Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions. It's Friday, February 6. We have with us our legal counsel, Hillary, walking us through draft 1.1 of proposed changes to our current program that's in place, pretrial supervision. These changes are reflective of what the Council of State Government has recommended. And before we get started, did you check to well, does this also incorporate any of the administration proposed changes? I think it tracks the Council of State, their changes. I have not checked to compare. I'll check as we go along. Because the administration has some amendments to this that is over on judiciary committee, so I will track as we go. I think I looked at it quickly, what judiciary had, what the administration proposed, and I think it's all the same. So for the record, Hillary Chittenden for the Office of

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Legislative Council. The bill that I'm aware of in house judiciary is five twenty nine. I heard four ten. Okay. I will double check four ten as well. The one that I'm aware of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It is five twenty nine.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Yes, it is. Okay. The language from 05/29 is in this bill. Okay. It's one small change, and I'll point that out when we get there for the committee's reference. So as the chair mentioned, this draft bill attempts to implement the four key recommendations that the Council of State Governments made in its presentation to the committee. The language in the bill is not from the Council of State Governments, but it's a place to start in implementing their policy recommendations from their presentation. So quick reminder that they made four recommendations. One was to fund dedicated officers who maintain caseloads of no more than 20 clients. Two was authorize DOC staff to make direct referrals to the courts in response to condition violations. A reminder that right now, DOC staff can tell the prosecutor that a violation has occurred, but DOC staff cannot go directly to notify the court. It's kind of the prosecutor's the middle person in that process.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And they can also do that already with post conviction?

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Yep, that's my understanding. You're talking probation, right? Troy?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: They currently don't have the authority they need

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Do that in a pre trial.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you're saying they have that authority in probation.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, I don't know. I know it's post conviction, so they would have it in probation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They would have it in furlough automatically because they're under DOC, and then they would have it in parole to go to the parole board.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. So they do have it in probation. They have it post. Yeah.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. But this authority would not be an entirely new concept. Right. That DOC staff are able to do that in a kind of parallel post conviction context. The third recommendation was to refer people to the pretrial supervision program based on relevant factors with a focus on risk and needs, including behavioral health and substance use screens. So remember that currently there are two requirements in the statute for someone to be eligible. Someone has to either have charged with violating a condition of release or have five or more pending dockets. So one of those two things, at least one of those two things has to be true for someone to be eligible to be referred to the program. And the recommendation from the council of state governments was to shift from those requirements to having DOC assess who the program would work for based on some of the screening tools that council state governments talked about. The fourth recommendation from council state governments presentation was to direct the relevant health and human services agencies to develop a streamlined method for referring pretrial supervision program clients to behavioral health services.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those were

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: very needed and that there were some challenges in making them available.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that's recommending them to your community partners.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Exactly. So if the committee wants to reference, these are from the PowerPoint slides that the state governments used in its presentation. But those four recommendations are what the bill attempts to implement.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: And I'm sure you'll hear more from witnesses about the right way to implement and whether some of these should be implemented, but this is at least a starting place in bill language. Any questions before we turn to the bill language? All right. Oh, yes.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. I'm sorry. I'm just looking at my notes quick, and I think you got it all well. You did.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to have anyone add or correct as we go along. So on page one, this is draft 1.1. It doesn't have a bill number yet because it's a committee bill draft. But the draft request number at the upper top left is 20Six-seven62. This bill is working in one section of the statute. If you remember, 13 VSA section 7,555 is where all of the information about the pretrial supervision program is located. So we're just in this one section. The bill is making changes to different parts of section seventy five fifty five.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So title 13 is your criminal justice. I'm in criminal. Not DOC. DOC's title 28.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So the first changes will be on page two, and a few of these are kind of minor consistency points that we as Legis Council try to make when we return to statutes to reflect our drafting conventions that we use. So the change to line two, changing from people to persons, that's a convention change from Ledge Council. And the change on line seven from using a dash to saying and between these two subdivisions, also just a quick convention change. So you'll see those two edits. They're kind of technical technical things from Legis Council, implementing substantive things about the recommendations. Okay. So I just want the committee to read quietly the purpose in it so you can understand what the program So please read it. Read the language, and it's at the top of page two, what the purpose of the program is. But you really need to understand that in order to go forward.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So questions on the purpose of the program?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah. I'll defer my question to different sets of testimony. I understand the purpose.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any questions? Are people clear on the purpose of the program? This is for folks who are not

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: adjudicated. They haven't been sentenced. They've been charged.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They've been arraigned. They've either did not have bail set or they met bail. And it's a condition of their release. And we currently do not have this statewide. So now when someone is they're not in Chittenden County. If they're released, they don't have this supervision.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Even if they are in Chittenden County, it's only the accountability part, I believe. So it's a small subset of Chittenden County.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The goal is to bring it out to the full state.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. Moving forward. On page two, we're looking at subdivision C. This talks about the pretrial supervision program and how DOC administers it. So the first substantive change is on lines 11 through 13. Originally, this subdivision said that the pretrial supervision program shall be available to the two groups of defendants that I mentioned. That in statute, only defendants charged with violating a condition of release or who had five or more pending dockets could be referred to the pretrial supervision program. As I mentioned, that third council state government's recommendation was to shift from the statutory categories

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: process of DOC review, which you'll see more of soon. But the changes on lines 11 through 13 are just reflecting the removing the two statutory eligibility requirements. So what is in section eight, except as provided in some subsection H, it wasn't G? H, I believe. Yes. H notes that if the program is not available, a court shall not order referral to it. So the way subdivision C1 is phrased is that the pretrial supervision program

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I got it. It was there to begin with, but we've added a section. So we've read alphabetized

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: the change. Exactly. That's the change from G to H. Yep. Did not flag that. Excellent catch.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: That's straight. Seems logical.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Hopefully, that was a straightforward implementation of the recommendation. I think the committee can certainly hear testimony on the the policy question of how to handle who goes to the program, how to prioritize them, how to identify them, how to refer them. Moving forward at the bottom of page two, this is lines 18 through 19. This is talking about DOC assigning pretrial supervision officers to monitor defendants in the program. The bill would add that the department shall maintain a target caseload of not more than 20 defendants for each pretrial supervision officer. This is responsive to the first Council of State Government's recommendation that dedicated pretrial supervision program officers ideally maintain caseloads of not more than 20 clients. The Council of State Government's recommendation also implicates adequate funding for that caseload. This change on lines 18 through 19 just references the target caseload to try to reflect the policy from the recommendation in the statute, but different language would need to be added to address funding. Any questions about those first two changes?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this is saying that for these folks, they're low risk and that a officer in our field office, PMP office, would not have a caseload of more than 20. Is that a caseload of more than 20 overall? Is the 20 for other folks that they may be supervising that didn't go through the pretrial, but are not part of the pretrial supervision? You may not answer that. That's because they do have other folks that they are I don't they could hire new people. Sometimes the test we'll have to get testimony from DOC on this. But sometimes they can convert they can add caseloads to folks who are currently in their field office. So would these 20 folks be new to their current caseload? Be one question. Also there's statute that pertains to caseload ratios for folks who are PMP officers and their ratio for the caseloads. I wanna look at that to see how this intertwines with that. But my question, these 20 defendants, is it the 20 specific from the pretrial supervision program? Or is it on top of what they're currently seeing? As

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: I understand the council of state government's recommendation, it is a dedicated pretrial supervision officer. So only working with pretrial supervision defendants with a caseload of not more than 20. But as the chair points out, there are a number of questions that might be very interesting to hear from various witnesses about. I remember the testimony when we were first setting this up. And in some counties, they might need a new person. In other counties, they could absorb it within their current staff. So if their current staff is already supervising folks, And if they we have to look at what's in statute about the ratios because we put in ratios quite a number

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: of years ago. So how

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that this might impact it might not. Folks do you understand what I'm saying

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: about the ratios? Yep. I think I do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How many folks one officer supervises?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Is this their whole workload or is this just an additional workload?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it depends on the risk of the offender. If they're a low risk, they're gonna have more folks they're supervising. If it's a high risk offender, they're gonna have less folks.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: In general, right? But this

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: language The ratio language clarifies what the risk level is of the offender and what number of offenders per probation officer, depending on the risk level of the offender. There's a ratio there. So the question here is if there is, if they're absorbing the pretrial officer within a current position.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they're subject to a ratio. How does adding 20 dependents impact that ratio?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: And I'm happy to look at the statute and how it addresses the caseload ratio. That could be an area for the committee to consider if, that is a more useful way to talk about, caseloads. Many options going forward.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just don't wanna make a change somewhere, and then you've got a problem in current statute.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Absolutely.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: And your target also is, in my understanding, a soft term. You can be more or less, but that's what we're hoping for.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. Yes.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: I think the intent with this language is to reflect the policy recommendation that effective supervision can be done ideally with a caseload of not more than 20. All right, moving forward. You know what,

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: I gotta show my ignorance. I'm back on line 13. Page two? Yeah. Page two. We're striking not fewer than five pending dockets. I thought that was one of the conditions for participating in the pretrial supervision.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: We're changing. Under current statute, it is. So you are correct. The Council of State Government's recommendation, at least as I interpreted it, you could hear from them again that they recommend speaking this language, was to shift away from those kind of strict statutory eligibility requirements and to instead have it be based on DOC conducting a review of essentially, would this person benefit from pretrial supervision based on what we know about them and refer the people who would benefit most to the program instead of those statutory I misunderstood the purpose. So okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's a policy decision for us to It doesn't mean we'll do it. So where you see on lines twelve and thirteen with the lines a line drawn through the language, that's current law. So currently for a person to participate in pretrial supervision, they need to have violated a condition of release pursuant to 7559. So they're already out on some conditions and they need to they violated some of those conditions, then they would be eligible for the pretrial supervision. Or they have not fewer, they have at least five pending doctrines. So either way, so you may have some folks already out, conditions of release. They may not have had five dockets. And they violated conditions of release. So then the court could send them to pretrial supervision. Or a person could be coming before the court. They have five pending dockets or more.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: They could go to pretrial supervision. So there's two ways to get to pretrial supervision. And ultimately, a policy question for the committee hearing from witnesses, what's the best way to identify who should get referred to the program? The statute originally said these two categories of people should get referred to the program. And one of the council of state government's recommendations was to differently and to think about it instead of category based to go to kind of an individualized referral based on DOC reviewing. And DOC will be able to speak much more to how they currently conduct those assessments.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: It's terms we're making more flexible. I got eligibility. A perfect question to clarify.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Anything else before we move on to page three? That is, in fact, a perfect segue to the changes on page three. So previously, the subdivision D, we're on line 13. Subdivision d talked about the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think before we get there Yeah. Hillary, I think it's really important for people to know what three says because you have to understand what level of supervision is out there to understand who's going to be supervised. If we make any changes, you have to understand what the level of supervision is. And three determines that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to touch on that. So three is current law that remains unchanged, at least in the draft of the bill. And this is there are more details about this in DOC policy, but the statute lays out some framework. So subdivision three, you are on page three, line one. The statute requires that DOC use evidence based screenings for eligible defendants and specifies that DOC's level of supervision might include DOC using telephone monitoring, telephonic meetings with a pretrial supervision officer, in person meetings with the pretrial supervision officer, electronic monitoring, or any other means of contact deemed appropriate. The statute sets forward that framework. And then later in the statute, the statute also says, DOC, you need to go make some policies and rules about exactly what this is going to look like, but screenings have to be evidence based. And here are some ideas for you about what kind of supervision levels might be appropriate. So DOC determines the supervision level. It's not the court.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Court sends them to the program, but DOC makes the decision on the level of supervision based on evidence based screening that DOC will do. And then DOC will determine, based on that screening, what level of supervision. It could be very, very minimal, which is telephone monitoring.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: I believe there are there are three levels currently. I believe that's what we saw in test of mind. Three levels. Oh, supervision, depending on the outcome of the screening.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. Right. It's more intense with more risk. It's more intense. But it's up to the Department of Corrections to determine the level of screening. It is not up to the court.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Well, that makes sense because the corrections has the staff that do that sort of thing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's an important thing to remember. The court sends them to pretrial supervision, but it's DOC that determines the level of supervision.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: How long have we been using evidence based screening? Who developed that? Is it fifty years old or two months old? Recent

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: because the pretrial supervision program was put in place within the last few years. Few years,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: but DOC has been using evidence based screening for years. ORAS is the model that they use. They've been using it for years, but we can get DOC in and talk about their screening levels.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: No. I I mean, I assume that it's been tried and true, and so we depend on it. Therefore, we're gonna make decisions on it. I mean, that's where I'm coming from. I'm just curious as It's been their I don't understand the difference between a and b, department's telephone monitoring system and telephonic meetings.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: One is they just check-in through the phone and the other one, they could do telephone meetings like it could be through Zoom. Could be more in person. Okay. And then if they feel the person may be escalating, they could then do in person meetings. Got

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: it. Got it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we can have DOC address those because that's we took testimony from DOC to determine what type of supervision's out there, and that's why we listed those based on the testimony we received.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Great. That is a perfect setup to talk about the next section. So subdivision d talks about procedure. Under current law, some of which is stricken here, under current law, either the prosecutor or defendant or the court has to move for a certain defendant to be reviewed by DOC for whether it's appropriate to place that defendant in the pretrial supervision program. So DOC doesn't automatically look at all defendants under current law. One of the lawyers or the court has to request that DOC look at a particular eligible defendant to see if they are appropriate for placement in the program. Then DOC does their review. They report back to the court. And if the court determines that that placement is appropriate, then they order the supervision level that DOC recommended. Some of that changes with this bill draft. Remember that the third recommendation from the Council of State Governments was for DOC to review each of the possible eligible defendants and then refer to, or provide a recommendation to the court from there about who would be eligible. So this simplifies the procedure to, and now we're on line 19. On page three, the Department of Corrections shall assess each defendant who is being considered or recommended for detention pending trial. And the department shall submit a report to the court containing recommendations pertaining to the defendant's supervision level. On page four, lines three through six, this is the other place that the statute mentions those two statutory eligibility categories, the violations of release or the five or more pending court dockets. So striking through that shifts us from having these two categories of defendants that could be eligible to DOC reviewing defendants being considered or recommended for detention pending trial and submitting a report to the court about their recommendations. So right now, going

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: back

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to page three, procedure is that at the initial arraignment or any subsequent hearing, Prosecutor or the defendant themselves can move or ask that they be reviewed by the court to determine if the person's appropriate for the program. The court can also ask themselves, but it is the court who determines whether the person is appropriate for the program. They do the review.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So the court still holds a hearing and is the one that orders a defendant released to the pretrial supervision program. But instead of requiring one of the parties or the court to ask DOC to look at a specific defendant, this shifts from before getting a recommendation and the court reviewing and ordering it, this shifts to DOC reviewing any defendant who is being considered or recommending for detention pending trial and providing that recommendation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So currently, once court has determined that the person is appropriate, Whereas the review, no, I'm interpreting that differently. As the court is reviewing whether or not the person is appropriate for pretrial supervision right now,

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: The

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: court needs to get a receipt for the report from DOC containing recommendations pertaining to those defendants' supervision. DOC is currently already doing some of this. Yes, I

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: think there is likely a difference between how many screenings DOC is doing under the current procedure and how many that would involve under this new language. So that would be an area for the committee to consider testimony.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah. This

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: removes a bit of a bottleneck that we heard was in place because it just automatically requires, I guess, DOC to provide a review of everybody's to

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: the Assess.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Shall assess. And the way the current laws are on line 17 through 19, A review would be scheduled. A review of the person whether or not they would be eligible for pretrial is scheduled by the court. But the court needs to receive a report from DOC in terms of what the supervision level would be for the person.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: And the court will still get a report from DOC. So one way to think about the changes in Subdivision D, there was a little bit of kind of doubling up or repetition. It prefaced it by saying, here's how the procedure will go. And once the court gets the report, here's what the court will do. These changes remove that little summary of the procedure since that's changing or the initial referral procedure. But if we turn to page four on line seven, This still includes after hearing the review of the Department of Corrections report containing the defendant's supervision level recommendations, the court may order that the defendant be released to their prejudice supervision program, provided that the court makes these findings. And in making the determination, the statute also spells out what the what kinds of factors the court shall consider. So that part remains the same.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. So right now, the way a person would qualify or would get into it, we're taking out adoraimant for subsequent hearing by the new language. And I'm kind of concerned about that because where else are they going to have the consideration of pretrial supervision? It's going to be an arraignment or a subsequent hearing. Cause they could have violated a condition of release from a previous court action that would qualify them. So we're taking out at arraignment or a subsequent hearing. So how does the defendant even get to be considered? Is it just automatic?

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So that might be an area to hear testimony from DOC. How would DOC determine who is being considered or recommended? The council and state government's recommendation didn't necessarily specify this. And I certainly appreciate that the relevant time periods will be arraignment and a subsequent hearing, but DOC isn't necessarily there.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: They're not.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: And so that's why the draft removes that language. But I think the chair's questions point out a potential challenge in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what prompts DOC's review. Somebody's gotta notify DOC. So is it the prosecution? Is it the defense? Or is it the court? Somebody's got to notify, it's not gonna be the defendant calling up DOC and saying, oh, I'm going to

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: court. Somebody's got

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to notify DOC and DOC is not in a courtroom. Troy?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, and when does that notification occur? It should probably occur before arraignment so that DOC, as these defendants arrive to arraignment, DOC will have already conducted this evaluation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think they can. I mean, they do some pre sentence reports, assessments that they're

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Pre arraignment, though. Right? At arraignment, the judge is gonna have to make a determination.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Pre sentence. Resentance the person that has already gone through an arraignment. I mean, the DOC isn't gonna know a person's being arraigned the next day from being arrest arrested.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Unlikely that a screening could logistically happen before arraignment. It could. I think the idea is anyone being considered or recommended for pretrial detention was the category of persons that the council state government's recommendation identified as being potentially most benefiting from having access to a perjail supervision program. Right. So

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: arraignment is the first time You'd go to court. That this is going to the intersections could potentially happen. I'm just picturing a scenario or a practice, I guess, a protocol. Because they had will interaction with DOC prior to arraignment.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, not unless it's a condition not unless they We're

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: gonna get back into bail and Well some sort of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: database. Yeah. I mean, they don't have any dockets anymore. The way it is structured now, you've got to have violations of conditions of release. So a person could violate conditions of release. And that one, wanna Would it even include people who are on probation? I don't think it did because it's pretrial, so they haven't been sentenced. That's what I'm trying to remember. So they were released at arraignment with conditions of release. So they're not being supervised by anybody. And they violate whatever it could be. Mhmm. You know, your curfew or there could be an accumulation of things. You aren't supposed to be near the victim and all of that. So then they get sent back to court. DOC isn't gonna know that because it's not DOC who violated. Right. Yes. The local law enforcement or whatever. So that's one way into it. The other way into it is if you have five dockets or more, well, DOC might know something about it because maybe the person was detained in a facility and then went to court and then was released. So I'm just wondering how DOC without any of those qualifiers to begin with would even tell prior to arraignment to do an assessment.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This would require a DOC staff person to be at all arraignments.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's not going to happen.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Here's what I have from my notes of our January I don't remember what date this was.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: We did. January 23,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: yeah, with Council of State Governance. Referral and reporting process is what we're talking about. They're not conducive to effective supervision process. Once we correct the referral process, we'll correct the logjam. Current DOC staffing does not allow for the adequate supervision intensity for this population. That's kind of getting into the 20 person limit.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the five dockets or more.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. And coordination across state agencies that serve this population must be stronger to provide the necessary services and treatments. While this is getting at, DOC should not be left holding the responsibility for all the wraparound services discovered during supervision, but that also gets to, this coordination across state agencies gets to the fix that we're looking for here. How does DOC become aware of and when the people who are going to be qualified for pretrial supervision. So there's something that happens between arrest and arraignment that must be available information to DOC, isn't there?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think so. I think it all happens.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Unless they're detained.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Unless they're detained.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So what kind of There is none. There is no flag for folks who are arrested but aren't going to be detained, that have a pending arraignment, that should be evaluated by DOC to see if pretrials and provisions is appropriate or necessary. I don't know what that is.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know. So that's a question for

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's that coordination across state agencies that we have to figure out. And it's not similar to the Vines mess, not dissimilar to the Vines mess. Various agencies talking to one another. You should be able to input somebody upon arrest. This person is now in the system. Whether or not they go to DOC, whether or not there's a victim, whether or not there is There should be a statewide system. And then DOC says, Okay, these are all the people that are pending a raking.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So would be DOC shall assess each defendant who is being considered or recommended for detention. So to be recommended for detention means they're gonna be a detainee?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What makes sense.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what it says.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Isn't that why the prosecutor was the one that initiated this request in the past? It was the prosecution, it was the defense, or it was the court.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There were three of them.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: So they're aware of the risk. They're aware of conditions that says, we can do something else. That's why they would initiate the request for pretrial supervision instead of incarceration.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, they would let DOC know about it and then DOC would do a review.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: There's no- don't have any information to do a review.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But then they would know the person and they could do some review. This is not even telling this is assuming DOC knows the person right then and there, and they don't. Right. They

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: don't. So

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: And this could be drafting. The current structure still comes from a court referral. And it's possible that the council state government's recommendation envisioned that if someone is being considered or recommended for detention, that that become apparent at arraignment or a subsequent hearing. And that at that point, the court would ask DOC to look at it. It wasn't spelled out in the recommendations. So it's not spelled out necessarily in this language. But that is something that could be, I think, an area for witness testimony and could be quite answerable.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what happens I'm looking on page four. This is current law, and I'm just So where does the person go between the arraignment Currently, where does the person go between the arraignment and DOC doing the assessment and report? Person's gotta go somewhere. They're not gonna stay in the courtroom. And currently here on page four, nine, seven, after a hearing and review by DOC, that's when the court can determine the person's released to pretrial supervision. So where does that person go in the meantime? Because that report is not instantaneous. That takes some time.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Your child supervision is only currently available for folks who have been charged with violating a condition of release.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Four or five pending dockets. Four or five pending But they could be held.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So it's not a new arrestee. It's not necessarily new arrestees.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: It's people

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: who have already violated.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: The court have five minutes.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Or Yeah. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But Five dockets, they could be a new person into the system with six dockets.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But we're taking that up. We're taking that Correct. Yeah. I I know I know

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we're out out. But but even with that so if it's a violation of conditions of release, it's not somebody who's on probation. It's not somebody who's on furlough

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: When currently, is it? That's what I've got

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to check with you. I don't recall.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Eligibility is I'm just looking at the slides right now. Defendants are eligible for PSP, pretrial supervision program, if they have been charged with violating a condition of release or five dockets that were taken out and pose a risk of non appearance or harm to themselves. And that's what we're trying to get evaluated by DOC, risk of non appearance harming themselves or others. So, I'm in a mess here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, I'm going around in circles right now because I don't recall, I mean, we were very clear when we put the language in, but the conditions of release that are violated, who does that encompass is my question? Is it gonna encompass someone who's on probation? Because they've had a sentence. Or someone who's on furlough because they have a sentence.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Not for that sentence. Right? The only people getting referred would be for violation of pretrials provision conditions. Not.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they're not under DOC? Correct. They would not be under DOC. Those violations or conditions of release would not be coming from DOC. They'd be coming from your local law enforcement.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Currently the procedure works because what prompts the referral to start the whole process is a court hearing. So someone shows up for a court hearing, not actually sure how the five pending dockets, I guess, at arraignment, if someone says this person already has four other pending dockets, or someone comes in for a hearing on violations of conditions of release, then at that hearing, one of the parties could say, You meet the statutory requirements. Court, can you please ask DOC to do the screening and see if this person is eligible for pretrial supervision? So that's how the current system addresses this problem is that by definition, the people who are eligible, there will be a hearing at which they can determine and ask that DOC start the screening

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: process. We

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: went a long ways from where I was starting to say.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: What just specifically about that question, particular line, where it says, oh yeah, that the order that the defendant be released to pretrial, I mean, if they're being released, then they're detained in some way. So because you're not gonna be released from your house or from the streets or wherever. You're gonna be in some kind of detention of some sort. Obviously, we have jails, which is the only place we have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Depends how you interpret being released. They could be released from a court.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, right. And I was going down on a second, but you guys already did it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just well, we gotta ask we'll get the folks in here Or it's prosecute how but I would think if that's

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Some there will need to be some triggering event mechanism that prompts DOC to start this review. I did not understand it to be part of the council state government's recommendation, so it's not here. It doesn't mean that they don't have an answer to that or that the other potential witnesses could not suggest ways to do that. And again, it's a policy decision for the committee whether to pursue these kinds of changes.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm also worried about the fact that we're creating a linear protocol here that is dependent upon sufficient staffing that we just don't have. DOC right now. So I don't have a problem with putting DOC at the helm of this recommendation earlier and exclusively, really. I have a problem that we're going to be asking DOC to do that, and they don't have the step to do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They may not have the history with this person. Currently, this person could come in with six new dockets that have never been drained before, never served time before. Oh, it could be six dockets because there could be six different crimes, and there's a docket for each one. It the docket doesn't go if the person is being charged with six different violations of statutes, six different crimes, there's a docket for each one of those. It's not a docket for that person. It's a docket for those crimes. So a person could be coming in for the first time. Am I off base on that?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, having

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: a big timing difference. Wise, depending on how long it takes to bring them in for arraignment, it would mean that they have yet to be arraigned on any of their charges before they come in for the sixth one. I think I'm curious to hear testimony about how likely that is. But it seems likely that, I guess, under the current structure, it doesn't necessarily Well, I'll take that back. I'm not sure. Not curious. Well, we've got to flag this

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: as a conversation with folks.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, there are a number of trade offs in trying to implement these recommendations as the-

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, we maybe don't get back to James.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I would say at any step of the way, could be the first time that whatever entity sees you, the court sees you, the cops see you, the DOC sees So it's legitimate to think about, but what I want to say is support what Alice and Troy both said today is that my concern, other than making sure that the language is clear, is staffing. I think it's huge, huge issue. I'm very concerned about that particular part. Spoiler?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's the middle part. So these are the three challenges identified by consolate governments. And I'm gonna list them in the way that they have them, challenge one, two, and three, and then encourage us to think about these in reverse. Challenge one, DOC doesn't have the authority that they need to effectively do this. That's where we are right now. Challenge two, resources and staff. DOC, if given that authority, don't have the staff to carry it out. Challenge three is the coordination across state agencies. And we're doing challenge one that still is going to require more staffing and coordination. Should we be starting with the coordination? Should we be creating some sort of centralized system by which once people are arrested, flag comes up at DOC and says and then we'll know, is this is this the first docket, the second docket, the third docket? So once we have that in place, and then once we have DOC staff in place, then we can put them in charge of making these referrals to the courts.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: So what's flagging? I gotta go all the way back to the the first question. What problem are we trying to solve with this? Because oversimplified, I think we're changing responsibility and loosening up Yeah, we're changing responsibility, like you said, three things there. And we're putting more risk on the potential victims. Right

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: now, there's a lot of risk on the victims because there's no supervision, period.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: So is is is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: because this is

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: the we're trying to solve, we have too many people we're holding before they're charged.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It's public safety. The issue is that people were cycling through. They would be arraigned on a criminal offense, and they'd be released with conditions. And there'd be no supervision in the community. So it was a response to public outcry. The people, community's not safe, they're reoffending, there's no supervision. So

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: addicts. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what the pretrial supervision program came about, To provide supervisions for folks who have not been convicted. They are innocent. They've been arraigned on their charge.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: We're not loosening up, we're actually tightening.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're tightening, which then in effect, is now you've got DOC out there supervising them, which puts pressure on DOC and they're not under the custody of DOC. They're not under the custody per se of the court, they kind of are.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Is a violation of any of those conditions, they go back to court. They're not under DOC, but we're asking DOC to do the supervision. Remember that some witnesses had shared that, for example, the federal pretrial supervision program, which I think the witness said was well thought of, is run under the court system for perhaps for some of these reasons. Probation is usually done under

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the courts, too, for supervision. Yeah. But we go to DOC. So let's flag this. I'm looking at the time. We need to keep moving.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: May I ask one more question? Is it reasonable to understand the criteria that would be used that would come out of evidence based screening? Is it a checklist?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We'll get into that with DOCM.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's on slide to the But

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: the short version right now that nobody's in this program. We're hoping some people will be in the future.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah, we got only one person who's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're trying to address why people aren't in the program. That's what we're trying to address with the language changes to have it more readily available to folks so that the court, the defense, and the prosecution can agree that the person should be on pretrial supervision. Sometimes the defense doesn't want folks to go there because it may indicate that, yes, they're guilty of the crime. So that's the balance that's at.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Or alternatively, they just be outside with no supervision with what's happening. So why would they agree to it? Right.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We just had Joe and I in the hallway with

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: with Vince to all people. Had

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: a conversation the other day of somebody who just went into this, and we were like, well, can you tell us more? By the way, he's happy to come in and talk. I was fascinated. I learned more in that conversation than I He's a state prosecutor. Yeah. But we're like, well, why would somebody agree to this? And the terms that were being offered were more, they were still like supervisory in a way. I don't remember the details, but they were more, and he goes, because pretrial supervision was less stringent than what was being offered. It was their only option. But most of the time, it's it's more stringent than what they're being offered.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Scenario he referred to was somebody whose choice was pretrial supervision or twenty four hour curfew.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes. That's right.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: And so they chose curfew. No. They they actually took the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Pre trial?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Home to they they took the preset trial supervision, but for in his experience, that was that was an outlier. It usually doesn't but it's usually pretrial supervision or out with conditions and no supervision. So, I mean, a reasonable person isn't gonna why

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: would you agree to supervision?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's just an interesting it's don't

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're gonna go with the least restrictive.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Period. It's gonna go with the least restrictive.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I would.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anyone would. Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, Kevin might not.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yeah, I like paying.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: There's no way to segue, but on page five.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There's no segue.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I can't, I can't, I won't even touch. Page five, lines 12 through 14. I guess starting on line two, this is a section that talks about compliance and review. So you'll remember that currently, if a pretrial supervision officer is aware that the defendant has violated a court imposed program condition, then the pretrial supervision officer has to notify the prosecutor, who can then decide to notify the court. And if it's a violation of a department imposed administrative condition, then the pretrial supervision officer may, but does not have to notify the prosecutor. Either way, the chain of communication goes from the pretrial supervision officer to the prosecutor, and it's up to the prosecutor to decide if and when to take that to the court. The suggestion from the council of state governments was that pretrial supervision officers be able to go directly to the court if a defendant has violated a court imposed program condition. So lines 12 through 14 specify that a pretrial supervision officer or pretrial supervision officers may file a motion to review pretrial supervision conditions for a violation of court imposed program conditions committed by the defendant. I will note that this is the only change in the house bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But the governor wants a little change in this. So the governor's proposal is on line three of the compliance review. Pretrial supervision officers shall notify the prosecutor or the court of these reasonable efforts. And that's also true. Line six, pretrial supervision officers may notify the prosecutor or the court. So that's what the governor's language says. Okay. And then So are

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: we are we contradicting that with B?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know. I mean, this is just I'm reading what the governor has proposed that they're working on, that they have in this

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, current

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: staff. Current

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That's

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: What house bill is that, Alice? Seven twelve. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's they're using five whatever it is.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So the language on five twenty nine is just Line B. I'll have to go look at the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: other There's a governor's recommend that I'm working with. Okay.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But doesn't it

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: I think there are two ways. It's slightly different. So there are two ways of getting a similar result. The difference is the language that the chair just mentioned would mean that a pretrial supervision officer, if a defendant violates a court imposed program condition, the pretrial supervision officer has to notify someone. They can choose if it's the prosecutor or the court, but I they can't guess that's true under Interesting. They really get at the same thing. I think you could argue it's Yes, not they reached very similar results.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This field, doesn't lines 12 through 14 contradict lines three through five?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It does. It does. In what sense?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There's a shall. Was more Free trial supervision shall notify.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: But it shall notify the prosecutor. Right. May notify the court. May notify So it's as currently written, good question. Free trial supervision officers still have to notify the prosecutor if it's a court imposed condition. May notify the prosecutor if it's a administrative DOC condition, and may go straight to the court if it's a

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: court imposed But they still have to notify the prosecutor.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But this B, lines 12 through 14 does not apply to lines six through eight.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Is why it's not being used, it's too complex.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, no, this is supposed language change. Yes. So this hasn't been implemented.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Program free trial supervision is in place, isn't that?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. But we're talking about the proposed language

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: But it's not being used because it's so complex.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's not complex, yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not making it more complex.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: To the chair's point, I think there are two differences between the proposed language. The first is that under what I understand to be the governor's language, pretrial supervision officers would notify the prosecutor or the court, have to notify either the prosecutor or the court. Whereas the new added B in the bill would say they have to notify the prosecutor and they may choose to also notify the court, but do not have to. So slightly different. I think if the governor's language said and or the court, that would be the same result. But there's another qualifier on line 13, violation of court imposed program. Yes. And that's the second difference, I think, which is that under B would not allow pretrial supervision officers to file a motion for the court to review a violation of conditions that DOC invokes. Whereas I understand to be the governor's language would allow the pretrial supervision officer to choose to notify the prosecutor or the court if there were a violation of DOC imposed.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because an example of that that we heard during the testimony, if the person's on electronic monitoring, there are DOC requirements for being on for electronic monitoring in terms of either you gotta check with the person or you keep your bracelet on. If they violate that, they take their bracelet off. That's not a violation of the pretrial supervision program. It's a violation of DOC requirements that go along with that electronic monitoring. So that's why we had that differentiation in there. So those are, these are the layers that you pick up as you hear testimony and you work language in a bill for this. James?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Way back on lines three and six, personally, I'd like to know why the recommendations by the administration is prosecutor or court, But I also, at the same time, just on a visceral level, don't like it because you're taking one avenue, which is pretty simple. You always know it's gonna be the prosecutor. And then you say, oh, but it could be the judge.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, prosecutor may not go to the court. That's the issue.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That's the part two, but that's where I think it should if if you're gonna add it, it should be and, not or, because then it's

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: going to one, we're gonna go to

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: the prosecutor or will we choose to go to the court? And then you get this whole big mess now. You know, I do agree that you might not talk. The prosecutor might go, Oh, found this out. Tell the court. Great, cool. But it should be and so that they both are getting notifications, not or, so one case goes to the court and one case goes to prosecutor, you're

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: like, who

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: knows what? We're not there yet in making those decisions. That's based on testimony that we're going to be receiving.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I mean, but in fairness, there's a lot of things we've talked about that we haven't got there yet. And I just want to put it out there while I think of it because I might forget.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So it sounds like the committee has at least two possible avenues to think about making language changes to this section. But the core idea here is providing some mechanism in some circumstances, whether it's mandatory or permissive, and whether it's in addition to or an alternative to the current structure, but for pretrial supervision officers to be able to go to the court to notify them about at least court imposed conditions, maybe also DOC imposed conditions. Any questions about those changes on page five?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, but there's more changes on the governor's recommended. I'll sit down with you. I'm

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: not aware of that. So not yet familiar with that statue currently.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: You know who drafted this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would it have been Michelle?

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: Someone on the judiciary team, certainly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. There's quite a bit of change. Number four, there's quite a

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: bit of change. The governors

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: go over that. I don't wanna take too many time because we need to get to lunch here real quick.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'll go over the one change on page six, or I guess the two changes, but one new one. Yes. My mandate in presenting this was to take the council state government's recommendations and put them in bill form for discussion. My understanding is You did the good thing. Awesome. Doing plenty of discussion among the committee.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: that's fine. And I understand that the House House Judiciary Committee has another pretrial supervision bill that contains some of this language, really just the language on page five. And it sounds like there is another bill that contains administration language. So to make sure you can go eat, which is the best thing and important. On page six, on line six through seven, this goes hand in hand with the changes on page five about allowing pretrial supervision officers to go to the court. This would say that DOC shall develop criteria for motions to review pretrial supervision conditions, basically give pretrial supervision officers a kind of consistent criteria to reference and when they choose to go to the court on court imposed conditions. Again, this was one of the parts of the council state government recommendation for uniformity as I understood The change on page six, lines eight through 11, this is a new subsection G. Previously, the contingent on funding was subsection G That moves it down. And there's this new subsection regarding coordination, regarding behavioral health services. And this speaks to something Representative Headrick was mentioning, that a core part of state government's recommendation was to improve coordination across agencies, I think in a variety of ways. This one addresses coordination across agencies regarding providing behavioral health services. And again, the Council of State Government's recommendation was specifically thinking of referrals to community based providers. But subsection G would add language that the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Health shall coordinate with the Department of Corrections to provide timely referrals to behavioral health services for defendants supervised under the program. I think there are questions that the committee could consider taking testimony on about where are the bottlenecks in this? Is it in the availability of the programs to begin with? Is it in how referrals happen? There might be different aspects of what coordination could improve, but this language at least implements the policy recommendation that these agencies should be coordinating on these topics toward the goal of providing timely referrals for defendants who are in the program. Any questions about the changes on page six?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Got a lot of work ahead of us. Mhmm. Got a lot of work ahead of us.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Especially lines three and six.

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Oh, there's a lot more.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I know. There's a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: lot more work. So what I would like to do, you and I need to chitchat because I'm trying to figure out, do we wanna complicate the things with the governor's recommend? Because the governor's recommended, so there's some more changes here that are really different.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: I am happy to implement whatever the direction of the committee is. I just am aware that house judiciary is taking up the same topic next week. And so just want to make sure that whatever coordination is helpful to have happen. Because I'd like to get a draft out there. We we wanna bring folks back, like, on Wednesday. Right?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'd like to get a new draft out there if we're gonna incorporate the governor's recommendations as well. And I don't know if that would complicate it or not.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: It sounds like at least one of them is potentially intention with at least the way this draft implements them. So I think it would be conversation about which path the committee would like to take. But I'm happy to take the committee's direction on preparing an amendment if there is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a direction for that. Will be having someone sit in when judiciary takes testimony? You could. I'm just not there yet. I'm just trying to figure out for us the next step. Because Chittenden Cherry is gonna look to us for the language. They're just gonna become familiar with the program. So why don't you folks go to lunch? We're back here at noon, right? Why don't you folks go to lunch? Hillary and I will talk. I'll show Hillary some of the other language.

[Hillary Chittenden (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to look at it. Will just need direction about when we're implementing it. Why don't you come on down?

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: So for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: folks on YouTube, we're gonna be back

[Unidentified Member (House Corrections & Institutions)]: by 12:00. So we're gonna take a quick lunch. Okay?