Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: To the house judiciary committee this Thursday afternoon, February twelfth. We're gonna turn our attention to h seven four one, representative Oliver, who is not

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: here right now

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: in my bill. But we'll have a walk through and start with Eric. Thank you, Eric.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Can you hear me okay? Yes. All right. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Counsel here to walk the committee through H-seven 41, which is an actuating to requiring the court to issue an arrest warrant when when a criminal defendant fails to appear in court. In terms of the mechanics of the bill, it's pretty straightforward. It's basically addresses the situation where a criminal defendant has been required to appear in court for one of a couple of reasons, which we'll get into, but then they failed to do so. So criminal defendant is supposed to come to court either because they've been arrested and released on conditions or because they've been cited to appear in court. And either one of those situations, if the defendant doesn't do that, if they don't appear in court when they've been told to do so, then this deals with the follow-up procedure after that. It says if that happens, then the law enforcement officer can't just issue them another citation to appear and say, come back a second time. So instead they have to issue, the court has to issue an actual arrest warrant and require that the person be arrested rather than given a citation to appear again, when they didn't appear the first time. So that's, that's the gist of it. And the way it works, it's, as I say, there's two different circumstances under which that applies. I should say for a second that it's quite helpful to know as a bit of background that under current law, there is discretion with the law enforcement officer to issue this citation to appear, for example, for any misdemeanors with with some exceptions, but generally speaking for misdemeanors, they can issue a citation to appear so that they're released with that, that citation to appear at some future time and date. So this in a sense is going to be an exception to that, that process because it provides that you can't just issue a citation to appear if the person already hasn't appeared the first time. So if they've done it once, and they haven't shown up, then the requirement would be that the court issue an arrest warrant instead of the citation. So that's the gist of it. And as I said, there's two different situations in which that procedure would apply. The first one looking sort of at the bottom of page one over onto the top of page two of the bill. This has to do with situations where a person has been arrested and released and, you know, they've been released on conditions or they may be released with or without bail. But one of the conditions that they're released on, and this turns over on to page two, is that they appear at a future time and place in connection with the prosecution. So in other words, if they got this future time when they're they have to come back to court for it. And if they don't do that, you'll see this is existing law lines two and three, page two. That is a misdemeanor currently. So they fail to do that. They don't turn up. That is unlawful. So this has to do with the procedure that has has to happen if they don't turn up. And that's subdivision two there. This is okay. If they've been released, they've been arrested and released on condition to appear, but they don't appear rather than being able to just issue them a citation to appear again a second time. This time, there has to be an arrest warrant that starts on line four requires the court to issue an arrest warrant in that situation where they fail to appear after being released, that just mimics the language that we just saw in the preceding paragraph. So after they're released on condition that they appear and they don't, well, that situation, the court has to issue the warrant. And then if you look at the second sentence starts on line seven, the warrant shall require the person to appear and shall not permit issuance of a citation. So they actually do have to be arrested and brought before a judicial officer. Now it's the same thing. That's the same situation or the same requirement, I should say. And the second situation, which starts on the bottom of page two, and this, as I mentioned, under the current rules of criminal procedure, generally speaking, law enforcement officers can issue a citation to appear for misdemeanors. This is so this says notwithstanding rule three, that even though that generally speaking, the enforcement officer can issue the citation, this sort of is a carve out and says you can issue that citation in this situation that starts on 09/20. The court shall issue an arrest warrant for a person who without just cause fails to appear after a law enforcement has issued a citation to appear. So in other words, they've already issued a citation to appear in the case. The person didn't show up. And that's the situation that this addresses. In that case, they can't issue another citation. Instead, the court has to issue a warrant. And then if you go on to page three, that's the same language that we just looked at in connection with the release on conditions that says an arrest warrant issued under this subsection shall require the person to appear before a judicial officer and shall not permit issuance of a citation. Again, person has to be arrested and brought before a judicial officer rather than just being cited to appear at a future time in this situation where they've already been cited to appear once and they didn't show up. So I say sort of the mechanics are pretty straightforward. Think how it would work in practice, I'd sort of defer to your witnesses and to representative Oliver, who's had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. But mechanically, that's the way the process is intended to work.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Richard, questions for right. Not seeing. I'm gonna

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: go slightly off agenda here. And as we often do, we often have the sponsor of a bill introduce the bill. And so I'm gonna

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: ask I'm gonna

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: ask Representative Oliver as the co sponsor. I'm not gonna have myself as another co founder. Thomas Oliver, you could actually if you want to take

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: this. Can

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: you identify yourself? Because I

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: have no idea who you are.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: You put him under Almost

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Oliver. Yeah. I was representing a public hearing. Reporting my own bill. Okay.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Let me introduce you. Sometimes we have people introduce the bill Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I find it.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So So I thought that would be helpful a little about yourself.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Please don't. No, I know. The Ken. The reason for this bill is or the intent or the reason why we came forward with this bill is we're experiencing a a high volume of arrests and people are being released on citations. The citations are generally not, I don't know if they're being ignored intentionally. Some are, some aren't. There are multiple reasons why people don't go to court simply because their life's a wreck, they don't have a way of keeping track of things, or they just simply don't wanna go. And what happens is we run into these folks. We find out that there's a warrant, and we simply didn't discover that the warrant says cite the person again for another date. And then it would oftentimes get ignored again. But the biggest the biggest problem is we typically run across this person the second time when they reoffend. So there could have been conditions of release prior to the reoffense. You know, that could become another issue in another chart. We could have stopped behavior. We could have had judicial intervention earlier. And and it in itself, on a limited basis, it's not a real big problem, but it's it's getting to the point, definitely in Chittenden County, where it appears to be, the revolving door, so to speak. But it is happening throughout the state of Vermont. I've been talking to friends and law enforcement officers all around running across these. And law enforcement handles the people multiple times before you have that one visit. And we like to reduce that number of times. It reduces exposure to injuries and just encounters and gives you more time to do your other things. And I think it's important to recognize that the court blocks out time for these folks to fear and have their court hurt. And when they don't show up, they're robbing that time from something else. It's happening sometimes better than 50%. Sometimes it's 90% that it should have been that don't show on a citation, be it a site release or whatever, any kind of citation. And so we're having just a large amount of arrests. And it does prevent another problem for law enforcement manpower. It can be good and bad. We don't have to handle them twice. But on the other side of the coin, if something happens during the arrest, they do have to go to the hospital. You do have to sit on them for a long period of time until you can get them out and get them to court and be seen. The other problem is, you you might have to sit with the person for a while at court before they can be seen. Although, you know, there there can be other accommodations. You know, sometimes if it's a a limited charge or a lower level charge, sometimes the judge might say, well, you can just let them sit here in the courtroom and and appear as long as they stay in the building kind of thing and gets us freed back up. There's good and bad, but I I really do believe that it's creating a perception that we're not serious. The criminals often ask or the defendants when we stop them, then we know they have a warrant. They when we do arrest them for the other violation, how come you're not gonna give me a citation? And that's sort of problematic for that.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. So I won't go in the witness chair, but I'll just add as a cosponsor of the driller platform that I understand for dealing with the backlog and for dealing with court processing that one of the most important holdups is getting the a life defender into court. Those who are being held, detained pretrials, that's getting the transports taken care of. So that's one part. But there's the other part, which is people who are out on their own recognizance or on conditions and them not showing up to court. And that's the other part of the problem that this bill is trying to one possible way to solve that. And it's all in the context of getting the alleged offender in court so we can have swift and certain consequences. So I'll just add that. Any questions for representative Oliver or me? Will go down the row. Interrogated. Ken, Angela, and then Karen.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Not interrogated, but you said that they'll go and they'll ask you a a question, and then they'll they'll ask you, well, why aren't you doing this? How are they so well schooled in knowing all this stuff? Do you have any idea about that? Repetition. Say what?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Repetition. They learn quickly. It's simply because they're experiencing it day in day out.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So it's almost like it's well organized that this is gonna happen.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: They just know the consequences that they're gonna feel typically under most situations.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: They must go and study it or something or know the laws as well as what you're trying to enforce.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I they're not studying it. It's just, I guess, I the best way to describe it is on the job training.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Do it so much, and you just keep learning. Okay. Thanks. Angela.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Thanks for being here. Glad to be here. I just

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: That's a good one.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: This is a question that maybe well, I just wonder if you can help me understand what the difference is between, I'm looking at page two, lines eight, nine, and 10. So it says that a rep warrant issued pursuant to the subdivision shall require the person to appear before judicial officer and shall not permit shall not permit issuance of a citation to appear. So I'm just wondering what the difference is between a requirement to appear and a citation to appear.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Well, thought there was a requirement if you got a citation to appear anyway. Only it's you're on your own recognizance because it's a witness misdemeanor or something. You're given the opportunity to report on your own.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Right.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: That's required to appear. But after a nonappearance, it's you a warrant. I'm not nearly as good as explaining these

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Fees as the chief judge over there.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah. Okay. I figured there was, like, some nuance there that I'm just not understanding. You will have it. Thank you. Thank you, representative, for sharing this, Phil. I I appreciate. I think it's an important conversation that we need to have to move things along with the justice system. A couple questions, which I think our witnesses forget too as well, but curious to your thoughts. What what is just cause to you?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Just cause?

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah. Just the court shall issue an arrest warrant for a person who without just cause fails to appear.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: They didn't have a good excuse of some sort or some sort of life imprisonment and couldn't call and say, I can't be there because of an event that interrupted their ability to appear. Insufficient notice. What? Insufficient notice.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah. And I who so is that a thing that is already determined? Like, does the court do that? I'm just trying to figure out who's gonna determine that if there was cause or not.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I think they'll discuss that once they realize there's no appearance. Okay. That's Or consider it. The judge

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: would have the ability to consider it that way. That is just a question that I I have at this point. Sometimes

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: the defense attorney may know even though they're not there to represent them yet for that case necessarily, but they may know that person had something going on. Very common thing.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And then the other thing I have is so right now, it's the judge's discretion. Like, they could they could issue an arrest warrant. Right? Yeah. But this is saying you you have to, at the second time somebody no shows, you have to issue an arrest warrant.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: After the first time?

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Oh, after.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Well, you give somebody a citation and they don't appear is when you would issue an arrest

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: warrant. So this is taking away the discretion and saying that this is what you have to do, judiciary.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Yes. Well, that's the way it was written. I'm trying to open up the conversation. And

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: last one that I have, I'm curious, is how would people I don't know, how would people find out about this? That the system is now, like, maybe you're gonna get local citations, but to know, okay, like, this is your one shot. You if you don't show up next time, you're gonna be getting arrested.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Well, the citation actually says, by the authority of the state of Vermont, I'm gonna order you to appear at before judicial officer at the following time and place, and it'll have the the the charge, the information, the date, the time to be there. And if you do not appear, a warrant will be issued for your arrest, and you may be subject to additional charges of penalties. But already on the citation?

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Just one quick question. So can you just explain the difference between someone who just has a citation? You run into them on the street and you know that they need to be cited. You cite them that way versus they have

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: an arrest warrant, but there's

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: no bail request or anything. So they also need to be cited. What's the Yeah. That's all. Erin's question too, but it's sort of I'm just sort

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: of curious more of like, actually, procedurally. Yeah. Typically, we have amongst ourselves just kind of a want list where it's not a warrant. I'm looking for so and so. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll look for them out and about today. And then when they find them, we will issue the citation. If we end up not being able to find them, then we will petition for an arrest warrant through the State's Attorney's Office to the court and ask for an arrest warrant. That would be the difference, really. I mean, now, if I have an arrest warrant that says, Cite to appear, I would pull up to them and hand them a citation. Even with the arrest warrant? Yeah, because I can't do anything with them. It just says, Give them a citation to appear. I mean, if they tried to attempt to escape or something, then I could detain them. But they typically are aware that, okay, just give me my citation. I'm out of here.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. If you were to detain them, you would still bring them back to the station and then give them the site?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: No. I would do it right there. Yeah. Even if they even if they tried to get away, I would it would be as brief as possible. Yep. You could give your citation. Alright. Thank you, representative. You're very welcome. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: It. Ahead. Uh-oh. From your view, you know, the job that you do and the way the system is working now, how is this affecting the backlog?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I think if people were a little more responsive to these, then it would be less of a backlog. But the fact that, you know, we're we're coming upon these, discovering these site and peer warrants during re offense. We have more offenses, so I just gotta be adding to the backlog and taking time away from it, working on it.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. From Judd Sumppe next. You, Judd, for coming back this afternoon. Pleasure.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I'll get rid of your cane. Later also. It's a miracle. So good afternoon, Tom Zona, Chief Superior Judge.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Good afternoon.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: This bill, I think that we heard about judges can already do this and the short answer is correct. When you look at the structure of the bill, your question representative Arsenault about that last line seven through 10, what that really does as I see it is it takes something that happens in practice and says it can't happen anymore. In other words, someone fails to appear after being released by the court for a citation, to come to court for the first appearance and they don't appear. Under this bill, the judge would have to issue a warrant, shall issue a warrant. If in the current situation we have, the judge would say, it's going to be bail of $100 let's say, or it's going to be a site and release, which means you pick the person up, you give them a citation and say, look, you didn't show up last week. This is a citation to show up in court tomorrow. You need to be there. What this bill says is that there's no bail of $200 that the judge can set, Because when the judge goes up, when the officer arrests the person, they have to be held. And they cannot be given a citation because if bail was set and they post bail, they're given a citation to show up in court the next day. And so, this says, shall not permit the issuance of a citation to appear. So, what this does is effectively institute a hold without bail for everybody. You're charting new law. I'm sure Mr. Valerio will have some thoughts on that.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: That's more than nuance.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: So,

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: if you took that out and said, well, you can put bail, the issue that arises is, well, judges can already do this. And so you're infringing on the judicial discretion. You're infringing on the ability of the state's attorney to have input Because under this, the state's attorney can say, No, we don't want an arrest warrant. And the judge says, seven forty one warrant, we have to issue it. And so, then the question is, are there any negatives here? Representative Oliver mentioned that there are circumstances where people will thumb their nose at the system. He's correct. I think it's safe to say that people who, there's three categories when we look at appearance in court. Those who are going to appear, and those who generally appear. There are those who will appear, but they need a little bit of an assistance or reminder sometimes, and those who are not coming to court. What this does is this basically takes categories two and three and lumps them together. And says, the people who are gonna be recalcitrant and never wanna show up, we're gonna treat the same way as those who make a mistake and who may have just not shown up for whatever reason. And so, some examples of real world application. You're sitting on the bench and there is an 80 year old woman who has a citation for retail theft. It is a diversion referral. You are sitting there, it's scheduled, we've set aside the time, and she doesn't show up. Under this bill, you send the police officers to her home with a warrant because she is getting arrested. Because I know it says there's a just cause. I think you can refer to just cause as a good reason. That's how I think it's the safest way to look at it. You said, what is just cause? The judge decides. Judge will decide. And what is just cause? Basically a good reason. But no information, no evidence does not establish a good reason. Judges tell jurors, you shall not speculate. We don't speculate why she's not here. She's not here. Here's the warning. The officer takes the warrant, goes to her house, knocks on the door, answered by someone much younger and says, are you Susie Jones? She says, no, that's my mother. Why do I warrant for her arrest? She goes, my mom? My mom has Alzheimer's. And it comes out that mom had been at the store shopping and had taken something when she was out with her girlfriends and mom didn't tell her because she just didn't remember. But under this bill, that officer is not leaving empty handed. He takes mom to jail because she can't be released on a citation to come to court. Now, what would happen today if a judge issued a warrant with bail in those circumstances, in most courts, the officer would call the state's attorney and say, Hey, look, here's what's going on. State's attorney would say, Sure, we're okay voiding We would support vacating the warrant. And they call the judge and the judge says, okay, vacate the warrant, give her a citation to appear the next day. And that again assumes that the judge would have even issued a warrant day one. And most judges probably will be. It's a diversion referral. The citation was issued to somebody over six weeks ago. People forget. People make mistakes. Yes, there are those who don't show up. There are those who aren't going to show up. But if we're gonna issue a warrant, judges need the ability to consider that. Another example, you have an individual who doesn't show up for, we'll say a more serious case. They generally show up, but on this date, they don't show up for their hearing and it's a snowstorm and they're not there. Well, we have no information saying they couldn't be here because of the snowstorm. That's not good cause, right? Absence of evidence isn't evidence. Here's your warrant, go pick them up. So the police officers go to pick them up. And what do they learn? Oh boy, it's a woman who has three kids and they just picked her up after court hours on a Friday. Oh, by the way, it's this Friday and it's a three day weekend. So, now we have to find a place for her kids. She's a single parent. And she sits in jail because she can't be released on a citation to come to court. Do I need to keep going? No. My point is that we have a system that takes into account individual circumstances, and judges have the authority, the state has the ability to ask to weigh things out. Is it a perfect system where everyone will agree that person who didn't show up twice should have bail and should have a warrant without a site and release? No, there's going to be, I can assure you that you give me 10 fact patterns and three judges, and you're gonna get a number of different responses. But you're gonna get responses that are based on the facts and the law of that particular case, as opposed to a single plan that approaches every situation. And I know, and Representative Oliver mentioned that a number of officers are in favor of something like this because they get frustrated, but he also mentioned, correctly so, as he mentioned the negative, you're stuck if you were babysitting somebody after hours or taking care of someone and watching them. We see this. You have a Friday, and I'll give you some more. On Friday night, defendant can't post bail. Law enforcement needs immediate emergency room care before they can take the person to DOC facility. It's a low end case. And since DOC won't take custody because they still have to be at the hospital, the officer is babysitting them. And I use that phrase, I don't mean it negatively. I just mean you're sitting with them and watching. And what happens now? We call the state's attorney and go, Hey, I'm a two officer department. I can't afford to sit here all night. We have things going on. And judges will, the state's attorney will oftentimes say, Okay, give him a citation. What if you have a cooperating individual? Somebody who has a warrant out for failing to appear for something, but they get busted when there's a drug house raid, but they've actually been cooperating with law enforcement. You have to take them and arrest them and put them in jail too, even though the state's attorney might be saying, Or the attorney general is saying, Don't do that. They've helped us. We didn't realize that.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And before we go to that,

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: we have a question from Tom and Martin.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So, nobody wants to throw the person suffering with Alzheimer's in jail, nobody wants to throw the mother you know with the kids in jail that can't make it because of the snowstorm. I don't know what the language would be to alleviate possibly alleviate those situations whether you get a chance or two. You know, do forget. We're getting two, three, and four times. We have a little issue with that. But and I don't expect an answer right now, but we do have a problem with people gaming the system. And I I do believe we need some kind of language that's going to be or binding, I guess, you could say, to to make them to go to the arrest park. You know? I mean, people who are, you know, gaming the system four by six, seven times, I mean, and and and and they just keep getting the citations. You know? But can can't Kenny was asking. I mean, they they've learned how to how to play the game and, you know, and it's just a joke to them. So, again, even nobody wants to throw those people in jail as you mentioned. But the people who are gaming the system and wasting the resources of the court, to me, there needs to be some kind of language in there to where a judge has to issue an arrest warrant to get them to finally do what they should be doing.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I'll let mister Valerio or others talk about their concerns that I would imagine you would hear about separation of powers for requiring a judge to issue an arrest warrant when the judge doesn't have an opportunity to fully and fairly consider all of the facts. I would say that we have an answer to that already though. The answer is the judge fully and fairly considers all the facts and the individuals that you're talking about, there is the ability to put those individuals with appropriate conditions on for bail if they don't show

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: up. Yes,

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: there will be people who don't show up and who thumb their nose at the system. But the difficulty is you cannot put a one size fits all model that you intend to not fit all sizes, because it will. So the solution you're looking for is one that you already have, and that is judges, state's attorneys, defense attorneys in court have to provide the judge with information about why a warrant should be issued, why a warrant should not be issued, and the judge uses the existing law to issue that warrant and put bail on if they believe it's appropriate. So how can we stop all these people that are gaming the systems from,

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: for lack of a better term, from all the way through the cracks and allowing it to continue?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Oftentimes, after an appearance, someone fails to appear two or three times, the court will issue bail and impose it. And then the person posts bail and then they don't show up again. So, the idea that this is going to solve the problem for people not appearing relies on the fact that they're going to appear if they post bail, that they're not going to make an honest mistake. One of the areas we see quite frequently, if someone has a number of cases, let's say they have two attorneys and they have a hearing on Monday and they have a hearing on Wednesday, they show up for Monday's hearing and they don't show up on Wednesday. Why? Not because they were blowing it off, because they were there on Monday and they thought it was handled. And then an arrest warrant goes out sometimes and they come in and go, I thought it was there. Then it comes up, the attorney communication wasn't what it should have been. And so, again, I understand that there is a level of frustration that people are not showing up, but we do have pools. What you're really saying is we think judges should be imposing bail more for people who don't show up as opposed to issuing a site and release warrant. But judges judge based on the facts before them. And in these circumstances, the idea that this is going to help the backlog, I don't agree with that. Yes, it will bring some people to court who aren't showing up. But the cost of that is they go to jail, they then sit in jail, they then are part of the remote arraignments, which bogs that down. We then have defense attorneys who have to meet with them through the remote arraignment part. They're not coming to court anyway and getting the paperwork because we don't have transports. Or law enforcement has to deal with them and bring them in. In the middle of a day where we have a murder trial going on, and now we have this person who just showed up. And under this bill, it could be a $50 warrant. If the judge is in the middle of a murder trial and can't handle the case at that moment, what the judge would say is, Any objection to citing them for tomorrow, we gotta finish this case. That can't happen. So, the police officer has to sit there and the judge says, Okay, I'll get to you when I can. And the Burlington City officer is just sitting there for two, three or four hours. Or in other communities, Springfield, Vermont, some smaller departments have their only officer sitting there because the judge, he's got 14 jurors after a two week trial.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: So, Judge Zomme, a few years ago, I think, I can't remember why, but we asked if the judiciary had the software to do tax reminders. Did that get implemented and has that made a difference?

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I don't defer to

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: the Defender General on that because we do have the ability to do it. My understanding is that there are a host of reasons why the General and the Defense Bar is not in support of that. Interesting. Am I correct, Mr. Valeria?

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. So what I mean by The last point when he gets when he doesn't place.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Because it looked like Do you remember something?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I remember that we had the conversation, and you felt that it's we both felt that it was the best thing to But I don't remember the reasons. I could look up what I thought. I could also tell you what to do, which is but that's fine right now. We'll look forward to

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: that for I'll yield my time. I don't think we're released yet because we have Angela, then Kevin.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: We've already had this discussion, he does a a very good argument. However, I also have a different point of view. I went to the Police Academy in 1988. Went through part time 1990. I went full time, and I've been a full time since then. Still practicing today. I have not run into a site and release warrant until after COVID. And I have run into all those examples you've given with regular warrants in my whole career, and we've always figured out a way to work it out. And I think letting people go on a citation when there is a warrant is provides more negatives than positives to what we're trying to get accomplished. Oh, I do have to go. They are serious about me going to court. It kind of I don't know. The bulk of the people that we deal with are reaffectors, at least in Chittenden County and probably throughout. And they know how to do things. And I failed to mention when I was going through it before is it's a violation of NCIC user agreement to put a warrant in that says site. And it has to be A violation of what again? It goes into a database. Okay. And it's a national database, and it has to have an arrest attached to it. We have a different opinion on arrest, but it has to be a custodial or a and to me, a citation is not a custodial. And everybody I've talked to that is involved with NCIC says, yes, it is a violation of NCIC. It has to go into a different database if you're gonna do this, like a statewide database. So we have VCIC. I don't know if it can be isolated to something like that or if it's even worth considering. But it it when someone's caught, you know, somewhere else, I mean, it could be because it has to do with extradition and bail, and then we start to confuse the situation site and release. Well, they can't even help us when their their state doesn't make a phone call and say, hey, brother. I didn't mention that earlier. Angela, then, could

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Tiffany, I wonder if you have any thoughts regarding Tom's question about, well, then what can we do? You have Did the court have data on how many failures to appear there were in the Chittenden County Freebie Dafu?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Yes. I don't know. Zach Weight may have kept track of that. He seemed to keep track of everything. And I mean that as a compliment

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: to So his

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I can check that. And

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: because my follow-up question, even without knowing the number, would be, is it your opinion or experience that when there is less time between appearances, that there is a better rate of appearing. Yes. So, that's something we can do. Yes.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Representative Oliver mentions that this was something that started after COVID. It's something we've been doing outside of Southern Vermont, in my words, for well before that. Yeah. Someone didn't show up, I've heard an issue. If it was a diversion situation or something like that, we're busy. We got a lot of cases. They might've forgotten. They got a citation seven or eight weeks ago. I would actually just tell the clerk that we'd send a notice of hearing out to them. More than half the people showed up after just getting regular mail notice of hearing. They'd say, Oh my God, for a new hearing coming up. And the ones that didn't, then we could up at another step. Sometimes we send a judicial summons after that by mail. But people would get the idea that, okay, we need to be there. And then the ones who didn't show up with those, yes. Then sometimes you say a site and release, but you also would oftentimes go to bail debt. And representative Rachelson, the reasons why, according to the managing attorneys from the defender general's office, as I understand it, the reasons why the text messaging from the court would not be something people support, clients routinely change phones. They don't pay their phone bills always. They may share phones with other people and witnesses, including. There will be confusion where judicial texts would not reflect county practice about some counties, you do have to show up for status and others not. You have to show up for scheduling conferences. It could be confusing to the client because of contact from the attorney at the different times with different messages. The court would not allow the clients to respond. There is a concern that's been expressed about the courts contacting defendants directly. Also a concern that if the court sends it, then the court says, well, we issued a text that even the attorney says, didn't notify them, then is the court gonna start relying on its own information to issue a warrant? That could be concerning. And the last one was also that there's no way to know if the text was actually received. Did it go through? We assume it did, like regular mail, but one doesn't know, especially where people might not have the same phone. Aren't they They're being used in many jurisdictions. There's a number of jurisdictions that use them, yes.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And how do they deal with these issues?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: My understanding is in those jurisdictions that these types of issues, it works. Some people might not like it. Our thought was where we don't have buy in, we don't have agreement. It's not. And we recognize that it does have the potential to cause issues. We have enough other issues right now with communication, with attorneys, losing conflict attorneys. We don't wanna complicate things anymore. We wanna solve the problems and not have people get frustrated. Okay.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So I just listened to, I think what I listened to was this bill, two two examples of an 80 year old woman with Alzheimer's, and then a woman that's got three kids that we're just arresting. Is that correct?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Among the people who would be arrested. Yes. I'm hearing from

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: representative Oliver, which a lot of times is is a law enforcement officer that he is dealing with the same people time and time and time again, which is in my mind, what this bill is about, which in my mind goes back, it's the same old people, and we're dealing with a court backlog that yeah, we heard yesterday with Chittenden County and the special prosecutor or judge, whatever you want to say, that we actually made headway. But it seems like we're still taking and the other thing that was said was these people that I'm gonna use the word officer Oliver is putting his life on the line when he's doing this, we've seen areas in in and I'm just gonna use the town, St. Johnsbury, a restaurant was used, I think one person was dead, if I'm not mistaken, we had them being hidden in their building, I forgot what they're called when it's done like that, But it's like, it seems like we're just enabling more of this same situation going down the road and we're putting I think people are forgetting, we're putting people's lives on the line for making all these or letting these people have all these excuses. Listen, I have things I have to do and I have to follow. And if I didn't all the way going up through there's consequences, it seems like we're making excuses, or we're doing everything possible to give everybody such a realm not to do the right thing, and to be held accountable. And it's very, very frustrating to me. I mean, frustrating. It's like, this is about repeat offenders that in my mind, that know the law, and are skirting the law. How

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: are

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: we gonna how do we deal with that? I mean, what you brought before sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but what you brought before us, I don't think is what we're trying to do with this bill, and I'm sure the Defender General is going to correct me even more, but it's like our job, one of my biggest things here is public safety. This bill, we're trying to deal with public safety, we're not dealing with it. And I'm not trying to be difficult on judges or anything like this, but I think we've gone way too far one way and not going in the middle. I think you disagree with me, but

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I would say that if you look at the statistics from the past several years, the numbers of individuals since the bail $200 amount has been removed and the ability to impose bail in more cases, the number of detained individuals has increased significantly. And if you look at the data from Department of Corrections, you'll also see that a number of those individuals are low bail amounts. In other words, so when you say the legislature is taking steps to do things, when they do things, the legislature has taken steps. But part of those steps is allowing judges to exercise their discretion based upon the input from the state's attorneys and the defense attorneys. How many of the cases where people just don't show up are the prosecutors saying, We're not seeking bail. We want a site and release. Judge, we think this person's not going to be there. The job of the state's attorney is to make sure that public safety is effectuated. And so we have circumstances where everybody in the courtroom knows that it's not necessary to impose bail. But this bill would say the entities who are dealing with this day in and day out, boots on the ground in the courtroom, you have to do X because one or two or three or four people might shoot off their mouth when they get picked up to say they're not gonna show up and they're thumbing their nose. And that's a policy decision for the legislature. But the issue is not the same in Chittenden as it is in other counties around the state. Yes, we're seeing people who don't show up and there will always be people who don't follow through. But the existing statutes that the legislature works on every year to fine tune and come up with new components for conditions of release and things like that, provide the court with the necessary discretion to do exactly what you were looking to do. Unfortunately, everyone will not agree on whether or not the bail should be imposed on this day, on this defendant. But that's the judicial system. We are dealing with cases, individuals, specific facts, specific days, specific circumstances. And we're dealing with people, not categories, not generalities. And I understand the frustration. I understand people say, Well, this is happening. Judges don't wanna see people not show up either. But we have a duty to the law to follow and look at the factors and say, what is gonna make this person show up? And if I can't conclude that bail is necessary to make them show up, I don't think I'm upholding forth if I impose bail because I just wanna, know, judges, they wanna make a point. That's not what we can do.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So we need to formulate a bill that apparently is different than this one to better balance, to hold people accountable to show up in court, so we don't keep dealing with this same situation over and over and over again. I mean, okay, well, I'm gonna say I'm in accounting for a minute, what 730 some times this person knew what was going on. I think he used Springfield. We know what's a big situation, what's going on down there in that area, what St. John's Ferry, we know the high traveled areas, the level of crime that crimes that's coming in, think the I use a murder rate, whatever you want to say, that the level

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: of crimes has gotten much more vicious, for lack of better words, and I just don't think we're doing our due diligence of keeping people safe. I'll use Springfield for an example, because that's a department where I know they don't have a lot of police officers. Yeah, there's like, but I mean, on a duty at one time. And so if you have to take somebody into custody, and I'm aware that the chief has previously expressed frustration that they have to drive to White River or they have to drive someone else, and I believe he has it, it makes a significant impact on their ability to provide the public safety to the community because their officer is driving this person who might have missed their arraignment on diversion under this bill to White River to sit and wait because the bill doesn't allow the judge to say, cite them and release So, every decision you make on something like this, it has real impact that we do see. The Springfield chief, they do have to send officers to White River. The community doesn't have as many officers on at that moment. That affects public safety. Allowing the courts to continue to operate under the existing discretionary standards that we have provides the court the ability to take that into account on individual circumstances. We cite every release, and they're right back out there doing the same darn thing again, because we're not holding them for any accountability. But that's a different question. If you're saying they're back out doing the same thing, if you impose bail and they post bail, they are released, individuals are released also. We cannot impose bail because someone has committed a crime or is a risk to public safety. Non monetary conditions are what needs to be imposed there. Sole legitimate purpose of bail under the Vermont constitution is to assure that someone's going to show up at court. So, if you have a situation where you bring this person to court under this bill, you bring them to court, the court has to decide, are they gonna show up? And if they're not gonna show up, what amounts it gonna take to make sure they show up? It doesn't result in someone being held once they go to court. They're entitled to bail. It's not the money,

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: right? It's not the money that they're not showing up for, it's they know they don't have to.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: What am I missing? The purpose of bail is to give an external motivation for someone to show up. In other words, you're gonna put up X amount of dollars, that amount's gonna make, you're gonna want that money back. And therefore, that money's important, so you don't wanna miss court because you're gonna lose that money. You don't wanna lose that money. That's the purpose of bail, not to incarcerate people. Okay. Okay. Maybe some, that's true. What about the ones that let's just

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: say there's organized crime out there. I don't know if I can use a hypothetical, but we know there's organized crime out there. They're paying for them to come and do their bail, and they're right back out on the streets, and they're going right back to work for How

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: are we handling that situation? The sole legitimate purpose of bail is to reasonably assure the appearance and make sure people show up for court. There are nonmonetary conditions that can be imposed. There are provisions of the law that allow someone to be held without bail. If it's a life imprisonment case, or if it's a felony act of violence, and the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that there's no condition or combination of conditions that's going to assure someone. Those are the options the court has under the law.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Can I suggest one other thing on that is, I'm gonna go to Tom and say, is that actually getting that person through trial is the primary thing that we've been working on the last few years is to give them resources so much to give certain consequences? So let's not have a long pretrial period. And that's what we're working towards. When it's pretrial, you're right. But I'm just saying what we've been working on here is to try to get that process. And you need people there as representative of all that.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: You need people to show up to move their cases forward. We understand that. The system is designed to address that. It is not a system that brings with it every time you're gonna make that decision, it's gonna be, Oh, this is absolutely gonna ensure someone's gonna show up, because there's always going to be someone who is not gonna follow what you say. But again, the examples and the circumstances, one size fits all leads to a number of consequences that are not what I'm hearing you're intending to have come forward. You got? Kenneth, no.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: This bill in my mind is dealing with the people that are skirting the system that this isn't one or two or three times, and three times is too many by the way, but four, five, I mean, we've heard all kinds of unbelievable numbers that are out there that they keep doing the same old thing. And you're I think I heard you say at some point, they're gonna be they're gonna end

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: up in jail. The court has the ability if someone doesn't show up, the court, to issue an arrest warrant. And the court could conclude that their failure to appear under the factors of seventy five fifty four of title 13, that the court can conclude that as a condition of release, there needs to be bail to assure their appearance. And by the way, I

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: don't want to throw everybody in jail. I just want accountability and see if we can reform or or get people to to to think differently. And I think I think you and the judicial system or everybody in the judicial system, that's what everybody's working for. And it's like, how are we gonna get from where we are now to where we need to be, because we've gotten so far behind, and I don't see how this is moving forward. Did I not answer a question?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Was that a question? It

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: was more of a statement, but

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: How do we make this how do we make the situation better? I think that steps have

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: been taken in the legislature, in the judiciary, with the stakeholders. The concerns that are expressed about frustration of people not coming to court, We're taking steps to We're shortening the time periods, trying not to have people cited out so far, trying not to have people have the ability to forget, try to have some predictability, increasing the ability of attorneys to be able to represent people, not having to switch attorneys because your one conflict attorney decides to retire, then you have to get emails, texts, or whatever it is from your new attorney who you might not know, and there might be a mistake there. We're trying to work on systemic issues and steps are being taken. And I think things are going well. We saw the pilot docket worked. And what did that tell us? It told us that if you're gonna give predictability, shorter timeframes, resources, the ability of people to talk and do things, people will generally show up. And if they don't, the court can issue a warrant. Right now, we can issue warrants. But bills like this, again, I understand that the idea is we wanna capture this group of people who are just thumbing their nose and not showing up, but it does much more.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Yeah. Thank Having those situations where it does take law enforcement take us away from what we're doing a very long time, I still think the impact of of this may exceed that. It may might be better. I I just I've had to drive all over the state to lodge people, you know, in the middle of night, whatever. The impact of oh, woah. It's it landed okay. It did. The impact of of this is is having a sort of a different effect that that we're seeing. Would the court be reasonable with some sort of policy? I mean, if the court can use it if the court can use its discretion from the bench and issue a notice of hearing to somebody instead of a warrant So that we don't have to continually handle people. And then maybe a judicial notice or summons that may have to get served. That's the kind of thing I'm trying to find a solution.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: Understanding for law enforcement historically has been, if we have to serve something, make it a warrant. We'd rather do a site and release warrant than do a judicial summons. Because a judicial summons says you're supposed to be there it still has to be served. And so that what a number of officers have said in the past.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Yeah. But I can see that. But I mean, at least make an attempt to mail it. If you've taken steps that are non monetary and people don't really realize the gravity of the situation they're in, I don't know. Eventually, they need to figure that out.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I think that what's important to keep in mind is that this kind of bill, when you talk about these things, it starts a dialogue. And you said about a policy or something. I can tell you that this is the type of bill you go to the other judges, Well, apparently some people don't like cite and release warrants. Say Not being a judge. No, don't mean a No, mean, it's like, because here's the negative of a cite and release. You think, judges, you think, okay, myself included, here's the reason we're doing something. There's a positive way, and this is a good way. But when you hear someone else say, No, here's the negative to that. Sometimes it's important to listen and reflect and go, Okay, we still think this is the best way to go? That's a dialogue with the state's attorneys and defense bar to say, what is the best way to accomplish this? I don't know if you have 14 state's attorneys who would agree on that. And I certainly can tell you, you won't have 40 judges who agree. But the reality is that, again, it's dialogue, it's discussion, it's understanding the frustrations, just like I've indicated here today. Consequences or there's cases where it's going to apply where you may not mean it to if a bill like this passed. It's important for judges and state's attorneys and defense attorneys to know that there's consequences if you do this too, if you just do a stagnant lease. And so that's part of the calculus. Take a closer look at it, reevaluate it, read the facts, understand the law, take the case that's before you. And as Bill Belichick said, do your job. And that is to apply the facts of the law and the case with that individual.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I think Ian, Tom and Angela.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Okay, I'm gonna keep it brief. And I'm just going to testify. I just really appreciate the bill and having the conversation because there is a lot of frustration out there, and I think we're all aware of that. Completely disagree with it personally, but I think the conversation is really important to be had. The tension that is in this discussion is just around what I believe is that the judicial system and justice is a very human thing. And so any time we move away from allowing each officer an element of the court to engage the humanity of the system is a step that we take away from potentially just resolutions. And so we to be really careful anytime we do something like that. I think that's why we stay away from mandatory minimums. Because we want to let everybody who is a part of the system look at the humans that are involved and apply all of that facts to the law. And so I think, and I get all of the frustration, totally do. I think

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Oh, I don't think you do.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I do, I do, I do. But I also think that if we look at the data that the Defender General showed us yesterday or two days ago, these things all mushed together, I think, that the backlog is going down. And we look at the accountability court and we see that if we get outcomes faster, that it can be more effective. It actually was the conversation this morning that pretrial supervision is maybe not the move we want to go. We actually want to go more of the accountability corp because we don't want to keep these people in the system longer. We want to try to resolve the case, get an outcome, get them the treatment and the potentially punishment that's necessary. And so all of these things are and I guess I'm not making any real point other than the frustration is real, but you can't just take away the tools that each of these elements of the court have to be able to look at each individual case. And in this one, I get that it would be targeting the people that you're thinking about, Penny, but it's also gonna target it's gonna capture the old lady with Alzheimer's, and it's gonna capture it's just it's too big of a net. And so you just can't I I just don't think you can do it.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: Would you wanna comment? Well, yes. I would like to since you got to testify like that.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: You can testify.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I I yes. Have you ever represented somebody that came in on a warrant, resolved a case? I don't like talking about my cases. Generically? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: guess, well, I don't know. I don't understand. I mean, warrants are necessary. I guess, of course, they're necessary. But again, they gotta be applied individually. Each case needs to be assessed.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All I know. Thank you. Tom and then Angela.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Judge, earlier you talked about do you mail out notice of hearings? Is that what you did?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I used to do that because we weren't trying to overload the sheriffs with service of judicial summonses. And it was a way to capture those people, that second category that I mentioned, the people who are gonna try and show up if they forget. And it captured a lot of those, I don't mean the word capture literally, but it brought in a lot of those individuals for the next year.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: How often is that used now? You said you used to do it, but it doesn't mean that the other 39 that doesn't-

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I think that more judges are probably, and more jurisdictions are probably going with site and release warrants. That's become much more ubiquitous.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Is the site release getting more people to show up than what you noticed in theory used

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: to do? I can't speak to that. I can tell you that when I was there, it worked pretty good. It did. But I would say that a site and release, if you're looking to make a message, to send a message as a judge to somebody who really need to be here and they haven't shown up and there's a basis to get them. Sight and release is much more of a message sender than a notice of hearing. A notice of hearing arrives in your mail or you look at it, Oh, it's not jury duty or whatever. You can or can't. Cite and release as an officer comes up and says, I have a warrant to arrest you. You're under arrest and you're not bail, but your condition of now me un arresting you, if you will, is that here's your citation and you're un arrested and now you show up for court. Maybe. Okay. That's something that

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: when- There that population that's a big maybe. That's correct. Unfortunately. You also, when you talked about your notice of hearing, there was, I couldn't write fast enough, but there was a couple of steps beyond that that- Judicial summons? I don't remember what you said.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: There's also a process, a judicial summons, you can send someone and have it served by a law enforcement officer that says, You have to be at this hearing. It's not an arrest. It's more like a Think of it as a subpoena type impact. Here, you've been served, you need to be there. And if you're not, a warrant might be issued for your arrest.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And not that you have the numbers on your head, and maybe this is for the chair. I just wonder if we can get pre and post COVID numbers as far as the number of people that don't show up for court anymore. I mean, it sounds like the numbers have increased since COVID, and I'd just be curious to see the pre and post COVID numbers. Yeah. Which was which was way heavy with me. And then I got a question for Tom, not for you, Ian. He I know he testified. Yeah. You can. So if anybody in here knows the people on the street, it's and and the reason I'm saying that is if and a lot of these people on the street are I assume are gonna know each other. You know, if you're in the Burlington area, and if some of these people started say we did this bill and some of these people started, you know, having getting arrested, going to jail, whatever, being forced into doing the right thing, I won't lead you, I'll just ask how is that gonna affect the other people?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member; bill sponsor)]: I don't think there's a greater chance that they might get taken into custody, whether it be jailed or whatever. Right. Yeah. They share all kinds of secrets, it's not just this, it's how to operate, how to get away with it. Right. They talk, that's what they do.

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: And I'll relate it to, I know I've shared it here before, to retail theft problem in Rutland. Was the the biggest problem was five or six, you know, people that were doing a a large percentage of the retail theft and the stars and moon stars and moon? Moon stars. Moon stars. Thank you. The moon and stars aligned and for whatever reason, those five or six people were all in off the street, I'll say. They were in jail. All at once and retail theft in the Rutland area plummeted to pre COVID levels, not just because they were off the street, but all their associates got the message that there's some accountability and they slowed down doing that. And and I see some similar potential similarities here with the question that I just asked Thomas. I just I don't know what we need to do, but I think we need to do something. Whether it's given you, you know, a get out of jail free card the first two or three times or whatever, but when it gets to be so many, you know, the judicial system a chance to work with the system you have now and with those people who are still gonna thumb their nose to the system that some of the language in this bill I think, needs to be implemented.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Angela? I

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: think you've talked before, Darzoni, about judicial trainings. And I think one of those many, know you've shared a lot of different kinds. I think one of them involves trauma informed justice. Is it fair to say that it's scientifically proven that trauma changes the brain?

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I believe it does.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Right. And so I think to Ian's point, in keeping with the humanity of it all, I feel like whenever we have these conversations, it's important to also put that on the table, recognizing it's not a way to give people a pass, but to say that applying standards of what a healthy reasonable person would and should do isn't so easy in a lot of the cases that are brought before.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: What you're focusing on is the, as I said, individual, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the judge, they know the case. They know the person and they consider those different types of factors. Is the person who's not showing up someone who is also the victim of a horrific domestic violence issue and they don't show up for court, we have no reason why they're not there. Do you issue warrant? Oftentimes, state attorney will say, Judge, they have to be here next week anyway. Let's just wait. If they don't, you can issue a warrant then.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And as far as the call that we have to do something, which I understand and agree with, I think it sounded yesterday. The timing of this, of course, is very Dave, it's almost like it was by design. We had that conversation yesterday and the conversation this morning, hearing about the three doc three b doc then talking about pretrial supervision and now this conversation, it sounds like we actually know what we have to do. There are tried and true methods that really center the person and getting basic needs met in order for them to show up in FORWARD. So it's oftentimes more about support than supervision. That was stressed yesterday. Those are not my words. So I'm feeling like I think we have some of the answers, and it's a matter of implementing them more widely, perhaps?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: As I said earlier, there's those three categories. The middle category, the people who you're talking about, I think, the ones who will generally show up before, but they sometimes need reminders assistance and things like that. Those types of situations with the pilot docket and such, it really makes a difference with those. Is it going to make a difference with the third category? I think, yes, there is gonna be a number of those individuals. It's going to make a difference because we're requiring them to show up for court. There's gonna be consequences if they don't, and we're moving the cases faster. But there will be people who, no matter what we do, are gonna say to the police officer, I'm not showing up for whatever reason. And we just have to recognize that that's part of the human aspect of what we deal with, and we have to address those cases individually. And again, judges understand that the goal is to bring people to court and to move the cases. And if they think there's one approach that's going to work after hearing from the state and defense, they're gonna certainly consider them.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, you for being part of our committee discussion today, this afternoon. My pleasure. It's helpful. We'll to, I think, noodle a little bit on what we can do, and hopefully you take the message back to the court and to the judge's level of frustration as well. We do have retention, but it's every six years.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge)]: I can tell you, frankly, that when bills like this come up, I visit with the judges and say, Here's what's going on in the legislature. Here's how I spent my vacation. Here's how I spent my Christmas vacation. I will tell the judges, here's what the bills are in the legislature. Here's the discussions that are being had. And I think it's important for everyone to understand. We still have to obviously follow the facts and the law, but I think it's good for judges to understand here are frustrations with how things are coming out. And so it helps us to assess things appropriately, think.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. Thank you. Unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to get to Kim. Thank you for being part

[Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: of this discussion

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And as we're gonna take a break. I'll be back at quarter quarter to three for our last forty five minutes with animal policy bill other than voting