis to make any findings at the ex parte. Maybe what would be helpful is I can't recall what it is that you're... what are you trying to get at here? What's the intent of having this piece in for you? It is to try to... I mean, it's in... my understanding is it's very seldom that a third party would take and store the firearms, but it is to tie that in as an option for storage, essentially. I mean, it is already in existing law but it is clear to tie this to the whole RFA process. So, because the person can't store with the third party unless the court makes the findings, you're just clarifying by having that language tie into current law by putting it in here. So, essentially this is saying in the ex parte that that's not where the firearms are going to get to be stored. Right. Unless the court has made the findings, but the court's not going to be able to make the findings temporarily. So, maybe it is fine there, but it's essentially we're saying, yeah, the court they can make those findings, but there's no way they can make those findings if they've seen that ex parte. Well, we're from other witnesses, but this is notification and information to the defendant. Right. It jumped out at me because we had heard that there were concerns at certain levels, and I can't remember where it was about asking the court to determine certain things, so I'm just trying to at this point try not to pin what the legal side of it is and also what the intent of the proposers is so that I can you know, so it's clarifying to me to know that the intent is to is to just clarify the laws that the person is already subjected to anyway. So, it's helpful to know that. And make sure that that person is informed. All right. So, moving along, there's no changes between this draft and the previous one regarding the forms. This is just some statements about what the complaint for legal abuse on the affidavit in support have to include in specific provisions about defendant's firearms, questions permitting the plaintiff to statement actually went over the same language in the final order, actually. There's some specifics here about the return of service, remember the return of service is what when the law enforcement officer serves the order, their return of service is a form that goes back to the court and lets the court know that the order was served. So that way there's a record kept that the RFA order was actually served on the defendant. This is simply stating and we'll get to it further on when it's referring to some provisions that have to be in that return of service are stated down below and this has to be in the form as well. Section four, no changes to this. This is the crime that we were talking about earlier that if you're subject to a relief from abuse order, you're prohibited from possessing firearms. The lines 20 and 21, the final relief from abuse order, those are already prohibited by federal law. I mean the person is already prohibited from possessing firearms by federal law. The addition to Vermont law proposes that someone subject to an emergency order is also prohibited. We're now getting into service and the warrant issue which had been in the previous draft. The language that's existing, you see lines 11 through 18. This is existing law. This is the concept that again as I mentioned the emergency order has to be served generally by a law enforcement officer. The provision in subsection B that you're looking at in existing law says that while the defendant goes to the final hearing, if they're actually physically present there, then they are, and this is line 13, and they receive notice from the court on the record that the order has been issued shall be deemed to have been served. So in other words, if you went there and you're physically present, you're deemed served at the final hearing. This presumes that you were served with the emergency order. And if they're notified on the court on the record you're required to adhere immediately to the provisions of the order. So again, these final orders effective immediately on the defendant who's there. And then goes on to say though that even when the court has previously notified the defendant of the order, it still requires that the order be transmitted for additional service by a law enforcement agency. So the proposal here is to provide another option there. That if they've been previously notified that the order doesn't necessarily have to be served again. It could be served by first class mail. That's the proposal. So there was some issue about addresses and making sure that it got to the person. So given the earlier language that says once somebody's been served with the emergency one they're responsible for any future ones how do do they know ways to because you were just saying to make sure that the person knows. But do they know it would be mail to you or you can go to the court and get it just so that there's no question of I didn't know how to get it and it didn't go right in the mail. Yeah, I don't know who. That might be a better one for the witnesses too. I know the language does provide for that the emergency order has to tell the person that it could be coming. The subsequent orders can be coming in the first class mail. So they're unnoticed in that respect that they may get some orders in the mail going forward. After they served the first time. And that was the testimony of Judge that the person has put on notice and has the responsibility to let the court know that he or she's moved or not there. And that's in line to page 10 that hasn't been any changes to it but you see that's the language about once they've been served kind of starts on page 9. Once they've been served with temporary order they can be served with subsequent orders by first class mail. The defendant shall inform the court of any changes to their address. So that kind of gets that. What kind of crime is that in it's back one section to line one line one of of that page. Oh right there. That is a misdemeanor. Does this line up with our other bill? Another bill about classifications? What it lines up with is the other firearms provisions. That's what I track that with. One year or two year misdemeanors are common for the firearms offenses. So I don't know the answer to the in the sense that the classification bill is you know establishing classifications based on the length of the period in jail it would fit into one of those categories but I'm not sure it's on my head which one it would be. But the year and the the number of years in the fine would be appropriate to within those categories. It might be a class A misdemeanor as my guess. Alright. So another proposed change here you say highlight in blue again existing law is that subsection C talks about how abuse orders have to be served at the earliest possible time like law enforcement officers take precedence over other summons in orders and the second sentence there are lines seven and eight existing law says orders shall be served in a manner calculated to ensure the safety of the plaintiff. So you see that's really calculated to ensure the safety of the plaintiff the proposal is that it has to be served in a manner calculated to ensure safety. In other words that's a broader concern not just the safety of the plaintiff it might be the safety of the law enforcement officer or the safety of other people living in the household you know there has to be generally served in a manner calculated to ensure safety of you know whoever might be involved but that's the proposal there. Now we're moving on to the return of service forms this is the thing I mentioned the form that the police officer has to bring back to the court and say yes this got served the order got served what has to be in it that's listed here these are the required provisions of this return of service form see the first one has an addition from the previous draft the previous draft it said whether firearms are relinquished by the defendant it's said to say whether and how many firearms were relinquished so whether or not the firearms are relinquished and if so how many there had been a provisioning sheet that's now struck that whether or weren't was going to be sought by the officer that is not a required piece of the form now you remember because the concept there is that remember relinquishment isn't necessarily required in the order it might be it might not be depends on whether there was evidence presented when the application was filed so if relinquishment is not done if firearms are not given up it's conceivable that the officer might think that there were still firearms on the premises or in the defendant's possession so they could conceivably go seek a warrant and say well there might be a violation of a law happening here I'm looking for a warrant to search for firearms but this provision that that statement be included in the return of service is struck so that doesn't mean they can't still do it they could still go seek a warrant they had the right facts but just doesn't have to say one way or the other in the return of service along those same lines you see there's a lot of struck language here now all this provisions two and three is entirely removed and that was all about this process of requiring the officer to make certain searches if they do have probable cause to file an affidavit and an application for a warrant with the court if they have some suspicion that there may be firearms present but but it doesn't rise to the level of probable cause they have to do a supplemental investigation so all those procedures are struck and that doesn't mean that doesn't prohibit the officer if they actually do have facts on which they could base probable cause to go actually and apply for a warrant this is just merely not having that requirement in statute we'll hear from but remember there were concerns about the operational you know concerns and sort of dating how the law enforcement does their job and so we'll hear from this as to why was taken out and hopefully response to those concerns I just wanted to comment about when we get into this operationalizing this process we asked the individual stakeholders would be involved in that to get together to try to work out how this would work so the department of public safety the AG the network Vermont police association I believe the court as well we asked them to get together and try to tell us how this would work and I think this is the result from that effort the part we're about to get into so so that does transition us into this language about the warrant so the requirements about the officer applying for a warrant or conducting an investigation have been removed you still have some language regarding a warrant so it authorizes the court we see the language is changed from may that's in line 4 on page 12 so the court may issue a warrant if it finds and you see this new language in lines 5 to 7 that's really a procedural reference in response to an application for a warrant filed under rule 41 and that's the rule that governs the procedures for issuing a warrant so that's basically saying that the court's going to make this finding after an application has been filed under rule 41 which is the way it is ordinarily done but if it makes that finding there's probable cause to believe and then you have two different factors listed there that come sort of based on the New Jersey case that we talked about early on that dealt with seizing firearms in these really some of these sort of situations but the findings that the court would make and it may issue a warrant if it does so if it finds there's probable cause to believe there are firearms in the defendant's possession ownership of control while in order with a firearms relinquishment conditions in effect so if you've got this relinquishment condition in effect and they've still got firearms and Roman rule 2 that certain seizure of the firearms is necessary to protect the life, health, or well being of a victim on whose on behalf really is being sought the court makes those findings that it can issue a warrant new language in subdivision B just says that this isn't going to be a grant the court permission or warrant for some other abuse prevention violation so it isn't going to be viewed as the only way in which there could be a warrant issue if there's some other basis now this is also a new proposed subdivision subdivision 3 here this has to do with some some contact between law enforcement officer and the plaintiff remember the plaintiff is the person who's filed for the order they came in and said I've been abused and asked the court for the order and that order has been served right so that's where we are in the chronology the order served then the law enforcement officer acting on behalf of the agency that served it is required to and this is line 18 required to attempt to contact the plaintiff after firearms are relinquished or seized in connection with the served order so after the order has been served and if firearms have been relinquished or seized then there's a requirement that the officer and officer contact the plaintiff they have to loop around and make a communication or contact so they have to attempt to contact the plaintiff but there's nothing in here that says that they have actually to get a hold of them anyway just pull him a call and they weren't holding to it yes I think you're right it requires an attempt but the attempt is unsuccessful that's still permitted and just to tell them that the firearms have been seized that's a good question I don't think the language doesn't describe what needs to be communicated so that would be a good question for the witnesses what the intent is there but the language just says attempt to contact so as to what needs to be said or if anything that's something would be a good question so that's the warrant process what's next here is immunity so this is officers serve these warrants or they have to bring these returns of service back to the court they may be required to seize firearms under certain situations the firearms may need to be relinquished so they may need to be transported somewhere so all those things may apply so this provides some immunity which means they can't be sued and then we sort of phrase this broadly you'll see lines two and three agencies and officers are immune from civil or criminal liability it means they can't be sued or criminally prosecuted for any act undertaken so anything you did or omission made something you didn't do in good faith reliance on the provisions of this section so that's broad anything they did in good faith reliance on the section they can't be sued or prosecuted for and there's some illustrative examples here but remember that including is not an exclusiveness that just includes these the really operative language is two and three any act undertaken or omission made in good faith reliance but the illustrative examples are a. failing to learn of locator seize a firearm b. returning the seized weapon to the owner the owner is not a prohibited person and then there's a few that are proposed to be added cd and e. causing damage to any property including a safe damage while accessing firearms d. enforcing the court order or e. conducting a search or seizure pursuant to an exception to the warrant requirement so those are just variations of what the officers mean again this is a reference to the firearm storage section generally which we just took a look at 20VSA 2307 and this is basically saying that non-evidentiary firearms that are relinquished are seized in connection with these RFAs are subject to these general processes for how firearms are handled in title 20 specifying that it's non-evidentiary firearms because obviously if the firearm is evidence of a crime that's in connection with the assault or something like that there are separate procedures that enforcement agencies use to handle their evidence and this is only applied to non-evidentiary firearms not in connection with evidence of a crime you have another section of struck language here and this is basically the reporting requirements that you had in you may remember the agencies required to report back on the number of statistics about the number of orders served final orders served that sort of thing number of firearms collected it was also a public safety department report required here so all that stuff has been struck proposed to be struck why was that all proposed to be struck I thought wouldn't it be a good idea for us to have I think you'll hear from reports of terrible things and I don't think there's any changes to any of the IRPO sections those are all the same as we've seen for the past couple of drafts again getting a couple of separate reporting sections at the end of the bill just some minor tweaks to this you'll see this department public safety report on their modernization program it backs out the requirement that they report now it just says has to inform the Judiciary Committee about their modernization reform program which includes data collection and reporting but you see it gives them another year doesn't have to be until 2021 same thing with the Attorney General report in section 14 on their firearms technical assistance project that's a report to you folks the Judiciary Committees but it gives them another year in which to do it yeah well just while we're on that right now it's gone down a bit earlier but would we have somebody informing it's not a report necessarily informing the committee when it's not in session in December shouldn't we push that to January 2022 I think often reports are before this session in case there's any post legislation that might come out of it just to inform certainly that's unusual but again I'd like to hear from the folks to that's all I have that's the end of the walkthrough any other questions so I know we're at the lunch hour however I want to check in with David and Commissioner it's going to have David go excuse me Commissioner I know you're going to go Bob one or maybe at one how long I'm not sure but I likely could come back you still would prefer to go later than right now I can if you want me to start doing just a little bit of I'm not sure how much I have to offer so I'm happy to start now if that makes sense for you or wait until you come back David how about you start David share with the Attorney General's Office thanks for having me this morning I'll try to move quickly the my primary mission here to start is actually going to be to go over a consensus memorandum that I believe the committee was given in your materials and it is from the Vermont Police Association the Vermont Network the Office of the Commissioner and our office and it does propose a few additional changes that primarily address concern for law enforcement I'd say both 610 as well as this consensus memorandum are the product of hours of meetings to do everything we can to make sure that this is operational and so I just want to go through these changes I don't think you'll find them particularly dramatic in terms of how the operation works but I did want to take some time to sort of do a second very brief walkthrough on that and so what we see in blue here though that is also yes certainly so to be as clear as I can 610 is also the product of extensive negotiation and agreement with 6.1 sorry if I didn't say that correctly so that was a meeting that happened last week and those changes memorialize that agreement there were a few more points that we have worked to accommodate in the consensus memorandum that you'll see in front of you that I believe are in your materials so yes 6.1 is the product of an agreement and there's a little bit of further agreement that we are wanted to put in front of the committee certainly apologize for not getting that all in sooner I know that the Vermont police association may have a few additional suggestions beyond this but this does include the four entities that we that I just mentioned in terms of having come together on these changes so I'll move through them fairly quickly but please stop me if you have questions on page 7 line 11 if you order firearms this will include all available information starting the type and then we are adding number the type, number, and location of firearms that is our first proposal see that it is the proposal is to simply add number so after the word type in line 11 you would add the word number and that is just to make sure that all the information that can be reasonably put on the order is put on the order that's for the sake of clarity for law enforcement and for judges who may be trying to enforce an order we move ahead to page 9 on line 17 down here at the bottom there is a current edit there and the proposal here is to strike the word additional and add the word personal so it would retransmit the order for personal service line 17 line 17 page 9 and again these are mostly I should say this one in particular is really just a clarification issue if we move on to page 11 sorry can you explain what the difference is what's the what's the rationale for what's the difference between personal service and additional service the intention here is to make clear that this is going to be service upon a person contrasting that with the set next lines on 18 and 19 where you could have service by first class mail which would not be service upon a person so it's just making very clear that difference between the two types of service on page 10 lines 23 21 at the bottom of page 10 now lines 20 to 21 the proposal would be to simply say strike the weather and at the beginning of the I and simply say how many firearms were relinquished by the defendant and add at the end of that at the time of service so making clear that we're talking about firearms that may be relinquished at the time of service and I believe the weather and was struck really as just a clarification piece somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on that but I believe that was just to say how many encompasses the weather so let's just say how many and again stop me if you have questions but I will move on to page 11 and we are looking at lines two and three again a clarification issue will strike if obtainable with reasonable effort and add and change it so it starts at the defendant's mailing address for service of future orders if provided by the defendant moving down a little bit here to right after that actually the proposal would be to add a little three sorry little three I little three right immediately following line three it should also indicate whether a lot of the proposal would read little three would say whether a law enforcement officer has attempted to contact plaintiff after service prior to the return of service being filed with the court so an indication as to whether an attempt to contact the plaintiff has been made moving down to line six to eight subsection C in addition would be made that says after the word orders at the end of this it would say following completion of the information in subsection A so you know saying we are going to do this return of service but to clarify the return of service will be after the completion of the required stuff that you need to fill out or accomplish named in subsection A and will further add failure to properly complete the information required in subsection A will not shall not affect the validity of service and the point there is to make sure that nobody can nobody who is the subject to an order can attack the validity of the order because you didn't fill out all the little pieces here the point is you got the order you know what's in the order and you have to follow the order is that standard practices or is that different in this is that unique I think what we are trying to do here is just cut out so there are I will say there are it is not infrequent to have litigation about validity of service it is something that comes up and this is just an attempt to cut off one avenue of litigation just to say hey just because this aspect of it wasn't filled out the main substance of the order which is maybe a stay-away order maybe an understatement vacate whatever it might be the main substance of that order is in effect right but for other crimes or this is a crime it is an order but for other like situations do we put this provision in or are we creating or are we doing something slightly different for this group of orders I think that we I am not sure if there are perfect analogies here in terms of this type of relief from abuse orders are their own entity and law you wouldn't serve someone in criminal law I am assuming it is just a totally different piece so I am not sure if there is perfect analogies to other areas I think that this is just trying to clarify that you are not going to defeat validity of service on technicalities the substance of the order will stand regardless of whether these things were these things happened in subsection and this was requested by I believe this is actually from the Vermont Police Association and we think it is a good idea so I am not following that language at all not the second sentence that is clear but the clause that you added at the end of the first sentence is the intent there that the return takes precedence after the required information has been completed so I would suggest rewriting that I am sure we defer to your intent okay thanks for clarifying moving on to page 12 on line 7 the proposal would be to the proposal is not explained it may seem to be a big change but we don't actually believe it can have a huge effect proposal would be basically from where it says rules of criminal procedure put a period right there and strike the rest of the page the reason for that is that some of this language is basically imported from an older version of the bill that included a different vision of how this would happen including civil service basically the rules around warrant service are contained within rule 41 there doesn't need to be additional conditions on that there did need to be when we were trying to essentially invent a new type of warrant service but we are not trying to do that anymore but we are trying to provide additional caveats and subdivision or subsection B capital B again this is sort of this was protective language that I think was put in in all reasonable caution but the group got together and really felt like that just wasn't necessary it's understood that for any current circumstance we need to say that again for line 17 through 20 it was the agreement of the group that the best way to and I know there is some discussion on this section around the table earlier it was the agreement of the group that the best way to accomplish the sort of point of contact is really going to be through crew training and operational implementation stuff and so that was the group agreeing that that was the best way to move forward with that we are getting there sorry for that run down here page 13 line 17 actually let me make sure I don't make a mistake on this so let me do the last bullet point on our memo first on page 13 lines 1 through 12 in the consensus memo there it has been provided that immunization from liability language coming from the Vermont police association and the group has no objection to including that language and it's my understanding that a chunk of this language actually is modeled on other states what other states do and Vermont and other places so we're not reinventing the wheel here so that's replacing line 1 through 12 and so and then the final bullet point that I have and I have one other that I want to talk about very quickly but the final bullet point is line 17 on page 13 will be amended so that after actually it's between line 17 and 18 it's amended so that damage or deterioration of firearms relinquished or seized, the two words or seized will be added and again that's limitation of liability language that nobody has an objection to that nobody in this group had an objection to so during your testimony you referred to the group several times could you tell me who the group is so I know who supported this yes it is the Vermont police association the Vermont network against domestic and social violence the officer of the commissioner of public safety and our office, the office attorney general yes the four people we don't have can we make sure that some of the other groups that may have an interest understand what this is doing so that we can get more complete testimony this afternoon and make sure that once we aren't on there and I will say we've tried to keep the main operational interests a prize of this so the judiciary has been reviewing all of this and they will be able to put there and put in and our hope is that these are really primarily operational concerns and we've tried to keep everybody in order yeah I just want to make sure that if we're going through like for example judge we're said later and he's yeah so judge has been a part of this process he has seen this memo and I think he'll be ready to so but not part of the group my understanding yeah I don't believe that he officially signed on but I also don't think he has significant concerns I guess the question is not necessarily who's signing on the letter but what group has seen this language well so it has been posted I do want to emphasize it has been posted on the on your site so anybody can access it I believe that in addition to the folks on here which include multiple people in each of those entities I believe the judiciary is the other main entity that has been reviewing thank you where is it posted it's under Sarah it's under general so I could confusion on the label there I just have one other point of clarification that had come up in an earlier question and I shouldn't take too long I hope on page 7 there was a discussion with legislative council on lines 19 for 21 which was about the third party storage issue and mainly what this is doing is just making it making current law clear to a person who's part of these proceedings they use current law that third party storage is not permitted until the court unless and until a court makes a finding that it is permitted and that's really all that this is doing is making sure that people know that that's the law this is bottom of page 7 lines 19 to 21 and that was all I had to say on that thank you now it's good alright so we're going to go back to page 610 and to David I'm wondering if you could join us again because I rushed you sorry and I'm not sure if you have other things to add but I'm wondering if you can again kind of give us a smartie text of 610 and what's been referred to as other memo and if there you know 6.1 is point 2 with this memo or is it how they relate to what other sure I'd say they are both part of an ongoing collaborative process that a lot that bunch of people really try to get together and address operational issues around making it happen I think there's really a lot of agreement on the underlying policy issues here which is making sure that people who are subjectually from these orders don't have easy access to firearms and the committee heard a lot of testimony on the value of that I don't think there's any disagreement on the importance of that and so these are both of these are really just I think we can all look at them as a unit they are one sort of unit as in terms of us moving forward in an effort to make sure all the operational issues are addressed and this as a practical you know the policy isn't really a matter of debate among a lot of the people who are working on this and just these are practical efforts to implement a policy that has a lot of agreement and I should say just as a you know the consensus memo as it's titled that we just went over was sort of directly worked off of 6.1 so it's not like it was coming out of nowhere it was working directly off of what had already been established with a lot of discussion and would you say that it's a mostly technical substitute to I think that I would certainly characterize this as primarily operational issues making this a work of all policy and so I would not say that these are matters of deep policy disagreement obviously we can get into semantics about what counts as what counts as substance and what counts as process but I think that the overall thrust of the work that's being done here is really focused on operational issues and there's not significant agreement on the underlying goal that we're trying to achieve I'm just confused so the so just a memo so we have 6.10 in front of us and then we have this memo where so there's been conversations around the table about how to get stuff worked out so that's where 6.1 comes from and then these four groups continued to work on it and came up with some basic clarifications that you'd like the committee to consider to put into 6.1 therefore creating a 7.1 but you're not you're supportive of 6.1 but you think there's some this group feels that there's some clarifications that would make it run smoother I think it's a very fair representation but all four I think are saying that right well so there are groups that may have additional that do have additional requests beyond this but I think what you said about this document is completely correct saying yes it's all part of a process of coming to agreement and this is a continuation of that process and everybody's working together right but if I asked any of the members that are listed in the from section would all be supportive of this memo being considered for inclusion in a draft of the bill yes okay the question that's less about the memo in the process actually more about just the bill at this point is that so just and it seemed like you're representing the a person that may be given over you and this so we know that there are instances where federal law prohibits someone from being a possession of firearms in the instance of really criminal abuse proceedings and part of what we're trying to do here might have been square up state law with someone with that provision and so and I feel like we've heard this testimony before but just to refresh my memory what how can Vermont law enforcement agencies and prosecutors enforce federal that federal provision and what are the limitations currently well certainly there would be limitations in terms of you know theoretically a Vermont officer could make an arrest on the basis of a federal criminal violation but after that it would not be handled by state attorneys and the local folks who are much more likely to have on the ground knowledge which really happening in any particular situation and it would not be a practically workable system to have two different federal government which and they don't do a lot of this frankly trying to work on these local issues with individuals who are in intimate partner situations so it does even just when we're talking about the prohibition on people are subject to a final release from an abuse order if we just sort of limit it to that although this bill is doing more than that if we just limit it to that even there there is very important practical impact in terms of making sure that you know local entities can act and operate as a unit which again the sort of local state attorneys do a lot more of that with local police and let's remember that there is an important addition expansion that's happening here with respect to people who are subject to preliminary you know emergency release from an abuse order and can you you said that frankly the federal government doesn't do a lot of enforcement can you expand on that I don't have data on that so I feel uncomfortable going too much beyond that but I do feel comfortable saying that this is not a focus of U.S. attorney's offices at least they're not going to be doing these cases en masse like if local it makes a lot more sense for this to be handled by our local officials this type of work to be handled by local officials yeah no just happy to answer questions and if there are any more I think I've gone through my piece thank you good afternoon the record Brian Greerson chief superior judge speaking to draft 6.1 of h610 and I'm also looking at a consensus memorandum date of February 12th which I think the committee has been reviewing with David Scheer this morning and this afternoon let me just give a little background as to my involvement in this you'll see under the from section I am listed there this memorandum after some days of hearing last week I believe the representatives from domestic violence and law enforcement I'm not sure who got together themselves and discussed the issues that were out there I believe that was last Friday and then over the weekend I corresponded with Beth Novotny BPA and with Sarah Robinson and then Monday morning it kind of coalesced with a draft from VPA and a memo from Sarah and I was invited I think on Sunday night to the phone conference Monday morning so I was involved in the discussion it was about a two hour discussion and it was a lot discussed which has ended up here I did not sign this for reasons I'll explain one it's as a practical matter I don't sign on this type of document but just by way of example for instance the last two bullet points all involve liability for police and I would not offer an opinion in one way or another or approve or disapprove of what they're doing that's entirely in their hands so that's an example of why I would not sign this document and I'll go through the items in general I agree but I have some overwriting concerns that I think it's important and some of it you're probably sick of hearing me say it I did receive a copy of a memo from VPA that I think it will be some testimony later today and there was one paragraph that caught my attention that kind of brought things home to roost for me it's captioned unresolved safety concerns and this is from the law enforcement perspective safe removal receipt of relinquished firearms at an unfamiliar location with unknown number of occupants under circumstances the officer has limited or no control you know that paragraph for me at least capsized what the committee is trying to do and what everybody all of the witnesses are trying to do but it's interesting as I look back on the discussion that's taken place we started with provisions from New Jersey law that talked about civil warrent and we've moved a long ways from that but remember that one of the hallmarks that distinguished New Jersey from us was the way after our orders are obtained through law enforcement we've moved away from the civil warrants we're now down to the procedure that everyone is involved in and that's good but what we're still trying to do is bootstrap improvements on a system that is really not working when I read that paragraph from law enforcement I think of the difference between them receiving an order at two o'clock in the morning that says serve this order which includes relinquishment of two, three, four, whatever any number of firearms at this address as opposed to them being involved at the beginning of the process so they can learn information that will assist them in performing that in a safe manner so I know that's not part of the bill but I just want to remind the committee what's really happening here is that the after hours process and relinquishment now even in New Hampshire I mean I know the committee is looking at provisions I know they heard from Judge Carbone I spoke with her yesterday the testimony she gave so I'm familiar with that I've looked at their process to some extent but keep in mind when they are ordering relinquishment they're almost invariably doing it at an emergency order that again comes through law enforcement so they're involved at the beginning to understand really what situation they're getting into so with that in mind I have one overriding concern that the longer we're talking about this bill the more I'm hearing from judges as they read it and get back to me and that is the idea of this once served always served I think the committee is making a mistake if you will the further they get away from personal service of these orders because ultimately what this process is all about is order but enforcing that order and what I'm concerned about and what I hear judges saying is that when these cases come in for enforcement if we keep going down this path of service of orders exclusively by first class mail the issue that's going to be litigated is not whether the person violated the order initially they're going to have to litigate whether the person is properly served and on notice of the order and it just concerns me with the circumstances we see particularly self represented people not only in this docket but any dockets in just maintaining that that obligation if you will with the court and I think when we get away from personal service you're increasing that risk my suggestion would be and the committee is probably not familiar with it but the current statute says we'll follow the rules of civil procedure for service and that has various steps in it personal service sometimes we can't reach the individual there's what's referred to as tack orders and so they have steps in which if the first process doesn't work go to the next step since relinquishment may not always occur as a result of that emergency order if we're at the final hearing stage and relinquishment is being ordered for the first time it has to be served by personal service it doesn't make any sense otherwise if you're asking for relinquishment you're not going to count on an order going out by mail maybe getting there maybe not so I would emphasize that as a result of an order of relinquishment you're going to want personal service I would also suggest maybe I can go to the section of the bill where it would go in so I was looking at page 11 it talks about what goes on that return and I'll have some other thoughts on that but let's start with that one the change is to read on line 2 the defendants mailing address for service of future orders if provided by defendant it is the proposal so the first thought I had was that's fine but the defendant is under no obligation to give the police they don't have to and in my experience sometimes people give an address that isn't their address they just make it up so one solution maybe is to provide what we refer to as a notice of appearance for self-represented litigants it's a form that the court has that could be included in the paperwork we're serving that puts the person it's a separate standalone document it's not one that's going to be tacked on to the back of the order it's a standalone document that clearly says that they have to notify the court that they're representing themselves if they get an attorney and representing myself I understand that I must one notify the court in writing of any changes of address phone number, email give or send copies of the parties there's a place to put not only a street address when you ask somebody their address again two o'clock in the morning if you're kicking somebody out of the house vacating what their street address is may be different than a mailing address so this would capture that and it would be perhaps the first step in putting the individual on notice not because the police can ask for an address but there's no reason why that necessarily would come about just put them on notice that if you're going to represent yourself if you're going to appear in court this is a form to do it and some formal notice that they have been served with that they have to do then the burden is on them and not whether the police properly took the address down through to at least eliminate that and I would further suggest that when we're talking about that section on 11 when we get to the final hearing stage because keep in mind all of the emergency orders will be personally served so when we get to the final hearing stage there ought to be a provision that calls in my view for personal service if at the end of pick a time frame that makes sense to the committee maybe at the end of 30 days if personal service has not been affected because they can't locate the person then notify the court and then we can proceed with mailing out the address by that time at least there's an attempt for personal service could be down the road when you're trying to enforce this order of simply a piece of paper that shows that the person was served with the order and it's either signed by them or not signed versus going through to determine the validity of the mailing address going through a record to determine whether or not the person was there and the judge said the right things on the record so this would allow for personal service which is the best form of service particularly for these types of proceedings for enforcement and then followed up if it's not happening and the reason the time then send out the order by mailing obviously that's having been able to serve the person personally in whatever it is 30 days mailing the relinquishment order was probably not going to have accomplished so the personal service at the emergency with the emergency lead from the abuse order but the idea is to make sure that that person is not noticed who's receiving it, the defendant that they have to show up at the final hearing if they don't whatever order comes out they're immediately bound by that order to prevent the concept of the gap and what you're suggesting as far as having some reasonable period of time that reasonable period of time becomes the gap where there's not that protection of an order because the order emergency order will have laps and the final order will not have been served I appreciate what you're saying about the relinquishment that if there's a relinquishment order in the final I appreciate that that probably has to be personally served but if that final order doesn't have that the person should be bound by the terms of that order because the person wasn't informed so isn't that how New Hampshire's handling isn't that what happens in New Hampshire if you don't show up you're bound by whatever that final order is as long as you reserve the emergency I believe that's the way it is set up over there if they do their orders by person service but I also understand at least from my brief discussion with Judge Carbon that most of the relinquishment issues arise as a result of the service of the emergency order so I'm putting inside the relinquishment part of this but so I don't think, I don't understand why the enforcement of the order there really has to be consideration of what the address was that it was mailed to because under the terms of this bill it was at the time it was issued by the court that it became operative and what ties that person into it is the fact that they were served a temporary order with the explanation that you need to show up because you're going to be bound by that whether you show up or not so I don't understand why there being argument about whether the address was right or not if we're required to notify them of the final order being issued we've got to notify them one way or another so the notification is with the order, the temporary order the notification is you show up on this date at this time if you don't whatever order is coming out of there you're going to be bound all this stuff is I guess it's a man of duty my understanding is that the subsequent service by mail or any other way is not for notice really it's sticky you have to go ahead and get the hard copy into the person's hand but as far as being bound to it it's actually once it's issued and it's because they were served earlier on the temporary I understand what you're saying and I think that you're running a risk of an order a subsequent order being challenged if the terms of that order had changed from the temporary to the final and that person isn't on notice and they haven't been served with it I think you're running a serious challenge How is that particular challenge in New Hampshire because you would think that they would have crossed that bridge in New Hampshire at least I didn't I didn't go into that area with Judge Carbonman I didn't talk with her about that issue quite frankly between her schedule and mine and I'll be glad to talk with her about that but I'm hearing concerns and I'll call the judges who are responding to me about that very issue that the lack of service the lack of notice is concerning to them the ultimately the due process argument of whether or not the person has been properly notified I'm not sure what the reluctance is to have personal service Again it's that gap who they are in hiding where the addict can't be served so there's no longer an operative order against the person that's where the concern comes from that's what we were trying to address with this is that gap between the lapse of the emergency order and the service personal service of the personal service of the final so I would have to look again at the New Hampshire statute there may be ways to say that the temporary order remains in existence till served with the final order if there is a final order and again that would allow the temporary order to remain in effect until you accomplish service either in person or by mail if you're unable to affect personal service in that may accomplish it I haven't looked at that from a procedural constitutional perspective but that may take care of the gap you're talking about and still allow changes, modifications to that final order that we believe the person needs to be put on notice of what if there are changes so I think that could address the final order I mean the gap that you're referring to but what it still misses from what New Hampshire has is if in fact there's some modifications to that order to the temporary order that again would not be in effect until that final order is served whereas in New Hampshire it would go on to affect the media even if there were changes because the individual was notified they needed to show up and therefore would be followed by whatever happened that's had to carry I look back at the form that we're using now I believe the defendant is notified that they have to show up or that they're gone by changes but I'm I'm just concerned at when you ultimately get to enforcement that this is all about I don't understand why we wouldn't have the best possible process of service for these types of proceedings and that's all personal services so could we the personal service requirements still forget about the mail but still the person is bound upon issuance I mean yeah it's the personal service that allow the law enforcement officer to go over it to go over any changes but if you're hiding or they can't track you down you're still bound by by that order because you didn't show up yeah I understand that's what New Hampshire reads I understand this is a proposal all I will tell you is that many judges again have gotten back to me concerned about issuance versus served with the order with those changes so they just see that as an area where they're not going to be surprised if there's litigation around that and I guess that's what I want the committee to understand you can perceive the way this is laid out I think it's important that the committee be aware that at least from the judiciary's perspective we have real concerns about that process it's not to frustrate any particular party it's to make sure that if we're going to issue orders if the order is followed there's never a concern the only time it's going to be an issue is when there's a claim that it needs to be enforced and the first step in any enforcement whether it's through the court or through the state's attorney process and the violation of an order it's going to be how is this order served and I understand what the statute in New Hampshire says they've had that system for a while because I understand so I don't know what the litigation has been we had one case in Vermont involving the Hampshire's process but I cannot tell you that it involved this very narrow issue of whether serving the final order by mail was proper or not but it was an example of a New Hampshire order after a jury trial after convictions being reversed by our Supreme Court because of a service question it was different than mailing it was this idea that the person was president at a final hearing they left and the attorney was given I believe a copy of the order and that's what the state's attorney was relying on they don't as I read the case did not address whether or not they had attempted service by mail and it didn't work or the court just never sent out service by mail the issue isn't there and I wouldn't want the committee to say that except it goes back to the issue I was talking about and that's the enforceability of these orders that's the first issue so judge I actually this morning was worried about how do we know the person got the order and so I was wondering about okay what if it's sent certified mail so they're signing for it but I know people avoid paying certified mail they return and then they decide they're not going to pay or like an email where it was received and read so in order to address the problem that Morton was trying to address what if the dates were like if there were some overlapping dates so it's like the emergency order is 30 days but at 20 days there's a hearing there's there is a little bit of overlap between temporary and permanent orders we actually have a final hearing quicker than New Hampshire does in other words these cases come in no more than 10 days often times less than 10 days because of the particular court proceeding New Hampshire's process is different their emergency order lasts I believe Judge Carbone told you essentially 24 hours or next court business day person has to apply for what they call a temporary order in that order if granted and that can be ex parte would last for 30 days before they have a final hearing but again the activity that we're talking about and what I think law enforcement and domestic violence folks are concerned about is when that order is served again it's law enforcement involved from the beginning in New Hampshire and I think my impression from talking to Judge Carbone was that that's where most of the almost every order I think she said calls for relinquishment so it's that initial step with police involvement I mean the other thing is that there's no other service by first class now it just seems awkward that this one is because it just stands out as why are we I think they're without knowing all of the methods of service there may be a point in a process where service by first class mail is is allowed but as a as a lower resort I mean the old rule of thumb we learn in law school day one is when you send a letter to the last known address and it's not returned it's presumed received I have a fair feeling that many of these are going to come back to the court return to send their address unknown person unknown and that's what's going to be sitting there so you can say yes that's what the statute says but that will be the issue that will be litigated so my suggestion is look at that closer and I think with this notice of appearance the police can ask for an address again the person isn't obligated at least this would put them on notice that if you want to receive notice of future hearings represent yourself as most of these folks here's the form to fill out and it's fairly simple and we can rely on that what they're going to say is the address they gave the police is in other words the police put it down made a mistake and you can avoid that by putting the obligation on them instead of law enforcement is the idea behind this point so judge in order sent out for personal service I understand you can get there but you can get there and the person can be there and it's easy to hand off but sometimes that may not be the case we know typically how long it can take to do something like that or you mentioned tax orders how long if you know where the person lives and you know that they're residing there so I don't see it for this process it's usually in debt collection they know the person is behind the door and they're just not answering the door so it is available because as I said the statute follows the civil rules but it wouldn't make sense in this no one would make that request I shouldn't say no one would it be rare but in the time frame between when the order is issued and when the person served with it under current law is that person subject subject to that order before they receive notice of it the current law there depends if they've shown up if they've shown up then they're presumed but right now the order that's issued temporary order has it runs out on a certain date so that's what I'm saying we could look at the language we use in that temporary order and extend the life of the temporary order would be one way of looking at it until the final order is issued so I'm still trying to understand whether the person's under obligation before they've been served before they've been served I'm sorry I didn't understand so the court issues it but until they get it they're not and then the the rules around you know this is the problem with not being attorneys don't worry you're way ahead of the game by the time I'm not going to thank you the when I was in the I think I had a phrase this so the rules that govern this is this Vermont law, federal law, or constitution we're talking about Vermont law and obviously the Vermont Constitution I mean any law you pass has to make a constitutional standard right is the concern something that is is the concern that and I know you I'm trying to not ask a question I know you can't answer I'll tell you so the concern that we would be not noticing someone is that in violation of constitution or is that in violation of state law think of it this way the ultimate enforcement is a criminal charge so the argument would not be by the court it would be hearing an argument from the defense that this person was not properly unnoticed these were the terms of the order that he or she is supposed to violate that's where the argument would come but would that be the service rules in constitution or state law in the constitution as an overarching any statute has to make constitutional requirements and so I think they would be raising the concern of lack of due process I wasn't getting proper notice that's an oversimplification that's the way I would see the argument coming sometimes I need oversimplification we all do particularly with this bill as we talked for two hours yesterday it was good but there was a lot of discussion so the other side of it something along the lines of what we're seeing in the memo here on page 11 and I know that this isn't related to this but we wouldn't be able to put something like this in the statute to say that it would not affect the validity of service or something like that to fix that problem so I'll make that a segue to the other sections on page 11 before you go ahead just a question from the point of question so is the notice of appearance served with the order already no but would we have to write that in as a requirement for with an RFA that you have to serve the notice of appearance as well the form the affidavit we could include it as part of we send out the complaint the affidavit the order and there's instructions on those documents as to what they have to do include the return of service I don't think you would but I'll think about that so unless there's any other questions on on top of page 11 small double I again I would suggest that you don't want to put the burden on the police but this may be a substitute for the the defendant provides it fine it would be more important to have this document so it's their statement and not what the police said they told this would be their representation this is my address this is where I again I and I've mentioned this before oh they've added three attempts of tempers that were made to contact the plaintiff is that is that what it says oh yes so I'm reading down on one, two, three, four looks like the fifth bullet whether law enforcement is attempted to contact plaintiff after service there's nothing wrong with putting it in there but it doesn't add anything to it to me it's just filling up the return with information that I don't the return should be in some respects as simple and understandable as plaintiff was served I mean excuse me defendant was served in hand and they confiscated firearms or they didn't confiscate firearms I would expect the police as they do now would contact the plaintiff to let them know the return to say that they have to do it as I would say as soon as has attempted to contact the plaintiff after service prior to the return of service I mean I'll be able to reach them I just I don't think it adds anything I think it's just it goes without saying I guess is the simplest way I can put it that I don't think it needs to be in there but if the committee feels that they had something that's obviously your and that would my comments would be the same section B the court shall provide a copy of the return of service to the plaintiff by the time we get that return if the police have already notified the plaintiff they have it if the plaintiff wants it it's a public record again it's not something that we're opposed to but I just question whether it's unnecessarily you want to document that someone both the plaintiff and the defendant will read and understand and get to the most important things and the more that's on there the more they're going to miss see the same comment return of service shall be filed with the court the earliest possible time shall take precedence over the summons and then they want to add language orders following completion again just putting in that complete this in that fashion that doesn't affect the validity of service it may not but there may be many other issues that do it's just identifying one particular piece that I again I look at those sections as they go without saying and I don't think they need to be on a return so let me just clarify that so it goes without saying as far as what the court might want to understand the court doesn't need to understand any of that that's what I'm trying to get at right so if it's serving another purpose which is to provide some information to the plaintiff you don't necessarily have a comment about that I mean it's from the court's perspective you don't need it but if we're trying to get this information to the plaintiff this is seem to have been suggested in numerous occasions as a good way to do it and I assume your comments doesn't go to that component no I understand that all I'm saying is you now have a document that there are things that you want somebody to focus in on and understand I'm just concerned that this document is getting longer and longer for information that sure it's good to know but I'm assuming again that the police have already talked with the plaintiff to have them check a box that said we attempted to talk with the plaintiff or they did but if law enforcement is good with this one way or another I assume that you don't really viewpoint on that I don't I just don't think it's necessary that's my point I don't my other concern and maybe I misunderstood again it's that same bullet about page 11 line 68 revised to read return of service we wouldn't want any delays service whether they've contacted the plaintiff or not in other words all the information they want down there what's critical is that that return get filed as soon as possible and so I guess that's the other reason I'm concerned about all of this going on a return and important to get it served get it filed with the court because until we have it we can't provide it and oftentimes I think I mentioned in previous testimony we don't even get to return sometime until the day of hearing it just happens so those are the reasons why I didn't sign on to the memo and I think those are the only comments I have I don't I wasn't here when Eric did the walkthrough on page 4 at the very bottom lines 20 and 21 the copy I had this is more grammatical than anything else it would just be to take the language that's in blue and put it at the end of that clause I think it reads so that then it would read the court order shall require the immediate relinquishment until the expiration the order so forth and so on if there is evidence of defendants in possession or has access to firearms so I think it just would read better I just want to follow up on a discussion we had about that language I'm not sure if you were to hear yet more than that there were questions about really what does access to firearms mean and I could certainly have you give us your interpretation but let me throw an idea instead that I had proposed to change that language to make it clear that if there is evidence, albeit at the beginning or end at the end of that section as you mentioned have that instead say if there's evidence that the defendant possesses hands or controls firearms or that another person possesses hands or controls firearms on behalf of the defendant to really clarify or not have that perhaps ambiguous term access in there instead I don't know if you have any comment on that at this point I mean if you're asking me whether that would clarify it or not well let me ask you how would you interpret access on a case by case basis that's the problem I mean if you try to define that I think one of the issues we discussed for instance whether or not if you take the key to a gunsafe or if the defendant is living in a home whether the gunsafe and he doesn't have a key to that gunsafe does he have access to the firearms in that case I mean that's you wouldn't have possession or control the word access I think that's the issue possession or control is certainly different than access so it depends how broad do you want to make this or how narrow you want it to be access is obviously much broader than possession or control I've always been puzzled by the or that another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant I'm not sure that owns is the appropriate but if some other person the own really stuck out for me so I really did not understand that I don't think I've ever expressed that from the committee before but I think at one time I made a note to cross out owns in that part of the phrase that it's really possession or control so I'm the person who had the concern this morning and I just wanted to tell you what my concern was I was saying almost everybody has access to guns because they can go purchase one so I'm not so sure I take the part in this right so that's how they'll take care of that right but that would be his suggestion well that would be another problem but you just pointed out so these are going to be complicated cases but it's reasonable to assume that access means going to a gun store and get one access is a very broad term very broad term so I'm just a little bit confused so I think I heard that we started out with this bill and we were going down one path the path has now been changed to a different probably in a different certainly state and now we're trying to I just said state just to try to liven it up you like the new Hampshire right I was going to say country but I didn't want to confuse people it seems to me that this bill is talked about is getting so law enforcement cannot do their job they're going to put and it's not their fault they're going to put more people at jeopardy trying to get there guns, domestic violence whatever which I agree with domestic violence there's a problem and then it's going to go to the court system and for the most part I believe I've heard the court system saying this isn't going to work well first of all as far as the comments about law enforcement I'm going to leave that to Chief Fakos and whoever else is here I can't say that this is something that isn't going to work for them this process can work I just want to make sure that the committee is aware of the impact that the judiciary sees going forward that some of these things clarify procedures we're adding in new procedures and anytime we add new procedures we're looking at it obviously through our lens how is this going to affect us and so my comments were not so much don't do it but look at the way you're doing it and be aware of the risks when you change a process or adopt a new procedure of consequences of doing that and so when I'm talking about New Hampshire's model for instance that's a piece that they use different than ours and maybe it's work for them their procedure is a little different than ours and I think you have to weigh that as to whether we take a piece of their procedure or do we adopt the whole process and I haven't certainly had enough experience to know whether their system is something that I would recommend to the committee or anyone else but all I'm saying is this is the process we're using and when you add on to it just be aware of the consequences of that and when you take away what we now use as personal service I know there are times when the person is difficult to find and the police can't find it and so there should be an alternative method of service so sorry no go ahead so I guess what I'm concerning what I'm really concerned about is as I understand it we're the second safest state in the nation I think we're taking a situation here that we could be opening up a whole new can of worms that could make a pretty good situation a lot worse and put certainly public safety more at risk DCF I think a lot of people involved I'm really really concerned so I'm not sure I can respond to that I'm starting with the DCF course is not involved in these types of proceedings that's number one DCF this is a totally this is a civil process this does not involve the state in the sense that it's the state's attorney or prosecuting attorneys until it gets to the criminal state but DCF is not involved they're involved only very indirectly if it spills over if the children that may be subject to a relief from abuse proceeding are also involved in DCF so it's only an indirect connection at best this is a purely civil process that quite frankly for the most part the plaintiff the person bringing the complaint controls the process as it should be because that's the way the civil process works as opposed to the criminal process where the state's attorney is acting for the state so this is purely civil and that's why in going forward as we change the procedures I just want the committee to be aware of some of the risks that I see when they change those procedures not to do it but be aware of the risks and maybe a little bit other ways so it's perhaps trying to adapt to what New Hampshire is doing partially but adapt it to our system and say let's attempt a person of service is all I'm suggesting and if it doesn't work then you can always go to an alternative method of service at least on that that issue Matt? I think Ken brought up some points that are sort of rattling around in my head a little bit and I'm really sympathetic to what we're trying to do here but I think there's just been this nagging fear in the back that's that keeps coming back to me around it because I recognize that there's some potential flaws in the system over time and we're trying to make people as safe as possible and make them understand make sure that we're doing everything that we can to protect them and make sure they understand what's being done but I guess I keep coming back to we're trying to work some changes to the system that I'm not sure if do you I guess the blunt way to ask it is do you believe that the system is flawed as it exists today or broken? The relief from abuse? Yes, the system as it exists today that we're talking about changing I didn't know I think the system works in the sense that it depends on how you're looking at the system how you define the system and this is my view and not the entire issue but I view it as a procedure for someone who needs feels they need protection, security that this is the vehicle to do that and in that respect I think it has it has provided a forum for extremely difficult issues to be addressed you know the this issue of domestic violence and other witnesses that have said it it's one of the most complicated issues that we have to face in it I think it's difficult for individuals who do not have to deal with it on a day to day week to week basis to really understand how difficult it is people make difficult decisions under very trying circumstances sometimes economics driving it it's not just physical emotional things the number of issues that come into play and why people decide to go forward or not go forward is an individual decision and it can change overnight and so this system is designed for someone who needs protection to be able to come to the court and get that protection and what the quality is and in my discussions not only with law enforcement but domestic violence folks to a great extent the system relies on self-report in other words you are going or contemplating going to another step of search warrants it started out as Representative Gosland said that the search warrants would be new to Vermont you now are considering processing those requests through the criminal process which is appropriate because what you're really looking at is if a person is not supposed to have firearms the potential there is for criminal offence and that's where the police should be involved and that's why search warrants under the rules and procedures that we follow is probably the best most effective way to do that I don't want to I don't want to sound like you know the broken wheel but where the system I think has changed let's put it that way over the 20 or 30 years that after hours process has been in effect that's where we've seen real changes I mean that was a system that it worked I mean it's a very simple statute all it says is the court shall provide after hours access and law enforcement shall work effectively work with us but it's very simple there's no guidelines for the court there's certainly no guidelines to say what the police have to do or not do and over the last whatever number of years that process has been in effect law enforcement has changed in terms of their availability after hours we used to staff staff after hours request exclusively through court volunteer staff members that were willing to be on call to go out in the middle of the night at one time they would go to a police station to process these orders and it seemed to work but over the last few years and currently out of 14 counties I believe the last time I checked I only had four counties where staff were still willing to do this which means we've had to go to contract personnel and we have now changed the process where for the most part these requests are being done by telephone which works but not as effectively as person to person but the risks of sending staff or contract personnel out in the middle of the night with a victim it expands the risks for everyone we had staff members meeting in the parking lot of a police station with no one in the police station process these orders no one's going to convince me that that's safe for the victim or for the personnel and so what I'm saying is if you look around at other states we have to be looking at how can we make this system improve this system and so my I think the system works but I think it does need some changes but I think the committee is contemplating now is important really ought to consider perhaps going to the next step and having police involved earlier in the process I'm not suggesting it doesn't but that's what every other state does so I'm confused it sounds like the idea was that in places where where things have worked the legislature's often less prescriptive and allows the allows the judiciary or the judicial system or law enforcement to develop organically based on what they're seeing did I understand that incorrectly? I think so that's not what I was trying to say I was trying to say that I think the system works I think the system needs to be to be looked at and see if there ways of improving safety and the additional element of where linkishment orders and enforcing those orders is important by not having the police involved at the beginning to assess the situation they're going into is is a different different risk for them certainly and so this has to be done the right way it's an important process and I do think it works it's complex I mean when I look through a lot of the sections of this bill I sit there at a great value that makes sense that makes sense hearing you talk about it I wonder whether in some cases we're making things almost more difficult whereas the idea of someone being able to get out of really move your sorter down the road because they can say that they won't serve properly is not something I would have thought I'm not saying they can get out of it easily but I'm saying that that could become another challenge to the enforcement when whatever information we get from the plaintiff on that late night call and that's put in the order in other words I believe Defendant has two lung guns and a fire a handgun and that's all the information we have and we put that on the order and that's the order the police will receive and then they've got to go to that address serve that and demand those fire entrances really all they can do at that point this order says you have to relinquish and our information is you have X, Y and Z Defendant may say X and Y but not Z and the terms are over and then that's where I'm saying this self-report starts where do you go from there and that's what the issue will become that's what I'm saying I have no doubt the police upon service of that order will go back to the plaintiff with it without the languages in this bill and say I've served so and so and this is what we obtained and you tell me more about why you think there's a third gun and that's where this whole process will start as to whether or not there's enough information to obtain a search warrant to perhaps go back and find out if there is another gun there the difference being that if the police were involved in the beginning they would have that discussion with that individual and say well tell me what those guns look like where do they where do they keep them in the home or do they keep them in their car in other words it's that kind of investigation that I think will make the relinquishment order more meaningful not for the court but for the person that has to go out and serve that order and do what police do and that is investigate and make sure that the case they present to the court as strong as it can be under the circumstances that's that's where I'm saying I think you earlier they're involved with this process better sure certainly not speaking for long of course thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you sorry it's noisy back here thanks thanks again for having me it's been a long day talking so if I I can't speak any other languages so that's not a danger again Mike Charling Commissioner of Public Safety I'm happy to take questions I'm going to be brief just a couple of points on the progress that's been on 6.1 robust effort on the part of the network the judiciary AG's office the BPA I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out but lots of conversations it's been pared down which is helpful just a placeholder that my general look at these kinds of things is less is more the more it's easier to operate if we make it more streamlined and being the bill is introduced from the original introduction to the 6.1 version is easier to operationalize because it is less complicated so the more we streamline the better off that is it is there's there were I just lost the thought so I'm going to jump from the second to the third thought the third thought is it would be remiss if I said it's perfect there are still operational concerns around there are safety concerns around how to execute the stuff and there isn't magic to doing it so I'm not sure there's going to be perfection I know you'll hear from the VPA some additional thoughts on some strategies that might help to mitigate some of the the risk factors but it's just important to just put that out as a placeholder I don't have a specific answer 6.1 is is an improvement and overall this is an important topic so it's important to keep working to get to the best possible best possible version some of them some of them exist already because anytime we're talking about trying to acquire firearms in a search and seizure scenario there are risks this creates another avenue for sort of another lane of travel for that kind of operation to have to happen so it just creates another lane of risk and trying to find the balance of how to create the policy and the operating methodology to execute it in the safest possible way is complicated so that's the best description I have just a follow up to that as far as how to to address the safety as I've envisioned this is once we get the court to issue an order the order goes to law enforcement and then law enforcement should have essentially complete discretion to execute that order to execute the subsequent warrant to get the firearms paying attention to whatever issues that are in safety and logistics and I'm wondering if I'm missing that somewhere are we tying law enforcement's hands in exercising their discretion to do this in a safe and effective manner and next question I guess associated with that should we be doing that in the context of the document telling them how to exercise their discretion safely and effectively let me do the first one I may have to ask you to repeat the second one because I'm on my fourth hour of testimony today and because of the virtue of your education you ask compound questions which is good but if getting to where you just described is absolutely the goal and I'll let the the VPA speak a little bit more to nuances because I think I have not had as much time over the last 48 hours to focus on that as I would have liked but I know that Chief Fakos and other folks from the VPA have so I'll let them address the nuances but getting that flexibility to script how to execute is I think the important piece I'll give you an example so you get a sense of what we do in other circumstances if there's a wanted person in a house and that person poses a risk we arrested the state police and the FBI arrested a fugitive in Rutland this morning that was a scripted operation that could have taken a lot of different avenues depending on the risk assessment we may have waited for him to come out it was executed at a time when we could control the entry at a time when people were sleeping but there's lots of different factors sometimes you're looking to wait for a person to emerge sometimes we use a ruse to get somebody to come out of a house so that we reduce the risk so it's the flexibility to be able to do those kinds of things that is important in trying to mitigate the risk both to the officer but also to the victim and ensuring that we're not telegraphing our strategy too far to someone to a variety of different people so and is there in 6.1 the changes do they address those concerns or are they still concerns? I think they address many of them and I think you'll hear that there are a couple of other tweaks that might be able to go a little bit further that again I haven't had the opportunity to get as far into it as I'd hoped yeah I know that there's a police association will be coming up later you had a chance to connect with the police association to be able to say whether you agree with whether you're supportive with changes that they're proposing I have provided some feedback and they've made some edits as a result of that feedback okay have you seen the proposed amendment to the draft 6.1 signed off by what's co-operatively known as the group? yes that's I was party to that okay yeah you are okay thank you I just wanted to make sure that we didn't have to circle back around again and I just want to know if your statement from the previous draft still stands that you can do everything that you're being asked of between reports and storage of firearms without additional appropriation reports and storage stands yes you'll hear of from the VPA I think some additional placeholders or concerns around the resources and how many how many officer hours to do some of the things that we have to do around 6.1 or any version the state police do share that concern but I don't know that there is a there's no answer to that it's a fundamental how many people do we have employed and on duty at any given time concern so it doesn't have an answer but that's a concern that's shared with the police so we can hear more about that later yeah I believe that's what Chief Fakos is part of what he's going to walk you through okay I just wanted to make sure we you know ask you about all the same stuff thanks by and large 6.1 is all the versions have been an iterative process to improve the bill and again important topic and well we may not have all the answers we'll continue working on this as it makes its way through the General Assembly over the next few weeks thank you thanks congratulations thank you I had nothing to do with it he did not come to my office you're at the top but I will pass that along thank you so much for taking continued testimony on this and for looking at the revised draft and the memo that was submitted to you all and just before I'm going to speak specifically to sections 2, 3 and 5 but before I do that I just wanted to zoom out a little bit back to what the network certainly hopes is the effect and intention of the bill and that's to really create some protections for victims during the periods of time that really well established research indicates are the most dangerous times and the reviews that are done in depth reviews of individual cases and individual domestic violence homicides in Vermont such as those done by Vermont's Vitality Review Commission often find that the victim has accessed every possible system of support that law enforcement have met all of their obligations the court has met all of their obligations under the current framework of the law but that there are still really holes in what our statutory scheme offers currently that pose risks to victims during these really especially dangerous times and I'll just direct you to I submitted to the committee two studies that I would encourage you to review they're posted on the judiciary's website and just very briefly again research really indicates that presence of a firearm and access to a firearm is the leading risk factor for domestic violence homicide and estrangement and leaving is also a leading risk factor so this bill is intended to address both of those elements one of the very briefly one of the studies that was posted looked specifically at state level firearms laws related to prohibiting possession and statutes that look at relinquishment and they found that by far states where there was a statutory scheme which both prohibited possession and address relinquishment there were results across states in terms of lower rates of firearms related domestic violence homicide and so the bill in front of you proposes to really do just that and address both of those items so as you've heard since you received initial testimony on the bill the network has worked to address concerns that were raised by law enforcement in the courts while trying to maintain the critical protections that are necessary for victims of domestic and sexual violence and the draft 6.1 that you have in front of you today along with the memo that was submitted to the committee we believe represents a very strong bill of language and proposals that have been vetted by a variety of stakeholders so I'll just speak to sections 2 and 3 and section 5 and then I have a few notes from things that have come up today that I'd like to talk about so as we have mentioned before there's considerable variability in the conditions that are ordered by Vermont courts in relief from abuse order though these conditions vary from case to case they also vary from county to county and judge to judge and so that creates areas of the state where protections afforded to victims can be dictated by geography rather than the facts and sections 2 and 3 really aim to create some increased consistency by improving both the firearms related information that's available to the court so that they can make facts specific and tailor orders and conditions to the facts that are presented by the plaintiff or at a hearing and to really ensure that this information is directly related to the conditions of the order so the current affidavit forum which I have shared with the committee previously asked the plaintiff to disclose general weapons and highlight the most recent and most severe incidents of abuse that have brought them to seek relief even if firearms are present in a violent home and are used to coerce and control victims of domestic violence often the most recent and severe incidents are not firearms related so the proposed bill in this draft will allow plaintiffs to offer this specific firearms related information to the court to inform its consideration of the facts in an application for relief can you repeat that so the current relief from abuse order affidavit that plaintiffs fill out ask the plaintiff to disclose general weapons and to highlight that the defendant may be in possession of and to highlight the most recent and most severe incidents of abuse that brought them to seek relief those are kind of how the questions are framed but even if firearms are present in a home and used to threatening coerce a victim the other question that's asked is what's the most recent and severe incidents of abuse and it's not likely that the most recent or severe incidents of abuse are firearms related that makes sense and sir does that go to one of those testimony but testimony that we heard that now domestic violence is seen as a course of conduct exactly right so rather than asking specifically about and I do think the forum intends to get at a course of conduct but it does ask about most recent and severe incidents and often especially firearms are part of a course of conduct and an escalating pattern of control and coercion but yes certainly unlikely that a person has been previously injured with a firearm and that's why they are applying for relief so it's as much about more information getting to the court so that the court can make those determinations and the revised draft that you have in front of you today 6.1 I think appropriately responds to the concerns that the judiciary raised that they would like to make orders and issue orders and conditions that are specific to the facts that have been presented to them so as additional information is presented to the court the court is more easily able to tie the conditions of the order to evidence or information that's presented to them. On section 5 I wanted to so I'm just wondering if we have any information even if it's anecdotal about where the system breaks down in most cases if we had some of the clarification this morning that once the final orders put in the person is proven for the length of that order so obviously there's a breakdown somewhere and do you know where we're seeing that and does this cover that area? So I think that the draft sections 2 and 3 does work to cover that area so I see a few places where there's a breakdown. A prohibition on possession alone is not adequate in addressing the relinquishment of firearms if that makes sense. So if there's no order to relinquish but a person is just prohibited there's not necessarily any process for those firearms to be relinquished or to be seized in the absence of a criminal complaint against that person. So just kind of like a because there's no mechanism for how to do it even though they are prohibited by law from having them there's no way to say where to go. Unless someone reports it to law enforcement unless law enforcement connects an investigation the prohibition in and of itself is not adequate without the relinquishment components. Thank you. So section 5 includes two distinct but important provisions related to the service of relief from abuse orders. So the first is the once served all was served process that I know Judge Grusen discussed earlier today and the intention was really to there was really a dual purpose to that proposal. The first was to reduce the number of orders which need to be personally served by law enforcement officers and creating a more efficient and safer process for officers serving final orders. And I was just sharing that on the break I received an email from an advocate in Rutland who has working with a survivor who is looking for funds to be able to put an ad in the paper because the person that's subject to her relief from abuse order has evaded service five times. And so this issue of defendants ducking service is a very real one and a common one. And that intentional evasion because defendants know that they're not bound by the conditions of that subsequent order really poses a significant safety risk to victims. And that's what we're trying to balance out the idea between wanting to have something as tight as possible and then but at the same time understanding that we're in a situation where you have someone who has an order against them that they're not subject to. Is that how you sort of break down in your thoughts of how to balance it of saying that the idea of the one served always served is a safer bet for you because of the idea of ensuring that we have something that says that they're served and then deal with any issues about process later. I know I just put a lot of words in your mouth. Yeah, I'm not sure I would exactly say it that way. I think that the most important piece for us certainly is that orders are effective upon issuance and so I think that what the really dangerous gap that occurs is when either the temporary order has completely expired and there's no order in effect or there are changes in the conditions between the temporary and the final order and the defendant doesn't have to abide by those conditions because they've evaded service and so I do think that New Hampshire has certainly found a way to ensure that it's really a second personal service isn't necessary because the person who hasn't personally been served the first time has been adequately noticed about the final hearing and I haven't seen the notice form recently that Judge Greerson was referencing in his testimony but would be happy to look at that but has been adequately noticed that they're of the date of the final hearing and that they will be bound by any subsequent conditions of a subsequent order. I mean I understand that when I first saw this I was thinking to myself why did we decide to do this a while ago so you don't have that gap I guess that also speaks to the other idea of sort of floating out there extending the length of the emergency order so that there would perhaps be some overlap if we went the route of personal use you still think the one served always served things better? I still think noticing the defendant that they will be bound by the final order upon issuance whether it is personally served the second time or not is important because again there may be differences in conditions between the temporary or the final order so even if the temporary order is still in effect and still in effect longer while law enforcement is running around chasing a defendant whose perpetually ducking service then they're still not bound by the conditions of the final order. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Yeah I'm happy to look at the notice of appearance suggestion that the that the judge offered see if they have any other notes on once or below served okay so section 5 again you know the second provision in section 5 really creates a foundation for what is called by you know advocates and I would say the courts nationally as a compliance monitoring process for relief from abuse orders and compliance monitoring really functions as the cornerstone of effective service and compliance with relief from abuse orders and I reference in my testimony what's often called the burgundy book which is a document that's released by the judges and it's been a long established recommendation that in effect there are ways that after the court issues the order that information about that service and about the defendant's compliance is made available to the court and also to the plaintiff and so just conceptually I think that that's an important piece of this and this bill does an excellent job of creating a strong foundation for that and that really serves as an assurance for survivors that once they've taken this significant risk at the most dangerous moment that the court order is more than a piece of paper but that there is some kind of compliance process that is in place and that importantly the plaintiff also gets information about the service information about the firearms that have been relinquished and we certainly understand that is not perfect information no information that a victim receives is going to be perfect information but the more they have the better informed their own safety planning will be and one of the primary reasons that we hear that survivors may seek a temporary order and then kind of abandon their plans to seek a final order is because the order has been either violated with impunity in that interim period between the temporary and final order or they don't have adequate information to know that seeking a final order is really the safe choice for them at the moment that's a moment that certainly a defendant has been noticed to appear they know that there will be a safety risk there for them so section 5 creates some mechanisms to collect information about compliance for the plaintiff and for the court to be informed about firearms relinquishment following service prior to the final hearing and the bill as introduced I know a few folks had referenced this included the ability for the court to issue warrants simultaneous to the orders we had heard from law enforcement that they had concerns about operational safety if warrants were issued without the benefit of a law enforcement investigation kind of the version 2.0 of that was saying okay if you have probable cause as a result of serving the order apply for a warrant and we also heard and responded to the concerns of law enforcement about dictating their kind of operational investigational work and so you'll see that the warrant language has been completely pulled from the version in front of you but we do think it's important that the draft maintains and clarifies that the court may issue a warrant as a result of an application pursuant to rule 41 of Vermont's criminal procedure and we feel like that's important language to maintain. So there are the only other thing that I wanted to mention that came up that I had already referenced why just simply the prohibited person statute alone isn't necessarily sufficient in achieving safety for victims that relinquishment kind of needs to be the other side of that coin and I wanted to briefly touch on what Judge Greerson mentioned about after hours of RFAs and just to say that that's an ongoing conversation, ongoing process the network and the judiciary have been engaged in this conversation for a few years now and happy to continue those conversations I see it as a separate policy issue from the ones in front of you today and although I do think that there are some states that use law enforcement officers to receive the affidavits and complaints for ex parte orders we've heard from law enforcement right here in Vermont that they have significant concerns about what that process would mean and what it would mean for protecting the civil sanctity of that process so there are survivors that indeed seek out a civil protection order rather than calling law enforcement precisely because it's a civil process and when law enforcement receive information that there's evidence of a crime that there's some duty to investigate that crime and so I think that those are policy questions that we still have to resolve and I do believe and Judge Grisham please correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe that as of July 1 no court staff are likely going to be going out after hours that it's all going to be telephonic as it is in much of the state at this moment now is that correct? Yes. Okay. So you know I understand the court's concerns about their staff in the middle of the night and court staff not not wanting to risk their safety I would say just briefly two things about that one is that that the target of violence is often the survivor and so the survivor is at equal if not more risk then than court staff although both are equally important and that we're certainly very supportive of the court's efforts to move this process to a telephonic process and as of 7-1 my understanding again is that that will be the case statewide so I'm happy to answer any questions that folks have. So Sarah this is a little bit well this one is at least tangential but are staff from the DV programs going out at night alone? So is there something so I'm assuming that's at least the same safety risk that it is for court officials so I understand that there's any plan in the works that requires additional staffing or something to be saying okay we're gonna protect court staff which I get but we're not going to worry about the staff that aren't employed in the state. So I would say that on the local level there are arrangements that are created by advocates to have access to safe places to meet survivors but you know frankly um work in the domestic violence field whether it's for law enforcement advocates and certainly most of all for a survivor seeking safety there is there's simply risk involved and there's nothing that's going to fully mitigate that risk and so I think that survivors especially are usually the experts at how to how to mitigate that risk and that you know our programs do an incredible job with the extremely limited resources they have providing 24 hour 7 day a week access for survivors to services can be done but I'm thinking of the immediate safety risk if it's panic buttons or I mean I don't know what's additional training many of our programs do have safety protocols that they've adopted yeah so with this 610 yeah draft 6.1 so would you say that with the language that's in here in the language that you agree with it puts the victim in less danger I would very much so and with the same language would you say it puts court staff or anybody else in more danger I don't feel like I can speak for court staff or anyone else or the advocate that's meeting somebody in the parking lot or that situation I don't think there's anything at all about this bill that at all changes safety for domestic violence advocates in fact I think it improves it I think that they'll be more consistent I'm thinking of law enforcement also down the road that would be a great question for law enforcement I would just offer that there are already every day law enforcement are serving orders with conditions to that include real inquisition conditions it's already happening every day what we are trying to do is process and what's happening today a little bit but it establishes it is on the well established path there's nothing you know I think the thing that changes this is the consistency with which these orders will include the relinquishment condition and ultimately I think that that's something that's going to keep all of us as Vermonters safe especially when you look at the connection between domestic violence and domestic violence homicides and things like mass shootings and other ways that defend domestic violence perpetrators having access to guns poses a safety risk for all of us whether we may be aware of it or not Eric Davis got orders for a moment thanks for having me back guys I've prepared my testimony here it's a little long because I like to be thorough so if I get to rambling and reading off the paper here a little bit please feel free to stop me excuse me do we have it yes I brought copies for everyone if you guys want to pass it around we make sure it's posted as well yes absolutely thank you very much hello my name is Eric Davis I'm the president of gun owners vermont and I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today I'd like to begin by acknowledging the committee's efforts to improve this bill over the last few weeks we unfortunately still have some lingering concerns about both sections of the proposed legislation or most sections I should say starting with section one we appreciate the attempt to find common ground on this part of the bill however we remain concerned that section one still weighs heavily on the side of infringement with only a small theoretical chance of a benefit the Brady check already delays good people access to their rights for three days under the assumption that they are guilty until proclaimed innocent by the next check and as we previously discussed approximately 98% of all hits on the next check are false positives this means that the wrongfully accused 98% will still have their natural right suspended for up to an additional four weeks under this proposal on the justification of catching a small tiny fraction of the remaining 2% who might slip through this theoretical loophole we would humbly suggest that progress might be easier made regarding more effective background checks by reviewing the reporting system and the tools that law enforcement have at their disposal to ensure that firearms don't end up in the wrong hands instead of chasing hypothetical scenarios where we default to removing rights from good people perhaps we should ask some different questions for instance our prohibited persons being properly reported to the NICS system by law enforcement and the courts our NICS denials being thoroughly investigated by law enforcement and if so how many of the nonenials in Vermont each year result in the prosecution of that individual for attempting to purchase a firearm what is the strategy of our law enforcement to combat straw purchases and theft which are the two most common ways of obtaining a firearm illegally in an effort to find common ground I think we can all agree that there are certain individuals in our society who should not have access to deadly weapons and that we should at least try to manage that risk how we handle these folks as a society is up for contentious debate but we believe progress towards safety can be made in numerous areas without compromising the rights of the good people of Vermont to obtain a firearm with respect made to the efforts to improve this part of the bill we still believe that section one has way too much bad in exchange for a very small and purely theoretical good and we continue to oppose this section regarding section two in the seizing of firearms from persons subject to RFAs the committee has heard much testimony on the legality but not much on the logistics of such a proposal out of curiosity we started crunching some numbers and the results were staggering and fair warning I'm going to get a little bit numbers here for you guys so if I start to drone on a little bit feel free to stop me and say hey what the heck did you mean by that we begin with a small study which was conducted by the graduate institute or international development studies in Geneva Switzerland which estimates that there are currently 393 million privately owned firearms in the United States we chose this study for the purposes of this illustration accepting that this estimate is likely lower than the actual number based on other available data keep in mind there's no way to get a clear number and all we have are educated guesses based on the number of firearms manufactured since the gun control act in 1968 when they mandated that firearms be serialized actual numbers are likely much higher due to several factors but for the sake of this example we're using the number 393 million or rate of 1.205 guns per resident of the United States so if we take 626,299 residents in the state of Vermont times 1.205 firearms per person you come up with 754,690 guns in the state of Vermont physically this number is also likely low since a rural state like Vermont will have a much higher ownership rate per capita than the national average there have been over 600,000 background checks conducted in the state of Vermont just since the Brady Bill in the 90s so the actual number of civilian owned firearms in Vermont could well be double or even triple our estimate but again for the sake of argument we're using the lowest possible number given the available data once again no way of knowing for sure some estimates put the number of gun owning households in Vermont between 70 and 80% but again for the sake of this argument we've intentionally watered down the number to our best estimated guess of 60% of the households in Vermont have guns we figured that could be a reasonable number that everybody could agree on within that general area so if we take the number of households in Vermont 259,589 times the 60% ownership rate of firearms we come out with 155,753 households in Vermont owning a total of 754,000 guns or approximately 4.8 guns per gun owning household in Vermont so every house that has a gun in it has approximately 5 guns just shy of 5 guns according to these rough calculations so here's where I kind of get to the point there were a total of 3,380 relief from abuse orders filed in Vermont in 2018 if 60% of these households possess firearms that comes out to 2028 RFAs involving firearm confiscation with an average of 4.8 firearms per household if we take the 2028 RFAs multiplied by 4.8 guns per incident again using the lowest possible estimates to calculate the rate that makes 9,826 firearms that would have been confiscated in 2018 under H-610 just relief from abuse orders to shy of 10,000 weapons the law enforcement would have to go out and physically round up and confiscate and store using census numbers Vermont has 60 excuse me, not census numbers numbers from the I forget the public the numbers guy that was here last time I'm drawing a blank on what his organization was but Vermont anyhow has 69 law enforcement agencies which employ 1103 people so each law enforcement agency would be tasked with the seizure and storage of 142.4 firearms per year on average in addition to what they already do for regular crime assuming that some of these law enforcement personnel are administrative and don't see field work in that approximately 80% of these 1100 are actual cops that go out and do the confiscation that means the 882 officers across 69 departments would be tasked with 2028 gun confiscation incidents or 29.4 incidents per department where the department has to go out on average and physically confiscate weapons for relief from abuse orders this also doesn't consider the fact that many law enforcement agencies rely on mutual aid and they work with other departments so you would probably be exposing those officers to actually a much higher rate of this incident so that's 2028 incidents per year in which the volatility of an already difficult and dynamic situation might be unnecessarily escalated by the rigidity of law that mandates the seizure of firearms it's 2028 times that we put the lives of our leo's at risk serving a warrant for gun confiscation when it may not be necessary if the court already has the discretion why mandate the use of force and potentially escalate the bad situation why impose this logistical burden to other departments if we don't have to applying extra layers of bureaucracy and force where it may not be warranted increases the risk dynamic for the victim the defendant and the law enforcement officers alike like section 1 section 2 of this bill defaults heavily to the curtailment of the rights to own a firearm and the circumvention of due process on the justification that a crime might someday be committed this law assumes for all 3,380 defendants subsequently stripping of their rights without trial we believe it also bears noting that the undertone of this discussion assumes that the defendant in the RFA will be male and the victim will be a female and while statistics will likely show this assumption to be mostly accurate as I'm sure everyone is aware abuse comes in all shapes and sizes and domestic violence is not a fixed narrative rather every incident is different is it not possible for the dominating and abusive partner in the relationship regardless of gender to also be manipulative enough to use an ERPO or an RFA in their favor we heard Ann Donahue touch on that a little bit at the beginning there where the you know her tenant was kind of trying to weaponize the law against her they have concerns with that it would seem quite possible to us to have an incident where an RFA is wrongfully filed against the actual victim of the abuse it subsequently strips them of their ability to obtain a firearm as the last line defense from their abuser again this law takes power and discretion from its rightful place in the courts and mandates the unnecessary use of force against potentially undeserving people in section 2 subsection 3a Roman numeral 2 we have questions regarding implementation and a lot of that is around the the term access and we covered a good deal of this today so I'll kind of skim through this to try not to be redundant but the term access by the defendant seems suggest subjective and open to broad interpretation and we're wondering what would be the specific requirements for the homeowner securing their firearms and furthermore who would be responsible for making sure that the homeowner complies are we not only restricting the homeowner's rights to keep a firearm if they're ready for their own protection and by the homeowner I'm speaking to the section of the bill where the theoretical defendant would go stay with a friend or something and the firearms would have to be removed from the friend so they didn't have access to it so we're concerned that are we not only restricting the homeowner's rights to keep a firearm if they're ready for their own protection but also subjecting them to an illegal search of their property by a police officer to make sure that the homeowner doesn't have a firearm this burden will be imposed on an individual who has not even been implicated in the crime and is just trying to help a friend the implications of this kind of law are broad and concerning will a homeowner who does not own a gun safe soon be required to screen visitors for potential prohibited persons again we believe this rigid blanket policy of force is misguided and unnecessary to prohibit possession when the situation calls for in section 5 we'll move on to sir can we jump in with questions in sections if you want the whole thing in the lineup actually I'd like to let me get to the rest of it so in section 5 subsection 6 be we when I say we I mean the gun owners of Vermont take great exception with the wording that exempts law enforcement from any damages incurred during the seizure, transportation, and storage of the defense firearms we are testimony from the commissioner of public safety about how law enforcement needs to be exempt from such things because someone will eventually quote sue the government and it will cost the taxpayers money if I might project from the perspective of I say common Vermont gun owner this part of the bill is particularly rotten from our perspective the thought of first being falsely accused followed by the circumvention of one's due process and right to a fair trial for the purposes of stripping them of their natural right to self defense is bad enough but to hear the government agency who would oversee the trampling of these rights state that their organization must be immune from any accountability for damages incurred in the process on the grounds that it would cost the rights travelers too much of our taxpayer money to defend themselves against us frankly blows our minds a little bit so I'm going to back up and I'd like to if I can sort of go off the reservation and just see kind of how this was from my perspective so here listening to all this I'm thinking okay my goodness we have this law so first I can be accused of a crime that I didn't commit I can have an order issued against me without a trial or even being made aware that this is going on I can have my gun seized and after law enforcement takes them and throws them all in a corner because they don't have room to keep all these things I have no recourse to recover my damages after I've gone through the steps of proving myself innocent because it might cost the government too much of my money to defend themselves against me and I kind of had a little bit of a hard time wrapping my head around that I mean it's and I can understand from the perspective of folks who don't own firearms and kind of don't have a horse in this race where you know this might not really be a big deal but you know for folks with you know any amount of substantial firearms collection or anything collectible or something you know we see evil all over this part of it especially given the what we've heard for you know law enforcement with the restraints on how much they can store and their abilities to keep these things in good condition so we acknowledge that the wording of the bill includes an exception for negligence however the cynic in all of us should question the fairness of a system that first allows government to bypass multiple safeguards which are enshrined in the constitution and then relies on itself to determine if it has been negligent or committed any wrongdoing the old government investigated government and found out the government didn't do anything wrong so at the very least we would like a little bit more protection for our private property if and when we should be subjected to you know this area of the law we believe it practical to conclude that persons suffering gun confiscation under this law would likely see their firearms damaged and devalued through improper storage practice with no recourse antique and collectible firearms are very common, very expensive and very susceptible to damage if not handled and stored properly furthermore accessories like scopes are incredibly sensitive to mishandling and can often be worth more than the firearms themselves a bill which mandates unlawful confiscation of private property is bad enough but to leave citizens with no avenue to recover damages incurred during the seizure of that property is horrendous it might be able to be made legal from a technical standpoint but on the grounds of morality when viewed through the paradigm of individual rights it does not pass muster frankly is not even close we strongly oppose this section in section 6 through 10 regarding IRPOS we also have concerns that expanding Vermont's relatively new IRPOS law before there has been time to evaluate its effect in this as is will further increase its risk of misuse the existing law has already been used in Vermont with mixed results considered the incident in Middlebury where a man had his firearms removed from his home because his nephew's friend talked about stealing one of them to shoot someone we've also seen these laws termed deadly as was the case in Maryland in 2018 when a 61 year old man was shot and killed by police officers serving in IRPOS Gary J. Willis had not been convicted or even accused of a crime when police arrived to confiscate his guns confused and irate Willis resisted the officer's attempts to disarm him and was shot and killed in the struggle Michelle Willis the man's niece told reporters that one of his aunts had requested the red flag order against Willis but she declined to give a reason and reported that her uncle likes to speak his mind but wouldn't hurt anybody we believe that taking a relatively new law which already has serious implications to do process as well as little to no observable data as of yet to determine its effectiveness and expanding the scope and threshold in the manner of which it might be abused is highly unadvisable considering the many different dynamics and relationships adding family and household members as defined in 15 VSA 1101 to the list of people that may request an IRPOS significantly increases the chance for abuse of this law as defined a quote household member could mean almost anyone a vindictive ex, a disgruntled sibling or even your daughter's deadbeat boyfriend that you've been trying to get out of your house for the last few months are we sure that it's a good idea to give these people the power to send police on a gun confiscation raid to someone's home on a whim we think not in conclusion this law might stop a criminal someday it may even save a life who knows but for now what we know for certain is that this legislation harms innocent law abiding Vermonters by curtailing their guaranteed rights of due process and self defense suspending the rights of individuals even temporarily on the pretense that they might offend sets a dangerous precedent and can be nothing less than infringement the practice of denying the natural rights of individuals based on the presumption of guilty until proven innocent has no place in a free society when comparing the balance of suspending constitutional rights of every Vermonter versus the uncertainty wishful thinking and conjecture offered by this bill in return no comparison the potential benefit in this proposed equation is greatly outweighed by the absolute certainty that this bill will unnecessarily harm the good people of Vermonter we strongly oppose this bill clarifying questions for the witness again it's not time to engage the witness but to make sure we understand what this is testimony and what I mean by engages I don't want to clarify any questions I'm not looking to debate but I didn't ask questions so I wanted to bring around to a question and some confusion that I have based on some conversations before and maybe I see all the numbers I'm going back to section so I also have had some concerns about the ability for law enforcement to be able to handle the number of firearms but they're pretty adamant that they can but I am sort of wondering what the if you could talk a little bit about the opposition to section 2 as it relates to the current federal law so what I'm trying to understand is if the current federal law is that someone who has a religion of use order is prohibited from owning a firearm during the time that that firearm is that that order is in effect what is the opposition to the relinquishment portion of this bill? Well I would say that the opposition to that is number one and as I understand it they have to be relinquished even before the order is final and I understand there's been some changes to that it keeps changing a lot in fact as you pointed out people that are subject to a relief from those orders are in fact prohibited persons so when that order becomes final I think you could take a good long hard look at what that person may should have to do with their guns reporting requirements are another big thing and as we've heard before if things aren't getting reported and you take this person's guns and they go down to the gun store and buy another gun because it hasn't been reported then you know what are you doing so with respect to that I think especially with reporting requirements there's a lot that could be cleaned up there sort of outside of this bill but when you're talking about reporting requirements you're talking about getting information into the next system that says okay this person has been convicted of a crime or has a relief from abuse order so they are in the system as they should be that's where we believe much more progress could be made especially digging into the next system and how the background checks and stuff work because there's so much information to juggle and it's such a huge undertaking but we don't think a policy that just defaults to taking everybody's guns away until they can prove that they're a good guy is so you're saying on the emergency side so you're saying it is a little confusing because there's one section where you're talking about out of hearing where there's an order and then there's another where you can have the X part take then where you're not there so separating those two out going to the one that's where you're against to be there if that order is approved if there's an order issued at that point then the person by federal law loses their right to becomes a prohibited person and yes that would be reasonable that they would at that time have to find something to do with their guns because they are prohibited by federal law which we've heard is somewhat problematic because there's no mechanism in place sure yeah but the other side is the opposition that you're stating to that process being put in if the person hasn't had the chance to correct and I would say to clarify that's where the majority of our objections come from is that X part A part where you can just be accused of a crime and have the cops show up at your door and confiscate your guns I mean you can see how that would probably would go poorly at something it gets very confusing there's a lot it changes a lot so I'm doing my best to try keep up with everything can I go to section 5 please talk about the the storage of the guns has there been do you know of any issues because I was looking and I think it's hard again it's hard to tell because of the different versions but I believe that those statements about the immunity current law it is current law was I misunderstanding that then I think it's restated in the bill for clarifying purposes in section in 20 BSA whatever that is okay I did not catch that part I didn't know if we've seen any real issues with that coming up at this point I don't know of any case specific incidences but we heard testimony way back in the beginning from the south burlington police chief I think it said that he was one of the lucky departments that they could handle 40 something guns at one time and I thought oh my goodness I know guys that you know I wouldn't even get them close that's why the best commissioner every time he's in town they can do it within their appropriation there's a lot of guns out there you know so we would like if nothing else we would like some sort of acknowledgement that you know somebody might have a good dollar amount in private property wrongfully seized under one of these orders even if it's just temporarily and then after they've spent the money on a lawyer to go get their name cleared saying okay this is going to be from abuse or or whatever it was it was BS and I'm a good guy and you go to get your guns back and they're all thrown in a corner and busted up well then what something to to thank you but yeah thank you I just wanted to clarify those two pieces absolutely thank you very much thank you I'm just police chief police association what I just want to say up in front is that law enforcement association concerned with and have we that's and so we are in that process absolutely whatever we can so the VPA does support for police division version 61 that we're working off of today though the consensus draft so I'm just going to focus on something a little new that we haven't kind of nibbled around on but we still have unresolved safety issues and I'm going to try to get into those safety issues and some recommendations that might provide us some tools or options to manage that risk so safety removal will receive firearms at an unfamiliar location with unknown number of occupants under certain circumstances the officer has limited to no control that's kind of the problem statement so relinquishments of law enforcement officer or to a law enforcement agency must be pursuant to the instructions of the law enforcement officer the goal is to remove firearms in a safe and orderly process without harm to anyone including officers the obligation to relinquish the horizons immediately page 4 line 21 and page 7 line 15 upon service of the order by law enforcement officer from an officer perspective a law enforcement officer must immediately be prepared to manage and accept relinquished firearms relinquishment will occur in all hours of the day and night where backup support may be 1-2 hours away during relinquishment law enforcement officers it is imperative that officers be provided full discretion a variety of options and tools to assist the law enforcement officer in controlling the relinquishment process a highly dangerous process with ever changing circumstances the safest way to quickly remove relinquished firearms while serving temporary or final order to ensure the location is free from all occupants with no opportunity for people to arrive at or enter the revenue that's starting to remove or trying to control the environment here in a way sometimes similar to how we would conduct a criminal search warrant investigation deploy special equipment such as if need be we just heard U-Haul's additional officer anticipation of worst case scenario we include lots of firearms and locked gun safes people on scene who were young were agitated under the influence armed, dangerous, limited mental capacity or mental health issues agitated defendant with access to firearms so again that's our proposal how do we manage that in the most effective safe way just to make sure I understand so you're saying that law enforcement means full discretion can you point me to the language in 6.1 where you feel like it curtailes that discretion am I understanding is that what you're we're making a recommendation for additional language because the in total 6.1 does create a different more frequent challenge for us that's made the gears the number of times that we may be faced with a relinquishment through this process and we just want to make sure that we have effective tools to help us manage do you include we can't safely do this right now and you've kind of heard from I think Commissioner Shirley but also the way I look at it is you've got a defendant you've got a plaintiff and you've got guns separation of one of those three factors could be critical there might be a time where we might help facilitate for example removal of the victim and children that could be in danger until it's going to talk this through so again this is in response to what 6.1 creates and we hadn't had a chance just we ran out of time to effectively vet some of our proposed language that's going to center around relinquishment and potentially impeding that process in the service of this court so yeah, another thing is also aggressive dogs and there's a variety of so the vast majority of Vermont law enforcement agencies do not have a lawful person of capacity and resources to serve temporary or final orders for example the SWAT team and trucks you cannot resolve the resource and cost issue that's something we'll have to figure out why and again we've worked in mutual aid and agreements as we would hand the other criminal situation that we would need to muster sufficient resources however there are some changes that you can make in this bill to maximize the likelihood that Osters will have unimpeded and immediate access to firearms, authority to control and the presence and involvement of all people at the location including authority to order them to vacate so that will be language that we'll get into regarding criminal impeding which is Title XIII section 3001 authority to arrest detained non-cooperative persons failing to follow Osters instructions during relinquishment and removal ability to remove firearms without harm to any person and damage to property revisions to age 610 to this version addressing concerns in bed in every order where firearms are to be relinquished involving involving a law enforcement agency not the third party a requirement that the defendant follow the Osters instructions these instructions, like other authority granted to law enforcement officers are always subject to constitutional restraints this gives Osters the authority within constitutional constraints to the movements and locations and the process for relinquishment so for example, officer instructs defendant to stay outside the house or leave the premises until following relinquishment officer notifies defendant to turn the officer instructs defendant to remain present if the law enforcement officer needs to ask the defendant for assistance in accessing and removing firearms such as providing keys, geographic locations directions or violations it would not authorize a law enforcement officer to assert and seize without a warrant for other recognized exceptions to the warrant exception process because the provision is embedded in an order a violation is enforceable through arrest pursuant to the crime of violation of abuse prevention order the fine relinquishment to mean fully cooperate with law enforcement efforts to access firearm for providing upon request to the law enforcement officer information or keys, locks limited to location of firearms production of location keys combination to locks firearms, safe stores just to give us the access and an example of that we get your serving under the order there's multiple and the defendant meets with the door says yep, how about it all my guns are down in the basement we're gonna save forget we have no access to that same that's some of the the challenges that we're trying to anticipate and just have an option how to best deal with that the time, place, manner conditions of relinquishment you know we'd like to again effectively control when that's going to happen somebody's been served an order and all of a sudden dispatcher does not know at the Montpelier police department and somebody has one AR-15 for example they just walk up the front steps of the AR-15 under the station might have a very challenging response from us until we understand so that's when we want to just kind of control as best we can the how, the when and nature of that and again do you can you do that now can you control that now well effectively effectively you know we can ask we try to go the path of police resistance and get cooperation but what happens when they say again that scenario is gave you we don't, there's no language in here that allows us to effectively manage that so we're doing this as best we can based on wherever we're at and it's not you know so is it a crime or not a violation of the order for example the safe scenario is gave so you have at it you know guns are there and you know how do we have to get it to the same and we also recognize too the challenges of also self-implementation for example when we have a search warrant on a cell phone and you know gives the code we can't, in our technology we can't necessarily get into the phone it happens at the national street level you know we can't compel somebody to provide that information so these are just some of the scenarios we're trying to and again these are just some of the concerns that we have while we're dealing with a situation where we know that we're going into deal with firearms and how do we control that because in a tactical situation on a criminal investigation we do a lot of we do our due diligence to make sure that we have information as far as right now, what are the dangers children involved, all those other factors what are we up against to make sure that we have sufficient resources and then also we can control the timing of execution of that warrant service, these are the kind of things that we're used to this is something that we are not totally used to and that's, this bill creates that common process that we mostly could be faced so we're just trying to identify how do we best move forward so that we have language in there but that's the purpose of the language that I think everybody has now regarding that piece so we're looking to again to grant enforceable authority to law enforcement officers to control all people at the scene officers have no authority to control the movement of those present during the establishment if you add a new crime by amending police officer, again violating Title XIII subsection 3001 officers can order a person to remain in a place or leave the residence until relinquishment is completed or arrest them if there's a threat to get compliance if they do not provide so we're just looking for that tool I don't think this is going to be a common issue but nonetheless right now we don't feel that the law is adequate if we would implement 610 as we are right now and so again that's that is kind of those are the areas we just really wanted to talk about because in law enforcement we're doing a lot right now there's even bills, for example H808 that deals with devil force and we also part of the whole process that we're trying to do with the law enforcement how to make sure we're on best practice how do we look at everything we can in terms of at what point could we have de-escalated something at what point was a tactical retreat the more responsible action to take and so that's why we're just looking for all these effective tools so we can make these as safe as possible without escalating the situation where we know we have been doing whatever you know we my folks are involved with a task force effort we have an FBI task force officer we're close to the ATF first question I ask is chief okay are there guns involved these are the standard questions that in the decision making process to how safely we do that so a lot of times we get the person to come out so we're not going into that environment it's a thought process so I just want to overlay how we're trying to do better all the time for everyone's safety and to make sure that we can effectively also carry out what we've got so far on this bill I have a question but it might be I'm not sure if it was a question for you or it could be better answering by Beth but just it's more just I'm trying to understand the process of the substantive proposals that are coming to us at this stage and so on the consensus to support the changes to the underlying bill you support these changes but I think I'm reading that you won't support the bill without these provisions and did people like did those get vetted in the group with the memo commissioner had a chance to look at them but did the other stakeholders or that we're all looking at it now do you want me to answer that? I want to make sure I get another record for you sorry Tony so this is Beth Novotny I'm the the Polit for Month police association so with respect to what was House 30 that had been on your wall and they still would be up there which is a similar type of a bill when that bill hit the legislature I began conversations with the network around this trend toward civil relinquishment of firearms that may be coming either in connection with the abuse prevention process or because we're dealing with an ARPO or because we're going to be dealing with there have been some ideas around people have mental health issues in an earlier stage backing the lineup so the concern the overarching concern about look this is becoming more frequent and in addition to the just plain storage question there is the increasing concern that the more contact you're having with people with firearms you are increasing just by the sheer numbers the risk of those contacts escalating and that there are many departments especially in rural Vermont we're back up it's literally an hour to two hours away depending upon what time this is occurring they don't have the large number of officers working with let's say Burlington police has Burlington so there was a discussion and we had always been willing to come to the table and have a conversation about what's the problem you're trying to solve can we build it together this bill came in January and we I think we were soon drawn into the process of having conversations with the network about the bill but we have been very consistent that we needed a solution to this safety concern that we really didn't have to be quite honest I didn't have an answer to the question but we wanted to try to resolve it we're in this bill's process we weren't the proponents of this bill we weren't involved in building the bill we sort of got landed in a process that's occurring here that's in the control of this committee so we're doing the best we can on the fly as this thing is moving and versions are changing we need to take care of a number of different issues the first is what I'll call the ender brush the technical process of these orders the second part of it and the primary concern for the police association is the safety piece I think I had a meeting in here with representative Longviews sitting here in this room with me and I said I still don't have an answer and it wasn't for lack of time there were a lot of conversations to what's immediately in front of you trying to be creative but you're reacting to bill changes on Thursday I began to come up with part of an idea around that that just before our first meeting as a group of stakeholders shared it just before the meeting about a half an hour beforehand and you're right on Thursday's meeting we opened with that concern a brief discussion about what that might involve to include officer instructions some ability to enforce that but because we had spitballing and we had work to do on the underbrush we focused on that that was the snowstorm day and so from Friday Saturday and Sunday I will tell you who I spent um 10 hour days working on the underbrush putting together the drafts and thinking about back and forth with people what can we do here what will work, there were a lot of phone calls there was a lot of thinking and I came up with the contributions of several people who came up with embedded the officers the requirement that the relinquishment has to be pursuant to the officers instructions because they're going to keep controlling a good deal of this so that you actually have authority in this civil process because that's what this is if the worst case scenario interestingly in many cases is going to be the time when the defendant says I've got 150 guns in the basement and you can take my safe technically they relinquished right, they have technically said you're welcome to the guns in my basement and you're welcome to my safe there's no violation it just puts the officer in this really interesting position at 2 o'clock in the morning how's that accomplished with the ability to provide instructions based upon the totality of the circumstances depending upon what's going on that household the state of the defendant all sorts of factors the easiest thing to do might be retreat maybe you don't want to maybe you actually under the circumstances want to make an effort the easiest thing to do is to say the defendant give me the combination to your safe so I can do this as quickly as I can get out you go to the local diner don't come back for six hours I've got backup coming in an hour but I can start some process because you're the only one in the house so it is you can't there will be no single event that we can describe for you that will all be different and you have to make a call as an officer what is the safest way to do this the tools the tools help you minimize the opportunity for harm not just to the officer but to anybody those tools should be as as complete as we can so that they can select among the least harmful combination instructions might be the best way to do it so that's one way but what if the defendant is there and they're having a Superbowl party and he wants you to take five guns that you can reasonably take that drunk people watching the Superbowl they're agitated they're complaining about the plaintiff and the officer is thinking I'm the only person in this house it can't be distracted carrying out guns but I want to get these guns so you know you're making decisions the ability to offer instructions to say to everybody it might be as simple as folks I need you to just you know go for a walk it might be depending upon the location of the house maybe they're in the bar in the guns you stay in the house I'm going to go to the bar and there are all sorts of ways that these instructions can be helpful but the the point that Tony made is the ability to control the people who are at the scene in the least restrictive way that you can that is the whole point sometimes an arrest is easy but boy sometimes it's not you are not going to know the officer is going to have to make a call you embed the instructions because they're in the order any violation is now a violation of abuse prevention order you define relinquishment so it's crystal clear that you haven't actually fully relinquished these weapons to me unless I have access that's pretty ready so we'll take the combination of the safe because we're not going to unbolt a 2,000 pounds safe on the floor right that's just not reasonable you give us the key to the gun closet and once we're done getting what we need from you which might be a 5 minute conversation then we tell you pick off let me get what I need to get if you reasonably can't do anything at that time you can retreat and try to come back later or try to do it back up or try to do a search warrant but the point here is let's have the tools so embed the instructions into the order so they're enforceable is a criminal violation this is a civil matter we're not executing a criminal search here amend the hindering the impediment statutes so it includes the defendant and anybody present at the scene so it's the officer now has authority to control the process I we can debate whether you need to create a relinquish for the crime I think if you embed this into the order you may not but these are the four ideas and what was the last one Tony two crimes and would you pass me my cheating so there were two crimes and then two oh define relinquishment so define relinquishment that's pretty easy to do to make it clear when it's happening with an LEA that means you you've got to provide information in case it's accessed if they don't if they don't then we can consider that failure relinquish under the order and that's enforceable because of violation of the abuse prevention that's all helpful and um did that answer your question or not quite I mean I think my question is just a little more process why so I appreciate you going into more detail about the proposal and certainly I understand the motivation behind it and I'm more just trying to understand like who is headed and how this proposal relates to the other proposal so I think you started to answer that yeah I sounded like this kind of came out there it actually went out to so I wanted to try to vet it with the court so I went back and forth with Judge Geerson over the weekend because what I wanted to put on the table in the draft which included Thursday's meeting plus this proposal and a few items which all actually made it into the language that you have today I wanted to at least vet some of it with Judge Geerson so and trimmed up the sales as a result from what we were thinking we had all sorts of stuff on the table on Monday that went out to all the stakeholders and I asked for a response which I didn't get but we then met Tuesday and the my intent was to talk about those proposals but again we got into the underbrush because the process there was a new bill out take my draft compare it to the new bill that was kind of a tedious exercise and after we were done going through that we had to talk about some of the other minor underbrush issues that kind of came up that you see now in this consensus proposal and then when we got ready to talk about the proposal people had to drop off the call but yes DPS has vetted it from a law enforcement perspective it's been Judge Geerson has had some conversation with us about it it's gone out to the chiefs and the sheriffs James Pepper has a copy of it so at this point in time the agreement was I'm on your schedule and I'm here today so the next step for us is put in front of the committee and we weren't afraid at all we were very trying to come up with solutions but there was a lot for us to work on and we were working reacting to other people's needs trying to solve this other problem that was very important to the police association we delivered consensus on the underbrush for you and we actually came up with a solution this is about safety so I don't think the police association has is out of line by saying you have got to solve this for us so we can do this safely you know we're having conversations right now in the health government operations about wanting to make sure we minimize the use of force in this state and our responses by giving us a variety of tools is the response yeah just a couple more detailed questions how is our I'm looking at the relinquishment of firearms 13 BSA 1049 the proposed new crime how is it not a 5th amendment violation or self-incrimination issue requiring the individual to explain the location of the firearms right well because at the moment it's not criminal well wouldn't it be criminal as soon as the order is issued they are a prohibited person the better question back to the committee is if you're going to serve these orders and put people in immediate violation of the law because without notice they're served with an order and have no opportunity they need an opportunity I like the time place may have conditions of relinquishment this is in fact that process of getting them out of as quickly as you can so I don't see it as incrimination to say the defendant you're in immediate violation technically into this order it is out of here quickly because that's what this bill contemplates and rather than arresting them we're now going to work with them to try to get those weapons out by getting some basic information it is not self-incrimination at this point in time if it is then we aren't in a position to ask them anything at the door we're just going to serve the order and then what so that's helpful I am a little concerned about something as broad as just saying any other information that will assist the officer when you're potentially creating a crime or a violation of the domestic protection I don't know what the answer to that is but that does concern me two ways to do this you don't need this crime if you embed into the order that relinquishment occurs pursuant to the instructions of the officers and you couple that with an understanding of what relinquishment includes meaning we expect you to do this in as quick a time frame as it can be done under the circumstances and I think what we're saying is we're going to give you a chance here not to be in violation of this law we're not going to immediately arrest you we're going to give you a chance but you've got to help us by getting to those firearms as quickly as possible so another question I appreciate it so if that can come out if we define relinquishment in your title 15 which is you've had suggested language about that and you couple it with embedding the instruction into the order so now we can enforce it with the violation of abuse prevention and you add impeding to allow us to specifically address just these formal process issues with the defendant and those present and as Judge I will ask Judge Gerson on it myself but I'm just curious if you ran that idea of having it in the order with Judge Gerson this was this was in our VPA draft that went out to folks and we had a discussion about him he was on the phone we were discussing embedding it in the order I can't remember he's aware of this he's a copy of this he had this before he testified he had it this morning so one other question a concern actually he read from it so you're feeding him all his testimony is that what's happening no I wanted as a courtesy so here's my question the impeding of police officer I'm a little concerned that you say at the beginning a person subject to the lawful search and seizure and then further down instructions require a person to temporarily vacate a location that seems to broaden it to beyond people who are subject to the search and seizure and I'm not sure that that's kosher you're looking at the old version public safety made a suggestion here was actually a cutting and pasting at about 12 o'clock at night but that correct is online it's been posted, Mike posted it and so the current language that you will see in your committee file applies this to those folks that are subject to the order and those folks that are on location during this relinquishment process so for a temporary period of time the officers instructions to these people so you have a crime of hindering now and it's in A but it's not in connection with this civil process and I would argue and I think that the consensus of law enforcement is if we didn't have this now and Chief Acas went to your house served you with the order and you had five people milling about you know you're in this house while people are milling about you want to get the one or two guns if you can get them and it's easy to do but it may not be safe well you cannot control the movement of these people in the house so if you were to say to these folks under that circumstance now without this you need to stay in the kitchen or go upstairs into your bedroom or go out into the garage or go get in your car and stay there and they said no what do you do about that so there's no enforcement mechanism for the law enforcement officer so the choice is to either be unsafe in that situation and attempt to seize or retrieve relinquished firearms or leave and try to come back with a army of people to have a very person there since you are at least having some of the eyes on each of these people which is a resource problem that is a serious resource problem especially when you're talking about these happening at all hours and when that might be an hour or two away in many locations in Vermont I said an hour in the meeting on Thursday and we talked about this and Commissioner Shirling piped up two because even we would have to do a call out so I understand that part it's just a little bit further really if we want to make a potential crime that if you go into a house and people not subject to the order that you order them around and they say no and then all of a sudden they are now subject to this crime that concerns me a little bit it may be the better option that the officer retreats until there's reinforcements I don't know I have to care more than pass the loading ball I just going to again not having experience on this but I can just tell you what it is like as we execute a criminal search warrant I was team leader several years ago where we executed a narcotics search warrant there were fire loaded handguns all over the place this case went federal matter of fact one of the MPD officers on my team went down to Miami with ATF the follow up on that case loaded handguns created in couches lamps throughout the place when we made entry even one of the defendants who just got back from New York City having some magnanimous hand and so forth my point is though that it's vital that if I'm going to have somebody sit there I need to make sure it's been swept safe and we can do that in a criminal warrant 2018 involved in a federal narcotics warrant gun warrant actually in very town we need to go execute that warrant we had that I participated on we had state police ATF FBI U.S. Marshall Service very city police department and saw the police department criminal investigation but in that case it was a very high risk case we were dealing with stolen fire tens of stolen firearms from Russian sniper rifles to AR-15 and so forth on that investigation they were buried in the backyard was created in the backyard and these are I'm just only using those examples of just some of the complexities and the real dangers 1983 that was hopefully we'll deal with last time but a multiplayer police officer was shot in a domestic situation positive standoff in 1983 so these are volatile situations incredibly dangerous for you know for survivors and victims as well as again what is asking for the tools to have at our disposal to effectively mitigate and manage risk as best we can in a very very dicey situation and that goes back whether this is the solution of being able to potentially create a crime when you tell the five people watching Super Bowl to take a walk and they don't as opposed to you have the discretion in law enforcement to do all this safely that you back up and you I guess the terminology that the commissioner uses is you script the seizure you do whatever script you need to make it as safe as possible that's the balance I'm not suggesting well ignore the what I can to help remove the survivor and family members that could be from the environment these are all the things that we know right now we're fixated on the guns we just want to make sure that we are not forcing law enforcement to to take action when they don't have the resources training equipment to effectively deal with that in a timely manner for protection and certainly that's not what we're trying to do if you understand where I'm coming from is it better to not potentially create this crime that's like I mentioned versus you know you retreat at that time or what not and by need help with this so by just saying where do you want to it's not enough no because if he's so if the defendant hasn't refused your language that's what we're saying the defendant says you're welcome to everything in my basement you're welcome to everything in my basement that is to the civil order they're in compliance they're in compliance in the sense that they're voluntarily saying you're welcome to my the officer's got a choice so you have to say to the defendant you start going to get your firearms well that can be very dangerous because they don't have control over the defendant as they disappear into the basement and they come up with a firearm that may be loaded that's not a great option I mean it might be depending upon who you're dealing with or you're prepared to accept relinquishment but you need access which they're saying you can have you don't have a criminal basis at this point unless you're going to immediately determine because they've been served with the order that they're in possession of contraband and then you're going to go get a warrant but if you're going to go that route it's essentially how this will work is in every case you're going to serve these orders and back them because you don't know how many people are going to be at this house can I just because it's not that much time out there so why doesn't the if we put the other requirements that you had or that the pursuant to instruction of law enforcement there will be relinquishment and this is defining relinquishment and we make it clear there that you have time, place, manner and conditions that when you go to the door and you see that there are five or six people and they won't just abandon voluntarily you say, you know, we're going to be coming back in whatever doesn't that give you that flexibility to deal with that it depends, I mean it's it depends on what they're assessing is going on in that house what the state of law these people are it may or may not be the best interest the point is that the person has said yeah I'll relinquish them, you can have them now which means he's not in violation well it's not quite the right time and I don't like the situation now so we are going to be doing this in five hours or whatever whatever the law enforcement wants to say to determine, you know, in other words the person and that may not be the safest option for the officer because now what you're doing is you are leaving the person knows you're coming back and now they have time to prepare you know and the officer is going to have to assess under the situation what is in the best interest of me and everybody here right now under the circumstances we're just looking for tools it doesn't mean in every instance I think actually in most of these cases because the officer now has these tools you're going to probably have an orderly relinquishment I think what comes out of this but you know, you've written in the bill a media relinquishment as opposed to saying you've got 24 hours to relinquish by contacting the LEA in advance and making arrangements for time, place, and manner right? so where the actual order is contact law enforcement make arrangements for relinquishment now we're saying as soon as that order is served that process has got to get underway and we didn't create the immediate violation that is the way you have written the bill and I think we're being fair to people for the first time realizing that they are now immediately in violation of law by saying we're not actually going to arrest you and charge you for something you didn't know was coming we're going to work with you to try to make this happen so Mike, and again, just make sure I focus to my concerns it's with the impeding of police officer and it's not even with respect to the person subject to that order it's whether it's happening to hang out that's the part that I'm concerned with when they do a criminal they I think have authority to execute that search warrant and if someone is impeding that's the word the search hindering the search their mere presence is not a hindering okay and for officer safety reasons they will execute those search warrants when a firearm is involved you're talking about a tactical search and you can do that if you want to escalate that in our communities at the emergency level I think what we're trying to do is create as many tools so we can do this the least restrictive safest way for everybody and not ratchet it up is the idea it is not perfect by the way obviously not but it was our best look, I'm sorry if you don't like it but we really worked hard to try to work with all of you to put this bill forward because nothing is actually a serious problem for law enforcement so I haven't said I don't like it raising my concerns and it was a good faith effort to do the best we could we were drinking out of a fire hose on this bill and I put forward my best first start and frankly in both group discussions everybody else had an agenda and we worked with their agenda and when it got to our agenda no one had time for us I mean I don't mean that in a mean way just that's the way it was so Ken, last question just a couple things I heard earlier that if we had time to investigate more we'd probably have less domestic problems I believe is what I heard or certainly everything you do with law enforcement for more investigation we had the more time you had the better opportunity to be more safe for everybody is that true? I'm not sure I mean you're talking of course of conduct in domestic violence cases are you talking the ability instead of having like the first draft would have a plaintiff where we would want the ability to have an investigation if we have to search more which part do you mean probably all of it okay I just I'm just going to give you a general gist of what I think about this whole thing I think if you had more if we all had more investigators on the payroll I think it would make everybody's life a lot better there would be less domestic violence you guys would be safer for nine years number two I don't know how we're going to we're going to go and store these firearms where I come from which you know I mean I'm dealing with North University I'm dealing with the town I'm dealing we do pay for a police force 24 7365 as we all know it's a killer shouldn't use that term it's very difficult right but we feel that the money that's what we do most departments I have 24 7 a lot of towns don't even have police departments so the state police doesn't even work 24 hours right so when you go and you have a domestic complaint that's out there I mean in a lot of cases especially in a rural area we're talking a lot more than two hours and God knows what you guys are going to go through um this bill needs a lot of work in my mind um question please yeah I guess I made a statement sorry support the idea of more police officers and storage you need you need more investigators I really my question is you need more investigators to do your job to support this bill I'm not prepared to make that statement but I would say it's a general statement as I've spoken to our city as well as related to my testimony in house 808 though it's making sure that we have sufficient resources to effectively manage the contemporary challenges that we have in society today and that includes a variety of problems from domestic violence and doing a better job and a more good job to make sure people are safe making sure that we have the effective tools to deal with people in mental health crisis where supporting the social worker programs models supporting the money also for department of mental health as well as making sure that we have the resources and options we're also dealing with substance abuse disorders all those things absolutely it's a resource because as the more that we are seeing these things and data shows that those trends are happening we are not seeing a change in the number of police officers in Vermont as a matter of fact I think maybe so if you've heard it's becoming more challenging and recruiting of attention as well and that's not unique to Vermont that is a national challenge in potential crisis what about storage? you get enough storage at your place? it depends I mean the way we... I mean I know you halls up the road we're not making light of that and we do hear that the commissioner did address we would work collaboratively with resources including public safety so just to be clear where I'm coming from because that's what I do municipalities I'm concerned greatly it's and again most municipalities are not 24-7 certainly they're small ones just real quick how big is your department and how short are you? we're 17 we're actually 18 I'm anticipating my departure as well as the captain's going to retire this year as well but we're full staff thank you thank you everybody for staying