 Good afternoon and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee. Today we are considering H128 and actually relating to limiting criminal defenses based on victim identity. And we are joined by two of the lead sponsors of the bill. And before we do a walkthrough with counsel, I'd really like to hear from the sponsors. And thank you both so much for being here and Representative Small, how about if we start with you please. Wonderful. And thank you so much, Madam Chair and committee for hearing testimony on H128. This bill aims to track and prevent the use of identity based defenses for crimes here in the state of Vermont. And the question that comes up most often is what does the data look like for transgender and gender nonconforming, as well as just LGBTQIA Vermonters overall when it comes to acts of violence. And honestly, we are not tracking this data on a statewide level. And so it is currently housed within the nonprofit realm, more specifically, looking forward to later testimony from the interim director of the violence program at Pride Center of Vermont, who can touch on some of the statistics that we are seeing on a community level around violence. But nationally, we understand that there is an epidemic of targeted violence towards transgender and gender nonconforming people. For the past four years, we've seen an increase in the murder of transgender people. And I think what is most the hardest piece to hear is that each year for the past four years has been determined the deadliest year for transgender and gender nonconforming people here in the United States. And also looking at the intersection of identities, we know that the statistics are even worse for Latinx and black transgender women. And what we know is that black transgender women have a life expectancy here in the United States of 38 years, not because of any health impacts or conditions but because of the violence that they have faced and will continue to face unless we put measures in place. So by allowing the gay transpanic defense to be used in our state, what we're ultimately doing is undervaluing, undermining and threatening the existence of our beautifully diverse LGBTQIA plus community. And so I ask for this committee to be proactive on this and not wait for the next tragedy to strike for us to take this issue up. And again, I'm grateful for your work in hearing testimony. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Representative Cortes, I'd like to add a few words. Thank you so much for taking this this bill up. And I would add the hope that this committee will will dig deep into. In particular, the reporting issue section C. As Representative Small said, we are not collecting this data. So we don't know if there have been cases, how many cases. And I'm grateful to see the list of witnesses you have lined up to help get at what who should do the reporting who should gather the information what information if we could in your committee gather much more clarity about section C in a manner that's most useful and respectful. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you both of you would you be willing to take questions from committee members if they have them at this point. Anybody have any questions. Okay. All right, well, thank you. Thank you so much. And leave. Yes, great. Attorney Bryn here is here legislative council and like to start with a walkthrough of the bill. I hope folks have a copy of it. Good afternoon. Good to see you, Bryn. Good afternoon committee for the record Bryn here from legislative council here to walk through each 128. I'm sorry I missed the first couple of witnesses. Hopefully I won't be too repetitive here in my walkthrough. So section one of the bill on page two I presume everybody has it up somewhere and I don't need to share my screen. I'll just keep going them. So section one adds a new section of law to the pleadings and proof sub chapter of the pleadings and trial chapter of title 13. And essentially what it does is it bars the use of a particular kind of defense. So subdivision a provides that evidence of the defendant's discovery of knowledge about or the potential disclosure of a crime victims actual or perceived sexual orientation, or gender identity cannot be used in a criminal offense as a defense to the defendant's criminal conduct, or to establish a finding the defendant suffered from diminished capacity, which I'll talk about in just a moment. And here to justify defendants use of force against another person. So diminished capacity. Essentially what that means and we can talk a lot we can talk about this at the end or talk about it now but may make sense to talk about it here. The committee knows it's the prosecution's burden they have the evidentiary duty to establish each element of a crime. And that includes the element of the mental state. As you know many crimes have a mental state requirement. And it's the burden on the prosecution to prove that mental state requirement beyond a reasonable doubt. The existence of diminished capacity is relevant to proving the existence of some kind of obstacle to the presence of the state of mind, which is an element of the crime. So for example, a good way to think about it is to think about the insanity defense. There's a little bit of overlap here between diminished capacity and insanity defense. Like, the committee knows that an insanity defense is essentially a total bar to criminal culpability. So evidence of diminished capacity differs from an insanity defense in that it is legally applicable to lesser disabilities. So it operates to reduce the degree of an offense rather than excuse the commission of the offense. Does that make sense. And basis here. Okay. So it specifically provides that that kind of evidence cannot be used to establish some type of diminished capacity on the part of the defendant, which the Defense Council could put forward to sort of interrupt the prosecutors establishment of the mental state required as an element of a crime. So I'm going to move on to subsection B. This provides that any romantic or sexual advance by a person that is not violent. Or the defendant's perception or belief, even if it's not accurate of the gender or gender identity or sexual orientation of a victim. Neither of those things can be used to mitigate the severity of an offense. Lastly, subdivision C, as mentioned by the sponsors, requires some data collection done by the Attorney General. So provides that annually beginning on January 1 next year and annually every year thereafter, the Attorney General is directed to provide some data to the standing committees, the standing judiciary committees, detailing any criminal prosecutions that were crimes that were motivated by the victim's gender gender identity or expression or sexual orientation. And that report has to specifically provide some demographic information about both the defendants and the victims, including their age, ethnicity, race and gender. And that's it the bill takes effect on passage. Great. Thank you. Many questions. Hi. Line 11. Were you just help me understand that a little bit more, please. Sure. I presume that you're talking about the first line and nonviolent romantic or sexual advance by a crime victim. Yeah. So I think that kind of means just what it says like some romantic or sexual overture by a person that winds up being a crime victim that is not violent in nature so it's not a forceful or overture, but rather just a romantic gesture or sexual gesture towards another. Is that helpful. No, I'm lost on that one. Maybe I'll figure it out as as we go I probably jumped too fast on that. That's okay. We'll figure it out. Thank you. Sure. So I would just point out that the way that subsection be as phrase there's two separate things that cannot be used to mitigate the severity of an offense. There's that first thing so evidence of a crime victims romantic gesture towards the defendant can't be used to mitigate the severity of a fence of an offense. And then also the other which is the defendant's perception or belief of the gender gender identity or sexual orientation of a crime victim also can't be used as evidence to mitigate the severity of an offense. So the way it's written might might be a little confusing. Hope that helps. Yeah. No thank I think I think that was helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then Kate. Hi, and apologies if I missed this earlier. This is a question I guess for brand or the sponsors of the bill, but it's my understanding that this legislation has been enacted in a number of other states and I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what some of the other states and which just some examples of jurisdictions where it's been enacted for some time. Representative small I have some of the list in front of me you want me to take that. Go right ahead representative Cortez. Okay. So I'm going to go back to Senator California enacted in 2014 by amending the statutory definition of voluntary manslaughter. Colorado in 2020 SB 20 dash 221 enacted a bill with similar language and created a protective hearing if a party claims that such evidence is relevant and wants to use it in a criminal case. 2019 Delaware DC have, I don't have the details for those Hawaii in 2019 enacted a bill Illinois 2017 Maine and Nevada 2019 New Jersey 2020 New York 2019. Not sure if that one was enacted the last reference I saw was passage through the Senate. And 2018 Washington State enacted HB 1687 and 2020. That's very helpful. Thank you. Welcome. That was a very comprehensive answer to my question. Thanks. And I can share that sheet with the committee. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate that. Great. Kate. Yeah, thanks. I know you just explained this, but I'm wondering if you can, if you don't mind going back and explaining it again, the clarification around line eight. So shall not be used to establish a finding that defendants suffered from diminished capacity. Can you just, can you just reiterate again, sort of what the definition of diminished capacity is. Sure. So, diminish capacity, evidence of diminished capacity is relevant to proving the existence of some kind of obstacle to the presence of a particular state of mind, which is, which is relevant because most crimes have the element, a state of mind element, for example, premeditation is one that you think of quite frequently. So any evidence that the defense puts forward is used as an obstacle to the prosecution being able to prove to put on their case and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had that particular state of mind. That's an element of the crime. So I kind of compared it a little bit to the insanity defense but it is different from the insanity defense because as the insanity defense is a complete bar to criminal culpability. Evidence of diminished capacity operates to reduce the degree of an offense, rather than to excuse the criminal nature of the crime. So, for example, to reduce an aggravated assault down to a regular assault, for example. Thank you, that's helpful. Martin. So, Bryn, how, how, if at all does this bill intersect with the hate crime, hate motivated crimes bill, I guess particular I guess I'm looking at the subsection see which is talking about prosecutions of crimes committed that were motivated by the victims gender and that's, isn't that covered in the hate crimes as far as, except that it's maliciously motivated includes gender identity. I don't know if those intersect at all I mean I know this one's more of it about a defense and the other one's more about prosecution but that subsection see does. Right, with respect to the data collection. Yes. Yeah, I do think that there's some overlap there. And it, and you may, and I think it may encompass more than what's covered by the hate motivated crimes statute, just based on the language that exists in that statute, currently. But we can also dive into that and, and make sure it encompasses both. I guess this is more of a question for the sponsors and I'll just throw that out there that this might be a vehicle or an opportunity to get rid of the adverb maliciously in the hate motivated crimes which talks about being able to prosecute a crime if it was maliciously motivated by the victims perceived race etc including gender identity. But that's for another day. But I'll throw that out there just for folks to ponder. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Anybody else have questions for for Bryn. In terms of understanding the language of the bill. I think Martin I think your hand is up from before. So I assume you're all set right. Great. Okay, well great well then we will turn to our witnesses. I'm going to go a little bit out of order. I also want to do note that worry Yang has submitted written testimony or she will she had a scheduling conflict. So that's why she's not with us in person today. And I'd like to start with Brenda Churchill. Good afternoon. Good afternoon and thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman and the committee members for inviting me to testify this afternoon. My name for the record is Brenda Churchill I'm the co liaison to the State House for the LGBTQ Alliance of Vermont. Today I will speak briefly to the alliance's work to forward the intent of this bill over the last four years and how I have been affected by events during that time. of the Vermont State House, my co-liezer on Keith Ghostland, and I met with most of the top legislators and leaders here, including in that was a stop at the Attorney General's office. One part of our discussion at that time was about recently passed legislation in another state concerning a gay panic defense law. It may have been one of the ones that Mari just mentioned. In any case, it was news and something that caused folks in our LGBTQIA community to reach out to the alliance and ask questions of me like, what is on the books for Vermont to keep this from happening and what are you doing to keep us safe? In my meetings with both Attorney General Donovan and Governor Scott, I was asked the same question. Have you seen a rise in bias incidences or hate towards the LGBTQ community? And remember, this was shortly after inauguration in 2017. At the time I said nothing seemed to be on the radar and that I felt safe in Vermont. Run that forward to the next four years with the federal administration bent on removing hard-fought rights for all marginalized communities, my answer has changed. First, a ban on transgender people serving in our military is one of the first actions that opened a wound that began to divide a part of my family from the rest of the world. Allowing discrimination based on sexuality and gender for religious purposes showed clearly that something had taken a drastic turn. Some white supremacists in Burlington City Hall Park to a candidate for governor that received credible personal threats weekly, sometimes daily, to a simple story hour that garnered hate speech in our towns, the unleashing of bias on gender and sexuality in the top-down was clear. The safety of our community was at risk and continues to be, prompting me to say I no longer feel safe in the Green Mountain State. Legal statutes don't always mean social change and acceptance. Over the past four years has been a validation for exclusion and an increasing lack of federal protections. We need Vermont to take the lead again and protect our vulnerable citizens. Until we regain what we have lost on the federal level, Vermont needs to step up. My quote, Vermont is a state that has often shown the rest of the United States where to go and how to get there has never been more important than it is today. I support this bill and urge this committee to move it to the next level by supporting those of us who represent the LGBTQ plus community. Thank you. And if anybody has any questions. Great. Thank you so much, Brenda. I appreciate your testimony and your leadership. Not seeing any hands. I'll give folks a minute. Okay. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you again. Okay. I'm here from the Defender General's Office, please. Hello. Can you hear me? Oh, hi. Thank you, Chair. Let me find the buttons. Good afternoon. This is Rebecca Turner for the record for the Office of the Defender General. And thank you for having me to come in and share our position on this bill. And it is our position that we oppose this this bill because it categorically limits the constitutional right of all accused persons to present a defense. But before I go into the specific reasons why we oppose it for those reasons, I just wanted to remind the committee that the people we serve, our clients, our clients are comprised of every conceivable gender identity and sexual orientation. And so I come with that in mind in terms of these interests of all of our clients. Again, I just want to bear repeating that all of these clients come and have every gender identity and sexual orientation. And so why we oppose this bill is that criminal trials are already governed by well-established, long-standing rules of evidence. And these rules of evidence balance the admissibility of relevant facts to be presented at trial against undue prejudice and balanced as well with the constitutional rights of the accused in every case. The defenses at issue in this case, again, there is no formal formally considered gay panic defense, right? The way that the defenses have been introduced here are essentially established a categorical ban on defenses like diminished capacity, on self-defense, on provocation, or heat of passion defenses, insanity. And this categorical ban isn't necessary. It would affect all of these defenses, despite the fact that these defenses have separate standards in and of themselves. It isn't that a defendant can go in and just say we invoke the self-defense. We invoke diminished capacity or insanity, right? Instead, to be able to invoke attorneys for the defendants have to present individual pieces to meet each of those standards. And it's subject to rigorous adversarial challenges from the prosecutor. The judge then examines those arguments and the pieces and the evidence and then determines whether they meet these high standards. Only then is this evidence allowed to come into trial. I think that what's critical for the committee to understand is that, well, I understand the intentions are well-motivated. I think the effect is to essentially presume that judges are incapable of being able to follow the rules and standards that govern the admission of this evidence. Again, it's not just that you want that a defendant seeks to have this statement come into evidence and that's it. They have to prove that this warrants admissibility to come in. I think that denigres the ability to have before them all of relevant admissible evidence to a case almost reflects an underestimation of their capabilities to warrant and follow the instructions given by the judge on how to consider that evidence and to consider it in an unbiased way. I also think that the effect of prohibiting this kind of evidence to come into a trial, even if it is offensive, disturbing, hateful, to keep that otherwise relevant admissible evidence that is critical for a constitutional right to present a defense for an accused to keep it out, is to effectively suppress the surfacing of these biases and not have it be subject to the adversarial process, and I'm not sure that furthers the interests here that are trying to be achieved. I think that really what is sweeping about the language of this bill is that it is affecting all and again the question is why do we need that here? My understanding is that there hasn't been a case that I can recall and perhaps someone can share in Vermont where this has been an issue. So again I understand that there are concerns, real concerns, but any time that there is an attempt to tinker with the fundamental principles of a criminal trial, and this one goes to the heart of it, which is the right to present a defense. This is a constitutional right to present a defense, and this law would impact all accused. If there are any questions I'll take a pause here. Martin go ahead and Selena and I have questions to maybe more so for Bryn, but we'll see if Martin and Selena bring any of those up. Go ahead. Yeah, a couple questions. I guess one is, so a situation where somebody assaults somebody, used as an example, and it's because the person perceives the defendant on the assaulter, the defendant perceived the subject to be of a different gender that upsets the defendant, and actually assaults the person because of that. So I don't understand why we can say you're not allowed to use that as a defense when really at the same time we could be prosecuting the person under the hate crime, that we could use the hate crime as an enhancement for the penalty. So I guess I'm not sure, Rebecca, how those two things work together, if you could. Yeah, no, and I appreciate your question. I heard you ask it earlier. The sentencing enhancement and actually the hate crime statute that you're talking about is a sentencing enhancement statute, and so it targets certain crimes that are motivated by certain animus towards certain groups, and this would be captured in that. The difference, a significant difference, is that that is a sentencing enhancement, so it's outside of the main prosecution, the main trial. It's been determined to be an aggravating factor, and you're right, that does, I think, it's already been addressed by this legislature by the hate crime statute. What this is and is significantly different, and this is where the serious constitutional implications come in and directly undermine the rights of the accused, is that we're getting to the heart of the defense, the right to present a defense, or is the hate crime statute is getting to the sentencing enhancements. Again though, if your question is, has this been covered and been addressed, yes, I think that is how this legislature has and does treat these types of offenses differently, those that involve these certain hate-motivated crimes. Well, I guess I'm still a little confused because it seems to be contradictory somewhat that so a defendant can raise that, well, I was motivated because of this person was transgender. Well, the prosecution should take that, and because the prosecution, yes, it's a sentencing enhancement, but it's still part of the trial, it's still something the prosecution has to prove that the underlying offense was due to the motivation. So it seems odd that, I don't know, well, I guess what I'm saying is it seems a little odd that somebody would raise this as a defense in the first instance because that immediately marches you into a potential sentencing enhancement. I have to think through a little bit more. No, no, and you're right. I think that there is a reason why I haven't seen this occurring in the transcripts and the cases. There are a lot of strategy reasons why this is not used and brought up even if assuming it is a fact involved in the case. There are other implications involved in this, but ultimately, whether or not it's relevant, whether or not it's appropriate in a certain case, whether the prosecution wants to bring in whether it is a factor to fully understand what was going on, to motivate or explain what was going on, what happened, are the calls of the defendant, and that goes to the funnel mail rate to not just present, but to decide, right, to decide what evidence and what theory of defense to present. It's up to the judge to determine whether that theory is adequately supported by the evidence needed, the threshold evidence, applying the guiding rules. And again, the judge decides that not in a vacuum, but after the prosecution gets to make his case or her case that it doesn't need it. So again, there are built-in checks and balances all along the way. And in the end, I think really the proof is in the pudding that we can't, this is not a problem here in Vermont. Before, and I think it's not, I think that hearing what's been happening in other states is interesting as a point of fact, if nothing else, and certainly a reflection of how serious hate-motivated crimes are, how we don't want to tolerate them, of course not. That's not what the Office of the Defender General's position should be collapsed into. Instead, what I think, and I think it's also important that this law would affect clients' defendants' accused of crimes from marginalized communities. So just one, so when you said constitutional right to defense, is that federal constitution or state constitution? Both, both. Have any of these other states had a challenge, constitutional challenge that you know of? You know, I'm not sure it's had enough time. I understand these laws are fairly new for sure. I mean, and I don't know if they have gone all the way through to the appellate courts, frankly. I don't, I don't believe I heard the witnesses before, and I'm not aware that there is a federal version challenge, so I don't think there's there was anything there, and I'm not aware of how far if any, any challenges have gone in the other state jurisdictions. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to follow up on that, and then Selina, I'll get to you. Yeah, Martin, I have the same question and Bryn, perhaps you can please look into other states, whether or not there have been challenges, and also curious if our language here, if it's based on one of the other states or a combination of the other states, and do you have, if you have those answers now, great, if not, if you get back to us. Yeah, I can, I'll certainly look into whether or not there's been a constitutional challenge in one of the other states that's enacted a similar prohibition on this kind of defense. And yes, it was modeled, I think that it's not, it was modeled after the Colorado legislation, but not exactly. It took from a couple, but I think it was most closely modeled after Colorado, and someone will correct me, Representative Cortis will correct me if I'm wrong about that. Great, thank you. Selina. You know, I think I had the same question about whether the constitutionality for both, for both the Defender General and for our own legislative council about whether the constitutionality had been challenged elsewhere. And so I think a lot of my questions have been asked, but just I guess I'm still, I guess, I think you, you and your response to Representative Lohlone came clearer, I came clearer to understanding your concerns about the constitutionality. I just would note my time on this committee, we clarify acceptable defenses all the time in our, you know, maybe not all the time, but it's common practice, at least in my time on this committee to clarify acceptable defenses. And so I guess I'm just trying to really get, understand why you feel that's potentially unconstitutional practice here. And I think I heard your answer relate to the fact that it's the, it's the, you know, where it's the defense itself that we would be eliminating and that that I guess I'm trying to understand more about your concerns about the constitutionality. Right. So by prohibiting certain subjects from ever being part of a defendant's defense, right, and, and, and bring identified and certainly the, the statute identifies the bill. Self-defense, provocation, heat of passion, which come into play in murder cases, right. Diminished capacity, insanity. Those are the four very, very broad sweeping fundamental defenses available to all defendants when accused. And to, to prohibit the ability to raise those facts. Again, it's not that you just want that a, that a person would want to just raise them, just to raise them, there would have to be a basis to raise them because they are relevant. They're because they are relevant to state of mind, right. Bryn shared earlier that the prosecution has the burden in charges to, to present state of mind intent, right. So the intent will be knowing or specific or purposeful intent to commit the acts alleged, right. The homicide, the assault, whatever it is, this high standard beyond a reasonable doubt that this person at this moment actually intended to do what they did, right. The right, that critical right to present a defense and criminal law is to attack that, that they didn't have, that that person did not have the requisite and essential elementized to him as to the evil culpable mens rea such that if you prove it, it goes that it's associated with the appropriate penalty to go to jail, right. And we're talking about offenses that involve the most serious penalties of life imprisonment, right. The highest stakes to have someone who's accused go in with these, with these serious charges, the heavy weight of the state behind the prosecution, prosecuting them. And now you, now you say these, these defenses are available, but not, but you cannot, you cannot present this defense, even if it would otherwise meet the miscibility requirements under our rules of evidence, even if it would have withstood adversarial challenges from the prosecution, even if the judge would have found that it would have been admissible. And the jurors would have found it relevant and appropriate, right, to view so they could see and not be denied the full picture of what happened. And we trust our jurors, right, to make those decisions and decide for themselves. And that's why the evidence rules are, are provided and written broadly so that we give every relevant and admissible evidence before the jurors, because they are the ultimate truth seekers and truthfinders to determine that, that ultimate question, right. When we start fiddling with what can and can't come in, again, to protect whom, to protect the defendant, certainly not, that goes directly against her, her ability to write to present a defense, to protect the jurors. Again, I think that, that underestimates jurors ability to, to even if they come in with their own biases, their own homophobia, that they can't otherwise shelf those and follow the rule of law. I think it also undermines and, and I think it undermines the public perception and trust of the court system itself. If judges our hands are tied, that they can't even consider this otherwise relevant evidence, because it has been determined by legislation what can and cannot can't come in. I think that, I think that the integrity of the system comes into question, right, that, but for this evidence having been considered this otherwise admissible evidence, the person is convicted, right. I think it, I think that these rules, I think you're right, you, you do consider many things in any given session. I do not think that and certainly would hope that this committee doesn't tread lightly whenever there are these fundamental principles at stake and, and where these principles, the proposals are to shrink them. Yes, just a little follow up. I mean, certainly I don't think we do tread lightly and I don't stay for the record. I don't think this bill trends like either. I think this is a very serious issue and, but I don't, you know, there's nothing in this language that I read that is precluding the underlying defense of, for example, diminished capacity or insanity, those, those, you know, big defenses you just enumerated, it's, it's just making it very clear that, that a person, an understanding of a person's gender identity, you know, is not, is not a criteria, cannot, is not an acceptable criteria for those defense, but I don't think it, so it certainly limits, you know, the criteria, but I don't think it, it eliminates the defense, it's the underlying defenses themselves. It just, it just eliminates, respectfully, the bias, the element of bias in constituting them is my reading of it. And you're welcome, you're welcome to comment more if you think I've got that really wrong. You know, I think, I think that in the most general sense, how many ways can a case theoretically raise self-defense considering all the possible facts that could go into an argument of self-defense? I see that as your point, right? This one goes to just one, right? So how are you doing a categorical ban on self-defense, right? And I think the, the, the answer is that each case is individual. And each case is individual that in any given case, if this was relevant, if this was relevant to understand the full circumstances of what was going on at the time, right? That that could constitute a wholesale ban of that defense for that person. All relevant evidence, right? All evidence that is probative to proving or disproving the charged offense. That's relevant evidence. If it, if, because, yes, it may, it may be, it may be offensive for most of us, right? What is involved in terms of motivation of a charged crime, including, including, you know, hate that is, that is that issue here, including any other hate in another situation. It doesn't relate the fact that it is relevant to understand how things went, went down on that charged incident. And for the jurors to understand that fully, they need the complete picture. For the defendant to be able to have the freedom and not just the freedom, the constitutional, right here, she's entitled to, to present and mount a complete defense. That's when it constitutes and becomes a categorical ban for that person. Thank you. Selina again, any other follow up or? Oh, no, I'm good. Thank you. Thank you to the witness. Right. Any other questions for the Defender General's office? And I also, I invite the two sponsors to, if you have any questions. Oh, I'm sorry. Kate, I didn't see your hand. Go ahead. That's okay. Thank you. I'm also hesitant to raise my hand because I don't know that my thoughts are fully formulated. There's a lot of legalese talk right now and sometimes that, that gets my head, head turned around a little bit. And I feel like I'm sort of stuck in a little bit of like a cyclical loop in listening to this conversation. So tell me if I'm, if I'm getting this wrong. So part of what I'm hearing is that there's a desire to maintain a pathway to bring forward evidence if it is deemed relevant. And part of what I'm hearing is there's all these checks and balances within the court system that would sort of result ultimately in things only being brought forward for evidence. If it, if it were truly, you know, relevant and appropriate, I guess is the language that I heard. I guess what the cyclical sort of loop I keep getting stuck in is like, okay, so what I'm hearing them is there's a desire to keep an avenue open to move forward with evidence where it's deemed that it's relevant and appropriate to essentially put forward that the person's gender identity was like contributed to the person's actions in that crime that like, if it were to even get to that point, it's because somehow in that, in that court process, it was determined that that was relevant and appropriate as some sort of mitigating factor in the crime. And I guess, and this is genuinely intended as a question. But like, I'm trying to wrap my head around, when is it ever relevant or appropriate that someone's gender identity be a defense for a crime? Like, I feel like that's part of why this bill is being put forward, isn't it? To sort of prevent that from being an avenue that we could follow because it, you know, for many, it seems that that would never be relevant or appropriate that someone's gender identity would be the reason that a crime is committed. I feel like I'm stuck in a loop a little bit with this and I don't know if anyone can help me out of that loop. So I'll try to take a stab and maybe I'll try to do it by way of a hypothetical. And we can, we can put whatever is the issue, but let's have it be that the two people involved in what later amounts to a charge of some kind of bodily harm assault, assault, right? But it's an encounter between two people, two people who are walking down a street and they're the only two people on the street and it's very lonely and some words are exchanged based on a perception of sexual orientation and it's getting hot, you know, more heated and there is now aggressive physical worries of bodily injury and it's being borne out because now the space between the two people are shrinking and there's still more and more of an exchange of heated words, of hateful words based on perception of gender identity. And now it is so close that that person is worried that the other person is going to hit them and in fact hits them and they're the only ones alone and so they hit them back because now they fear that they're about to be killed. They're about to be to be severely injured and pounded because of what they perceive their aggressor's sexual identity is or perception and how the two are encountering and engaging with each other based on it. So it's not just necessarily the complainants gender identity we're talking about, it's about the differences in gender identity between these two people that is the cause of it. Now let's not assume who has and is of sort of from the marginalized group to us, you know, sort of let's assume the defendant is from someone who's from a traditionally marginalized community and acts out in self-defense based on the perception of what that complainants gender identity is. So now we have two people who have been harmed and hurt and the police arrive and arrest one of them and only charge one of them as the aggressor and it goes to trial and the whole case is who did it, who initiated it, who's responsible, who should have backed down, who acted in self-defense. Those are where if the evidence is presented or the proffered evidence is presented by the defendant to show that it was actually self-defense that he or she acted in self-defense that day and it's relevant that the perception that he faced imminent harm was because of the gender identity, perceived gender identity of the aggressor, he thinks is the aggressor, the complainant, right, that becomes relevant, absolutely relevant in terms of how to present that self-defense. The whole case and that whole case of that person rests on the self-defense. Again it doesn't just come in because you wanted to, you have to present the case, you got to the judge and it has to meet all of these check boxes on what is required for that particular defense before it comes in. I don't know if that's helpful. I can keep working on making it clear. I appreciate the real-life example. I guess I'm curious given that example in this particular bill it says a non-violent romantic or sexual advance. I think you know in the example you just used it was ultimately a violent one. So I'm not sure, you know, just looking at this particular bill, you know, would the language within this bill essentially protect you from the kind of example that you're describing? And just to clarify, are you talking about part B, 6566B? Yeah, thanks. Line 11 on the version I have, C. Shall not be used to mitigate the severity of the offense. And I might have missed this in Bryn's walkthrough. I read that as a sentencing, as a sentencing aspect, mitigating the severity of offense, severity of offense, the penalty, the sentence can't be used to argue during a sentencing stage of a case, not the proof of the case. After someone has been found guilty, now you move to the sentencing. And if it's a contested sentencing, the defendant can present evidence to the judge seeking mitigation, because there's a range of possible penalties, right? And the argument being, you know, don't sentence me on the higher end because it's mitigated by these other factors. That's how I read B. So that's a separate part from what we've just been talking about. The issues as to the categorical bands on certain defenses, that goes to the merits part of it, the trial itself. That's where the right to present a defense comes in. And is the core issue at stake there? Thank you. Okay. Let's see. Celina, I had seen your hand up before, as it was from before. It was new, but Representative Donnelly went straight to my question about the limitation of this provision to not file a counter. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for the defendant general's office? Okay. Bob, go ahead. Let me unmute. I'm looking to see that hand in time, Maxine. Rebecca, so for clarification, for my purposes only here, I guess. So is it your stance that your office opposes the entire bill or just certain aspects of the bill, certain sections of the bill? Oh, no, the entire bill. Thank you. Okay. Let's take a 15-minute break, and then we'll come back and finish up with the testimony. Thank you.