Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Welcome back to the Health Judiciary Committee, continuing our work

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: on age six twenty six. And we have legislative counsel here now, Michelle, and we're going to go over some additional things that we're gonna want in the next version, I think, given the testimony we've had today. And we can just touch base so everybody understands the other stuff that you've been working on. How should we start? Do you want us to hit the couple items that you've we're gonna see in the next version that you've already been looking

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: talk to you just generally about those?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. That that would be great.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I did start working so for the record, Michelle Channel's office of legislative council, and we are talking about markup and strike all committee amendment to H-six 26. So in terms of the substantive, and I'll just add, there is one technical that I walked you through that there were some incorrect cross references. So I'll deal with that in there. The other issue was y'all were interested in taking the provision that is in the distribution of sexually explicit materials without consent statute, you add the new sexual extortion language, and breaking out that subdivision B2B that deals with compelling a person to produce images or engage in sexual conduct by threatening them with disclosing a secret or reporting to police that they're using drugs or something like that, and you wanted to break that out into a separate statutory section so it would be its own. And so I just wanted to say that on that, my recommendation would be that you don't just pull b to b. You bring the whole sexual extortion into its own statute because I think it is a little confusing to have what is essentially an extortion provision in twenty six zero six and in twenty six zero seven. And twenty six zero seven specifically is titled sexual extortion. And I think the if you leave the other provision in there, it gets a little buried. And I don't think she'll mind me sharing her thoughts with you, but that was one of the things I was just checking with Dominica on. And she doesn't she thinks the whole thing should if you move it, you move the whole thing. You don't leave it there.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But should we still move out the engage in sexual conduct out from the other items in 2b, which is I still think that the one is dealing with nude images.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Can we say just let everyone know what lines we're talking about?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Page 10, lines seven to nine.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sorry to interrupt you, Flo.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, no, not at all. So it just seemed to me that what we're mostly getting at in the disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent was the extortion related to the images, not extortion to get somebody to engage in sexual conduct. That's So maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're asking for. Yeah, didn't. So I wasn't looking to move all of B entirely. It was just the engage in sexual conduct, which is different than extorting to get new images or images of sexual conduct. That seems to be a very separate, very different thing that it was seeking to extort.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. It

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: may not have been clear when I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Checking the written record.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I don't know if I read your email.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I read your email a couple times, but I thought you were saying that one

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, the whole thing. It's the division between images and

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So you would say that if someone was going to, with the intent to compel a person to engage in sexual conduct, threaten those things, you want a separate new statute

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I for think it's very separate behavior, I believe. Is it not? I mean, doesn't seem to fit in the whole provision related to disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I get what you're saying. I would say that when I was looking at some of the statutes in the other states, again, because this idea of sexual extortion is fairly new in terms of the law specifically addressing it, is that you usually see them separate and apart out in its own statute. I think I'm fine with that. I'm just

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You could have a separate sexual extortion statute, but it still needs to separately have the for images on one side for

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So what if I did the sexual extortion statute to a twenty six zero seven and then did an A and a B, and then you have them separate there, and then you deal with that there. And then it's all in one place, you don't have to go comb you through there. We could still use the definitions that are in 2606, but incorporation through reference. Can

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I use a hypothetical? I'm just trying to keep it as bland as possible to not So the image is here no matter what. So the image, the charge is no person shall knowingly threaten to disclose a visual image or identify a person blah blah blah. So you've already got an image. And now I'm messaging an individual online, and I say, I have this image of you, I'm going to disclose this image of you unless you produce another image of yourself and send it to me. That would be the first part of B. Now the second part that you want to cut out of there is engage in sexual conduct. So what we would be taking out of this would be basically, I have an image of you. I want you to now go and do this sexual act.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's captured in two way. That's captured in two way. 2B is just saying, I'm compelling you to get me nude images or images of sexual conduct. And these are the things I'm gonna do to coerce you. You know, I'm gonna cause injury to person. I'm gonna talk about immigration status, etcetera, to get the photos. You don't have the photos yet. This is extortion to get nude photos. What's more on the gist? I guess I don't.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So they so you don't for to b, you don't have the photo yet?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. Correct. Correct.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No person shall know only threaten.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: You are you are threatening

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Too bad.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: So if you look at times 10 through 16, you are threatening one of those things, accusing a person of a crime. I'm gonna beat you up, or I'm gonna tell someone you had an abortion, or I'm gonna report your immigration status if you don't produce images for me or engage in sexual conduct.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: As it currently reads, yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Sexual conduct in fifth because the rest of everything was dealing with images.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: You mean in terms of to or to engage in sexual conduct. So you're just talking about that, taking that one out.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I guess I don't understand how

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: but that would be the two part. Yeah. I

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: think I know what you want. Does it make

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: sense? I

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: think I know what you want. Let me play around with some language. I do think that taking it out of 2,606, all the threats, and putting it into a 2,607 sexual extortion and then covering each different type of threat. Because they're all involving threats. The underlying is basically that you have an image that you're distributing that you're not allowed to.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Does that make sense? Maybe until I mention something else.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. Lay it on me.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'll read this. Just from the discussions, I talked to a couple of people offline, not to everybody. Looking at B1 and then B2. So and this kinda came up with the meeting meeting to have a felony for extradition purposes. But that's language that's on page ten seventeen to 18. And we're talking in here about making that a felon. But But this is where this kind of came from. When I was looking at this, I was thinking, well, on B1, we have different kinds of behavior and it's different behavior that when you pass this bill as a revenge porn bill. We were looking more at the harming and harassing individuals. And now we also, but we also have on there, this is on line nine on page nine. This is knowingly disclosing the image. So you're disclosing that you're not just threatening With the intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten or coerce. The threaten and coercing, I could see there being a higher penalty, for instance, on that. So let me just go to what I was going to suggest. And that was actually M2 and B2 was to say no person shall knowingly disclose or threaten to disclose the visual image of an identified person, etc. For these various purposes. So there you're getting at the threat and it sounded kind of like from Commander Raymond's testimony that there could be a scenario where somebody has released an image and then threatened to release more images or have additional releases. And that all kind of goes together somewhat. But it's also getting more at what the intent of either disclosing or threatening to disclose. And that is what we have on page 10 on lines one

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: So you're talking about amending in B1 and just being no person shall knowingly disclose or threaten to disclose.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm saying B2 should be no person shall knowingly disclose or threaten to disclose. And I would get rid of on line nine, the threaten or courts. So our misdemeanor is just gonna be if somebody discloses it with this lower intent, in my view, harming is bad, harassing is bad, maybe intimidating, know, that's also bad, but it's different than the threats that we're talking about, that we lay out in some detail, again on page 10, lines one, six.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: But you already in being one, have an important to unknowingly disclose. So you're saying create the two without the intent to harm?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm suggesting that the intent of threatening, the intent to compel a person to produce new images, engage in sexual conduct, provide money, all those kinds of things, That is connected to whether something's been initially disclosed with additional threats or just the threat of disclosure. I mean, could disclose it and I could say, I'm going to take this down, I'll take this down if you pay me $10,000 Whatever. So it's been disclosed, but it's still the behavior we're trying to get at is more under B2. Is this making sense to anybody else besides Yes,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think I get what you're saying.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Do you want to clarify and say it in

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: a better way than me? I'm sorry, I'm not following.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Let me check. So I think you're saying B1 would just be the disclosure of a visual image of an identifiable person who is nude or is engaged in sexual conduct with the intent to harm, harass, or intimidate the person. And then B2, so we said we'd be losing, threatened, and coerce from B1, but then we're picking it up by adding in B2A, no person shall knowingly disclose or threaten to disclose a visual image of an identifiable person he's engaged in with the intent to compel a person because then we get into these things that you're intending to do that include coercion and threatening. So you drop it out of B1 because you're picking it up in the additional language that we're proposing from B2.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it's like looking at B1, you're talking about threatening or oppose. What does that mean? Presumably, it means the intent to compel a person to do these five listed things. Right. So why not put that all

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Because with in tormention, there's a purpose. And

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: then I'm comfortable, at least I'm comfortable, of having a felony for all that behavior. I'm not comfortable with having a felony with the intent to harm her or harass. I mean, it's bad, but a misdemeanor could be sufficient. And it's a different level of culpability, at least as I look at it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sense to me. Okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And then I think that we can, I feel more comfortable in having the felony for just the B2? Seeing that, Michelle?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, but I'm trying to think about it in context. I think maybe I have to get some stuff on paper and start looking at how everything fits together. Okay, okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then separate from that, separate from those two would be the engaging in sexual compelling a person to engage in sexual conduct. Right. And engage in or compel a person to produce nude images or images of sexual conduct separate from compel a person to engage in sexual conduct.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I think it all still would fit as a separate sexual extortion. Because, yes, I've disclosed the image, but I'm still using it to extort something from you. Because I'm threatening or coercing

[Unidentified Committee Member]: anything. So

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: anything with extortion goes into 2607. If it's with regard to the visual images, it's gonna stay in twenty six zero six. Don't know.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No. I don't think there's the threats are kind of going away with respect to twenty six zero six.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: But I thought you said that under b I mean, b two.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, that would be in 2607.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it's really I'm looking Oh,

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: you would move that. Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I'm really looking I'm focusing in what the intent is, not whether it's a disclosure or a threat to disclose. Okay. Yeah.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: All right, I'll play around with it, and you can tell me who my evens are close.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Ian, do you want to talk about the enhancements? Because

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I can do that. Sorry.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We have more.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: On this pitching out, also, I just wanted to raise, and this may be what you're getting up to. But I had just had in my notes circling back around the penalties. And once you have all the elements of different things, just want to remind you that extortion under existing law, even though it's not specific to this kind of a thing, is five years. You have this as two year. I know you guys have talked about, certainly a lot about minors as as victims, and then also about to think about whether you do something like felon murder, which I think I have a alternative suggestion kind of getting at something like that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But I just I think we wanna do both of those. Okay. And I think the five year to be consistent with what extortion is makes sense. So do

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: it as commensurate. So do the new 2607 with a five year felony? Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It makes sense. It's it's commensurate with what we have. Okay.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want any penalty enhancement beyond that for minors? Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I don't know what it would be, but yes. We

[Unidentified Committee Member]: were looking at the Michigan law, which has an enhancement for if the victim is a minor, it enhances it to a felony and punishable up to twenty five years. And enhancement, the third degree enhancement, second enhancement is if the victim suffers serious physical harm, serious mental harm, or death as a result of the violation.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So I think for you, so those are the two categories that I just mentioned that you would look to can make from a policy decision, you can decide whatever you want for the penalties. But the one is you figure out what's the age. Do you want to use minor? So it's anybody who is 18 years of age or what's your age there. And then what penalty do you want? So something that's more than five.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What would we look at as other comparable offenses? Would we look at looting insidious with a child, for instance? That's a

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: five year. Mean, has a mandatory minimum, too. But yeah, I can give you guys some examples for things like that. And then also on the issue around if there's we'd go with our typical language for serious bodily injury or death resulting. So you have statutes on the books currently that have that. So you're dispensing or selling illegal drugs with serious bodily injury or death resulting, I think, a 15.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Was thinking I

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: think having something specific rather than trying to shoe hornet in somewhere else, but just use the model that you've used before and how the witnesses are going feel about that, but that would

[Unidentified Committee Member]: be my recommendation. That sounds good. Said Luden Lassevious has a mandatory minimum?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: With a child, not L and L.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The child.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: L and L with a child.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is that typical in the sex crimes to have a mandatory minimum?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Sex crimes are really kind of one of the only places or really, where you mostly see mandatory minimums. And that happened Well, it was kind of the aughts where there was a lot of work on the sex crimes and sex offender laws, things like that. And so there were some

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Did they go ahead and think

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of they worthy of things like diversion?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, remember, things can always be pled down. There can be a lot of things. And there's also language in when you usually have a mandatory minimum, you say that it should be served unless there are certain circumstances and the court makes a statement. And I'm trying to pull it up. I can let you know. So for lunas of use, conduct with a child

[Unidentified Committee Member]: With a child, not a minor.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: With a child.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What is the age on that one?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Age of 16 and under.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: 16 and under. Because age no, 16. Sorry. Oh, no. This is six wait. Child under the age of 16. Yeah. Because age of 16 is age of consent. And is that for first offense, it's two to 15. Second offense, five to life. Third offense, 10 to life. Then you have the catchall language in there around sentence order pursuant to let's see, for B2, I think for a second offense shall include at least a five year term of imprisonment and a sentence. So they say you have these mandatory minimums, but generally where you have a mandatory minimum, there's some kind of language there that does allow some court discretion in the matter. Also have something you always have to think about with these things. Is there something else that can be pled to? Because the danger in having one particular offense with a high penalty, and you may have issues. You've heard tons of testimony about these very difficult crimes to prosecute, especially if you have child witnesses. So you kind of I mean, it's not really you should get that testimony from one of the prosecutors from Domenico or from Kemba or whatever, Ian can speak to it. But the issue of having some kind of off ramp for more difficult cases rather than going to trial and losing it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it's also a downside for having mandatory minimum. Right,

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: because people are gonna go to trial because they

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I mean, that's part of the reason, we've had some testimony why we generally try to avoid mandatory minimums, but we do in some cases, and we will see something in the animal pool, if you build it, as a mandatory minimum for

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Even when those I can speak to when those were adopted, it was not the unanimous support from the prosecutorial community.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Did you write those?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I've wrote I've written some. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I missed it. What's the problem with mandatory?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We've had some testimony. I mean, can get prosecutors and courts and defense counsel to testify that it does make it more difficult to prosecute certain cases. It makes it difficult to get a plea bargain unless you plead down. And maybe we don't want pleas that go down from what we're really trying to get at. That's one of the issues. But there are others, and we can have the court.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: This was the issue guys, I feel like it wasn't that long ago, but maybe it was, was you used to have this statute prohibited acts. And it was kind of like a catchall for sex offenses that things would get pled down to if you had a difficult case to prosecute, whether it was with respect to a witness or evidence or certain things like that. And things would get pled down to that. It was challenged just because it wasn't really structured for that, but had been being used like that for years and years and years. The General Assembly responded to that and created a catchall misdemeanor offense that would do exactly that. That on proper pieces, which both prosecution and defense agreed to pleading something down, whereas if they had to try to move forward with the case on the charge that had a higher penalty, than it was, perhaps from the prosecution standpoint, a lot more risky in terms of being able to secure a conviction. And the defense would look at it as an acceptable deal because the person was facing a lesser penalty.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: One other in this new language, we had talked about actually two witnesses mentioned that we could probably take out on page nine, line eight, and page nine, line 21, where we have without the person's consent. Both Kim and Commander Raymond just talked about getting rid of that language because you

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Being harassed. Who consents to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: being harassed or threatened from sort.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Do you see those two spots?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I do. What do you think about that?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm gonna think about that. I don't wanna answer that right away. Because part of what this is trying to get at, obviously, is you may have shared the image consensually. You may have even said, I don't mind if you show it to your friend, but you did not consent to posting it on the Internet or something like that. So it may be fine with the other language that's in here, but I just want to make sure it's covered before. And I think take it out. Where's the other point? It's on page nine, on line eight.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This is on page nine, line eight and line 21. And, yeah, the concern was that we're actually adding in an element that has to be proven that might be very difficult to prove.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I had not heard that yet, but I will I'll go back and I'll listen to the tape from this afternoon. Take my whiteboard. No. I I do. I will learn. I always learn from witness testimony. And but I my schedule doesn't always allow me to hear it at the time. It's happening live.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. So this was Kim on Friday, I believe, and the Commander Bainen today.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: was trying to follow all of the edits that we're making to pages nine and ten. So this may not be relevant now based on all of that. But I think the one thing that I now understand, which I did not before, is that basically with how it's currently written, all of the testimony we've heard about factual situations that have happened in real life are all captured in 2A as

[Unidentified Committee Member]: it's currently written.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. So given that It was

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: more of that as we were in the drafting with the sponsor and with the network and with the attorney general's office, and we were looking at other statutes, there was this it was like, the directive was, Okay, that's not covered.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. So I guess given that, are there any that are in 2B that we would the compelling someone to produce an image, and you've got all these things, accused of crime, someone's immigration status, all this stuff, which makes sense it would be there. It's not in the ones before in 2A. 2A, yeah, maybe doesn't make sense to put there because they already have the image and now they're

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: To just wondering

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: is they have an image. They've already got the image, and they're threatening to disclose it unless you do A, B, or C.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And so we have produce another image, engage in sexual conduct, engage in an act against the first okay. So maybe that's just the catchall. Yes. Engage in an act because I would

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: You could really just say engage in something that you don't wanna engage in or refrain from engaging in something that you have a right to engage in. But you know? And then I'm happy to do that. It's more like sometimes people within with that language will say, oh, well, could they do this? Or could so it's kinda

[Unidentified Committee Member]: because I just see, like, for b to b a double I, cause injury to person or property. So I could totally see that one being up in 2a as well. I have the image, and I'm threatening to disclose the image unless you do damage to some property that I won't need damage to. Sure. And I get that does get captured under engaged in any acts against the person's will. But then I'm guessing, wondering, why are we feeling more explicit in the lower one and more catch all in the upper one? I'm just trying to

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: My memory is not that good.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, fair enough. I guess

[Unidentified Committee Member]: yeah. I'm sure what we're doing is kind

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: of looking at a lot of different examples in other jurisdictions, and, you know, we're kind of like a chef with no recipe, like, take a little bit of this take a little bit of this, sprinkle this in.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And she used to say painting a picture.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: But I don't have strong feelings about that. And it can be more of catch all neutral language. From a legal standpoint, think that's fine if you want to specify certain things. When you're creating a like that, it's not exclusive. And I think you have some catch all language in there. But lots of times you guys will have some specific examples and then a catch all for all the other things that are out there. It's Does it cause injury to a person for catch all kind of sleep injury? Do you want them to be arguing about whether or not disclosing your deepest, darkest secret on your Facebook page is causing you injury? Are you talking about just the, you like you don't want to have to get in that whole thing. What kind of an injury? Physical injury? Emotional injury? Injury to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But it's cause injury to a person. One could argue that. But if To my reputation. I don't have much reputation as but others may. I get it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And I just had one other very briefly. It just says, I see exposed secret. And I'm just wondering, have

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you ever used secret before?

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: No. And You certainly don't have to have that if it feels a little weird, but it was interesting, and I think it was in a few different statutes around this idea of, I have information that would cause you injury or harm in the community that would possibly break up your marriage or you would get fired or something like that. But, no, I don't think I've ever used the word secret before.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. It definitely kinda sticks out a little.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Plain language meaning. I don't think people can argue about what is a secret. Is something a secret? I think Pork can figure it out.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. What are these? Yeah. After it today.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just I yeah. I just was curious if we had used it anywhere before.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I could do a statute search and see if the secret shows up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I could just see, like, looking at it and just being like, oh, man, I don't know if this is a secret or not. I mean, it's like a

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: You don't know if something would be a secret?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Like, a secret means only that person does it, but it isn't a secret because the other person does it now.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Are you a lawyer by trade? I think he's a philosopher.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This is good. This is what

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: the committee process is for. It's to It's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: lawyer talk. No. Well,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: yeah. But I'm not trying to just be

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: No. And I'm not wedded to it at all or whatever. Just you know?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I almost wouldn't wanna broaden it to just be like a personal, a, you know, personal fact, something like that's Well,

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: it might Mhmm.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Could strike a secret oar. Right. Expose or publicize a certain fact, whether true or false, continuing to subject another person with hatred, contempt. Right.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: kinda like that better, but again,

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know you guys Let's just take it out. Let's make

[Unidentified Committee Member]: it one hand. But at

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: least someone's new secret. One thing we should have brought up, if you want to Hey, isn't the law that's in secret. Yeah, I couldn't help myself. Alright. Alright. So can

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I move back to the penalties? Because you were telling me about, like, what you wanted. So you wanted so I'm gonna break out the extortion pieces, put them in a twenty six zero seven, make it a five year felony. What do you want for the minors?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, we were going to look at some other examples. We'll do ASMLs. I would say match for the other one, the death resulting or serious bodily injury should follow manslaughter if it's fifteen years. So it'd be consistent with that. We'll try to be consistent with something equivalent.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: So alright. I mean, I can just do something pick the for the minor be, like, a ten year right in the middle. If you leave it as long as you don't have a mandatory min, then obviously, it can be anywhere in there. So they don't have flexibility. So if you did five year for the extortion ten year, if it involves minor as a victim, and then fifteen years injury or death result?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, if the ten years assist with floating. So it would be

[Unidentified Committee Member]: fifteen year, whether it's minor or not, might not be a sign.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: It's up to you if you guys want to have an enhanced I don't think I can think of anything where it's like if

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the age of the person The extortion was was just you said five years.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Five years. Then if the extortion is has a minor as the as the victim. 10. And then if just applies to everyone, no matter the age, if there is serious bodily injury or death resulting, it would be 15.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm not looking to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: cap that. I'm just wondering what the cap was.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. I think that that's.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That probably something that came up today was being able to extradite somebody to make sure it was a felony significant enough that it would be extraditable. So I think that's it. Right.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: You can, but nobody's going to bother to extradite for us.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: If was like an order state, but we know that's not going to be the issue.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: It's more about, like, does everybody going to take all that on for a misdemeanor?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So you already mentioned the exemptions or the immunity for underage, right? Or haven't you mentioned that? Haven't mentioned that. Oh, okay. But we have five minutes before we Okay, can

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: immunity for So we have some immunity from criminal liability in various parts of statutes. So you have one in Title 18 around good faith reporting of a drug overdose, is that if somebody makes a report of someone's OD and they need medical assistance, then that person who made the report can't then just be based on making that call for assistance be charged with possession at that time. You have something also that applies to prostitution and human trafficking, where if someone is engaged in prostitution or human trafficking in some way, and they are either the victim of or a witness to another offense. So it could be someone who's sexually assaulted or something else that goes on that they can report that. And then there's an immunity for that person who reports being a victim or a witness to a crime. They have immunity from certain offenses. And it's things like they can't then come back and be charged with prostitution or human trafficking, I think, or certain drug offenses, things like that. And so again, it's kind of this thing where the legislature has been going down this path of trying to encourage people to report and trying to remove some barriers that maybe would why somebody wouldn't report such an offense is for fear that they would be prosecuted. And so what I did is I created some language that's based on kind of what we've done in other statutes and then would say that there's limited immunity with regard to some statutes in the obscenity chapter. So if you think about showing indecent material to a minor or displaying it in front of a minor or sending it to a minor or kids sexing to each other pictures of themselves, that kind of thing.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I guess the final thing is, are we doing anything for the foul of the money, the mule money, so to speak? And some of the testimony we had today was when that comes up, at least with ICAP, because they turned to the federal. This is going to throw this off.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I would say I don't have any particular knowledge about that. Think it's your decision whether you want to tackle that issue as part of this or deal with that separately? I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I mean, if it's gonna bog this down, which I would imagine it would be pretty complicated, that would be my

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, so are you thinking about just having a conspiracy piece to this?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't know. Were the six people in Georgia or Atlanta, I think it was Atlanta, was that a federal case?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, it a federal case.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: They just got slapped on

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the hand. But yeah, no, that was a feather case. It just seems to be a can of worms, unless you have some

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't have an easy fix. I think it would take, and we can certainly go down that road. I can get up to speed on it. I can talk to some folks, but I think it would be like, would Given the new year, another week to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: would strongly urge that we just put that on for making this need a better law next year, if in fact that is even better. From what I heard today on testimony is it gets pretty complicated. They bring in the feds at that point.

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: I'd need to bring an assist from my office, somebody who does banking or consumer issues or, you know, because I or because I I don't work on this issue.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It would have to be the fetch. Right? Because it's coming out of Vermont. It's different countries and states and all that stuff. Right?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I I would imagine there's something we possibly could do, but it's not straightforward for us.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But is there something we can do to get some sort of something

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: going on this? Well, sounds like from what Commander Raymond was testifying to, they already have a path that they pursue if there's that money trail that they have. How I heard That's how I heard it. Was that how other folks heard his testimony?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think I heard that they used, as we heard from the under sheriff as well, that the state laws are important for local law enforcement to pursue an investigation, knowing that in the best case scenario, that investigation will most likely be handed off to the Feds and hoping that they can do enough pre work to get on the radar or, you know, to create a a a package that the that the that federal law enforcement wouldn't even

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: take it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I would take it they

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: usually

[Unidentified Committee Member]: need evidence that it's already crossed into their neighborhood.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. You know, it has to fall into the turkey for them to take it. So have we got to that point yet? Well, if it's crossing state lines, that would be Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: They're crossing state lines, and you're you're gonna go.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So we start out at that point quite often, since as Amanda Rubin said, people from

[Unidentified Committee Member]: As long

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: as we're doing something,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: fact that it's in the internet and the electronic system, but in the federal jurisdiction.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Seems like it should, but it's not. Would be I do that on a daily basis.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, I think the testimony we heard was that it does start out there. It's already there at the start, but that the Feds, there are just so many cases that the Feds don't take an interest or don't have the capacity.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I would hold off on that part. There's plenty

[Unidentified Committee Member]: to keep it done. Digging into that, I think we should. Yeah. Can I ask one other question? Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Will be the last question that we need to, I think, quit for folks.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. It's on the voyeurism section, just about the statute of limitations for the criminal. In thinking about You're talking about

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: the criminal statute of limitations?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. For making it consistent, maybe

[Michelle Childs (Legislative Counsel)]: with Yeah. The Okay. I think that that's a better route. I think it's changing it substantially, which is like now what you have in the bill is a six year. But it is unique. And I think Dominica spoke to that too around the and I think it's a much cleaner way to avoid having to figure out, well, what is the date of discovery? Right? And then bringing the whole discovery rule issue in there where generally that's something that's used in civil cases and not criminals. Not saying that you maybe couldn't couldn't do it. But so I'm so I'm gonna move all of those that are in section. So I'm just gonna move everything that's an amendment to 13 BSA forty five zero one into right now, it's in that that separate section, but I'm gonna move it to the 40. Okay. Okay. So the viewing part in voyeurism stays the current, but the others that involve basically creation of the image or dissemination of an image or the sexual extortion that can move for forty years.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, that makes sense.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you very much. So, Barbara, adjourned until tomorrow at 09:00, and we're gonna take more testimony on this bill.