Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Welcome back to the House Judiciary Committee continue to take testimony on h six six. A slight change in what we're gonna be doing on the agenda. We are gonna hear from the detective from the Vermont State Police first. Then at 11:00, Michelle Childs is going to walk through a revised version of six twenty six. And if there's still time, we'll hear from Kim McManus and Charlie as well, the network. If not, we'll use the 02:30 time slot that I had for Michelle's walkthrough to hear back from them. So we will get started with Detective Steuben. Did I Steuben, I should say. I apologize. Thank you for being here. Appreciate. Sure. If you could identify yourself with the record and then proceed. Perfect. Nice to see you again. You you testified. I kinda remember We did the training.

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: Yes. The human trafficking training. Thank you. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It's okay. Not that long ago. Memorable. Was so busy looking at the PowerPoint that I didn't fully get that right away. I think you're so far away. Was like It's right. There's all those excuses I have. But thank you for being back, and thank you for testifying today. Thanks for having me. I'm going to identify your

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: speaker, and proceed. Thanks. Sure. Lieutenant Michael Student with the Vermont State Police.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Go ahead. Sure. So

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: Vermont State Police are obviously in favor of this legislation. We investigate crimes like this, if not on a weekly basis, definitely a monthly basis. Our detectives are trained in investigating these types of crimes. Having the additional advantage of prosecuting and investigating cases just on the threat itself would be would be great. You know, obviously, when we do search warrants and look for digital evidence, which are essential in investigating these types of crimes, we need a probable cause of a crime, which, you know, for this, we do not have just this threat the threat itself. You discussed earlier that I was presenting for a human trafficking training and to a committee last week, and this is a gateway into that world for juveniles. Substortion is definitely an avenue that traffickers use to lure, especially our vulnerable juvenile population, into trafficking. And for those juveniles that don't take up that invitation, being able to prosecute just based upon the threat would be would be extremely helpful. For enhancements, I'd like to see a juvenile enhancement for the legislation so that anybody was targeting a juvenile to make that an automatic felony would be great because I think you heard testimony earlier about not being able to extradite for misdemeanors. So having that ability would be would be really helpful. For juveniles that are making those threats, having that maybe move to juvenile or from juvenile court to adult court would also be helpful. You know, that way there would be a permanent record of it, and it wouldn't disappear at the age of 21 or whatever the age is at. Because you if they're putting those videos and images of our victims out and there's a public record of that, well, you know, I think having a public record for the offender would also give some sort of justice to those victims. And I think an educational piece to this would also be helpful. This is an age group, the juvenile 13 to 18 year olds taking photos of themselves, videos of them nude seems to be second nature. It's not a big deal for that population. I think the more education that we can get out around some of the ills of that would be helpful. And then also, you know, if this law does get passed, educating them on the fact that there are options, legal options for them to pursue if they're receiving these types of threats or harassment. So, you know, there are organizations like the Vermont Child Alliance and things that do that type of education, and I think additional funding for that through CACs would be very helpful.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So questions, Barbara?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: Thank you. I'm wondering, it sounds like you are seeing more perpetrators that are living in Vermont, not just necessarily some of the stories that we've been hearing related to people in other countries doing the extortion. Is that right?

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: I think there's a healthy mixture. Who's perpetrating these crimes? You know, there are a lot of phishing emails and texts and things like that that go out to vulnerable groups, juveniles specifically. You know, they meet a lot of people online who aren't who they think they are, and sometimes that's from within the country, and sometimes that's from without. So, you know, it varies.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: So so you definitely have had investigations of Vermont people doing that kind of extorting.

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: Yes, and those seem to be with individuals that have a previous relationship, that know each other. Some of the stranger, where folks don't have a relationship, are the ones that you see more from overseas.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member)]: And there's the internal ones, when you say they know each other, they're sort of like the revenge or the Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Other questions? No, not Karen, not any? Yes, that was straightforward. I guess one thing came up this morning as a concept of some sort of enhancement if there's a power dynamic. And I know we have that in some other laws that if like a professor and a student or that's that kind of situation, whether it enhanced it makes sense in that scenario.

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: I think the greater enhancement would be just to protect the juvenile population as a whole instead of our dynamic. I'm not sure we have come across many cases involving that type of a dynamic. We definitely see more of that targeted to that population.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And how about as far as enhanced or making it clear the consequences if death or serious bodily harm results, I mean, it would be under a recklessness standard, essentially, essentially in the long lines of involuntary manslaughter? I would

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: I think we would support that as well.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Other questions? I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you. So we've got a little time to wait again, because I think we probably want to have, I think Michelle's gonna be available at eleven, or hopefully a little earlier, to walk through the latest draft. Did you get a chance to look at that yet, Angela? Does it cover? I think so. Alright. One thing I was wondering is what's the compelling somebody to engage in a sexual act. Is that on there? I just missed it. Yeah. No. Can you know? Okay. No. Well, actually, it it might fit now better. No. I think it's okay. So so we're gonna have her in, then we'll hopefully hear from a couple other witnesses on this latest graph. I think they know that it's gonna be in here because we've all been paying attention to watching what we've been talking about. So I'm gonna take just a little bit of time, and then we'll take a break. But I just So this morning I spent an hour or so looking ahead at the five weeks that we have left after this week trying to fit in various bills that some priority, some a little less so, but trying to fit all that stuff in. Tom and I had a conversation with J. A. Johnson yesterday, kind of going over their priorities, going over my priorities as I understand from the committee and from our various stakeholders. I look to state securities, defenders, courts, etcetera. So I just actually wanted to run through to give everybody kind of a heads up on my thinking. And I will say that there's a lot here to do, and there's a lot of it's going be a lot of work to get there. I think some of the bills are not going to be as complicated as the animal cruelty bill or the voyeurism bill, where we're to have multiple versions of that. I think they are more straightforward. If it ends up that they're not, obviously, this is all subject to change. But I just wanted to give folks kind of a heads up, like on a week by week basis, what I'm hoping to look at. So next week, if we haven't finished up animal cruelty, which I doubt that we have by then, and also if lawyers have not been ready to vote on Friday, we'll deal with those. We're probably going to hear from the Human Rights Commission, just have an opportunity for the Dayton Hartman to explain a recent report that they had. On Wednesday, we're gonna take up H-seven 44. I won't go into what each of those are, I'll just give the numbers. And also want to move to H566. Actually, will say just very briefly. H564, there was a rule at the joint Rules Committee. Ian and Barbara and others were on that committee. It was a rule having to do with after hours charges and such. And it's rather controversial for state's attorneys and such, but we decided that we take over that rule of the legislature. Because there was a problem in the rule that actually was caused by the legislature several years ago, and we want to take it and fix that. But we're going look at this bigger issue of after hours. So anyway, we're going deal with that. We'll have Judge Scredlow in that morning. Now we need more of the mission that we do stuff. Must have been a different commitment. Been the It must Senate. Anyway, five sixty six is diversion. The main part of that is changing from expungement to ceiling in diversion cases. H-five 72 is actually fairly narrow as well. That has to do with, it's actually a short form bill right now. I'll ask the vote to take it off the wall. It has to do with access to criminal records by the press, by the internet. Right now they have to actually go to the courthouse to get records. This would allow them to have an account on the judiciary system and they would be able to get records that way. So that's next week and maybe even fit in H-seven 28, is Ian's inviting no trespass order bill. Again, this is all subject to change. These are not hugely complicated bills, so hopefully we can get those out fairly straightforwardly. Week six, that's when we're gonna have a public safety joint hearing with Senate the Judiciary on Wednesday morning. We'll get testimony about the Chittenden County 3B docket, or also known as Accountability Court. And then based in part on that, there's at least a couple bills that we'll be looking at. Pretrial supervision, H529. We'll also look at the part of the H721, that's beyond the bus bill, Tom? H721 also has language regarding, it's fairly similar on pretrial supervision. And then youthful offender, is H6 42, again age seven twenty one has language on youthful offender that is a bit different. So we'll probably look at that language as well. Let's see, where am I now? What's was week of nine. Six. Yeah. That was week that's February 10. Yeah. Week of February 10 was Tuesday. Yeah. Week seven, I'm hoping the plan is to take up two firearms bills, h six zero six, which has a few different items in it, H. Five seventy one, which we don't have language yet. It's a short form bill, and that bill is to implement recommendations from the relinquishment study that I think was filed in November. Just weren't able to get to actual language. Sorry, Martin, what was the first? You're all in best two? 606. And also hope at that point to get back to the data conversation that we started on H410. In that context, we may be looking at H382 to inform that discussion on data. Not finally, because we have two more weeks, but we will probably also start on the miscellaneous judiciary bill, though. We don't have a number for that yet. That will be a committee bill. Week eight, the week before town meeting break, officer involved shooting, H613. Frankly, that bill needs a lot of work, but there may be some things that we can take out of that. And H171 has to do with Attorney General investigations into law enforcement officers using the firearm and probably revisit the victim notification and forensic system, H6Q7, to have a good understanding of what's going to happen in the Senate to date period by then on the forensic bill. Week nine, the week after, the last week before crossover, only nine weeks to go on the scene. I only have now a miscellaneous bill, but that week is kind of open to try to finish things up or if there's any final things that we can put in there. Just looking forward to after crossover, I anticipate we'll have a more relaxed time than the next five weeks. Because the next five weeks is a lot I think that we want to get done. I don't anticipate getting a lot from the Senate. I'm very much hoping to get the forensic facility bill from them. There's the only three bills I know four bills. There's a bill with Bob Norris on fraud, what the heck is the count on? Consumer note. Home improvement fraud. Thank you. Home improvement fraud. And then there are two bills which are going be controversial, I understand, in this committee. It will be controversial. They have to do with masking of law enforcement in sensitive areas. I don't know if there will be other issues there that are gonna be in part of those bills. So it'll be more controversial, but just less, I think, after crossover, at least as I understand it right now. The senate judiciary has been spending a lot of time on the nomination, so they aren't getting a bunch of bills out from what I heard. Anyway, happy to take questions or maybe put me on time. You take one more and I'll show in that. Oh, thank you. That's after the that's when we do the pretrial supervision. That will be thank you very much for mentioning that. I was intending to do that as well. That'd be in week six. Do you know the number of the bill? No. I can tell you the number of the bill in May 2. It is 8 741. That would be when we do pretrial supervision, youthful offender, And these all kind of have to do with how the courts are or are not functioning. And somewhere in there, we'll begin talking about budgeting. We've got to all put together here. And so yes, I will try not to have these half hours where we don't, aren't taking things from It's not like we've a lot to do. Did you have any questions, concerns? Thank you for walking us through that. It's very helpful. Pieces of the public safety bill that are being worked on helps with it. So the forensic facility? That's the same exact language They're taping up. The recidivism part, we've already started working on. We have the same language in 04/10, but we'll probably go in a bit of a different direction. I think I did mention that today yesterday. The beautiful fender is in there. I'm missing something. There is a juvenile justice juvenile, which my intent is not to take up that. We talked about this, the expanding Big 14. There are a couple parts of the build that are in corrections. Well, the Big 14, we just expanded. Yeah, that has been expanded. I'm thinking of missing something, but I can't recall if that will catch. Did we figure out what piece of the public safety bill or refugee thing? Yeah, can look at it. I think it's repealing the earned time, which seems unlikely to repeat that, frankly. And there was another sentence. I thought that sentencing issue might be us. I'll look at it again. It's been a few days since I looked at it to track those. What were we doing on 71? The weeks? '8. '8, yeah, when it's in conjunction with looking at the I have a different set

[Lt. Michael Student, Vermont State Police]: of language for that if you're ever interested.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, sure. We'll take a look. Can you share that with us, Martin? The run through? Yeah. Happy to. Yep. I've got this. All the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mean, I can transcribe the meeting, but I just figured instead of wasting my time doing that, it'd be helpful if we had it in for me. Yeah. And I guess another question beyond things. Beyond the public safety omnibus, what did Jay and the governor indicate as their priority for commissioners? I'd say the forensic facility. Forensic facility is definitely number one. Number one. Yep. And that's that's looking good. Mean, now Nobody taking it off. No, and they're going to be serious about looking at it. Don't think they're just taking it up to these people. Right, right. And beyond the forensic facility? That was my understanding of this as a top priority. Well, I'm sure you don't know You know, I think everything else is about on the same level, to tell you the truth. I think there's been big issues around not having. I think the recidivism one is probably the lowest priority of getting that bill just from what Jane was what she was in here testifying Who's who's testifying to dating, even though I was purified. Right? So, yes, it's a full agenda. Plan on Friday afternoon until three.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Can we not get the same people that testify the same stuff over and over again though, we can kind of streamline That the

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: would be awesome. Yes. We were on Are we recording? Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. That's completely fair. Can you say why? Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Fair, yeah. You don't always know that they're the same thing. But if I think they might say the same thing, maybe I will have more at one time. Like today was, I really thought the witnesses were gonna be a lot longer, but So what time will we start in about 11:00? Let me see if Michelle's updated me. No, she hasn't. Yeah, 11:00.