Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We are live. Hi. Welcome to the host fiduciary committee this Thursday afternoon, March nineteenth. We have a couple amendments to consider to H six forty two. Who is planning or wants to go first? You want the point?

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: The point is to be easy.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, well how about you then?

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: This is kind of weird.

[Speaker 0]: You for specifically for my belly. Alright. Thanks for being here to identify yourself for the record and introduce the draft number 1.18642 represent Booten, right? Correct. Go ahead and identify yourself for the record and not. Sure. My name

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: is Michael Booten, representative for Berry City. I am presenting before you a repeal of Raise the Age. So in 2018, this body had passed the Raise the Age bill, which would put youthful offenders into the family court system. You guys have taken testimony over the years from DCF. They have told you that they really can't handle the workload. We've, as a body, have kind of kicked the can a couple of times. And I think the best way to handle it is actually just to repeal the law. And this way, we're not constantly kicking the can down the road. I also personally believe that I get the 18 year olds, right? Like 18 year olds are still in high school. 19, you're an adult. And I do believe that they should be held accountable just like a normal adult would be. And that's basically my pitch. More than willing to take questions, I think.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions for the representative? So

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: I do want to apologize again for the late

[Speaker 0]: That happens. It only happens. Not in an unusual timeline.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: Right. I understand. But for me, it's an unusual timeline. I like to give you guys a couple of days in advance, but unfortunately, it

[Speaker 0]: didn't work out this way. Understood. Understood. So just a couple of comments. So I am going to ask to find this unfamiliar. I just want to explain So why I'm attached to that we do have a deadline for this to go into effect of July 2027. And so we do have next session. And I anticipate that this will be the first thing that we will take up is where we are then. We want to give it some more time to see if there's going to be the ability on 07/01/2027 to proceed with Raise the H. And we wanted to give the two year timeframe when we did pass this last year. And so also I just have to say last year, we took a lot of testimony on this and decided not to repeal it and to give it those two years. And I think to actually now go against that deliberative process we had last year and the time that we spent on it, it would do a disservice to the committee's work, I believe. We would need, I think, to revisit and really get into this more deeply than we have time for right now. And again, less concerned about that because it's not like something's happening this July. It's happening July 2027. And again, I anticipate we will be digging deeply again into this question of whether to repeal it or to change it possibly in some manner. And frankly, I'm hoping before the end of the session that last year as part of the work group, medical quality group, Defender's Office authored a way to actually make our own juvenile justice process much more sensible. And I anticipate taking that up early next year in that context, be looking again at because that's of course if the people of South Burlington will have me back and if whoever's in charge here lets me be in this committee. So that's that's why I'm gonna ask. I just want to give that explanation of of why I think this isn't the right time on a floor amendment to to make to make this decision.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: And you know what? I completely understand where you're coming from. I mean, I could argue that you did take testimony on it. And I mean, I don't know, I wasn't here for

[Speaker 0]: the testimony, full disclosure. I think in general, we probably should be holding adults accountable for the misdeeds that they do. And that is happening, and we have until July 27 to decide if that should change. Yeah, Karen.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Yes. And I apologize because, again, this is we don't have enough time to fully digest it, but I figured I'm gonna share the thought anyways. I just reported on 04:10, which is all about data collection, and I'm not exactly certain how and if it could affect our decision in this, but if that goes through, we're going get a lot of really great data back that could inform our decision for the next session. I just feel too with that timing that I want to give that space and time for that.

[Speaker 0]: I just So Yeah, and just with that, there's currently the prime research group, from what I understand, is finishing a recidivism study for individuals who are in need to offend, I think, year olds, if I'm not mistaken. So that's going to be data that we're going have as well to help inform the situation.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: And just one also good thought. Since you used the word accountable, and I think that is a really important word. I just want to I think it depends what your definition of account if you're talking about accountability or punishment and what you think, I think that the process we have for eighteen, nineteen, family court process, juvenile probation, in many cases, holds folks more accountable than the criminal process, from my definition of accountability. So I just want to put that out there, have both ideas on the table.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: May I respond? I just want you to know that it's not changing what currently is taking place right now. It actually maintains what we have, and it just prevents what's coming down the pike. I don't want you to think that I'm suggesting that we feel what we do for 18 year olds. As I stated, some of them are I was still 18 when I was in high school. And to me, I feel like that's not bad, right? While they're in high school, I think there's a little bit different kind of context. Of course, that's just my bleeding heart part of me, which I don't have much of, but

[Speaker 0]: just It is more than most, please.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: I do, but sometimes. For me,

[Speaker 0]: I think that I look at my community and I think that Barry would be supportive of not doing the raise the age, but other communities might not, but I have to do what I feel is right. Sorry. Yeah, and it is due to 2027. That is not a foregone conclusion. That was to give us more time to really consider this a little bit further and hopefully get some more data and such. Just a quick question, I think for Eric, but I think

[Unidentified committee member]: I know the answer. This doesn't sunset. Right? It it if we didn't deal with it, it

[Speaker 0]: it raised the age, it would just go into effect? Correct. Okay. Yep.

[Unidentified committee member]: Because I know you'd every year, you go through the the sunsets to make sure that they're they're taking up taken up in

[Speaker 0]: a Right. Right. So this one, if you

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: do nothing, then 07/01/2027, the rains will go away.

[Speaker 0]: And it's that date is very much top of mind. I know that's coming. It's not gonna be missed that that we have to deal with this. But we just need, I think, more quickly.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: I understand. I disagree, obviously. But I appreciate the opportunity to present my case. And even though you're gonna make the motion to recommend the motion for the other, I hope that the committee doesn't vote that way.

[Speaker 0]: I appreciate that. So I will take a motion to find the amendment, ref 1.1, from Representative Rutland to age six forty two unfavorable. So moved. Second. Okay. So just before we vote, just so folks understand, there's you get three days of remote voting days, but that doesn't count for straw polls. So this won't count against either representative Oliver or representative Christie's three days that they have. So all those in favor of finding this unfavorable, meaning that we want the body out there to vote no, can raise your hand or say aye.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Aye.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: Coaches

[Speaker 0]: muted. Aye. Okay. All those opposed. Raise your hand and or say aye. Representative Oliver, I assume that that's what you want to do. You can unmute. Erase the demand. Or raise it while you can't raise it.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: You can. You can raise it.

[Speaker 0]: Well, you can get back to us on this. It's just a stressful time. Hi. I'm good. Glad you woke up. Alright. And we'll see. No. It's a technical difficulty here. And so ask us say, I'll ask that. So we'll have that complete.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: Thank you again for Thank you, committee. Thank you for taking that.

[Speaker 0]: Representative McGuire. Nice to have you there. Nice

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Rutland City)]: to be here. Thank you. For the record, representative Eric Maguire, Rutland City. So I wanna begin by walking through the amendment line by lines.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: What's that?

[Speaker 0]: It's like, Kevin. I'm a tell Martin. He had I can cut it to breakfast on.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: I'll have to get my 42 questions and answer them. Let me

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Rutland City)]: me me begin by acknowledging the thoughtful work that has gone into age six forty two. This bill takes meaningful steps to strengthen our youthful offender system, particularly by improving the revocation process under fifty two eighty five and ensuring that victims' voices are heard more clearly consistently under fifty two eighty eight. The committee has worked diligent diligently to address gaps in accountability and to improve transparency in how these cases move through the courts. Age six forty two reflects a sincere and commendable effort to modernize parts of the system that clearly need updating. What this amendment proposed is not a departure from that good work, but rather an enhancement that makes the bill stronger, more coherent, and more effective. And this amendment is what it what it this amendment is is integrating sections two through nine of h seven twenty one. Integrating this amendment and integrating these these sections, you will align with h six forty two's reforms with the broader structural updates that our system needs in order for these reforms to function properly. The current framework leaves us without adequate tools for addressing violent juvenile and youthful offender. Youth often default into the family court setting that was never designed to manage offenses, such as aggravated assault, aggravated stalking, firearm related crimes, and crimes of sexual conduct. These cases require a level of supervision, accountability, and procedural rigor that DCF caseworkers simply cannot provide. The amendment strengthens age six forty two by assuring that the revocation standards we are updating operate within a modernized statutory structure. This amendment provides that structure, updated jurisdictions, clear public safety criteria, coherent timelines, and an appropriate supervision structure. Without integrating this amendment, h six forty two's improvements would exist in partial isolation, relying on outdated definitions and inconsistent procedures. H-six 42 already improves revocation procedures, but this amendment strengthens these procedures by ensuring the court adequately considers public safety and the use prior compliance with conditions. Integrating these provisions make H-six 42 reforms more effective and more enforceable. Similarly, age six forty two evaluates excuse me, elevates the role of victims in new full offender proceedings. But this amendment ensures those rights exist within an updated hearing structure, including clarify confidentiality rules, revise access standards, and updated case transfer protocols so that victims can reliably participate without procedural confusion. Currently youthful offender cases often stretch across months, with many youth ultimately aging out without any meaningful consequences. This defeats the purpose of associating timely consequences with youthful offense, with youthful behavior. The amendment enhances H-six 42 by incorporating accelerated timelines and clearer transition points so the process does not lose young people in its delays. Importantly, this amendment incorporates a conditional guilty plea requirement that existed from 2009 to 2019, a tool that helped connect accountability with rehabilitation. H-six 42 does good work to strengthen revocation. This amendment ensures youth enter a system in a way that gives those revocation provisions a meaningful foundation. Again, the the the goal here is not to send youth to prison. The the goal is to just create a balanced and effective system, that one that pairs the right services with the right level of accountability, ensure public safety and provide strong incentives for you to engage constructively with caseworkers and the court system. The amendment accomplishes that by building on a good work already done in age six forty two, not by replacing it. And, you know, it's my experience also, that effective supervision, compassion, accountability, rehabilitation equals opportunity and measurable outcomes. You can't have compassion without accountability. You can have them both. And when you develop policies that may remove some of those elements, it can result in time and some unintended consequences that none of us want to want to see. You would mention the, you know, accountability is very effective, if if practice with all of those other mechanisms in place. I agree. Things at times you can't go so punitive that opportunities to learn don't exist because you've dropped the hammer. But you can't go to a side to where there is no opportunity on that end to learn because we don't have the mechanisms in place to give those good, strong rehabilitative services. This amendment strengthens you folks' great work with six forty two. It's that pragmatic balance that will help keep the system in direction that it needs to go. And it also recognizes the inefficiencies we have. That does, you know, it is difficult for a case manager or individual supervising youthful offender under these high risk statuses, that's a whole different element in regards to oversight. And to place that responsibility on a caseload that's also responsible for foster youth, or individuals that are unaccompanied youth, it's gonna result in some serious unintended consequences. So I believe this amendment is vitally important. It's practical. It's measurable. It's achievable. And again, will enhance the great work that this committee has already put into place with six forty two. Thank you. So thank you, first of all, bringing this.

[Speaker 0]: It is language I'm quite familiar with from '21. And that I looked at when I actually looked for the bill for June. Even though June before 07/21, I kind of understood what the language was going to be, because a lot of it, not all of it, Matthew was built from last year. There are parts in here that we would definitely need more testimony. But we have taken a lot of testimony on some of these issues, and some of that testimony leads me to find, I wouldn't say find fault, disagreement with this. And I just, I think, just out of fairness, I just wanna go through some of the issues that I have with this bill, in part why we would need to take more testimony, significant more testimony, I think. So I'm just looking at page four, for instance, just walking through it. It's certainly gonna take longer. I just wanna make a few points. When we strike that striking subsection B, that's taking away discretion from state's attorneys. Whenever we start messing with state's appearance discretion, we really need to look deeper at that. And generally speaking, state superior don't like to have their discretion messed with. Whether we would end up in the end take away that discretion or not for them to file directly into a family court, but we would need to understand that a little bit more. I think a potentially fatal flaw of this approach can be found in line six on page four. And this is throughout, in different places here as well, traditional plea of guilty. I tried to address that with some different language, and we did have language on the conditional plea of guilty based on that. And the Defender General, I think, had some pretty strong testimony on youthful offender. It explained when they did have that, it used to be that there had to be a conditional plea of guilty. Nobody used youthful fender then. When they got rid of that, they started using youthful fender quite a bit. And we have separate information that shows that it's very successful. The recidivism rate for those who have gone through the youthful offender system as opposed to the criminal justice system. And folks can find where that is. But it was a crime research group, I believe.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Judge Davenport.

[Speaker 0]: Judge Davenport came forward and really showed us. That language would effectively largely shut it down if we had the conditional plea. And we would lose the great benefits that we have been gaining from this system. So similarly, on page six, this takes away the presumption that people will be sent for diversion if they are lower moderate risk, unless the state's attorney essentially objects. Diversion also has been shown to have much better outcomes for this population. So that kind of undermines that as well. Proceeding, there's only a couple more I just want to touch base on, because there's certainly a lot here. There's a few places that it shortens court timeframes. This is something that we take lots of testimony on and really look at very carefully. I've just worked on an amendment for the rental build, that a lot of what we did was trying to figure out appropriate timelines. We would need to figure that out. And just doing that on the floor amendment wouldn't make sense. I would also say that, yes, there's victim rights in here. And I'm looking at page 10, again, and there is, and I'm happy there's victim rights there. But in June, we have the language recommended to us by the Vermont Center for Crime Victims Conservancy. That's language, I think, that is better, given the source of that language. I'd also say that with respect to the modification, and this is in section 5,285, and I'm looking at page 16, that I don't see the same, we would be losing what I thought was probably the most important language we could have in six forty two. And that is at the end, if somebody has a probation, a motion for revocation, when they're about to time out, that is essentially pause. The jurisdiction continues in the family court. I don't see that in this version. And I think that's answering one of the big issues that we've heard about from this. So I'm sorry to go on and on as if I'm testifying, but it's like we've taken a lot of testimony. I'm very familiar with this. And these are the issues that we would have to grapple with and sort out. Some of them we'd have and found that it's not the right approach, the condition of therapy. So I apologize, I went on and on, but I want you to have a rationale or understand my rationale when I'm going to ask for most of the time of the men that are unfavorable. But I'll open it for other questions up there. And again, do appreciate you guys, Any other questions for Eric?

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Yeah, go ahead. I I mean, don't know if you've looked at the data, but public safety is actually protected more when kids served in the family court system. The recidivism rates are way lower. And from what our Vermont data shows so far, it's great news that it's working really well. So again, I think what came up with the last amendment, nobody's letting These kids are not getting a free ride. I feel like they are being treated seriously. I wish we had more services in Vermont in order to better meet kids' needs, I I was here when we did the original bill, and I feel like it's very evidence based.

[Speaker 0]: And I'll just say one more thing. It's like, I know you're coming from the right place, Anas. Really think from having worked with you in the past few years, and I don't doubt that. I don't think I think what we have is getting us closer to where we probably want to be, and it's improving it. And I think this steps back from that. So, Ian? And I would just say that if it I guess I didn't realize that the amendment would get rid of the section around expanding the jurisdiction of the family division beyond the twenty second birthday if there's a pending motion for revocation. And I really feel like that is a critical issue that needs to be addressed, and we heard a lot of testimony about. So I think that alone to me is a pretty good issue with the amendment. Welcome to our common. Went on another I

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Rutland City)]: appreciate the feedback and am hearing and yes, I was once in that this field and there are people in here that know what my position was previously before coming to the one. So I am not astute at this time being out of it and the literature. But it's what literature and what data are you looking at? And that would be my question moving forward because looking at things today and how these systems are designed, the the Vermont system is an outlier nationally. And that is that is recognizable. It is the the and all systems to an extent can be called outliers. But in regards to how the system is designed, who is responsible for the oversight and supervision of of youthful offenders, it is more

[Speaker 0]: of an

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Rutland City)]: outlier in regards to other national practice. That isn't a bad thing by any means. And I always come from a point of always unbiased, and always looking at both sides of the thing and seeing what can be the most effective approach to make sure all elements are served and things don't result in in the potential of unintended consequences. So I again, I appreciate everybody's feedback and so forth. So And I'm always happy to you know, if you have ideas down the road, happy to to work with you on on on them too.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Absolutely. But I'll take a motion to find draft number 1.1, Representative McWires, mainly to age six forty two to find it unfavorable.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: So moved. Second.

[Speaker 0]: Alright, Suzanne, we have lost Thomas Oliver. I'm happy to circle around to get his stopped. We may have lost, well, the coach all the time did he?

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: It comes out.

[Speaker 0]: All in favor of finding it unfavorable, raise your hand or say Opposed to finding it unfavorable, read the other people. All right. So currently it is six to three gs. Tom has gotten to the day. So Okay. So it's taken down. Okay. Yeah. So I'll get it done. I'll get Zach's, but I'll So, again, thank you very much.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Rutland City)]: No. Thank you. I I really appreciate it. And, you know, good good good work with 642. Really, that's good. That's good work.

[Speaker 0]: Or maybe it was a monologue that wasn't so good. But yeah. So we're gonna go off live. Thank you. We're we're adjourned until after the floor tomorrow. We have a couple Thank you. We're gonna before. Yeah. So

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: before you I'm gonna be sure, like