Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The House Judiciary Committee this Wednesday morning, January 21. We're gonna turn to some testimony related to h six twenty seven, but we'll maybe a little more far ranging than that. I apologize that we're kind of low on members. We have four members who are out ailing right now, but we have a couple other members in the building who had to stop in other committees. They'll be back, but The wanna get good thing is that we are recording this. So our our missing members will be able to review testimony. So Kelly Carroll, we'd love to have you join us. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. I know you've given testimony to this committee before in the past, I believe, if I'm recalling right. I believe so, yeah. And it's good to have you back. And if you could introduce yourself to the record and proceed. Thank you again.

[Kelly Carroll]: Thank you. Name is Kelly Carroll. I'm a resident of Bennington. And first, I would like to say thank you to chair LaLonde and the entire judiciary committee for the opportunity to speak this morning. I will try to keep it brief. If I ramble, please stop me.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You have plenty of time, hospital.

[Kelly Carroll]: Service.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Plenty of time. Don't worry about that, Kelly.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I appreciate it.

[Kelly Carroll]: So So thank you for the ability to speak on h six '27. As I said, my name is Kelly Carroll. I am the mother of murder victim Emily Hammond, who was murdered on 01/18/2021 in Bennington by Darren Pronto. I'm also the founder of Voices for Vermont Victims. And Voices for Vermont Victims is a basic it's a simple grassroots advocacy initiative to encourage other victims of Vermont violent crime to reach out to their local legislators, whether it's an email, a text, or in person, a letter, respectfully, of course, but just to help share their stories and their experiences so that the legislature as a whole, not just committees that pertain to specific areas, have an understanding on how things impact them and their stories across the state. So h six twenty seven proposes important changes to expand the rights of crime victims in forensic proceedings. And I'm all for that. I'm all for expanding victims' rights. But there's a couple of things like I watched the testimony yesterday, and like Karen Barbara, I want to back up just a little bit. I first got involved after Emily, and I'll be the first one to say I wasn't paying attention enough to what happens in Vermont. Shame on me. So I didn't understand the whole competency, not guilty by reason of insanity, the whole process that it goes through. And it's a learning curve, and I'm still learning because I think science, forensics, laws, everything changes all the time. But I think when I look back at what is my basic right, my right as a victim is to expect the state to provide monitoring, supervision, programming, and treatment so that people do not get hurt again. Now, one case should not identify law, but one case can show you a lot of the gaps in it. And my Emily's case does that, Because her killer was in our system. And as Karen Barbara testified yesterday, DMH is healthcare. It's a healthcare system. There is no public safety mandate. And I very, very, very much appreciate the the work that went into this bill, especially about giving victims the right to have a voice in court because I think that's that's critical.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: But I just

[Kelly Carroll]: When we talk about competency in forensics, it's complicated. It's not like a simple thing where you just get to go to do that. So when someone enters the competency process, it just doesn't affect the accused. It affects families, communities, and public safety. And in cases like ours, there's repeated, repeated delays. And I think it's great that if we ever get to a resolution to be able to have the ability to speak. But I do think that the legislature, both senate and house, need to take a look at the other gaps and really create a forensic system for there to be meaningful change. And we'll be talking about that this afternoon. There's a hearing with the lieutenant governor, and I encourage you I know everybody's really busy if you can't attend it. I encourage you to listen to it because there will be some other victims from across the state just talking about different parts of our system and how it's impacted them. Because we're often told that the system has to be neutral. Right? It's that we, as victims, have been told that basically we're irrelevant in the process. We don't bring anything other than emotion, and I beg to differ that. We bring a lot more value than emotion. We show you, meaning the entire, not just the people sitting at this table, we show you the consequences of the laws that you pass, but also the bills that you ignore. And I know in this bill here, there's basically a working group. And I'll tell you, I've been on one working group. It was not the most productive experience. It had a lot of people on it, like in this list. And I think that it's probably been studied enough. I mean, people understand there are gaps and that things need to be addressed because they are not getting better. Our community only system of voluntary is not helping victims, public safety communities. And public safety is at the basis of everything, economic development, recruiting, retaining teachers, health care, everything. And I think that that's a big gap for another day. But when you talk about what a victim goes through, this law here talks about opting in. And that's currently there, I believe. I'll tell you about our experience. We work with the Bennington State's Attorney's Office. We work primarily with Whitney Kalanowski, who is our victim's advocate. We have pretty much from the get go been registered, so if there is a change of custody, we get that notification. Personally, I don't go into the website to search to see where he is, but I know I can do that just because I know my victim's advocate tells me, keeps us informed. We know when he's going to court again. We know when the next evaluation is. I'm not sure that's consistent throughout the state. I would like to see more consistency on that part. I work really closely with Jen Pullman from the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, but I don't know if I'm the norm. I know, after Emily, I reached out to Governor Scott and said, how do I get more services for mental health services for Bennington County? And he put me in touch with Mike Smith at the time, AHS, Senator Sears and Representative Morrissey. And I've been advocating and writing letters. I mean, most of you get at least a couple of letters a year from me. But not every victim is comfortable with that. Not every victim wants to come up and say to you and go on camera and and say their feelings and what happened because it's very, very emotional. It's really hard to do that, especially with perception, which perception is reality. Right? The perception is is that our system is not victim friendly. And I think that in here, I would love to have thirty days notice. Probably not. I'm grateful, like, at ten when there's a change. Karen went through the reasons for that yesterday. You know, opting in, opting out, that's huge. We opted in. Not everybody will. It's really great to have that opportunity. And again, I'm not sure that victims all over the state have that opportunity. I know that my advocate was like, hey, this is here. We can do this. She stays on top of that. I have talked with other moms of murder victims in different areas of Vermont, and they don't get that same level of support. And I think that may go back to the philosophy coming out of the individual state's attorneys' offices, but I think that that's an area for opportunity. I know this bill here has $115,000 for DMH allocated for a liaison. I don't think DMH needs that. And honestly, here's the taxpayer Kelly. We spend so much money on mental health in our agencies, and I don't really think we get our bang for our buck. I think if you look at somebody who comes in if a hospital has a cardiac patient, that cardiac patient gets discharged, comes back within a certain amount of time, there's a reduction in reimbursement rates, right? But there isn't any accountability within our mental health system. And I know I work very well with our local agency down in Bennington, but there's a lot of issues. When my daughter was murdered, he was out in that voluntary community based, if you want to take your medications, you can. If you know, don't want to abide by your restrictions, you don't have to because it's all voluntary. And you all know how well that worked out for my family and other families across the state. So I encourage you to look at the whole system. I know there's other bills, I'm not I don't if you want me to come back and talk about those, I would I would definitely welcome the opportunity. But I think that, you know, having that the victims advocates or the crime victim services center as opposed to DMH to have that support service for victims. And I would like to see that stronger statewide for other people. I think that that money could be If you're going to throw If you're going to put extra investment in it, I would like to see it at that point because they really are the ones that are making the difference. And I find Karen Barbara and Samantha Sweet and Emily Hawks really great to work with. But again, I'm that mousy victim. I'm that victim out here saying, you know, I'm gonna tell you this story later on because this person is not comfortable coming forward and talking to you. Because sometimes afterwards, we'll get very uncomfortable communications like you do probably when, you know, when when you don't disagree with somebody. But when it happens to a victim, it's almost like being victimized again. And, you know, when we talk about, you know, repeated go these paces can go on for years, you know, before you actually get to the point where you get to say something. If if if there is a court resolution, whether it's I mean, if it's not guilty by reason of insanity, that's a criminal defense. So that's gonna be in a criminal court. But when you have not competency, that goes to family court, and that's it. You have nothing. You don't even get to know anything about the case. Everything is is behind closed doors. And I think victims should be part of that. I think if he goes to a family court hearing, I should be able to go and find out the status of it. I testified in one of the committees, just to show you how irrelevant victims are in the court process. Excuse me. I testified in one committee, and I said, I think we had been going to court for, like, three years. And in three years, they had never ever, ever once mentioned Emily's name. The only time they mentioned her name was when I was told to put her picture away. That was it. And I do think that people listened because after we went back to court, the judge did make a notation that Emily's family was present in the courtroom. And that was huge. It didn't make a difference to what happened. It didn't, you know, continue or have any impact on the stalled process. But it made our family feel like she mattered because it's really when you get into the court system, it is not about the victim. They do not care about the victim. And I understand the importance in defendants' rights. Right? There's, you know, they have that whole rights. So my understanding Vermont's one of 11 states that does not have a victim's bill of rights, and that might be something you might want to consider. I do think it's important to be heard. One of my big complaints is if I was in you know, if my daughter had been killed in a bank robbery, right, let's say that, and he and he went to he, she, whoever was at court and got found guilty, I would be able to, as a victim, I would be able to have an impact statement. But that doesn't happen here. It almost did, but then it was taken away with family, with mental health courts because we're irrelevant, because all we bring is emotion. I disagree. And I think if you look at a criminal court now let's pretend it was a bank robbery. Right? And I was very, very angry, and you were the judge, and I went up, and I gave my impact statement, and I said, I want the death penalty for that murderer. We don't have that. Right? The judge isn't gonna do that. If I say, I want life sentence, but the the statutes say maximum fifteen years, the judge isn't gonna do life sentence. They're gonna understand that. But I still get the opportunity to say, I want I want that person in there or or, you know, whatever. And in our case, you know, whatever I say is not gonna bring Emily back. Right? It's not. But I would really, really love to have the ability to tell him and the court on the record the impact of what that loss meant to me, our family, her son, her grandmother, sisters, brothers, fathers, grandparents, community, her friends. You know, it's not these it's not just where I wanna go in and say, you need to die. You need to go to jail for the rest of your life. I just think that I should have the right in a court of law to have the same right as if she had been murdered at a bank robbery. It shouldn't matter that our killer is is claiming self our mental health. And I'm not saying that all the cases in in the state are not deserved, you know, do not deserve mental health. There are definitely cases of it. But it would be nice to be able to get to that process a little speedier, and it would be nice to be able to say that just to be heard and to get that closure, closure. Because again, as a victim, I have the right to expect the state of Vermont to provide that, the treatment, the monitoring, security, and putting somebody in an unsecured group home or back with a parent who doesn't either know how to or just has no interest in, like in our case, just helped with It's just not the right answer. So I'm sorry on that. I wanted to definitely speak with something that representative Rachelson had mentioned yesterday about location. So if I were to ever, ever have the opportunity to say something in court, I would request that Darren Pronto not be put in Bennington. There was a case earlier that I hope somebody will talk about in the next few days to talk about that, that actually gave me encouragement. This case was a not guilty by reason of insanity. They were allowed to give victim impact statements because, again, competency is not a defense. Competency is determination that you don't understand the judicial process and you cannot be held accountable. You have to be found competent to go to not guilty by reason of insanity unless there's a plea agreement otherwise. Right? So when you get to that not guilty by reason of insanity, you get to say, you get your impact statement. And this judge, the family did ask when there's placement not to have the placement local because of the the trauma to the family and the community and everything. And the judge couldn't promise it, but the judge did say, we put it in the record, we'd make the note. And if they can, you know, we'll try to do that. Now for me, I have concerns about, you know, that request, but I could still at least know that I requested it. Whether it can be taken and done or not is a totally, you know, different thing is an opportunity, you know, for that. So I think that victims do know that even though we get to that ability to be heard, it doesn't mean that what we want is going to happen or that there's going to be change or that the court can even accommodate that. Because as Karen said yesterday, there's very strict restrictions. And as you go through testimony from others on this who are against victim rights, who are against competency and forensics and the whole system, you're going to hear constantly they have the right to be in the least restrictive setting, the least restrictive setting. Every time you hear that, the least restrictive setting, I want you to look at my Celtic Cross because this is where my Emily is. And this is her least restrictive setting. She gets to get out and about with me when I go around, but that's it. And this is a direct result of our community based system. So I thank you very, very much for putting this in writing. And I hope that Jennifer, I know, is going to testify after. And I hope that you look at some of the previous bills that were written, S89, a couple of years ago. I know she sent that because we did make some progress with victims, and then we were it went through all of the committees, and then human services wiped it. So please, please remember that we do have value more than emotion. We don't want you know, people are gonna say, oh, all you want is punishment. No. No. If I wanted punishment, obviously, I'd advocate for that death penalty, but it's not about punishment. It's about keeping the community safe. It's about protecting others from potential harm because we need to have better we need to do better in our in our community programs to prevent things. And that's my 2¢.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. And that's a lot to unpack. And I really

[Kelly Carroll]: I really tried to say

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No. Six to No. No. I invited that to be broader since you are here. And there are a lot of things. You take any questions?

[Kelly Carroll]: I will take any questions. Anytime I will come back. Mean, I think you all have my evening. Absolutely.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, absolutely. So before I get to you, Tom, just a couple. So there's several things that you kind of mentioned, and a lot of what we're kind of trying to deal with. This is just one small part. There is the forensic system competency restoration. I know that Senate judiciary is starting with that. And and I think even started yesterday with the walk of that that bill. That's one that we're gonna be looking very closely at here as well. I mean, that's something we've been working on for about six years, and we'll continue until as I was commenting to somebody the other other day, was mentioning that our ceiling expungement bill, I've been working on that for eight years and we put that to bed last year. And I think that this is the year to put the forensic facility to bed as well. There's, you know, certainly the confidentiality and and it's in the family court process. I just wanna make sure I understand this. Maybe this I should probably know this completely, but when there's an incompetency determination, the initial commitment that there's an opportunity for victim input at that point for a victim statement. And it's only when they're renewing after ninety days? Or am I not understanding?

[Kelly Carroll]: I could ask There's a judge coming up this afternoon. What I could tell you is our experience. So there was a a plea agreement between the defense and the state's attorney that they well, back up. He had his competency evaluation. The first one was competent. The second one was not competent. And then that's how he got out in 2020. 2021 comes, age 57, S3. The state can ask for their own evaluation. They ask for their own evaluation. When he was arrested after the murder, he had his first evaluation for the defense. It was incomplete. And based on an incomplete evaluation, the defense psychiatrist said he was not competent. So because of S3, the state got to go back and say, we would like to request our own competency evaluation because his competency was incomplete, and then he just got the not competent on that based on prior history. So they did another evaluation and the competency came back fluid. So he kind of comes and goes. Understands, but if he sits for four or five hours, like most people, he probably starts to daydream up. So the state's attorney and the defense made an agreement to agree that he was not competent to stand trial, and he would go to the psychiatric hospital in Berlin for ninety days. We were set up with the victim notification at that point. And he went for about ninety days. And the plan was after ninety days, he would either go to the Middlesex Therapeutic Center because that was still open, or he would be released back to the community. And if he was released back to the community, then he would be deemed competent, and that cycle would start all over again. So he went to the psych hospital, and after about ninety days, it was actually Good Friday, we got an email saying that there was going to be a change of custody. That was it. Just no explanation. He was getting changed. He was going to to Southern State. No explanation. So for me, knowing how violent he is, I thought, oh my gosh, he must have hurt somebody else in prison or he did you know? Or at the hospital, he hurt somebody else at the hospital. And what it turned out to be was that you have to be in crisis to be in that hospital. And you go for ninety days, and he wasn't in crisis. If someone agitated him, he had learned to get up and walk out of the room or go separate himself into a corner or, you know, or what I would call time out. He knew how he learned how to put himself in time out. So because of that, they decided that he didn't need to be at the hospital and they were going to send him to Middlesex. Except at the time, Middlesex was not able to do involuntary medication or restraints if he got out of hand. So it was decided he would go back to Southern State, which is where he's been sitting for like the last three years. I think we're up to 13 competency evaluations he's refused, but I might be off on that number a little bit. And we go back every three to four months. And as a result of and I don't know. Maybe it's not because I've been vocal. But the last couple of years after saying, you know, we go back every three to four months. It's like reliving the whole thing again. It puts me right into my rabbit hole for, like, two days, and it's really hard on victims to do that. And now our judges are starting to go out four to five months because he is not compliant. So at least it's cutting that re trauma down about fifty, sixty percent, but it still makes it hard. And so he went back to jail and you're right, you have heard about competency in forensics for the last couple of years. In 2023, you all passed a forensic facility. It was supposed to be a part of the psych hospital in Berlin. They were gonna convert a wing over there. And that was a compromise for me. Personally, I would prefer the forensic facility either at Southern State or I hear there's a vacant public safety building somewhere in Chittenden County. But anyway, so he went back to jail because there was no involuntary medication, which is something that the Department of Mental Health has testified in numerous committees in both the House and the Senate on over the years that they needed to do it. Now they've closed Middlesex and they've got to Essex. And now they can give involuntary medication at Essex. They put that in last year. But that was something DMH had tried for five, six, seven years to get through. So I know you said that it's up hopefully this year, but it's just you have passed it. And then one committee had it removed in 2024. Health Human Services had it health health care or health human services had it removed in 2024. So now we're just right back to where we are or where we were, and it's that same vicious cycle except that now you're collecting more and more and more victims. And you're even collecting victims within those community care homes that are, you know, supposed to protect people. And and when you can get a victim lured into a home and a murder happened with the caregiver in, We need a forensic system. And I think this I I appreciate very much the fact that this bill here puts in writing that victims deserve to have a an opportunity to have a voice in a courtroom, but it's the whole system that needs to be fixed because at our rate, we're never even gonna get to that point. So you know?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Just wondering where where he is now. Is he is he in a community care home, or is he in in in jail?

[Kelly Carroll]: He he is at Southern State where he is staying because he's refusing Southern to do

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: State is a new term to me.

[Kelly Carroll]: Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Oh, okay.

[Kelly Carroll]: He is at Southern State, which is where my understanding, and again, some of the other experts can clarify, but that's my understanding of where people within the DOC system with mental health issues go to Southern State, which is why I think it just makes sense to convert that to forensics because it's kind of in a not really complete way, but it is part of that patchwork.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is it in Benedict? Springfield.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Oh, oh, the Springfield. Okay.

[Kelly Carroll]: It's in Spring Mission Care is in Bennington. Mission is in Bennington, and Mission Care is a facility, a long term care facility that Dale contracted with, and they take criminal justice involved defendants. So when we're all said and done, we have no place to put him. There is a very good possibility mission care can be considered for placement. And I just don't think people like cases such as that should be in with skilled nursing and rehab patients. I just think it needs to be someplace secure for them and staff and public.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Other questions? Thank

[Rep. Alicia Malay (Member)]: you so much for being here, and I I appreciate you sharing with us from your perspective how hard it is to keep going through this process and nomenclature. I'm wondering when you I mean, clearly, it's a really important part of the process that we need to figure out how to embed in a meaningful way that gives victims that meaningful opportunity. And when you say victims are just emotions, I certainly know that most of us don't see that, and I just hope you know that. I do. Thank you. Having somebody in the least restrictive setting, I'm just wondering your thoughts about the policy versus making a mistake in what is because it's not everyone should be in the least restrictive setting. My understanding is for their situation. And so, it seemed like that was not the right setting, obviously. That person should not have been so I don't want to necessarily have us look at, Oh, the least restrictive setting should go away, but more like, how do we make sure there are guardrails and definitions so that it's not like, oh yeah, just go home to where you were originally when you committed your first crime and get back in that situation.

[Kelly Carroll]: I think when you talk about least restrictive setting, they never say for your circumstances. That phrase is not something that I recall hearing. And I'm certainly not advocating to lock everybody up. I fully believe in community programs, community restorative justice when somebody does make a mistake. But when you when you talk about that least restrictive setting, that is sometimes used as an excuse to empower people who need that the community needs protecting from. You know? I mean and, again, I can only talk really about what, you know, our case was and and the number of people that I heard from after and what he had been doing out in the community for five or six months under UCS's supervision, so the least restrictive setting, I think that, you know, when you talk about rights, his right to cause harm should not be prioritized over my right to expect the state to do that. And sometimes, Vermont spends so much time worrying about the emotional discomfort of killers that they just completely disregard victims, public safety, and sometimes even common sense. The one time he showed up at court he doesn't have to show up at court. The one time he showed up at court, he came on with an orange camo hunting cap. He had hunted my daughter down, and they let him show up in court in hunting gear at the Vermont psych hospital. So I think, you know, the whole system just is not really victim friendly. And this is great. I really, really, really appreciate this very, very much. But I think as a whole, our whole system needs to be to be fixed or it's just going to continue. And my and I send you know when I send you lists, I send you lists of the killers. Right? And that list is getting so much longer. It just and I I don't know the I'm not a mental health expert, and I know, you know, Karen Barbara will probably come in and correct me afterwards, which I appreciate because she keeps me in line with what their thing to do is, but they're not health like she said, they're health care. They have no public safety mandate at all in any regulation related to the Department of Mental Health. And that would be something nice to add. And I think you raised a

[Rep. Alicia Malay (Member)]: really great point about where that for putting a resource in place, where should that resource go and how would that best

[Kelly Carroll]: be? Because their goal their goal is just to get you better and out the door. Out the door. That's it. And what happens when they get out the door is not their problem. It's ours. Right? It's our problem what happens when they get out that door. You know? We have somebody that we just released out that door that had no support and had challenges and recently got arrested and is now in jail in New York State in their system because our system failed.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So was the individual on an order of non hospitalization when he was out and committed the murder? He was released, yes. But he had an order of non hospitalization? I mean, he was in the community? I'm trying to

[Kelly Carroll]: He had an order of hospitalization. He stayed at the hospital for about sixteen months, and then he was released.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, so he wasn't

[Kelly Carroll]: That was before he did that was from the attempted murder home invasion.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So he was released from the order of hospitalization, not to an order of non hospitalization? So there wasn't

[Kelly Carroll]: I believe, but yeah, I don't have access to all those details.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's fine. Because one of the things that seems to be missing as far as what we're trying to do with the forensic facility and competency restoration and victim notification is supervision of individuals who are on orders of non hospitalization. That's going to be part of what we're trying to do with our pretrial supervision program that we have, but that's one of the more glaring areas that I think we need to do more work on. So I'll just comment

[Kelly Carroll]: on And I think consequences would also be something to have because they can violate their orders of non hospitalization. They can violate their things, but there's no consequences.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: There's no enforcement or necessarily supervision. That is a spot that we need to do. Other questions before Yes, Ken. Sorry, go ahead.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Sorry you're here.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I

[Kelly Carroll]: appreciate the opportunity, In

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: the right way. So I brought this up yesterday about when the people are released. You were not fully notified and told exactly what was going on, where he was going, what was what was gonna happen with him. You were just kinda left out on the lurch and thinking this and thinking that.

[Kelly Carroll]: When he you mean when he went from when he was released from Springfield Southern State into the psych hospital after he killed after he killed her?

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: No. You knew he was going from Berlin. Right. Berlin happened first. Correct? And he cast that there. Were you notified for when he was released from Berlin?

[Kelly Carroll]: No. Well, from Berlin after he killed her, yes. Beforehand, wouldn't I didn't know who he was. I'd never even heard his name before the murder. But when he was when they made the agreement that he was going into that order of hospitalization, he was not competent. And when the three months came and they were going to let him out, I got an email from the notification system. It's just like an automatic generated thing they tell you when somebody moves. And then I did talk with my victim's advocate. I probably called her because it was Good Friday. And I saw the email maybe before she did, but my victim's advocate usually will call me and say, his next court date is, or this or that. But I'll tell you, I'm nosy. So I go into the court calendar and I usually know before her because I check every couple of days. After we go to court, I go I'll give it a week or so, and then I go and I check. And and I know I could email Whitney, but Whitney has so many other cases. And if I know how to go on and and search it on the court, I do that myself. But there's other victims who just don't know how to do that, and they do, you know, they do notify. And I know that because I've talked with, you know, like, Emily's stepmother will get a note of like, when you will call her. So I I know that. In my case, that did happen. But you don't know they don't tell you why. They just say, in this case, was, okay, the notification is getting transferred. We're gonna go to court on Tuesday. So drop everything. Short notice. Tuesday, go you know, and and go to court. I love the thirty days. I love the thirty day notification because it gives you time to go in and say, hey. You know what? First of all, I gotta get my head together because the minute you hear he's getting moved, the floodgates open and it really takes time to say, okay, what am I going to do? And then there's times where like, okay, I got rearrange my work schedule because I really want to go. So I appreciate the thirty days. I know it's not realistic. Probably not going to be and take the ten days for granted and be happy and be quiet before you wash the apple cart. But it really does just kind of throw you in to try to get everything together within ten days to be able to go in and say, no. Wait a minute. And, again, I know if I get that opportunity, I can go in and say, no. He shouldn't be removed. He shouldn't be placed or whatever. And that may or may not make a difference. And maybe there'll be a couple of other people that will say that. And maybe if a couple of people speak up, the court sees a pattern. Then there's what can we do differently? You know, what services because really, as much as I'm gonna choke on this, if you think about what happened with the system, he and his families are are victims too. Right? Because the system failed them. Had the system done right in 2015 when he got arrested the first time or '16 when he got arrested the second, third time, that would maybe have made a difference in that family's life too. So, you know, when you talk about victims, there's really it's it's it's a web of it that just kind of kind of goes out.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's that's

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: kind of you to to bring up in your situation. The other thing that I and I've already seen it with you, and you've been through this, and I've met you before and all this. Is it do you think the the other victims that are are involved in this situation such as you and and the others that they just get so overwhelmed with everything that they just can't put it together piece by piece to be prepared to what's coming next?

[Kelly Carroll]: I do. I think that, and I think some of it is desensitization within the system, and I'll relate that to healthcare, right? You go to a doctor, they give you a bad diagnosis, and sometimes they're just so uncaring because it's like, Okay, you got fifteen minutes, next patient, next patient. And sometimes I think that victims get into that within the court system. And that's where I say I think it's different within the counties in Vermont because I have spoken with different victims around the the state, and they don't get the same kind of communication that I get, from Whitney in my world. And I would like to see if you're gonna put money into like a victim's liaison or something in the state level, would definitely get Jennifer's input on it. But I'd like to see more consistent practices throughout the state, you know, because there isn't, there's not and I don't know what the victim's advocates they can speak exactly, you know, like what they do. I can just tell you when I went through it, I tried to find a support group for moms of murder victims. United Counseling, they may have some brief stuff now, but there really wasn't a whole lot of grief. Even within that mental health system that we have, the support for victims sometimes, because it's not their area of expertise.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Is safe to say that you'd like to see different laws, better laws,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: that are

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: enforced, and there's better accountability for these bad actions or horrific actions?

[Kelly Carroll]: I think there definitely has

[Jennifer Coleman]: to be

[Kelly Carroll]: accountability. And I think the fact that we just kind of come in and say, oh, there's a mental health issue, and now we need to just cuddle you and take care of you and everything like that. I don't think that that's an across the board fix. I think that when you talk about it, I firmly believe that everybody at one point in their life has something mentally health issue related that they're dealing with. We all have struggles in life. Different people deal with it differently. I forgot. I'm sorry. Okay. I just I think Yes. Yeah. They I think I think we we desensitize a lot and just forget that it impacts a lot of people. It's just it's a failing system. You have passed these laws so many times, and I don't I don't know. But yes, I would like to see a comprehensive I remembered your question. A comprehensive forensic system. I would like to see competency restoration with some type of a consequence when people like in our case, that just keep refusing and wasting the state's money. There should be mandatory, whether it's treatment other than just sitting around playing games and doing what you want. We've gone to court and been told that he doesn't do his evaluation because he's not a morning person. He killed her in the morning. He got up to do that. But he's not a morning person to go to court, and the court schedules him in the afternoon. So I would like to see a lot of changes.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Kidding me.

[Kelly Carroll]: Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. Our our public defender

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: They cater to his

[Kelly Carroll]: They cater to his needs. Yep. And that's the frustrating part for a victim when you go in and you watch this, and it's going on year after year. When I first started with all of this, I remember speaking with Joanne Portenden, and her family went through this for nine years before her sister's killer died in the hospital. He was able to play the system. He was able to get new lawyers. I think he even had one of his lawyers despaired because he coached him on how to fail a competency evaluation. But it's just been going on for so long, and it's just not getting better. There's more and more incidences in Vermont. Honestly, I'm going to go right out on a limb and say it, and I apologize if this is out of line. But you've got the full senate. You've got governor Scott's administration office, and you had the full house approve a forensic facility in 2023. And in 2024, at the last minute of the session, the House Health and Human Services Committee was allowed to pull that right out from there, and it was all done. So my concern is we'll spend all this time, you'll spend all this time, you'll get these laws bills ready to go to the floor for a vote, and it will get slaughtered out in health care humans not health care, human services in the house, because that's what my personal experience with them has been. That was where a lot of the victims' rights were pulled from. That's where victims were told that were irrelevant. That's where victims are not allowed to testify. And I really wanna give kudos to you and the judiciary committee because you have always welcomed victims. And I thank you for that, and I'll say that on the senate side as well. But that is if you're looking at obstacles and getting bills passed and significant meaningful change made, then you've got to work around Health Human Services because they are 100% the roadblock to any meaningful change in Vermont, and they have been that way for years.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, appreciate your testimony on all these issues. So thank you very much. I really appreciate you being here. And we do have some testimony at 02:00, but it shouldn't last too long. I understand that this is the program downstairs is going until like 04:00. So we should be able to catch some.

[Kelly Carroll]: The victims will be in the first hour. And I appreciate that. And if I've gone out of line, I apologize.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, thank you very much for your honesty, and thank you yeah.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I'm glad you started pointing fingers, because I was gonna raise my hand and point some myself. There's a lot of people in this building that have loud voices that wanna open the doors of secure facilities, let people out on the streets because that's a compassionate thing to do with people, you know, as far as I I don't understand it as far as taking care of them. There's people in this building that agree with the way the system is as far as, you know, people, the way people are taking care of, like your daughter's murderer. And we definitely need I mean, you said consequences. I heard accountability, same thing. And we definitely need more accountability with these people. And myself, I just don't understand people who just wanna let people out. Because we can't just let people out for number one, we don't have the wraparound services to take care of them. And in a sense, are we warehousing some people? Absolutely. Absolutely. But if that is what needs to be done on a permanent or temporary basis to keep your daughter safe or people, you know, just people in the community, then that's that's what needs to be done. You know, we don't have the, you know, the the probably the billions of dollars in Vermont that's, you know, to set up the the proper mental health system. And we hear it all the time in here. Whether we're looking at a situation like this or if we're talking about something that happens with firearms, people come back and say, and I'll use the firearms as an example, it's not the firearm, it's the person. It's the person with the mental health issue that we're not taking care of. And we just don't have the the resources to do it. And and again, but the the accountability is huge. And and and there there's accountability. And and I'll even go to the homeless situation, you know, problem that we have. There's a new facility that's just starting in Rutland, new 10 beds. And one of the main things when they take somebody in is the accountability. And if you don't follow the rules and they're lucky enough to have access to all the wraparound services, then you're gone and we're gonna bring somebody in that will be accountable. And that's a huge piece of it for me.

[Kelly Carroll]: Yeah, it's a huge piece. And unfortunately, when that piece is missing, what it does is it empowers people to progress in violence and to escalate their actions. And it teaches them the wrong don't want a lessons seems like a negative word, but, you know, it sends the wrong message. You know?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And there's again, there's there's people and I don't understand it. And I but I know there's people in this building that would agree that, well, he's not a morning person, then let him go in the afternoon. Yeah. It's not accountability.

[Kelly Carroll]: Yeah, it's

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I'm not a morning person either.

[Kelly Carroll]: No. Me

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: neither. I get up every day.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Although just just be clear, he this person is still being held at He is. Other states. So he's not, like, being let out because he's a morning. No.

[Kelly Carroll]: He is he is held at Southern State. But eventually, it's gonna get to the point where he has the right to a speedy trial. It's been five years. He's delaying it. So sooner or later, something's gonna has to happen. If somebody's gonna have to give either the state's attorney's gonna have to say, okay. We're not asking anymore. Right? And then he goes then, you know, they'll probably agree that he's not competent. And then he'll go, I don't know where. Maybe Essex? Maybe to a group home in Randolph? Maybe to a nursing home, a skilled nursing facility? I don't know. Right now, he is there. He is supposed to have an evaluation. It's scheduled for next month. He has said he is going to take it and do it, but only because there's a woman on the defense team that he likes, and she has agreed to sit in on the evaluation. So now we are the dating service. So anyway, on that note, the only other the last thing I just wanna because of what you said about money, we spend as as a state tons and tons and tons of money on on mental health and health care and corrections. You know, I I don't know the total number. We should kinda be able to make it happen with what we've got considering how we we have money that really isn't being well spent. And when you listen to people that come up from different agencies or lobbying groups or representatives or something, maybe not referenced in the sense of you all, but and what I've heard, and I'm and you hear it all the time is we need more money. We need more money. We need more money. Victims are the one group that comes before you that says, let's work on this. Let's see what we can do. We wanna fix that. We never ask for money. Let's make do there's no reason that we can't reorg what we have, especially within the Department of Mental Health because they are very, very expensive and use some of our funds a little bit better. But victims are the one group that come before you and never ask you for money. We just ask you to help us be heard and help keep us safe.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Appreciate that. Thank you.

[Kelly Carroll]: Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much again. Thank you so much. So, Judge Sony, are you okay for we were gonna go to Jennifer Coleman next, but I wanna just find out about your timing. Are you able to stick around a bit? Sure. Okay. So Jennifer, if you could join us. Thank you, Beaner. Jennifer?

[Jennifer Coleman]: Good morning. For the record, Jennifer Coleman, director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. And I've got all these notes, but I'm just gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know if that's an okay expression anymore, but very humbling to follow Kelly Carroll. I came to know her soon after I took this position, and she educated me a lot on these pieces, and we've worked together on them for over four years. So I don't I'm trying to regroup and figure out what I can offer this committee on top of what Kelly just presented, because she basically is the face for most of what I would speak about, because it is very true. And it's something that has been an issue for victim advocates, the Attorney's Office, but since I've been working in this field in Vermont, is that you can have the same crime, the same trauma. But if it goes one road, you have no information. It's a black hole. But if it goes the other road, you do have rights, rights on the books, and it looks a little bit different. And where I see this bill as important, and I'm going to take a little bit of a step back so that we can find a path forward, is that we're providing some basic rights to notification and the right to be heard. And again, because I've been involved in this for a while, I did provide some documents to to Nate, one of which was the Act 'seventy eight report, of which I was elected vice chair who worked on these issues. We had a great report that actually moved us forward. We were all excited. We had some recommendations, looked great. Victims' rights were in there, most of which you will see here in this bill. Those basic rights to an order to pay it. Basic rights to appear in person to deliver your impact statement. That, in fact, was, again, no objections to those pieces by a very diverse, very interesting group of folks that were on that committee. And you'll see when you look through who was represented. There were no objections at that time.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: This is the act number.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Act 78. Act 77? I don't know. I thought it was Act 78. The report that I submitted, maybe it was 27.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, yeah. Yep.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I'm looking at Nate.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Tell me Nate. So what did I do? Nate?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm just seeing that on here. Just want to make sure that it's me.

[Jennifer Coleman]: But you'll see the representatives that were on there. So not an easy group to corral, though, and no objections to those pieces. What you again see here is this bill around notification, around right to appear in first. And then that language passed the Senate in full in 2023. It passed out of this committee. And I shared that bill that shows the last version that came out of this committee where you said, yes, these are rights that we should advance. That all went south when it left this committee. But this is not new language. This is language that has been, again, approved by the full Senate, approved by this committee. Three of you were not on this committee. I'm looking at two of you. One is absent, but this had been approved. So it's not a new concept. And I think one of the pieces that came up during this conversation over the years is, well, there's confidentiality issues, privacy issues and the like. And we had this conversation back in 2022 when we thought about how do we advance victims' rights in juvenile and useful offender proceedings. And what was brought forward at that time was a unanimous recommendation from all the stakeholders, including that we could thread that needle. We could allow for a victim to be heard without listening to all of the different ways in which the youth, the young person's, you know, maybe history, trauma history, other pieces would be shared. We again, a collective of us from all across the place advanced that recommendation. And it passed in 2022 because we could thread that needle that a victim could appear in person simply to deliver that impact statement. Some questions came up yesterday around, are we setting victims up? What is the expectation? I mean, not to be so cynical this early in the session, but I'm sorry. We set victims up all the time with Title 13. There's tons of rights in there. There's no recourse at all. So I want to just say, yeah, I'm cynical. But I think what's lost sometimes is that it is really, really important for victims just to be heard. In a lot of cases, even in Title 13, those processes, victims are giving their victim impact statement after the power brokers have already made those decisions. But I think what I always harken back to is that the National Crime Victims Legal Institute did a national survey of victims and survivors across the country. What was one of the most important things to you in terms of feeling empowered, feeling that this was a positive experience? Can you name that? And across the boards, the number one piece that came forward was that I was hurt. It wasn't that the person, you know, who got X number of years of jail time, it wasn't that the person was off the streets or that the you know, they it was that I was heard. And so I'm a realist, and I understand that this will maybe not make a difference, but it's important to provide that opportunity that they can share with their own voice what this means to them. Not through a letter that's delivered by a victim advocate or a prosecutor, but just be able to go in and share what that experience was. So I think that's a value that sometimes we assume is maybe not worth pursuing. But I'm here to say I think that that is a value worth pursuing. And I think, again, we've done it before, and I don't see the privacy and confidentiality interests necessarily significantly different from what we did with young people. Alicia? Thank you for being here, thank you for sharing that. And I was one of the people yesterday that brought up that question. I appreciate it for that reason that you said that it can make it confusing for, wait, I shared this and why isn't it following that? So it's just helpful to hear on record that you feel like it is worth being heard even if it isn't going to be incorporated in any next step or anything like that, but just to have your story out there. Because that's the piece that I worry about is that somebody feel like they've shared their piece and like, wait, why didn't you use that? Why didn't you incorporate that? Why didn't you do that? And I just don't want to hurt people. And I also get what you're saying. Well, the system already does that. So somebody who works in the field, just hearing you say like, in this case, it's worth it. That's helpful. Thank you. I was about to actually reference you.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: That case, will start.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I was gonna say, think, reptile Goodnow asked that question yesterday, like, when we say prosecutor's office, is it the victim advocate or is the prosecutor it always that's how it's phrased elsewhere in statute. But that victim advocate is still working with that victim. So I think that, as you've heard from Kelly, how really helpful Whitney for victim advocate has been. They get the information that they can get, which is still limited. But it's the same way in which Attorney McManus is following later on, but it's the same way in which that victim advocate works with them to say, like, let's help you prepare your statement, share your story.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And

[Jennifer Coleman]: again, already in Title 13, sometimes these decisions are already made, But it is empowering for victims and survivors to stand there and say, this is what happened. This was my experience. I do think it is important, as Kelly Carroll alluded to, that in some of these cases, the victim survivor is going to know a lot more about this person than anybody else. So giving information about where they should be returning to, those kinds of pieces. And again, maybe this is not even going to be taken into consideration. But you know, I've I've been in the room when I heard Kelly's testimony and Joanne Courditt's testimony dismissed by a couple of witnesses who said victims have nothing to add of value. They're just emotional. Followed up right after they had testified. That's pretty brutal. And I really beg to differ, but that is should be the way that we think about what victims and survivors have to offer.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Just appreciate all the testimony you've heard on this. And I don't want to testify, but I will just say that I have had the experience on both sides hearing victim impact statements and sentencing, and it does make a big difference. Mean, in the sense that Or it has. A judge I've seen judges pause, and I think that's real. And it also forces everybody to really look at a plea agreement and are we getting a just resolution here, and can we justify where we're going? And I think that that is huge. And that's actually one of the reasons why I think it's so important that we let victims speak in these other proceedings. I'm not trying to counter anything that's been said, but I think it is really important. It's really, really important what we do provide. And I think in a lot of ways, I also feel fairly cynical about it because it's hard to tell or to read a victim's past statement and know that maybe not really changing anything here for someone to the court, but this is an important part of the process. I guess my question is, kind of the testimony we heard yesterday was a lot of reasons why we couldn't do other things based on potentially HIPAA or a lot of different things. But why aren't we allowing what's been the pushback in the past on specifically victim impact statements being made in family court during these particular proceeds, just because we have the exact thing in criminal. And in fact, I was reviewing the Title 13 stuff. The language is like, the court shall consider a victim impact statement when looking at a sentencing. So the language isn't any stronger, really, in what's proposed here and maybe what was proposed in the prior iterations.

[Jennifer Coleman]: And we have it in Title 33. The pushback has come from one committee. One committee.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I'm not trying to point fingers, sorry.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Trying I'm to just point

[Jennifer Coleman]: saying that's where the pushback's been.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Okay, I didn't understand. Don't because I'm new, I don't really understand how this has Okay.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I'm still learning too. But there was a lot of agreement on the piece to at least thread the needle for having that the the victim survivor appear in person. Those pieces, again, passed out of house judiciary a couple of times, stripped every time.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Okay.

[Jennifer Coleman]: So I'll leave that. I'll that, LT.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. The question I have, it may be for judge Zone, for Kim McManus, but I'm gonna guess you may know the answer just because you're involved in this. So Kelly was talking about the delays.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I mean, it's been five years to see what you said.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And she also mentioned another case that the person was able, I don't know if it was a murder case or not, but the person was able to delay it for nine years and then died.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Yes. That's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it never went to court. Mhmm.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: The average person doesn't know how to pull the strings for a delay. So I gotta I'm assuming that it's probably their their counsel that is guiding them and getting all these delays. And and maybe even so I guess the question is, in in this case with with Kelly, do they have a public defender?

[Jennifer Coleman]: Yes. Okay. I understand from Kelly that she and she's not here, but she'll be back again at some point that what was told to her was that you would be it would be problematic to advise your client to get a competency evaluation.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So so where I'm going with it is so we have a public defender being paid for by state money, keeping prosecutors at bay being paid for with state money, and there's no justice in the whole thing.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I I

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: see way I see it as a layperson.

[Jennifer Coleman]: I do think Would

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: make no sense at all.

[Jennifer Coleman]: That's in in in terms of the case that Kelly referenced that relates to Joan Fortinet, who's been in front of this committee before. Her sister, Kathleen, was murdered in Burlington in 2010. He was never found competent. There was no movement to make him, to try and restore him to competency. He died in custody. They found out after the fact they had no information during that nine year period about what was happening with him in terms of restoration because we don't have a competency restoration program. So that's a conversation for another day that needs to happen. But it is a question when Kelly mentions how many times that this person is not following through on evaluations that have been scheduled. And we know from previous testimony a couple of years ago how difficult it is. There used to be a wait list. How difficult it is to get people scheduled for these evaluations. That's concerning to me that there's no consequence.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And even though she might monitor any organizations involved that are letting these people know their rights, and I understand everybody has rights that are also delaying the whole process?

[Jennifer Coleman]: I'll punt that to attorney McManna, so.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I'm

[Jennifer Coleman]: frustrated that there's not because it is so hard to get these evaluations scheduled, I am frustrated that people are not held accountable when they do not appear for them, whether they're not I'm not a morning person either. I made it. So I'm just frustrated that that is something that has delayed this piece for five years now. There's no not even a there's not even been a meaningful hearing for Emily, who was stabbed in broad daylight on a path in Beningk. In the morning. Yeah. So that is frustrating.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Absolutely. Right. So, but just a little bit of a counter. I mean, prosecutors and defense counsel are trying very hard with the resources they have, as are the victim advocates. And you have victim advocates who have 7,000 clients in some counties. It's partly, it has to do with resources that we're providing the whole system on how well this is or isn't working.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Well, don't mean to I think this committee well knows how strong I support the victim advocates. So if anything I said came across differently.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No, no, no,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you said. Angela.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Thanks for being here, Jen. I have a question that I want to ask you because I think it's a really difficult question, And I think that you occupy You have knowledge that will help me.

[Kelly Carroll]: Any question? Let's hope so now.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's set up. I know,

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: a lot of set up. So I'm thinking back to our testimony yesterday from DMH that, and we just heard Kelly reiterate that DMH has zero public safety requirement, consideration, statutory obligation. Knowing that you have a very deep understanding and probably pretty nuanced understanding of what it is to be a victim and how many offenders are also victims of trauma and other things, should those two, the criminal and the civil that are kept apart by this bright line, should it be so? Should it always be? Should DH maybe have some sort of Is there something we could devise that would appropriately care for folks with mental health needs and place some amount of responsibility on on DMH, on the entity with all the deepest knowledge, let's say clinical knowledge of mental health, to also protect public safety? Is that an unholy marriage?

[Rep. Alicia Malay (Member)]: I'm not

[Jennifer Coleman]: going to dodge the question, but I do think that some of this, it's important for me to understand the direction that we're going to go, because most importantly, from my perspective, is to identify what a forensic facility and a competency restoration program would look like. And I understand, as you all know, the limited resources that are available. And for me, that conversation really needs to happen in the context of what direction are we going in. Because if it does happen that DOC is taking this space on, then yes, I think that there should be somebody within DOC who has that clinical expertise, who is a point person for victims and survivors. Because we also want to make sure that we can hand somebody, again, another handoff for a victim survivor. And so it needs to be a meaningful one. And I don't know DMH is there, and I can't really speak to what's appropriate for their mission. But I do think that the idea of a position is really important once we identify as a or once you identify as a body the direction you want to go in. I absolutely think that that's important, because it's just too much. It's just too much to navigate in systems. Don't know if that answers your question, but that's Well, was Without knowing where we're going, So that's what I can

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: then, would you say that if we are going in the direction of, if we choose the forensic system, I like that I'm hearing folks refer to it as a forensic system, not a forensic facility. Sorry. No, think that helps me think about it holistically, this use of the word system. So if we're going in the direction of a forensic system, would it make my question moved? Can complete does that completely separate or separate enough DMH, DOC, judiciary? You know what I mean? Like, does it keep everything separate enough to, like so that we don't have to wrestle with should DMH have some responsibility for public safety?

[Jennifer Coleman]: I think having a person who's person for victims and survivors within that system makes the most sense versus yet another person within each agency. It's just more piecemeal. And so for me, I So that person could be a linchpin. Yes, and I support the conversation and the direction that we're going in. I just think that the idea of the position will make a lot more sense when we know what this is going to look like.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Ian and I can

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Just quick, I don't know if procedural question is the right word, but so is it possible, I guess looking to the chair here, what comes from the Senate would impact I'm just trying to understand I didn't ask an actual question there, but

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So their understanding is they're taking up S-one 193, which is the Forensic Facility and Competency Restoration. My looking at that and looking at this bill is I don't see how they necessarily completely travel together. And I think it'll be kind of looking at what's happening with that bill, if that's expanding. So I'm gonna be keeping track of that as the session progresses. And if it looks like we need to pass this separately, which I think probably we do, then we'll come back to this. We kind of get a better idea of what, especially if they're working on it right now. I'll find out, today is Wednesday, tomorrow we're gonna have a meeting among the chairs and vice chairs. And I'll find out what their timing is. And if we have plenty of time where we see where they've ended up or what they're sending to us, then we do this. That's really helpful. Yes, very helpful. Do you wanna talk about that or? No, can go. Ken, go

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: ahead. I believe it has been brought up about the monetary cost of what it takes to to deal with the the people that did the crimes and all that stuff and how much it's it's it's costing for just to keep going down through the judicial system and how we keep since 2019 that I came in here, we keep avoiding or somehow another getting away from a forensic

[Jennifer Coleman]: System.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Facility system, whatever you wanna say. Whatever people wanna say. I just think we need one and need it. I just wonder just wonder if you think that we'd actually be saving money by actually having this facility and keeping more Vermonters safe, and then it'd actually be a cost savings benefit by having this instead of going through this failed, what I think is a mental health, I'm not gonna blame try not to blame other people, but obviously it gets stalled. It seems like we've had a good response coming out of out of judiciary, and it gets stalled otherwise. And I wonder the resources would be a hell of a lot better spent to spend on a forensic facility, keep more Vermonters safe, and we'd and certainly less heartbreak from listening to victims and and and saving money.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Well, I'm a lawyer by trade, which means I don't do numbers. So I will say

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: There's a lot of people in this building that don't do numbers. But

[Jennifer Coleman]: I I do think when you listen to Kelly, Carol, and some of the other survivors that I've worked with, these aren't situations where they just came out of nowhere. And so well, I can't do the numbers to read as we all do in the paper that these people were struggling for a while. And if we had better resources on the prevention end or intervention end, it seems that in some of the cases that I read about, know about, hear about, some of these situations could have been avoided. So, again, I don't crunch numbers, but I do do the work. And it's really hard to read that there are people coming to the attention because they've committed a really violent crime that other people knew about.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Are we enforcing these crimes hard enough?

[Jennifer Coleman]: Well, that's a question for another day. I

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: was gonna wait, and I couldn't resist.

[Jennifer Coleman]: You know, I no. That's I think that they're

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I mean, you hear the the victims are here, and you hear it, and your heart bleeds for them. And it's like and it's like eight years. Eight years. Well, actually a little bit before that with me. And it's like, at some point and how many years you've been dealing with this?

[Jennifer Coleman]: Well, I've been around the block for a while now, so I'm taking a few trips. I think that there's a lot of ways that we can make change. But I think right here before us today, it's thinking about how can we provide victims with space to share their story. And I do understand senate judiciary is taking up s one ninety three. There's not a single word about victims in that bill. So you'll be we'll be knocking. We'll be knocking because that's absent even though, as you'll see, this passed the substance of what you see in age six seventy two passed out of the full senate in 2023. Recommended in the report that I shared and passed out of this committee. So I'm going to be knocking on the door, along with others, to say, let's bring that back because it's not currently in the Senate version.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. And it's as introduced. And that's why I'm saying that we'll kind of track if it does get in there. And I'm sure you'll help us keep track of that.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Yes, I will.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, Tom.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Some of the conversation has got off the bill a little bit, so I'll say Oh, no. And lucky for us, just in the nick of time, we have a public safety omnibus bill that just got pinned to the wall. See that? That actually has some competency restoration and some language for forensic facilities. It's excellent language. Who started that? I believe it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I did. So so so anyway. So

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: if we pass this bill, there's a real good chance that the money is gonna get

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: pulled once it goes to another committee.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: With what's in this bill, can the work still be done without the money?

[Jennifer Coleman]: Yes. I think the most important piece from from where I sit are the notice provisions and the ability for a victim to be able to appear in person. Okay. That's it. That's what was passed out of here. That's what was passed out of the senate. The other piece is we all love a good working group. We've done this twice, 2022, 2024. But I think the pieces that need to need to be highlighted are what's already passed on this committee.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And that's that's important for

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: me to know so I can pass the word along to others. Yes. That this bill can be supported because the number one, I think most everybody knows in this day and age, the money's probably gonna be pulled. But also, and I can support it, even though the money's in it, because the work is still gonna get done, which is most important.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Absolutely, Go back to draft 4.1, which I shared that came out of this committee. Go back to that. Those are the pieces that have already received a lot of support and don't cost any additional money.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So far I've not seen overwhelming support for the liaison and that money. So I can see if we're going move this bill forward, that would probably even be taken off. It doesn't have to Well, we'll probably still have to

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: go appropriation. If it was money, I'd support it. Yeah. You know? I mean, if there's no issue with money, there's always issues with money.

[Jennifer Coleman]: Again, I've I've been around long enough that the snails approach is kind of where I'm at, slowly creeping. But these are

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the

[Jennifer Coleman]: pieces that are, from my perspective, senator's perspective. These are the ones that have been approved, again, have been attempted to be implemented and will not cost the state any additional dollars. And then we fight another day.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we could go through the bill, I think we're gonna have probably a revised version of Judge Zone, do you have enough time between Is ten minutes enough or do we wanna reschedule you to Friday afternoon?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Should be able to do it in ten minutes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm hearing a bunch of people saying reschedule though. I heard two of my members, are you available Friday at 01:00?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Let me check. I know at 03:00 I am not. Let me make sure for 01:00. Again, always check the physical therapy. Next week I have it. Friday, if it's better, I can do it at 01:00, sure. Whatever. I don't think it'll take too long, but I can make that work.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, so we're not rushed because this committee, we have lots of questions. So even if you could do it in ten minutes, we probably have ten minutes worth of questions. And I know some folks have new meetings and such, including me to talk about the forensic facility actually. So I appreciate it. So we'll schedule you for 01:00 on Friday afternoon. I really appreciate you being here though. And hopefully, happy to hear what people are saying. We'll be able to Always

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: very helpful, and I will see you Friday afternoon. Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The beard's looking great, by the way.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Although representative Burditt knows, I'm getting to that point where I'm getting my range of motion. So once I exceed that range of motion, think the beard might be going. I was

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair)]: just gonna I was just gonna ask you how the flipper is doing.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we're gonna go live. We're we're adjourned until fifty.