Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Hi. Welcome to the host judiciary committee this Tuesday morning, Mark. Today

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: is the miscellaneous judiciary bill day. And so we will have a walk through this morning. And then this afternoon we'll have And we hopefully will get to at least one witness this morning as well. This afternoon we have a number of witnesses. And then we're looking at another bill that we'll look at and have some testimony to decide whether we're going to put it into the miscellaneous bill. But that's H-six 29. It just wasn't in the draft yet, we have to decide

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: if we want to put it there. So over to you, Eric, for a walkthrough. Yes, thank you, and good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you. Welcome back. Eric Fitzpatrick of the Office of Legislative Counsel here to do, first, a walkthrough of the annual miscellaneous judiciary bill, here the committee remembers. This is an annual bill that not only does this committee look at a miscellaneous bill, there's a number of committees in the legislature that have a miscellaneous bill every year, and the judiciary committees do as well. It starts in the house or senate rotates every year. This year, it's beginning in the house as it started in the senate last year. It's generally an attempt to include provisions that are sometimes more technical in nature or at least minor in nature. And they come up during the course of the year, during the interim. I will get emails from various folks asking for technical pieces or minor corrections to include. They could be from attorney general's office. It could be from the state's attorneys, the Center for Crime Victim Services, the Bar Association, etcetera. I'll sort of send me emails during the year, and I keep them in a folder and then try and put them all together in this bill. So when I do the walkthrough, I will note where the request came from so that everybody knows, oh, this is who asked for this one, and that's why that one's being included. So I'll try and and in some cases, actually, there's a few places here and there where it's just some technical correction that our office noted During the course of revising the statutory volumes, we came across it, so I'll put it in the same folder. Hang on to it until the miscellaneous go walk through comes around, which is right now. So I'll mention those as well when I go through them.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So before you go, just one other quick thing. Sometimes there are things slightly more than technical. Kind of the standard that this committee has used is that they're not too complicated. Some of these might be complicated to us, but not necessarily to the presenter because there are a couple of things related to probate real estate type of problem here. But as long as it's relatively not complicated, there's not controversy over it or minimum controversy. And we can have a unanimous vote in here that we can include it in the bill. So it's kind of the standards that we've been following.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, that makes sense. Been that way for a number of years now. So I think you're right. It's definitely not always necessarily purely technical. Right. But as you say, relatively straightforward. Everybody agrees. That sort of thing. Yeah. Right. Alright. So having said all that, I'll do a quick walkthrough of the different provisions, and there's a number of them, and you'll see they cover a lot of different areas of the law. I'll try and give you a little bit of explanation so you understand what's going on in each section. So the first one, section one, this was yeah. Is The first section was requested by the Center for Crime Victim Services. And this, you'll see, it looks like a lot of new language there because the first three pages, three and a half pages are underlined. It's not brand new. It's just moved from one section of law to death. So there's no changes. It's verbatim. And the provision that's being moved has to do with something in existing law related to profits of crime. So there's an existing law that permits the attorney general or a crime victim to bring a lawsuit to recover profits of crime when someone who's been convicted of a crime, for example, tries to write a bestselling book or something like that. That just sort of used the classic example that was the reason that many states have these kind of statutes now. But the Vermont Prophets of Crime statute, even though it's the attorney general that administers this program, is located in the crime in the Victims Compensation Board's chapter of Vermont law. So all this does is it moves the profits of crime chapter subchapter from the Victims Compensation Board area of law to the attorney general's area of law in the Vermont statutes. And my understanding is that both the the AG and the Center for Crime Victims and the Victims Compensation Board have all agreed on this change, that it makes sense for it to be located here rather than in the ECB statutes. So that's the quick summary of that why that language is all there as opposed to where it's being repealed, which we'll see later on in the walkthrough. So that brings us over to page four, section two. This was requested by the court diversion program and the attorney general's office. And what's going on here is that under current law, you may recall, you've talked about it in this community quite a bit, there's a civil violation on the books for minors doing various things related to alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, that sort of thing. And so the civil violation under existing law sort of starts over starts on page four, carries over onto page five, and that's for things like if the minor buys alcohol with a with a fake ID, if they possess alcohol, possess cannabis, consume alcohol, etcetera. That's a through d. And then you see subdivision e there on page five, also operating a motor vehicle at point o two or above. So this proposal, as I mentioned from court diversion, is that the way the current law is structured, one of the penalties that can happen for one of these minor civil violations is that, the miner's driver's license is suspended for a certain specified period of time. But there's an automatic renewal after that period of time. If it's ninety days, it gets automatically renewed after ninety days. For some reason, not sure exactly why, that automatic renewal piece is only in place through A through D, from pages four to five, what I just mentioned, using a fake ID, possessing alcohol, etcetera. Those things for some Oh, I'm sorry. Got the opposite. It's only in place for subdivision E, the point zero two, this automatic reinstatement. The automatic reinstatement. Questions? Especially

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: on the DUI, I thought they had to go through diversion. I thought we made that along.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That is down there. Yep. Line 18. That step they are referred to the diversion program.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: They have to pass that before they get their it's not automatic they're gonna get their license back, is it? Unless they pass that course?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's right. If they don't pass it I think, though, what happens if they don't pass the course, then they get the civil penalty. That's when they get the $300 civil penalty and the license suspension. But, yes, there is an automatic reinstatement. That's a proposal. No. That's the existing one under subdivision e. So, yeah, there is an automatic reinstatement currently. I think Willa, from the AG's op from the court diversion, will be able to give you a little bit more detail on that. But I believe that there is one currently. I see. Yep. And the proposal here is to is to parallel that and have the automatic reinstatement also in place for those first four civil violations that I mentioned, using a fake ID to buy alcohol, possessing alcohol. And you see that over on page six, lines five and ten. So that's the proposal there. And you may have noticed too, if you look at that, going back to page four again, because it's on line nine. These civil offenses only apply to a minor who's 12 years of age or older and 21. And that makes some sense if you think about it, because juvenile offenses also only apply to 12 years and up. Right? That's the minimum age for a human offense. Again, though, there's a for this one, which is the alcohol one, if you look over at section three, page six, these are the civil violations for tobacco products. Those apply to anyone 21. That's line 13. It doesn't have that same language of it applying only if the person's 12 years of age or older. So, again, this was a proposal from the judiciary to make that consistent so that in both the alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco context, these violations only apply if the child is 12 years of age or older. Under that age, the child could still be subject to a CHINS petition, child in need of care, supervision, that sort of thing.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But they wouldn't be subject to a

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: civil or criminal offense. So that's what's going on in that section. Page seven, line section four starts at the very bottom, continues in front of page eight. This is purely technical. It's something our office noticed. It's just a missing conjunction. Line six, page eight. See, that's a missing hand. Well, that's inserted there. Section five is actually something that this committee has worked on before earlier this session. This was h five seventy two, which I think the committee heard test about. This section repeals the law that prohibits public access to Internet criminal records. So you see, if you look at existing law lines eleven and twelve, right now, the court can't permit public access via the Internet to criminal, family, or probate case records. So the proposal is to strike criminals so that the public would be able to have access via the Internet, the criminal records. And if you look at lines nineteen and twenty, the court is required to develop rules to establish how that's gonna work.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So really quickly on that one, we're we're not gonna have additional witnesses. We had a bunch of witnesses this as a separate bill earlier, and there didn't seem to be any controversy. And everybody, at that point, seemed to be on board with that. If we do wanna hear from Doug Zone again, we can have him address that. But we have taken witnesses from a number of individuals earlier this session.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great. Sounds good. So moving on to section six, also purely technical. In this case, you'll see line 13, there's a reference to the district court, which doesn't exist anymore. After the judicial restructuring in the late two thousands, the district courts were eliminated, and they're all superior courts now, so that terminology is updated. The section seven was a request from the judiciary. And this, you'll see some language being repealed bottom of page nine, lines nineteen and twenty. This is also a case of an oversight years ago in 2011 when when the mortgage foreclosure statutes were restructured, they were placed elsewhere in title 12. And that sent in that section that you see repealed right there already exists in this other section of title 12. So we don't need it to us. So it's being repealed here and remains in the revised mortgage foreclosure status or elsewhere. Turning over to page 10. This also is a actually, the next two sections, sections eight and nine, page ten, eleven, and 12. These all enact a house bill that you have on the wall that was introduced this year, age eight seventy three, which refers to stalking cases. You remember, you had stalking cases are both criminal and civil. You're gonna have a criminal prosecution as well as a civil order against stalking. And in the course of, proving a stalking case, one of the requirements is that there is a course of conduct. So if you look at the key line there, it's line five, page 10. Course of conduct means two or more acts over a period of time, however short. So it can't be just one act. It has to be two or more. The proposal is to make clear, look at lines nineteen and twenty of the same page, page 10, that courts of conduct shall not be construed to require that the two or more acts occur on separate calendar days. My understanding is that there have been some court decisions that suggested that the two acts have to occur on different calendar days. So this is clarifying that these two acts don't have to be on the same day. They can be any two acts, or two or more, I should say.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Just really quickly on that. This comes from a bill introduced by Zachary H. Eight seventy three that puts language into this bill. Right. Exactly.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And the same for section 11, which starts on page 27. What we just looked at, section 10, was for civil cases. Section nine on page 11, sorry, section nine, is the same change for criminal cases. So if we turn over to page 12, line six and seven, you see there it is, that same language being inserted. Course of conduct does not construed to require two more acts on separate count digits. Moving on to section 10, bottom of page 12, purely technical correction, a reference to section, which should be sub chapter. Over onto page 11. Now this is from the Center for Crime Victim Services, section 11, page 13. So under existing law, there's a requirement that when a law enforcement agency is investigating a crime, they have to provide certain information to the crime victim. And you'll see that information is listed on page 13, Subsection A there, line three, all the way down to line none, two, all three. That's all in this list of information that the law enforcement agency provides to the victim. The proposal here is to add one item to that list of information that is provided to the victim by a law enforcement agency, and you see that at the bottom of page 13. It's information concerning the victim's right to know if the defendant is held at a correctional facility, where the defendant is held, if the defendant is released, how to locate the Department of Corrections Vermont offender locator website, and how to register for automated notifications when a defendant is released. All that exists, this is providing the victim with information about how to access it, basically. And my understanding is that that information is already in this form that law enforcement agencies provide, so you're sort of basically making the statute reflect what's already in the form that agencies have been providing. All right, that brings us to page 14, section 12. This is what I mentioned earlier. This is part of the current profits for crimes statute that is in the victim's compensation board statutes. So it's being repealed there. You see that? Because we said, we saw in the very beginning, it's being reenacted in the attorney general subchapter. They're being moved from one place to the other, not changed in it. Just moved. Section 13, that's over on page 15. This was also a request from the Center for Crime Victim Services. This has to deal with the composition of the Victims Compensation Board. Who's on the board right now? You'll see that listed in subsection A. It's established in order to award compensation to crime victims and their dependents, consists of five members appointed by the governor. And the first one you'll see is a physician, licensed to practice in this state. I think you'll hear testimony on this, but my understanding is that the board wants to broaden that a little bit so it doesn't just could be any health care provider licensed in Vermont, not necessarily just the physician. So I spoke with our health care attorney about the best language to use in this situation, and that's what you had in line eight. Eric, as you

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: probably know, what's the definition of a health care provider?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's any person licensed or certified to provide professional health care service in Vermont. I love it when that happens. Anticipated that question and wrote it right down here in Vermont. Thought somebody asked that. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. It's almost like you've been around here for about fifteen years. Yeah. You'd never know. Thank you. I appreciate that. Teeing it up for me. And we so everybody knows we didn't set that up. No. No. Go ahead. So, yes, that's why that's there. Next section, 14 line fit sorry, page 15, also requested by the Center for Crime Victim Services and just another example of the profits of crime piece being moved. So this is listing what the duties are of the victim's compensation board. And if you look over on page 16, line one, very top there, one of the things the Victim Compensation Board has to do now is look at this profits of crime issue that I was just talking about. But they're not gonna be doing that anymore. That's moved over to the attorney general, so it's struck here. Alright. Now next section 15, page 16, also from the Center for Crime Victim Services. This has to do with restitution. And I think this committee remembers that the way restitution works is when someone is convicted of a crime, the court, generally speaking, if there's any loss suffered by the victim, the court orders that the defendant provide the victim with restitution to compensate them for their pecuniary loss. Now that's after the conviction. In addition, the way the restitution unit is set up, there's a crime victims restitution special fund. And in many cases, the victim can get an advance from the fund before the conviction. So, yeah, obviously, after the conviction, they'd be entitled to recover, if they can, any loss that they suffer. Prior to the conviction, they can get an advance from the fund. But the advance has always been capped or used to be capped at at $10,000. A few years ago, the legislature lowered that cap from $10,000 to $5,000. However, there are several places in statute where we neglected to to make that change from 10,000 to 5. So this is technical in that sense. It's just the change was already made a few years ago, but there's a few places we forgot to change the 10,000 to 5,000. You can get $5,000 pre conviction. Correct. If they're not convicted, money has to be paid back? That's an excellent question. I did not have my answer in the margin to that one. That wasn't interesting. That's a good question. Don't know the Yeah. K. Right. What happens if they don't get convicted? Didn't recognize you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll look I'll look into that as well. It's a good question. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You bet. It would make sense, you mean. Right. All right. So moving on now, you'll see page 17. These next two sections actually over on the page seventeen, eighteen, and 19, all of those sections that are all being repealed, that's all the profits of crime sections that are in the crime victims chapter

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of law. So again, those are

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: all just being repealed here and moved over to the attorney general's subchapter. Over on page 19, you'll see that's another example, lines fourteen and fifteen, of the $10,000 advance cap on the advance from the restitution fund being changed to $5,000, places where we had forgotten to do so a couple of years ago. Another change down at the bottom of page 19, this was a request from the court diversion program, and it deals with the the records of pretrial risk assessments and need screening. So remember, sometimes, there'll be a pretrial risk assessment and a need screening. And currently, the one the records of those those assessments and screens are confidential, and they have to be retained for three years. So if you turn over onto the next page, page 20, that's all existing on page 20. That's just about confidentiality. If And you look over on page 21, though, line nine, as I said, currently, those records have to be retained for three years. The proposal is from the diversion program to change that from three years to two years. I think is consistent with state records retention policy generally. All right. We're moving on to section 20. I have I'm interested. So I made a technical change in this late last night, which I did not I didn't print off a new document for myself. So just curious. On line 14 of your document, does it say repeals spendthrift guardianships? Yes. Yes. Excellent. Mine says spendthrift trust. Oh, thanks. Yeah. My printer at home doesn't work. But yeah. So what's going on here is that and this is proposed by the judiciary. This is a repeal of all the statutes related to spendthrift guardianships. These are very old types of guardianships. And in fact, the definition it's an interesting old definition. A spend a spendthrift guardianship is a guardian guardianship for a person, quote, who is liable to be put under guardianship on account of excessive drinking, gambling, idleness, or debauchery. Yes. Yes. Those, as you might guess, are not used anymore. These statutes, they are not the basis for guardians Debauchery? I know. I know. Very tough one. So those those statutes are no longer used as the basis for a guardianship in the probate division. So the proposal from in fact, this was a proposal from the advisory committee on the rules of probate procedure that these statutes are out outdated and no longer used as a basis for a guardianship petition so they should be repealed. That's what's going on here. That's the repeal of

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: some laws every once in

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: a That's true. Right. Right. Over on to page 22. And this one I know will be this is a proposal from the judiciary that I I know will be especially pleasing to the chair, because this is a proposal, as we know, from the day is a day, from years ago that we spoke about earlier this session in the committee when when referring to limits on the number of things that have to be done in terms of court procedure, they use multiples of seven days now. So you'll see in line 15 that the current use of fifteen days has a time limit for when the court has to schedule a review in these types of cases, these contempt cases, has changed from 15 to 14. So I'm sorry, I said multiple of 17. Multiple of 17. That's what happened. So it was later. I know, right, right. There'll be another example. All right, so that was section 21. Section 22, also from the judiciary, under current law, when there's a child custody determination, this is over on the top of page 23, A certified copy of the determination has to be sent to the court administrator from the family division when this happens. This is also an old law. It's no longer necessary because these sorts of things are just filed directly into the electronic case management system. There's no need to send one by certified mail. So it's an old statute that's angry. Let's see. That brings us to section 23, also page 23. This is all actually, this is one in which both the judiciary and the court diversion program both asked for the same notice the same issue and asked for the same correction, which if they had incorrect cross reference, you look over on page 24, line seven and eight. The and in fact, we saw this in the first couple of sections of the bill, the Youth Substance Awareness Safety Program, that's not located in '4 230 B anymore. It's located in seven BSA six fifty six, so it's just correcting that cross reference. And does that again on section 24, also on page 24, line 18. So these are just correcting some outdated cross references requested by both the court and the diversion program. That brings us to page 25, section 27. This is a request from the Vermont Bar Association. And this, you'll see that the language itself looks a little complex there, but the with the principle, it's pretty pretty straightforward. And, just to remind the committee for a second, I know in previous years previous, legislation that committees looked at, we've talked about the idea of jointly held property. So more than one person can own property together. And there are different ways that more than one person can own property together. And two of the most the most common way two of the most common ways are, what's called joint tenancy and tenants in common. Tenancy in common. The the primary difference between these two types of property ownership is is what happens when one of the owners dies. If it's joint tenancy with right of survivorship, the two people own property in that way. And if one of them dies, the person who survives gets the full property. So the person who died, their share goes to the other person who's still alive. That's if you own property as joint tenants with right of survivorship. On the other hand, tenants in common, two people own property as tenants in common, one of them dies. Their share of the property goes to that person's heirs. Could be their kids, could be other family members, could be whoever they've decided in their will is gonna get their And these properties that dies. So it doesn't go to that person who's alive. It goes to that person's heirs. And you can decide as joint tenants however you wanna do that. It's up to a person who's creating a property interest to make that decision. So why am I explaining this to you? Because in this section of the bill is in response to a Vermont Supreme Court decision a couple of months ago, January 2026, called Kershon v. Abidele Mills, in which the court interpreted interpreted. Just say interpreted.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. Rolled off the tongue.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Know. It's made up a word there. So what the court found in that decision was that and it looked at standard language that's in beads and other property conveyances and has been for decades and decades and decades. And it looked at the standard language and said, oh, when this standard language appears, it creates a tenancy in common as opposed to a joint tenancy. So in other words, the result of that is, obviously, the person's heirs, if one of them dies, the heirs get it and not the surviving joint tenant. However, my understanding, and you will hear from your witnesses about this, is that that same language, when it's appeared in deeds for all this time, has never been interpreted that, that in fact, it's been interpreted to create a joint tense. So this language, in a sense, restores the understanding of what those words in a deed or other transfer of property do. And then what the understanding had been is that it creates this joint tenancy with right of survivorship, not a tenancy in common, and that's what's going on in this. That make sense? And related to this is the next section, section 26. It applies retroactively. So not just for joint tenancies or or or I'm sorry. Conveyances of property that happened between the effective date forward, it applies retroactive to conveyances that were made in the past, which, as you said, you can understand in the real estate context, that makes a lot of sense because a lot of these documents already exist and have for many, many years. So this is saying even for those documents, and you'll see line 18, notwithstanding one BSA two fourteen, remember that's language that we have to use if you're gonna apply a law retroactively. Because in general, newly passed legislation only applies prospect. The legislature can decide to have it apply retroactively, you have to say so specifically, which is what we're doing here. So this will apply whenever the property interest known as an estate is created, although it doesn't apply if somebody's already started a lawsuit about it. That's lines nineteen twenty. Now, if somebody's already litigated it or have started litigating it, then it doesn't apply retroactively to that. So that's the end of that particular piece. So moving over on to page 26, section 27. This is a something that was noticed by a member a member of the bar, a practicing attorney who emailed me and let me know that there's a line four, you'll see, deeds no longer have to be sealed and witnessed. So that's a a change that the legislature made a few years ago. And so, this stray language here, no longer a requirement, so it struck. Can I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: ask a quick question? So who would be a witness on that one? I don't think I have a notation.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Actually, I think you already have the witness on the other section. It would be Jim Nepp.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's Jim, okay. Thanks.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Next section, section 28. This is something that representative Oliver brought to our attention, and this is the is the an interesting see, line 10 there. Any person who finds goods valued at $3 or more or takes up a stray beast, you see that in line 11, the owner of which is not known, has six days to make two notices describing money, goods, or beast. And, obviously, an older statute. And my understanding is that, in particular, Capitol Police have been impacted by this. They may find somebody's water bottle, for example, valued at more than $3. 50. What's that? Closer to 50. I know. It's true. It's the pricing.

[Unidentified committee member]: What is the definition of obese?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't know. Another another question I didn't No. Can't. We can't.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Fully revamp that.

[Unidentified committee member]: Okay. I'm gonna say

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: fix, we can take it up some other time, but we can't find the

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: full language. You definitely get to report that. So that raises the value a little bit more, as we say, so that not every minor little thing has to be reported and posted. Section 29 is another example of the day is a day multiple, seven to 14. Look it over on page 27, line four, changing a ten day time limit fourteen days. This was a request from the judiciary. And the effective date is on passage at section 30.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Can you tell what is 33 BSA 69 through six generally related to?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think it's a modification, maybe, of a parental rights and responsibilities or child care, child

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: support.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm not 100% positive. But I will look at that too as well. Okay. It's gonna be answered. For emergency relief hearings in

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. For rolled off hearings.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: In what? Don't know. About it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is this is this kind of bill that should take effect on passage, or all of the components should take an effect on passage? Or are there any sections that need more time to

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: get out there? I didn't notice any of those, but I think your witnesses would have a better idea of that. You may hear from some people that they'll need more time. You can certainly restructure the effective date so that some take on passage and some have a delayed date, whatever you here think might be the best approach. Any questions for Eric?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we'll hear from Kim next in a moment. And there may be a couple other things that we may still look at to put in here. One we're gonna look at later this afternoon. There's a couple other things that if we do, we'll take those up probably on Thursday. You'll note in the agenda that we have reserved some time for those kind of things. But any questions for Eric on this? Alright. Kim, if you could join us.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thanks, Eric. You bet.

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Good morning.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Good morning.

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Good to see you all. For the record, Kim McCanless with the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. And I think I got scheduled first because we probably have the least to say about this year's miscellaneous judiciary bill at the moment. We know that things change and they evolve, so we'll keep track of it. But truly, there's nothing that directly impacts our department. The section two dealing with the youth I got the name wrong, youth substance sorry. Yes. Well, was gonna say the acronym, and then I was looking to say the whole thing, yes. YSAB. There we go. We know there's been issues around that. And again, Willa will come in to discuss that that's their baby, so to speak. So we will let them speak to that. And I believe those were their suggestions for clearing up some of the issues that have occurred. But to Representative Goslant's question earlier, yes, on the impaired driving, if they fail that course, they're still, on the first offense, one hundred and eighty day license suspension. And then second or subsequent, it's a full year of a suspension. So that's still in statute and doesn't change as a result of this. The addition here just adds, as legislative counsel said, that first A through D, the possession of drinks or cannabis, that creates the license suspension.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: If they pass that, they can get

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it back quicker than 01/1980, right?

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Yes, exactly. That was last year you all spent a lot of time tying that education piece together with the suspension and came to those time limits, and that is in no way impacted by the change here. We fully support the course of conduct change, clarifying that those two incidents can happen on the same day. I haven't personally run into a judge pushing back on that. But if that is happening, then that's wonderful to clear up.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's actually not intended.

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Yes, for the stalking statute, both civil and criminal. So we support that change. Know Jen Coleman will be in and can speak to section 11 regarding the information by law enforcement. I know there's been a lot of work being done to update the form. So you just want to make sure, obviously, that the forms are completely updated with that information before requiring law enforcement to hand that information out in written form. But I know that's been a lot of work that has been going on. So that would just be something I haven't personally looked at the form recently. So I would just want to confirm through Jen Pullman and or other law enforcement witnesses that that has been updated. But the information to victims, that is a gap that has been identified when folks are detained and victims not knowing how to have that information. So that has been identified, and folks have been working on that issue. And this is another step towards that. So we support that. Jared, I'm assuming the office of law enforcement laying in on that one.

[Jared (committee staff, exact title unknown)]: Yeah, I can do that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I mean, if necessary, we'll hear from Jen Pullman. My understanding is the form

[Kim McCanless, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs]: They all read on. I think it's already there. I just, this morning, just didn't put eyes on it. So I just wanted to double check. But I believe it's not an issue, but I just wanted to try to double check that before it goes into law. Many of the cross referencing in section 23, that's no issue. And so far, we haven't identified anything, Chair, as far as the effective date, and nothing is impacting statutes that we need to change

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: or procedures. Any questions for Kim?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right, thank you. That's the witnesses we have for this morning. I didn't want to put too many in in case we didn't get to them all. And just one correction, this afternoon is not just miscellaneous bill. We're also going to look at the latest and hopefully last language we need to look at for, of course, debt bill that we've been doing a drive by for commerce. So that'll be at one, and then we'll start back in miscellaneous bill at two. So we're there until 01:00.