Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: We are alive. Alright. Welcome to the House

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Judiciary Committee this Thursday morning, March twenty sixth, and we're continuing to look at McGuire representative McGuire's amendment to h nine thirty seven. And we're gonna start general uncle Jay Johnson. If you could please join us.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Mister chair. Morning from the week.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Morning. Good morning. Morning. Could you catch the phone as

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: well as

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: the noise coming from out there? Thank you for being here. Well, thank you for

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: having me.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Thank you for taking up

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: this amendment, which is something that we believe is an important amendment. I do want to say that I listened to your committee. I caught up on your conversation yesterday, and I was very pleased to hear the takeaways that you had from the joint hearing that you had. I mean, you absolutely got the point, what we were trying to do, which was appropriate placements and treatments for individuals in our communities who need it. Because if the underlying behavior is driving the crime, then you have to deal with that underlying behavior before you can reduce the issues of repeat offenses in communities. So it's sort of a win win on public health and public safety. So I was really heartened. I appreciated it when Coach Christie said that mean, he observed that you need to stay true to the template in order to achieve the same success in the counties where we're using what we're calling the accountability fort, the accountability docket. But I do wanna clarify what seemed to be a misunderstanding about what was happening in Rutland County. So the executive branch did commit resources for five days a week. We had AHS lined up to provide healthcare resources like we had in Chittenden County. We had the transport backup system in place, knowing that while there is a facility in Rutland for men, there isn't one for women, and there would be transport needs there, and potentially for men as well to other facilities. So we have had that sort of phone tree set up for transports. We had DOC supports lined up because we found during the Chittenden Accountability Court, DOC, presence at sentencing was very important. And I'm sure that we could do a better job for all of those things in Rutland. The transition, however, has been bumpy because there really hasn't been startup time. So the process, I mean, also, I guess I would just like to say, the prosecutor dedicated a deputy. So we were told early on from state's attorneys and sheriffs that they would not need a special prosecutor because the state's attorney's office was going to dedicate a deputy for five days a week. They are also dedicating the necessary admin support and sorry, victim advocacy supports that are needed for these cases. And all of that is sort of done after an assessment of, well, this is gonna cost this much in overtime, or we think that there's And this will happen in Chittenden, This is where we have a part time person, we can maybe add hours. So it is a little bit of a case by case, how is this going to work assessment, but that's how we put all these things together going into this process. Like the defender general testified yesterday, they can scale up or scale down as needed. And so I also wanna say that the governor did allocate $500,000 in addition to reimbursement for Chittenden County effort. And the legislature approved $500,000 in the BAA for what we're calling the accountability court reimbursement for those costs. And this committee and the Committee on Institutions is talking about how to allocate other resources, unused resources, to what everybody is referring to as accountability for it. But it's important to me to recognize that there is then no accountability court without the cooperation and collaboration of the judiciary. The governor cannot mandate a court, although the legislature can create a lower court. The governor cannot assign judges or court staff or require the use of certain court space, right? Only the judiciary can do those things. So just like pretrial supervision, it's really not worth having the tool if the judiciary won't use it. I mean, that's just my simple observation. So the judiciary made the decision that the accountability court in Rutland would be one day a week, and I think then added one day every other week. So about eighteen court days total. All I know is what I'm hearing from the prosecutor's office. And I think that they're disappointed, feeling set up for failure, but willing to work with the cards that had been dealt. I think that that's changing the structure of the I wouldn't call it accountability court. I would just call it What they are calling it is a multi docket court. They are pulling cases from the regular docket, excuse me, when necessary to expedite cases, which is fine. It's a way of moving cases faster. And as the Defender General testified yesterday, it sort of gets you what you would expect when you add a judge and you add some court time, arguably something they could be doing now anyway, to move cases faster. But that is not the call of the executive branch. So our folks from AHS were kind of flummoxed when faced with the structure they had been given. The judiciary had decided to work with a different healthcare provider that is in the courts on Mondays, I guess. So when HHS showed up, we did have a bit of sort of, well, how is this going to work? I think there was some interest in the resources HHS was willing to bring to bear. So they have had some negotiations. And I think the best of all possible worlds is that the two organizations are working together for that one or two day a week period. So it is not the model that was proved out in Chitening. But the executive branch is standing by to do that in this county and others when necessary. So I don't know if you had any questions about how the Chittenden Court came to be because it was a collaborative effort together with the chief justice. From my perspective, we're supporting this amendment because of the tremendous impacts that the huge court backlog has on communities and on executive branch agencies, frankly. Increased attentions in DOC for individuals who the cases aren't moving. You have AHS with a huge human services backlog, mean, caseload, that this is providing access actually to a forensic caseload that maybe previously has not gotten the resources that the focused resources that they need. You have impacts on public safety, obviously, in our communities with repeat offenders. And then you have the communities themselves who can't understand why this keeps happening. And I think it's helpful that Chair has observed from time to time that the backlog itself is part of the repeat offender problem. When your case isn't heard for months, sixty, thirty, sixty, ninety days, or you're waiting for change of plea hearings, your chances of showing up for court are lower and your chances, especially if your life is pretty chaotic, If you're unhoused or you're housing insecure, just having to go to court in ninety days is maybe a difficult thing to actually think about. And then you have the likelihood of increased re offenses in the community, particularly when this is driven by something like substance use or mental illness. So anyway, I think that we all agree that this was this Chittenden model was a win win, and the executive branch stands ready to to provide the resources necessary.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Questions? Just

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: a little on the history of how this was born, I guess. Well, how it was born- I know a little tiny bit, but-

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Yeah, so how it was born was in Chittenden, as you know, probably in the fall, there seemed to be some sort of crisis point where the community members had had it with sort of the repeat offense problem. There was a lot of pressure on the mayor and others for open drug use, just a lot of sort of chaotic retail thefts and trust cost offenses, low level, high impact offenses by offenders with five or more dockets in the courts. Just sort of being arrested if they get arrested and released back into the community for whatever their next hearing. The violations of conditions were routine. So the backlog was building in Chittenden. There were about 100 people with five or more offenses. And so when the mayor was struggling with this problem and the governor was basically expected to do something about the problem, the governor started having conversations in the community with community members, with the education community, with businesses, and how they were impacted by the really repeat retail thefts and the trespass and the sort of general disorder in the community, the governor sort of proposed this notion of an accountability court, a focused effort, a surge, if you will, to focus resources on the five or more offenses. And so that's what we did. We appointed a special prosecutor. Judge Malay was hired by the judiciary as a retired judge to come in and work with our prosecutor. The defense bar had a lead public defender who And then we added the AHS resources to the mix, and eventually we brought DIC resources into the mix to sort of work at sentencing, which turned out to make a huge difference. But there was court time. There was court time every day, there was flexibility to meet with defendants, to address individual needs. And sort of started to click once there were releases of what we realized very important is the defendants will sign basically HIPAA releases and other releases so that all the parties at the table could share information. And that was very important to the process, because at that point, there was this very, among the group, a visible sort of share Oh, sorry, and then the AHS resources were a case manager and a clinician in the courtroom. We do assessments basically the same day. So it was a process that eventually clicked and started working when all the parties had had that time to work together, to figure out what was working, to bring the defense along to a place where they realized that they could work with AHS resources, they weren't representing the prosecution. So it just began flowing, the settlements started happening, people were released into the community, if they couldn't succeed in the community, they re offended, they would be brought back, sometimes bail would be imposed and they would go to DOC. And those conversations would continue regarding what was needed for the client success. And we are working on collecting that data for this point. Mean, I think we're thinking a three month update, but I think we could really put together a two month update to see where those 100 are, the 80 or so with cases resolved, where are they? How are they doing? I mean, so that is something that we're also dedicated to doing.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I remember the mayor had asked the governor to ask the state for help up there at some point, and the state police had done some patrolling. Is this all

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: kind of grouped together and a piece of it?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Yeah, yeah. So in the reimbursement that was made in the BAA, there was also reimbursement for the state police overtime that was incurred for that presence, and what they added to the police force during It was really from the October to December timeframe, to be more visible in the community, to really be bringing some police presence to bear, which I think it was effective, especially during the holidays in Downtown Burlington. So the reimbursement that was in the BAA, part of that is for police overtime, which So the total costs for the court largely went to judiciary expenses, but there were overtime expenses for prosecutor admins and victim advocates, I think some other costs, but it was, I I hate to say done on a shoestring, but it kind of was, it was just, and again, I appreciated the chair's remarks yesterday about the need for flexibility. It was an organic process, and it was sort of one of those, well, we'll identify the problems as they arise, and then we will put the resources necessary toward those problems, and we will see how it works. And it kept rolling, and it came together in a way that I think was more successful than maybe even we were thinking. So it was something that the governor, I think, after a while, really wanted to replicate in the other counties with the same kinds of problems in their communities. So we were approached by Rutland community members, business leaders, the mayor, the police chief. They have got the distinction of being the community with the most hotel motel occupants in the state. So that creates a whole host of other problems. So they were very interested in working with AHS on how that was going to be addressed. They're working with ACCD and others on economic development tools. And I think the community is very optimistic about of a turnaround, a renaissance. And public safety was definitely a piece of it. And they stepped up and said, we want the accountability for it. And we said, we are happy to oblige. But it just did was not structured, I think, in a way that the community expected.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Barbara? I'm wondering, because I remember when I first heard about this, and I was like, accountability court? I had never heard of accountability.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: That's a mean up name, and Matt will say that. Yes, yes.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I Googled it, and there are other accountability courts. I noticed Georgia has one, and then there's the Council of Accountability Court Judges. And so I had wondered you But you already answered my question. My question was, did you look at a model and say, Oh, we're going to bring this model here? Because one of the things that I was asking about yesterday is, with treatment courts, we know treatment courts work when you have a certain model that's true to the model. And treatment courts that haven't worked have been ones that have not have the resources to put the full model in place. And I felt that this was probably pretty similar. But then I thought if there's sort of maybe Vermont will lead the way on what the model looks like for other states.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: But having that model that still gave the flexibility, like these things you must have. The other things need to be adapted for the county. Yes, that's right. So there's a couple things there. One is, somebody asked me that question. Did you do this based on any other model? And actually, we didn't, but it made me look. And I also saw the Georgia model, they do have something called the accountability court and it is a suite of courts actually. It's a drug court, a veterans court, I think one other court, maybe, you know what mean? Yeah, it might be juvenile. So yeah, yes. Oh, trauma court, maybe it. So it was, and it is this notion of, but like our treatment court, it's voluntary. And I think that what we figured for this court, which is really just real court, is using the tools of the criminal justice system to incentivize individuals to make choices that maybe they would not otherwise make voluntarily, or are not in position to make voluntarily. So that I think is where we found that sort of thesis was correct. So even though there's a great synergy between the accountability docket and the treatment court, there is this element of probation to treatment court. There is a, it's not, I mean, is voluntary, but you have a choice to make to the extent that you can participate in treatment court or you can have a you know, you have a more definite sentence on the side of that. And there are prosecutors. Like, Zachary is a better person to speak to about how that worked. So we really were committed to So it is a different way of using regular court to achieve these better outcomes, which we hope are better outcomes, right? I mean, we still have to collect that data as well. But I'm thinking for people who are substance, addicted to substances, if you are looking at a fifty percent success rate, that's a very high success rate. And we will see what we see.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: And actually, with people who are struggling with addiction, relapse will happen, but that doesn't mean that it won't be successful. The times between relapses, knowing the resources and being able to go back and access them. So looking at even a longer window for folks with addiction might be interesting to see. Because sometimes it's going to take re relapses for somebody to really Yes, yes.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Right, and I realized that. And I think that that's where the difference that many of the individuals in the program commented about, at least their short term success, was the idea that people were there. They felt heard, they felt like they were brought back consistently by the court. They always had this team in the courtroom. So I think that some of that, and the folks from IHS can speak to that, I think did to a certain extent. It was that the individuals appreciated the fact that people were there. So that was, I think, part of what made that difference.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I have Tom, then Coach, then Angela. Yes, yeah. First and time.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: I'm a little curious about how Rutland model's built

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: versus

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: the Burlington model's built. I know Burlington, Virginia County, has a lot of resources embedded within it already. The city has people involved in the courthouse in Burlington that provide services for everybody in the whole county, pretrial services. And they've sort of acted like kind of a pointing needle for everybody that came in like, okay, well, we're going to need these people or this service or this service, and helps the judge and the court direct them. Is there anything like that down there other than the judge being on the bench and the attorney of the service they have, but then getting them on the horn or bringing them in or actually taking them physically when they're the right direction, making sure that it happens.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Yes, and you have to talk to somebody in the courtroom about that, but my impression is that you have a case manager, possibly somebody from AHS, and a clinician from one of the organizations in Rutland who are there in the courtroom. And that was So yes, I understand what you're saying. There are resources in Chittenden County in the courthouse. Those resources are dedicated to the treatment court. It's my understanding there's a treatment court in Rutland as well. I'm not sure where those resources or Tom, I'm sure can speak to that, but I feel like that's another asset for Rutland, really. But that is from the accountability court perspective, that's how it's envisioned sort of for every other county where this might move is case manager clinician in the court. So the judge isn't just, okay, where's the phone number for the guy? Who's the Yeah, I mean, they're right there in

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: the courtroom.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: In Rutland, yes. But only one day a week, and then every other Tuesday.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Coach.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Good morning.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Good morning.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Good morning, coach.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Hello, attorney Johnson, how are you?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Good to see you. Hi. He's not. There

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: you are. Now we

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: got more, coach. We got most of you.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: I I I gotta move the camera.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: More than I've seen.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: I I I think it still goes back to that, you know, the clear observation of setting up the model exactly the same way. And and I think that Jay alluded to that, especially with the case management component. You know, what we've seen over almost every project that's been very successful is the quality of the case management. And it doesn't matter if it's rehab, it's Medicaid, Medicare. When you've got, you know, whatever we want to call them, interceptors, project managers, whatever. It's they doing the case management. It is mission critical. So what we did see in Chittenden was that proactive piece of having that case manager in the courtroom was mission critical. I think the reason that the chief justice felt so compelled, you know, to move in that direction, both in Chittenden and in Rutland is he spoke at a at a gathering about the sequential intercept model. And, basically, that was, a piece that The US chief justices, had been reviewing over the last year or so. And and when you look at it, it is the model that we're using in Chittenden, You know, and you can

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: call it what you want to call

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: it, but at the end of the day, that's what it is. And I think that, you know, he noticed and that's why he and Judge Zone, you know, were able to, you know, jump into action, you know, fairly quickly, you know, in Chittenden and, you know, are supporting the process through the rest of the counties. And again, we've got to keep true to the mission. You know, we can't deviate because that's when things start to, you know, come apart a little bit. So, again, thanks for all of your work, Jay. And, you know, I think that if we can team up like we did in Chittenden and and there's still, you know, work to be done in Rutland, it's not it's not over till it's over. So

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: let's

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: move Yeah, and I agree. I mean, that's part of the point of the five or more is when you're looking at sequential intercept, these are individuals who have blown through a lot of other opportunities already, restorative justice opportunities, probably other kinds of treatments, or perhaps incarceration and release, or probation and release, individuals who have not succeeded in the community. And this is a place where you are farther down the scale of the sequential intercept, where you're using other resources like criminal justice system to try and address the needs of the individuals. Thank

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: you for being here. I have a couple of questions related to some testimony we heard yesterday on the amendment. And I guess first I want to understand a little better. Well, I'll ask it in the We heard from Matt Valeri, our Defender General, yesterday. And he's pointed, as you probably know from listening to us, and on page two of the amendment, line 11, it says, every county that asks for a community accountability court docket. And his questions, which I share, he was asking, how does it start? Like, how was the decision made to move to Rutland County? So I appreciate that question, and

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I did appreciate the observation, which is valid. It was an organic process, really. So that's where we started with the pilot. And then we, again, sort of moved to Rutland because Rutland raised their hand and said, We are ready to go. We have a prosecutor, we have a police chief who's all over this. We will make transports work. We're right there with you. So we moved to Chirutland. But it's a good point when you're talking about codifying something, how do you maintain flexibility, and at the same time allocate resources and create a program that has to be sort of articulated in a session law? So the I mean, I can tell you there are conversations already with other counties who are interested. And they and that's kind of what happens. They raise their hand and they say, we're interested now. Senator Hashim has approached several people to talk about it. I think the judiciary may have even engaged in some conversations with with Windham. So I think that there are, that's kind of how it happens. Is that sufficient? Mean, because it's organic now and that's how it's worked, I guess I don't have a view, but I could see why you would be thinking about that question. And it may not be every county. I mean, it may be that there are some counties who decide they don't need it, they don't have their resources. Washington County, say, has expressed interest, but understands there are gonna be numerous challenges because Which we can address case by case, but they're completely different from Chittenden. So they don't have a facility at all, like Windham. Actually, Windham is also gonna have transport issues. It will actually call on the transport system that we have sort of set up in terms of a phone tree, basically, that was never needed in Chittenden, and may not be needed in Rutland. So that will test that theory. In Washington County, they have great service providers, but they don't have transport deputies. So how do you, maybe there's a retired judge who actually is, I mean, if you live in the Chittenden, Washington, Central Vermont corridor, more likely you can find a retired judge who's willing to leave you to the court. But that's not our call, right? It's not our decision to make. So it's kind of a how are the Washington County has a much smaller office, but a very large backlog. How do you deal with do you use one of their prosecutors? May not be possible. Zach Wade is in Washington County. He was amazing. Do you move somewhere from somewhere else? I mean, how do you staff it is definitely a question for Washington. But those are the kinds of questions you have to grapple with case by case, and it may take some additional time to plan for a county like Washington. Windham seems to have put more thought into it already. So we'll see. That I mean, it's not really a great answer to your question, but it's because it started organically and it could Seems like the type of

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: program that benefits from that, from a wish to something that is co created rather than placed upon. Yes. Yes. That sets it up for success. It's just interesting to try to figure out how to put that into So secondly, I'm wondering, speaking of that co creation, you've mentioned that that the governor was all in on Rutland County and really just like sounds like picking up the model, moving it from Chittenden to Rutland County. Yes. And then you, if I'm hearing you correctly, you kind of hit a barrier with the judiciary. And and we have words in here like judiciary's willingness on page four, obligation contingent on the willingness of the judiciary to staff at full time. So I just want

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: to ask you that.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: That was not my language actually.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I I'd love to just understand a little bit about the conversations that happened before the program moved to Broadway County between the executive branch and the judicial branch, how those

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I swear, what happened, it was very different, and I guess Terry can speak to that some. What happened was in the Chittenden model, this was sort of initiated as an idea from the governor's office, and we brought in all of the stakeholders, including the chief justice. In Rutland, basically the court took over at that point and said, this is how it will be structured. And so while we were willing to pick up the show and take it on the road, it was then sort of, once you've had that more limited structure, it was a surprise, but also there really weren't that many conversations. I was brought in once a very large stakeholder group had been assembled so that we were told how it would work.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: So

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: would it be helpful then to have statutory language that very clearly lays out legislative intent, at least, for the replication of this program to different counties?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I mean, I think that would be helpful, the expectation of the legislature. Yes. And the legislature, there should also be some thought about separation of powers, maybe that's why the willingness language got added, is you But from my perspective, legislature can create lower courts, the legislature can do away with lower courts, the legislature has created an environmental court and allocated two environmental judges to that court. So this is not unprecedented. And I believe that, so the legislature has the the stat the the constitutional authority to create a lower court. You also have the constitutional power of the purse. And to the extent you are creating new positions that you have done over the last several years, four new judges, 26 new staffing positions in judiciary, more staff than they have ever had, lowest clearance rate they have ever had. It's a good question about the use of resources, to my mind, as part of the executive branch who is very often under the microscope on how are we doing? How are we spending? How are we justifying our programs and our metrics. I would expect that from the legislature. That's your job. So that's where I think that creating a court and staffing it with a full time judge is not too much to ask.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Just had one. So very interested in this amendment. Yeah, Brattleboro definitely wants an accountability board. I've had conversations with a lot of stakeholders in the county about this. And it is interesting. We have different issues with transport, hoping that we'll be able to work through it. My only question is, with Ashley codifying this in statute, with so little time having passed from the accountability court in Chittenden County, Are you worried at all that there are lessons that we haven't quite learned yet from the data as far as the effectiveness of how it worked in Chittenden County? Because some of the My understanding is that some of this comes with time as we see how the impact has had on the docket, more recidivism, things like that.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Sure. Yeah, I really appreciate the question. We talked about that a little bit.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: I mean, no. That's okay.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Most of the of many of the offenders have substance use issues. Many also have some mental health issues. And so recidivism is common. Or relapse is common. At the very least, cleared a significant number of cases from the Chittenden County backlog. This is an effort to actually more effectively connect those offenders to the services that they need. And that's the question. So am I worried? Sure. I'm very interested actually in how those offenders do. My hope is that we have done a better job helping them with some kind of long term success than the state has been able to do in the past, just through judiciary or just through referrals or just through probation. That's my hope, is that we actually do better. But again, you're correct. It's a thesis that remains to be tested. Is that a reason to not do this? That's your call. I mean, that's not my view. And I guess the question below is, is it worth the investment? Well, the judiciary had, I mean, the legislature had invested a significant amount over the last three years in pretrial supervision. We set it up, we staffed it, we were looking for more money for staffing. We believed, and the legislative language very clearly lays out, that it's a release tool intended to help individuals stay connected to services and show up for court, and it wasn't used by the judiciary. So the decision was, well, it's a worthwhile program, but let's take some of that money and put it toward the accountability court. And my argument would be, there is no accountability court without the commitment of the judiciary to this model. You can call it something else, right? I mean, you can bump more bodies into seats and move cases faster, and that's a different kind of goal. That's not a bad goal, and theoretically could help the backlog, But that I think is something the judiciary could do on their own now and aren't doing. So that's why we're supporting this amendment, because I think it's valuable. But to your point, sure, is it an investment that is worth making now? We kind of decided it is already, but you have to think about what that means.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: And I think my question was less about whether to just do it or not. And it's more about, should we codify this specific structure? That's the, should we keep it more flexible because we don't know all the lessons necessarily. Hear your point.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Well, mean, you get the Rutland outcome. It depends on how the judiciary structures it in each county. And then we'll see what the outcomes are.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. That makes sense.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So just a couple of things. On the pretrial supervision, I think the testimony that we've heard was, I wouldn't say the judiciary didn't use it. I mean, was more defense counsel kept their clients away from it unless they Am

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I correct

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: about that? The courts could order it?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Of course. But I think that the prosecutors and the defense counsel are suggesting it. So it's more than just judiciary. But put that aside. That's neither here nor there right now. I guess, I mean, I am concerned, you know, I too want this to work. But I too also want to understand or do understand that the counties are different, as you've suggested. Some of the counties are not going to do this because they don't have the resources. Washington is different than Rutland, different than Chittenden County. And just some of the language in this proposal gives me pause where it says, at least a couple places, that it's to mirror the work done in Chippen County. That seems to take away that flexibility that we think we should have. Because other places, it's not eyeing the hands of the tort. I mean, is a little bit on Section 32 A. But it's not saying that this will be five days or one day or two days.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Well, you used to say that. Yeah. What's that? That proposal, and if I guess I needed to request an amendment to the amendment, it would be that it is five days a week with a dedicated judge. So the thing and I take your point. I absolutely do. Right? The things that we know work are part of a template. Flexibility and the availability of a judge five days a week. The flexibility and availability of a dedicated prosecutor five days a week. The availability and flexibility of public defenders. And then you fold in the human services piece. So if all of this is true, that it's all very case dependent, and we're running it one way in one county where we knew it was effective, and the sharing information, right? That was also really important to the effort. So now you have it in one county with one day a week, and it's very hard to manage because there's really no startup time, and you are working your way into it, that maybe by month two, actually have, when you still have eight days or twelve days left, you make some progress with the human services piece. But right now it's harder to fold in the human services piece because you don't have enough time in the courtroom for the defendants and the caseworkers and the judge and the prosecutor. They're just not there. So I think that those pieces are all important. So you could say, well, let's do something different in every county, but that's not accountability court. So sure, if you But the other thing though, that I don't think you can expect, that I think that the judiciary would like you to expect is, well, we don't control the agency of human services. And so if we could only require them to be in the courtroom, well, it's not a structure that has demonstrated any value, except for the clear and clear case, some cases faster, right? Moving cases up to a point where instead of a hearing being bumped out ninety days, it's now a week, and that's great, but that's not what the accountability court was intended to do. And you don't really need the AHS resources sitting there to see if maybe there's some time to connect with resources, or if they have appropriate needs. Like one thing that happened in the court in the early days was there had been no sort of startup planning, so they figured that the only way to get the individuals who needed to be in the court there, were the people already in the DOC facilities, because you didn't have to provide them with notice. So you drag in some people from the DOC facility, and there were cases like child sex offenders in the courtroom. And the human services providers were a little bit stunned, because this was not who they are there to basically, there's no assessment of the appropriateness of the case in the accountability court. But there's no time for that. So, you work those things out, but when you only have eighteen days that you're eating up the time that you have to get to a place where maybe something will work one day a week. See what I'm saying? So I mean, can, let's not call it accountability court, if we're gonna create a fudgy vehicle for a thing that may or may not work, and then tie the hands of AHS and dedicated resources where they're not actually effective. That would be my concern with not requiring the judiciary, but actually requiring the executive branch and tying up resources that could be better used other places, because this is a place where they may or may not be utilized that day.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I'm wondering, the counties that have smaller dockets, if it's five days a week, but it's not a full day, like we're going to do mornings three days, so that there is that every day availability, but it's sort of right sized for the tiny counties. We don't

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: have to The way we think of it kind of is if you can bump down that backlog of five or more or four or more or three or more in a month instead of three months, then please do it.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: I can't tell you how important the person at AHS who could break down the barriers was, because without just having been in the line of work, there were so many times that things can't happen. And there are so many reasons why things can happen. And she was able to not take no for an answer, which is remarkable. I am thrilled to see that. I know I lobbied for the juvenile version of that. So I don't know the hours of availability that AHS can have somebody

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: who's got the full authority of the secretary to make things happen. You've heard from Nicole during the hearing about how the secretary gave her the authority to run right over barriers, and she's that person. She is the general case manager for the program. And she is the one who's working with the various organizations to make it work in Rutland. And she's working with staff to provide that sort of leadership. I really have to credit her and staff at HHS with all of that.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: It's amazing. Many weeks you heard

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: from, they're the ones who made that happen.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I appreciate how important Chittenden County is to the state of Vermont and how the rest of the state apparently is nonexistent in my mind. This court system has already been set up in Chittenden County. It worked very well. All I'm doing is sitting here listening and getting more and more and more frustrated about how it can't work anywhere else, how we don't have this, and how we don't do that. If this was private business, it would be done, but this is political. So we just kicked the can down the road. I mean, this is just normal process. Correct?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I would say that this is an opportunity to do something statewide that has been done in Chittenden County. And we would agree that if Chittenden County got it, the other counties should be entitled to it. And we have provided the resources for that, at least through the end of fiscal twenty six.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: And here are transportation problems. Don't we subsidize busing and all this stuff and all these other counties and all this stuff to get people from point a to point b and all this stuff. I mean, we have a Washington County. My taxes are paying for that. I have special tax I'm paying in Warfield for that. Right? $2,324,000 dollars on top of my $12,000 a year property tax already. I mean, wouldn't that help move people around?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: So it's interesting. There was this whole van question in Chittenden County. You could move people, more people in a van, and DOC has a van. And so we first brought in the DOC van and it didn't fit in the courthouse dock. So the sheriff from Lemoyle County has something more like a minivan, and he made that available to the Chittenden Gatti program. And it really was, I mean, again, it was a catch as catch, not catch as catch can, but because it sort of evolved as a program, that's kind of how things went. So to your point, representative, I feel like in Washington County, particularly, you've got a very small sheriff's office, you've got very small police departments. The state will absolutely have step up to do something more on transports. And that was probably true in Windham as well. In the other counties where facilities are located, transport is an issue, but mostly the sheriffs are able to handle that. The sheriff's transport deputies, and those transport deputies do the heavy lifting. But it is in the other counties where the staffs are small, they're really only working with one car that needs to have two people in it to transport a person to and from a court, from a facility, that's where you need to think about the resource demand and how And maybe a van is an appropriate response in Washington County.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: So we have state police all through the state, right? That's why they call it state police. I'm not very smart here, but Right? Right. We paid extra. All of us taxpayers paid extra to for patrolling to make the streets safer to to residents, businesses, and all the stuff in Chittenden County, state police up there. So I believe we have state police. So I think we have a barracks right close by in Berlin. Right? We could actually probably utilize state police. We probably have them at our disposal, right, to help out.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I mean, I I can't tell you how those resources would be allocated, but I can tell you, but that's the idea. The way that we set up the backup transport is somebody from the Vermont division of emergency management, essentially, has set up a phone tree, and it does involve state police. It involves the sheriff's departments and local police. It involves, the Department of Motor Vehicles, who has really been helpful in this process, tracking down warrants, working on transports. So we we do have statewide police resources, not just troopers, but DMV and wardens. And so we do have this VEM system right now. Like I said before, it hasn't really been tested, but it would be in a county like Washington and Windham. We would have to to your point, we would really have to see what the pull on the resources is. But right now, the governor's commitment is that we will make it work.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: Are the residents of of Rutland, the way this is not being handled, are they more at risk because we're not handling this the way

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: it was handled in Chittenden County? Mean,

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: situation is

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: the same as it is now, really. I mean, they're moving some cases faster. It's not completely clear that the theory of more effectively connecting individuals with services is being done as well, but it will probably move some cases faster. And that's a goal.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: Just to finish up on my thought on that, I think I heard you say we have more residents in the or people. Some housing in the hotelmotel program down there. And I assume probably there's a higher probability that more situations are arising out of that system. Is that a fair assessment?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: So we had meetings with, like I said, we had meetings with the leaders of the Rutland community. So the mayor, the police chief, some police officers who really are assigned to those tasks. And yes, it's a big problem for Rutland. We had businesses, downtown businesses, downtown restaurants, business leaders in Rutland, at the table telling us what they felt was needed. So we heard them and they want them. So they basically said, We want that. There is some disappointment that they did not get that.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: It seems so just seems like to me, like, we're we've got every system's already in place. It's been in place. It worked very well in Chittenden County. It seems like we're making all kinds of or letting all kinds of excuses being used, all kinds of whatever, that this can't be used anywhere outside. Bennington? Proud of her. Proud of her. Right? Washington Washington County. I mean

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Well, the courts decide This was by county, how they're going to run each court, depending on how they perceive the need.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: Welcome to the world of politics. But if this was run, I mean, I guess this is hypothetical, which probably isn't allowed, I'm gonna say it anyway, but I don't believe there's a business owner in the world, private business owner, or whatever, that will allow this to be happening without any account ability. It's just excuse after excuse after excuse. Quite frankly, am skeptical, in case you

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I understand. You do not notice this. I do understand what you're saying. Yes. Coach.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: You hit the wrong button.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: There you go. There you go. Yeah.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: It was it was the mic. I had it all the way over to the left. Anyway, to speak in support of the representative from Northfield. It's fairly simple in a way. I mean, if we were to make a checklist of everything that happened in Chittenden. And that checklist goes everywhere else from that point on. So did we have memos of understanding around the HIPAA piece that you mentioned, Jay. Mhmm. Was that if you know, was that in place? Know, not not the amount. As much of was it in place, you know, and and this is speaking towards, you know, what, you know, Ken was talking about that if every single facet is listed and and not as an encumbrance, but this needs to be done. And we replicate it as we need to in each situation. But is it done and not? Well, we don't have to do it here because, you know, x. No. We have to do it because we know it works. So we don't let anything get in the way in the form of an excuse to getting it done. You know, I I think, you know, that's, you know, that's that frustration that that is being sensed. And I'm not sure, you know, if if that was done, you know, if we actually looked at every single piece, You know, the prosecutors were in place. You know, the judge was in place. The courtroom, case management was in place. The ability to do an analysis, you know, of the individual as far as where they were in any number of the areas that we covered. You know, housing, you know, home arrangement, where they in custody, out of custody, pretrial, not pretrial. You know, it's a fairly simple one pager that could could help, I think, With this, the fine tuning of the process, you know, because that's that's what seems to be. You know, that area of frustration. It's it's just the thought and the question at the same time.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Mhmm. I mean, we don't we don't have a one pager. I'm sort of running down the elements in my remarks. You're correct, coach, the waiver, the release was very important. I mean, our IHS departments can't even talk to each other about the same clients without a release. So it's kind of a, we, you know, that is part of what brought everybody to the table. Once the various service providers, as well as DOC's contractor, Therapeutic Works agreed to share information, that's really when the ball got rolling. So yes, you're right, coach. All of those pieces have to be in place. And I think we're, I mean, that's easy enough to put together. There were so many things that we learned from Chittenden that would go on that list, including DOC at the sentencing. But that's the that's the question posed by the the amendment, which would be the requirement that some of those resources be put in place.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And that, you know,

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: and that would makes, you know, would make sense. You know, I just, you know, think of, you know, like, one of one of the things, what was it, neighbor neighbor works, you know, out of Rutland did this incredible, you know, home heating program. But one of the reasons they were so successful was the case management aspect. And when we looked, you know, at, you know, the strength and veracity of that program, that's what we saw. And now we're hearing it again even in the the court model that we're working and, you know, the other conceptual piece with the intercept model, you know, because it's a necessary component. And representative Rachelson kind of hit it on the head with dealing with people that are transitioning, you know, either from from any any kind of, let's say, health issue around addiction, especially. And and that, you know, that variable is is amazing. You know, I I remember, you know, working with clients over the, you know, over the years that, you know, had been in treatment seven, eight, ten, twelve times before they finally add that moment, you know, so you never know when that connection is going to be. And the key, that other key is being able to get those releases in place, you know, because if you can't talk to the, you know, to the counselor and you can't talk to the rehab facility and blah blah blah blah blah, and it just gets in the way of success. So that's my 2¢, I guess.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Sure. And sort of all of that, just to be clear, whatever's happening, whatever has happened, the legislature hasn't had a hand in it yet. This is our first opportunity, is this amendment. So, it's certainly not legislative politics that have entered into either.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I'm not gonna weigh in on executive judiciary politics, but I mean, typically, don't have executive judiciary politics. It's just that we ran into this sort of, I guess, a difference of opinion about how the accountability court would roll out in the various counties. It's a court, and to the extent the court says, We don't need the executive branch except for this and this, that's a different model. And then the question for the executive branch and the legislature is, is it worth the investment at that point when it's structured in a way that it's not I mean, speaking of evidence based and programs supported by data. I mean, there's nothing supporting this Rutland model. Right. So to that point, do we have in this amendment

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: the elements that you feel are necessary, the elements that were identified through the pilot in Chittenden County? You know, are we missing anything?

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I I would have to take a look at what it says now because it originally did. Okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So yeah, it's interesting as far as timing on this as well. I mentioned a little bit yesterday that we had the hearing about the accountability report and how it went. And at that point, it wasn't really determined what we were going to see as the next step. And now we've seen what the next step is, and there's obviously some concerns about how Rutland's rolling out. So it's a good time. And we do have this moment that we can look at it, perhaps weigh in from legislatively. I think with that, So are we gonna hear from Darlene or Carrie Perfones first? Or we can tag team. Thank you, Jake.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Thank you.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I think as the Rutland County resident, I've been selected to.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Oh, okay. Fair enough.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Terry Corso, the State Board of Administrator, hopefully shed some light and some helpful information inasmuch as I was present at the stakeholder meetings that were first convened in Rutland. And I thought, if you don't mind, I'd like to give just a little bit of background also for clarification in terms of the judiciary's position. The judiciary is very grateful and very appreciative and very much in agreement as to the benefits of the Chittenden pilot docket and all that was accomplished there. And as Matt Valerio indicated yesterday, definitely channeling resources in this issue made a big difference. It made a very big difference. When you looked at the number of cases, I think Jay said 100 that had five plus charges involved and the amount of cases that were reduced as a result. And a key element was having the providers on-site. I mean, everybody acknowledges that's a huge advantage, helps the people get on the best path, insurers, a much higher percentage of success overall. So we acknowledge that and definitely agree with that. In terms of the next move to Rutland, I just wanted to give some background there as well. You'd be familiar. I mean, there were definitely advantages in terms of Rutland proximity to the correctional center. There was theirs. You don't have the same transform issues that you do in other counties. They have a treatment court already existence. Had, Coach Trebe mentioned, the Sequential Intercept Model. That's something that came about from a national task force that Chief Justice Riber is part of that led to the formation of the Vermont Judiciary Commission on Mental Health at the Courts, that organized regional sequential intercept model workshops statewide. And out of that room, definitely the recognition that having providers on-site at courts make a big difference. And one advantage in Rutland was they had implemented that, and that was what was mentioned to Rutland Mental Health. They now have somebody at all arraignments come and be there so that instead of saying, Here's a card, make this contact, it's a person. They can say, Here, I'll show you. I can help you. So that was in place. And we thought, Oh, that's an advantage because that's what was implemented and Chittenden will tie in. Then we learned that there were different, I guess, issues involved between Rutland and mental health, between AHS. But they worked that out. They addressed that. So Rutland had a stakeholder meeting with the presiding judge and then the judge in Rutland who would be dedicated to this And the way it was done in Rutland was a little different than in Chittenden because in Chittenden, basically, we hired a retired judge, Judge Malay, who was excellent, to come for three months and sit. That's what worked out in Chittenden. And that was a cost that we're very grateful that the executive branch suggested we went through the BAA to get the monies for that from the legislature. And then Judge Bailey left, and now Judge Catums is taking on the docket from there. So in Rutland, they decided we'll use, in lieu of bringing in, if we can find a retired judge for the three months, we'll use an existing judge who could then stay on after the pilot period so that you'd have that continuity and consistency. So the way they did it was Judge Susan McManus, who sits in the civil division, but has a very her background is criminal. She's the dedicated judge in Rutland. Then we have a retired judge who covers for her in civil so that the civil docket doesn't suffer while she's covering the pilot docket. So that's, for example, one difference that was done. But this was all kind of laid out and agreed upon by all the stakeholders, the public defender, the state's attorney, the local providers, law enforcement, the police chief. Was a stakeholders meeting. Jen was at the initial one. And at that stakeholders meeting, they looked at, they had been the list of the five plus. So one big difference between Rutland and Chittenden is you have a much smaller list. In Chittenden, 100 people on the five plus Rutland, 30. So, you had 30 people. In Chittenden, you had five days a week for that 100 persons. From the Rutland perspective, they looked at, does it make sense to have five days a week when you have 30? They even upped it to four plus to bring the numbers up to at least have that. One of the reasons why they have, I think, a much smaller list in Chittenden or in Rutland than in Chittenden, It used to be Rutland had a huge backlog in criminal. They had more cases than Chittenden did. This was a big issue. They had 2,500 pending cases in the criminal docket that has now been reduced to 1,700, due in large part to, and this was another advantage in Rutland, a very good relationship now, state attorney, public defender, the courts working well together to reduce that backlog steadily over the years to where they are now. Very good working relationship. And that is another factor that's different from county to county. But in Rutland, again, was an advantage. So they determined looking at the list, looking at the numbers, also looking at courtroom availability, fewer courtrooms in McCaffrey the courthouse than in the Costello Courthouse, one day of which is taken up on the treatment court. They arrived at, okay, what schedule would make sense, would be feasible to accommodate the number that we have here, our court room availability. And they arrived at every Monday and every one week, the next week, every Monday and Tuesday, because they had to alternate when the criminal courtroom that's used for treatment court would be available. And then Judge McManus is also available during the emergency block every day for the five plus docket. So that's the schedule that they arrived on with the stakeholders. It wasn't Judge Zomey or me saying, You will do it. It was them saying, looking at knowing their docket, knowing the cases, looking at the list one by one. Another factor, and Jane mentioned, I remembered it coming up, she said, Well, if you have enough to justify five days a week for three months, why not do it quicker, like in one month? And I remember that being discussed as well. And the response was, When you have a hearing and then there's a result from that hearing, it might be a competency evaluation. It might be meet with this provider, set up this plan. If you have five days a week such that your next hearing is going to be on three days from then, it's not enough time to have done whatever the first hearing kind of resulted in. Judge Sotomay would have more specific examples, but that was the general discussion. It wouldn't allow for the adequate timeframe to respond to whatever happened at the first hearing before you had your second hearing if you had it in such rapid succession for that number of people for that many consecutive days. But that's all was part of the discussion and part of the stakeholders involved, including the providers. Probation and parole was there, Department of Corrections, the police chief was there. They all had that meeting. The first meeting is the one I know Jay was referring to. Then they had subsequent meetings. I participated in a couple of them remotely, but it'd probably be best to hear from the stakeholders themselves. But this plan in Rutland wasn't, Oh, we're going to do something different from Chittenden just for the heck of it. This is what makes sense in view of the numbers, view of the cases. Another big issue in terms of scheduling was the defense attorneys. In Rutland, you have a number of assigned contract people who are scheduled in other counties on specific days. In looking at the case, looking at the people, looking at their counsel, it wouldn't work to schedule it five days a week because they're not available five days a week. They're in other counties. They factored all that in to arrive at the schedule that this group of stakeholders arrived at, their local docket, knowing the exact cases that were being discussed. I said to Representative McGuire, I'm so sorry for us to not know that they had these questions. Why did Chittenden get five days? We are getting one to two days each week. That's not fair. And I said, No, it wasn't a situation where it wasn't offered to us because it definitely was. But this is what the stakeholders determine. So I did ask, and Judge Zoni just said he followed up with Representative Maguire about meeting with the Rutland delegation so that we could explain that. And I'm so sorry that it wasn't something that we realized that there was a misunderstanding or mis conception that, Oh, we weren't given the same resources. Were, but they looked at the difference between 30 names and 100 names and the amount of time that would make sense in terms of scheduling. So that's really kind of where it came from. And in terms of the providers, again, I thought, Oh, it's an advantage. We already have this set up with Rutland Mental Health to do that. But it turns out it needed to be approached differently. But AHS was there. They came. And at the first meeting, I know it was still unclear. They hadn't signed the contract yet to even know because they were asked, Well, what can you provide us? And it wasn't clear then. I feel like it has been now. They're now into their third week now. And I mean, just to give you an example, I know we look at from Chittenden the number of cases that were reduced, and that's kind of like, wow, that's where the progress is. And Rutland, so far, of those cases now, have been six that have been resolved that led to 35 cases being resolved, or six defendants with 35 cases, and then eight defendants that have changes of police scheduled that will result in 61 cases being resolved. So that progress has been made already. There was kind of the impression yesterday that, oh, this is a failure. The same progress that's been kind of pointed to with all credit to Chittenden, that same progress is happening, in my understanding, based on the report from the numbers in Rutland. So I didn't want people to have the understanding that, oh, this is due to failure and this is not working. In terms of long term effects and whether or not connecting with the providers will result in these people being on the right course and not coming back, only time will tell that. I mean, in Chittenden, time will tell that as well. I know we spoke, Judge Zonie and I spoke with Judge Catums today in terms of what's happening in Chittenden. They decided that one day per week was sufficient after their pilot period ended. And interestingly, Jay said that they had 29 cases left after their thing. I asked how many they have now and they have 40. So they have 45 plus now. But for that, they figure one day per week is that's what they're doing, which kind corresponds to what we're doing in Rutland in terms of the number of days per week, if you look at it that way. But I think only time will tell whether we can look at the data and Jay's point to how critical that is to see how many of these people who have gone through this are going to be back with more charges around the five plus docket. I mean, only time will tell, but everybody agrees that having the providers there is critical and so helpful. We're so grateful to the executive branch for providing that resource and making those connections. It's something that we had hoped to accomplish with the Vermont Judiciary Commission Mental Health Reports and through the sequential intercept models and lining that up where possible. But having the executive branch offering it and providing it is huge. I mean, we really can't express our appreciation enough for that. So I just wanted to The other kind of difference between This is based on what Matt Valero has said. He indicated he entered into contract with Therapy Works, which apparently makes a big difference because the defendants see them as on their side and for them to say, Yes, do this. It just makes it more helpful. We don't have that in Rutland. Matt is trying to find if there's somebody that can also achieve that role to be kind of a work in conjunction with AHS, but kind of help that along. That's kind of another difference, if you will, which everybody's pointed out, having a look at each county and seeing what are the different factors. But we all have the same goal of trying to help people get on the right path, reduce and increase public safety. But taking into consideration these differences, the biggest one in my mind between Chittenden and that was just the numbers, the sheer number. The advantage of having the correctional center nearby so we don't have the same transport kind of issues and having a recognition through this sequential intercept model in Rutland region was very like, are you there? I almost feel Well, anyway, there were law enforcement at the Sequential Intercept Model workshops who all were very much on board. We can get providers connected after courts, you know, excellent. So we're hoping to work on that too. I was going to mention one of the reasons why Rutland's numbers may have been lower also to begin with was for the last year, they have, and Judge Lamay asked each court to look at your five plus cases, segregate them out, figure out how can we best move them. And in Rutland, what they've been doing for the past year with their five plus cases, every month they have a jury draw. And on your jury draw list, typically it's chronological. You look at the age of the case and you're on the list. If you're at the top of the list, much better chance of your case being resolved because it's almost put up or shut up. Either have your case or you settle it. And it results in a lot of settlements typically on jury draw day. So they have moved the five plus cases up so that they're much more, Okay, we better address these. And that's resulted in a lot of them getting then resolved. And when you have a five plus case that gets resolved, when I say five plus, it might be somebody that has 20, might have a dozen. So it results in a lot more getting knocked off the list of pending cases. So that's what they had been doing for the past year anyway, to reduce the number of blood plus cases with, I think, success. So just to let you know, that was kind of the background and the reasoning behind doing it differently. And in terms of saying, well, do it for five days a week instead of for one month instead of three months, they did look at that. And there were reasons why. I didn't, again, just didn't want you to think that this was done differently out of unwillingness to cooperate or collaborate. It came about from collaboration with the stakeholders. And at least my perspective in Judge Zonay's is the local, they know their cases. They know their people we don't. And what they decide, we felt, okay, that makes sense.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Just

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: one, one, Zachary.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, go ahead.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Sorry. It's just that with respect to the stakeholder, the one stakeholder meeting that I was invited to attend, I did raise the issue of one day versus five days. On that call were Judge Manali, Zach, Waite and the public defender and the AHS representatives and the TOC representatives, we were told the schedule and we expressed a concern And those members who participated in the Chittenden County Court didn't chime in to say, this is not a one day a week court. Am I correct about that?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I don't remember the specific That is not a one day a court. I remember Judge Malay saying, you need to look at the local situation. So anyway, that's my point of view. And thank you, because I forgot to mention that at that initial stakeholders meeting, we had invited the Chittenden group, including Judge Malay, Zachary, everybody, to please kind of give their help and guidance, which they were great. So that was part of the initial stakeholders meeting. And then they did modify the schedule to increase it to the two days every other week and adding the extra half hour each day for the judge to be able to be available daily for anything affecting that court. So I really do think they did their best to try to figure out in light of the Chittenden And I, to me, to say instead of mirroring, which can be, I guess, interpreted as saying exactly, modeling it, taking those components that everybody agrees are great, the provider on-site, the consistent judge, ensuring the transports are done. Great. Everybody acknowledges that and appreciates that and feels like that's I just regret that the Rutland delegation misunderstood the change in schedule as something that meant they were being slighted, because that was not the case.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So just a clarification. The eight defendants with 61 Zachary coming up, what's the

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: process scheduled for Changes of plea.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, the changes of plea. When are those scheduled?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: The dates were, I guess, within the next one to two weeks, I guess. Was that And it might be the availability of the defense counsel.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And you're in the third week?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: It started March 9, yeah. Well, that's your week. Yeah, yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I'll have to see the calendar in front of me for that. I guess one of the questions that I would have is

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: That was for changes of plea. Six cases were resolved.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, I saw that you had that. Part of my calculations then, about not even halfway through, you're halfway through the individuals. You'd have 14 But I guess the thing is, what would be the cost? We have limited funds. And what would be the cost of running this five days a week? And I'd be interested in knowing that from all the different parties of doing this five days a week for 30 people, or unless you expand to everybody that you can do, but then that's just breaking the court.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: As a practical matter, I guess if you were having Judge McManus doing this five days a week, then we'd have the cost of Judge Teachout coming for her in civil five days a week for one thing. And then it would be also figuring out, well, what do you do for a courtroom when you've got treatment for one of those days every other week that we only have so many courtrooms? The cost would be to the detriment also, I guess, of the other dockets that would not be being heard. I'm not Thomas already, Chief Superior Judge. One of the other aspects,

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: of course, is that we didn't, let's say, okay, we're not going to have any additional funding for the retired judge to come in to backfill, and we had to use existing judicial resources, we would do that if that's required, but the reality is that they come from somewhere. When the legislature, as I think the bill has some statements about resources the judiciary has been given, I'd ask you to think of it like a baseball team. Nine players play at a time. When legislature gave us the additional resources, it's because we didn't theoretically, for what we needed to deal with the backlog, deal with things. Let's say we were playing with six. We didn't have a full nine players on the team because we needed more judicial and staff and resources to be able to accomplish the goal that we needed to move the backlog and administer justice. And so, we got the additional resources and now we're up to, let's say, nine. We can field the team. We don't have three or four people sitting on the bench waiting to play. In other words, judges are active and engaged. We spent time here the past several weeks talking about age seven seventy two. One of the critical aspects of that that has been discussed is, can we deliver on a timelines? And one of the abilities that we've said is, yep, we think we can do that. And why? Because the additional resources we were given have been deployed to address Chittenden County, 10 more tenant matters, Rutland, Addison, Bennington County to address additional criminal cases and do things. And I point that out because we can utilize other resources, but it's going to take away from what they're helping with now. And so, if we went to five days a week, yeah, we can do that. If we have the courtroom and security, those issues and staffing availability, we can put a judge in there theoretically, but they're coming from somewhere. And if they're coming from somewhere, there's something they're not able to work on that they're currently working on that is addressing a need of the state. So, it's a balance. And one thing to add, Terry has given a very good recitation of how we got to where we are with the Rutland program, which really was collaboration. The governor's office, we did the Chittenden project, led with collaboration, bringing everyone together to say, let's talk about this, let's address this, let's see what we can come up with. We did. It worked. I think it's safe to say that we thought we were doing the same thing in Rutland. When we sat down with everybody, we collaborated, we invited everybody, we considered things. There were concerns raised that initial meeting, I remember, about how many days we're going to go when the staff people I'm sorry, the stakeholders were talking about, Well, we think one day a week. And I know Jay did express it, and literally during the meeting, I'm on the phone with Judge Teachout saying, Can we get more time? We need you more than what they're talking about to say, We're gonna get more times. And the idea of just putting it five days a week, the other dynamic that Terry touched on in Rutland is she mentioned about conflict counsel. The reason they had to choose Tuesday was because one of the attorneys, that's the only day they're not tied up in Bennington or another county. And so, it's like playing, where's Waldo to bring attorneys in? So, if we were five days a week, one of the conflict counsel with the most cases, I believe, he's not there. I don't know what his schedule for his cases because he physically can't be there because he's in other courts. And so, this was the, I think the struggle that the stakeholder group had and the fidelity. And I know representative Maguire talks about fidelity to what words and Chittenden. I absolutely agree with what he said about fidelity. The fidelity needs to be the time, resources, and the availability of people to get together to do things. But does it have to look exactly the same? And also, can it look the same? And so, that flexibility to be able to do it. If additional time is needed, if we're on week three, I know they're meeting, I think tomorrow, they come back and say, We need more time. Okay, more time. Let's address it. But to start out at five, just because Chittenden had it for five, when we know the impediments and the impacts, that was a decision that I think stakeholders looked at and I know Terry and I looked at and said, okay, if they think this is gonna work, that's fine. But if more is needed, we've never said, Oh, absolutely not. That's not gonna happen. We just haven't heard that this is inadequate to achieve what the goal is from the stakeholders.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Teri, you said, I think Chittenden County got their number down to 25 and then it went back up to 41.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, Jay mentioned 29 was the number when they finished and just speaking with Judge Kane today, they had 40?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I thought that's he said.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: 40. 40. Okay. The So

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: after they cut back on the accountability court, the numbers went back up. And I'm just wondering with Rutland being at, you know, one to one and a half days, I guess, one and a half days a week, that's just gonna happen naturally, where all these people are gonna fold back in before the before, I guess, the the resources are used up and does not have to have the the gain that you could potentially have.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, I mean, only time will tell in terms of what happens with with the numbers. I mean, I think to be honest with you, I don't know that you can attribute an increase in the numbers to it being one day a week versus five days a week versus, I mean, unfortunately people commit, they might be new people to the county. Who knows where those numbers come from? Right. Yeah, it's hard to

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, it was talked about people who can, well, recidivism and people coming back into the fold, because that's kind

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: of where I got my thought,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: of those additional cases that

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Yeah. And there probably is, I guess, a best practice in terms of measuring recidivism. I don't know, in certain, up to a certain period of time

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: is needed. I think Matt Leary is the primary research group, and I think that's the area that would be best suited to be looking into those areas as far as definitions and measurements.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: But no dispute that having the providers there, helping them get connected with resources, we've got to assume is going to be helpful. So

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: It's a logistical problem in Rutland from what I'm hearing.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, the numbers is the issue too, that you had 30 people.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No. Right. Right. But it's it's also logistical as far as, you know, judges and wraparound services and and all that.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Oh, Potentially transportation. And so

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: could the

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: we made the policy decision to go to five days, could the logistics could

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: they

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: or would they be worked out?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, I look at what happened in Raleigh. I think that would I know Jay feels strongly that it's gotta be five days to be considered an accountability court.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Yeah. No. Regardless of Jay, I'm just saying in general.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I I think to me, it would be a disadvantage to prescribe that for each county, not knowing all of these different factors, but to give them some latitude like as Rutland did. But acknowledging that, again, they kind of thought and we thought until yesterday when we heard, Oh, it's a failure in Rutland, that it was working the way it was supposed to. To look at how to apply the model, have the providers there, have a judge who's consistent with it, and look at the transport needs, make sure they're addressed, and work with your numbers and try to achieve, one, reducing the number of people on the list, but getting them connected with providers so that they get on the right path.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, and I understand that. I'm just saying, if we did put it into language, would the logistics be worked out?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Five days a week?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I mean, certainly, if there's something that a court has to abide by, we're gonna do what we need to do. But I would offer this. If you put something like that in the language that's in here, so is that to say that when Grand Isle or Essex County expresses interest in a multi docket, we do it there? About Orange

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: We don't five people.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: We don't have courtrooms. In other words, at some point, this idea that this is the way it has to be five days a week, I think we can all agree that there's a point where we can say, that doesn't make sense. And what's happened here in Rutland is that the stakeholders got to that point when they said, okay, here's where we're going to be and here's what we need, that we don't need that five days. But let's be really clear here. If we did need five days, we would do five days. We would make it work. There's just been nothing to indicate that that is necessary or that it's actually feasible having in mind the issues of, again, assigned counsel and the other needs that we have in judiciary for judges,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: for what they're doing. So, what do you think the benefits and advantages of five days over one is?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: If you have 30 cases and you're trying to bring them, or 40 cases, let's say, you're trying to bring them in a five day schedule, let's say, okay, so for five days, we're gonna bring everybody in and give them an hour. Mr. Goodnow, he's a prosecutor, he knows. So a bunch of them say, Well, trial. I'm not gonna resolve. I need more time to think about things. He said, Well, no, we're moving this right away. They're gonna say trial, what have we gained? I'm just curious, did that happen in Chittenden County? Certainly in some cases that happened with the Chittenden model. No, I

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: don't think they called in a 100 people every day.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: No, no, no, they didn't do every other. They brought in the cases based upon discussions with the stakeholders to decide what's the most effective way we can utilize the time and resources that we are handling to this document on a weekly basis to maximize resolution and maximize delivery of services. That's what Rutland's doing, it just doesn't require the same end number.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I was gonna ask the one day over five, but I think know what you would say. One concern that I have by going the the one day over the five or one and a half, whatever, is, again, I'm looking at Chittenden County and and, you know, all of a sudden, we've got 11 more cases than we had if we get toward the end of the timeline and Rutland and the resources are used up and these people have circled back in. And then, I mean, what do you gain? You're you're not gaining as I I don't think you're gonna be gaining as much as what you could have, but I I guess is there any drop?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I don't know that you're gonna be able to keep it five days a week anywhere indefinitely. Mean, we just don't have the resources for that.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So No. I didn't know it. Definitely not indefinitely. I mean, it's not hasn't been indefinitely in Burleshire and Chittenden County. I I I just feel there's benefits to getting it cleaned up as soon as

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: possible. Know, think

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: to me, the five days would do that. I know there's a lot of issues with the logistics obviously. You've done a great job pointing pointing that out.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I think it's finding the balance. Hope that's right for each county. I'm sorry. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: This this this backlog that we've been talking about for years and years and years and and and I know some counties haven't been gaining on it. Rutland has been gaining on it. A slow pace. They're the fastest in the state, but it's still a slow pace. And I I just see something like this is can take a a big bite out of it in a hurry. I mean I would like to see that big bite as soon as possible.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Share your desire to see That is the absolute goal, is to reduce the backlog in a timely manner, in a way that's going to work. And the key here, I think, is the governor's office set it forth day one. Let's collaborate. Let's deal with things. If the judiciary today said, rep Burditt, you know what? We're gonna do five days a week. Every day for the next month, you can you can sign on to Webex. I'm sorry, Zoom. Zoom call. Switching over. You can sign on to Zoom and watch every day what's happening. And you turned on several days and there was nothing. Note that we've set this time aside, the judge is not there, but there's no cases to bring in because it's just the timing of doing things where the judge had one or two cases. And you know that as a result of that, they're not here in other cases because they can't schedule them because of needing to keep this time and resources available, which is what was key to Chittenden, the judge wasn't diverted to other things that day for a period of time. That is something that when we look at it, does that make a lot of sense to have that empty time? Does that mean that one day is the right answer?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Is that empty time possible or will happen?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: If we went to five days a week, it will happen.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: It happened in Chittenden.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: It happened in Chittenden. There was a couple of weeks in Chittenden where there was vacations or other time where they weren't really doing much at all. And so, that can happen. But the cost of that is that the judge isn't hearing other things. We're not bringing in the other criminal cases that the judge could possibly be scheduling and hearing because we're waiting for them to do this. So they But again, maybe I'm mistaken. Did Chittenden County bring in a retired judge to show the spot? Yes. So they weren't losing Correct. Okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And then why wouldn't Rutland do that?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: But we don't have a retired judge in that area for the criminal side. We use a retired judge to back fit. But if we're backfilling and judge McBannis is down there and there's nothing to do because there's really no need to schedule those cases with her that day because the parties need another week or something like that, what have we really gained? I think that we need to just look at it and say, is five days necessary? Do stakeholders believe it's appropriate? If the answer to that question is yes, then it should be five days, and we gotta find a way to make it work. If the answer to that question is no, and that's what it seemed to be from Rutland, then why would we force it upon them and say, well, you don't know what you're talking about with your docking. We're gonna go five days because we're able to use resources to cut the state to benefit all the citizens, not just this docket. In Rutland County, again, we're able to use resources to do other cases in the criminal docket, having a second criminal judge. Were able to use resources in Bennington. The idea of, well, Chittenden got this, we all should get it, cannot carry the day in terms of, well, it has to look exactly the same because every county is different. And that's why, again, if the governor's office started the whole process, let's collaborate, let's see what's gonna work in Chittenden. And that process I think would work in Rutland. We started it, that's what we thought was going on. And to the extent that there's any view right now, today, that while it's not working as well as it should, and we think there should be changes, why don't we get together and talk about it and see what we can change? What's not working? I haven't heard Maybe tomorrow, Ian Sullivan has some ideas that he thinks from Matt Valerio's office, the defender general and public defenders, said there should be changes.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: They're meeting tomorrow I at

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: mean,

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: they're meeting to talk about what's happening, what's working, what's going. You know. Again,

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: this idea that it's one day and we're related to this. No. We're related to a program with ideas and structures that we're gonna try to make successful. And if that means we have to add time and change what we started with, it's okay. That's what we're supposed to do. Guess just one last question.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: From some entities in Rutland, why is it coming out of Rutland that it's not working?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I haven't spoken to anybody specifically to hear that.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I asked representative Maguire. I said, I'm really so sorry to for this kind of confusion, I guess, or question why it's not done the same. We'd be happy to have explained it. Don't know that we had necessarily this is the members and the stakeholders, but the police chief was there. But I said, we would be happy give you the background. So I'm not sure where he got his information and he felt it was a failure.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Thank

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: you. Yeah, before I go to a couple of So I'd be curious to actually find out what's not working. Is it the court? Is it they are seeing crime on the street still? Do they need more law enforcement? Could be more than that. But I guess I look at it as what we gave to Chittenden County, we want to give to the other counties. But it's not five days a week. It is reducing the docket in a significant manner. And that just leads to a question. How many dockets of these 30 people are there?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Two eighty two. Actually, what they did was they even added a four plus to bring up the number.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Two eighty two dockets. Right now, in the next couple of weeks, with this change of the plea, you have 96 of those dockets. We equivalent work as far as percentage wise to what we've done in Chittenden County? If we're doing that, and we're doing that with one and a half days, and the other thing I think is very important, would like you to comment on, is the half hour a day on those other days to make sure things are moving. So I mean, it's not like shutting down for all five days of the week. There's that necessary half hour. I still go I would like you to comment on that, but I still go back to what are we trying to do, that is to significantly reduce the dockets. And is this work? At least this part. I don't know if there's other parts outside that I'm working. But tell me a little more about the half hour day. How is that actually used?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: It's the emergency block.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Generally, in a criminal docket, you have a half hour day built in for emergencies, some overnight lodges and things like that. The civil judge generally doesn't have that. The civil judge would start their docket for the afternoon at 01:00. And so in order to have the continuity and have the availability of Judge McManus, we have carved out her docket each day from one to one thirty. She's not hearing cases so she can take emergencies. If someone who's on a multi docket arrested and they're coming into court that day, she can hear it. Lets her do that. So that is something that know Judge Bailey felt was good. You're seeing the same judge, you're having that continuity and the judge can schedule things and bring them in. So, having that time available. Also, if additional time is necessary, in other words, if Judge McManus says, I have an hour in this day before I really need to get this case in, I need to do more time, just flexibility to add that time Absolutely. No one just said, this is the only time, absolutely, you can't do anything more. If she needs more time to bring something in, we can make the time available. In fact, there's some things going where Judge Teachout is gonna come in and fill in on some days to address just that so that we don't lose that continuity and she's able to address it.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: She had, for example, jury trial schedule. So Judge Teachout is covering that to free her up for that time. So they really, I thought, very thoughtfully approached how could we best utilize these resources and this opportunity, again, to our list and our situation.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: That's a coach in Barbara to come.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Thank you. I think we're we're all finally getting to that point Where word? We're clearly trying to identify on the characteristics of each, you know, individual, you know, county as we approach them. You know, I'll I'll give representative from Northfield another plug in in business. Sometimes flowcharts are used with check marks within the chart which identify the activity each day. So, for example, is weird as it might seem the number of times that a restroom is cleaned. The number of times X are done. It's all on a chart. And at the end of a day or a week, you can look at it and see, did someone do x? Did someone do y? I I think a question might be, as we develop this and look at a policy perspective in the in the development, you know, can we suggest that something like that be done which will make the work of CRG a little easier and give us a better understanding of how that activity is going. So like, for example, you know, did the half hour get used today? Did it get used yesterday? You know, did we have two emergency cases? One emergency case? You know, it it would give us, you know, kind of a flow activity of what's going on. And it can be bought to any of the venues because it's the same. You know? And even if it's only, you know, one half hour or two half hours, but we'd have the half hour identified. You know, I I I think that's critical part to all of this is is disaggregating the individual components of what we know works. You know, I think I'll keep going in that direction and hoping that we can come up with a, you know, a way of modeling our progress and performance. So that's just the thought as we work out this, let's say, an amendment to the amendment.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, if Eric is willing. Are you good, coach? I'm gonna go Barbara and Tom. Yes. We need to hear from Kim

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: as well. So I think Martin, I think our chair was onto something about the outcome and how we get there. And maybe not everything is called accountability court, maybe it's different pilots. But I'm wondering about if it's efficient to have given the numbers, would it make sense at all to look at having either Addison or Bennington, just sort of having a regional accountability court, if it's going to be five days, you were talking about Grand Isle, that something that would work? I don't know if the resources are the same in every

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: think you see quite a bit of pushback in some counties from a regionalization approach. Unique dynamic in each county and

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: the needs are markedly different. Okay. So again, I know for a while we were doing sort of regional treatment courts, and maybe it is not five or one, maybe it is one of the numbers in between.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: guess I'll just get your thoughts after I'm trying to make a statement or something. But I think the most important part about this accountability program is matching people with the right services so we don't see them again, or if we do it's a much longer time in between their reassignment.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And I don't

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: know how we do that, I can imagine it's going be a different amount of time in every county, everybody has different needs, there's different populations, so there's different socioeconomic problems and all that. But if we scheduled extra time into a court, it bothers me a little bit to hear that, well, you're going to log in, you're not going to see anything being done. And I know they were buried. So there should be something being done and I'm assuming there would be. You know, can that judge go and then just look at a different filed cases and jump them into the system and take care of them with what resources he has that day or he or she has that day and keep moving. Just to move the resource all around at a bare minimum and then on the days, you know, that they do have true accountability or have everybody there. I I wanna see that I wanna see the docket go down, and I wanna see people get rehabilitated as best we can.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: So think about Chittenden. One of the reasons, one of the complaints that, and one of the, well, not complaints, one of the challenges that we faced was when individuals with multi dockets were coming in, the judges had a scheduled docket. So Judge Pack, let's say, was already on the bench and the benefit of having the time, the resources and the availability for people to be there was that what we were told was people were coming in, they're getting arrested. One of your counterparts was out arrest somebody, multiple cases, they come in, what was happening? Well, the attorney would meet with them for a couple of minutes. They go in, they do a quick arraignment and out the door they went, right? And so the idea was we can't have the judge have to get back to a murder trial. We can't have the judge have to get back to these other cases. Instead, the judge has to be essentially available to give them the time to go out and talk. That's the dilemma that I'm referring to. Does that mean that judges wouldn't doing paperwork? No, they wouldn't. They're not gonna be scheduling hearings. And that, as this committee knows, scheduling of hearings is important to move cases. And so you reduce the ability to schedule cases, to bring people together, because you have to leave open that possibility that you need to address something as an emergency.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Any other questions at this point for the judge? Ian? I have one very

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: quick question.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Has there been any conversation about dropping the number of how many dockets an individual has

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: to be I mentioned Rutland actually did that in order to show So up the now they've made it four plus.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Don't really see any issue with that. And in fact, in some ways, having access to the resources could be available for someone who has one docket who will eventually become someone with five dockets because they are an at risk person. So I think that's the only part that I haven't really heard much about.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I think that's a great point. And actually, Judge Kaines mentioned that him doing it. He brought somebody with a three plus into the five plus because they would really benefit from having this. So I think that's all part of it. Recognition that those strategies would be helpful

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: So at least that's point out that we could also what you're really talking about is what should happen in every court and every state and every day. And so do we have the resources for AHS to be in every court and every state and every county every day to do that? Because the key you identify is early resources. And the problem is we know the answer to that is no. It's not practical. And so putting the cases and trying to come up with a category of cases where we can at least devote it there is not an indication that we don't believe that we should be devoting against the two and the ones, three, whatever the number may be. It's just an indication that isn't practical to expect that we can deliver this type of service in every court, every day across the state?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Just one more quick question. The answer might not be quick, but So Chittenden County went from 100 down to 29 give give or take. Right? And and and then after the accountability court got done, it bumped back up to 40 or maybe some of the some of those 11 came in during during the

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I don't know if the 11 are new five plus or anybody returning from them. You know? I don't know.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Right. No. No. And I realized. But I'm just wondering with Rutland running, what, for three weeks now?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Third week. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. And and there was 30, and it went down to

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Oh, with it's it's 14 have been

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I'm just wondering if there's any if there was any increase that's not that that hasn't been mentioned. Like, Chittenden County had gotten that increase from 11. And and then is there a There was 30

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: increase in Rutland where maybe Well, it's

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: there were 30 on the five plus, and they added they added the four plus to bring up the number to, I think it was 40, including the four plus. So from the 40, you subtract the 14 that have been, if you will, resolved since then is present. I would assume in Chittenden and in Rutland also, you're going to have new five plus people servicing.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Right. No, I didn't

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I don't know.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Mean, Rutland, as they have been in Chittenden County.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Yeah, so I don't know for a fact if they've gotten new, new if and how many new five plus or not. But I think that's what they're all hoping, you know, they're keeping track of to be able to try to, you know, draw conclusions in terms of effectiveness. I guess I wanted to just provide the background as to why there was a different approach in Rutland versus Chittenden. We didn't have comments on the actual language, but I don't know what the time is. And we can always provide, if you'd like, written. Yeah, let's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: hear from him ex antis first, and if you could stick around just in case.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, of course. And then we're more than happy also to work with Jay, to work with whomever regarding the language, if that would be helpful as well.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Right, okay.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Okay, you so much for taking the time to listen and Thank hear our

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Thank you for being here.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Good morning. For the record, Kim McManus, Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs, not to be confused with Judge McManus in New

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: York, though

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: it does have a wonderful ring.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Kim.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Clearly, she's That's

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: such a different committee.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: A cousin from way back. Thank you for having us in on this amendment. Like to pull our focus away a little bit from Rutland and comparing Rutland with Chittenden. It has only been running for two or three weeks. There is a dedicated prosecutor for that program, Peter Govere. He had some scheduled time off right as the program is starting in Rutland. So I don't have any data numbers on Rutland, just so everyone knows. But I'd like to pull back in that I do appreciate that whatever feelings are coming out of Rutland has inspired this amendment and that at this time we do have more information on the success of Chittenden. As the chair said, we did not have that all at our fingertips at the beginning of the session. And maybe if we had, maybe this would have been presented as a standalone bill. Our department does appreciate the idea of moving this away from being executive order driven and more towards what we would see as a sustainable model through legislation that has funding connected with it so that we can continue to utilize this idea. Along those lines, what we saw as one of the biggest successors and where we think the replication will succeed in other counties is that someone really has to own this program in each area. And we don't want to have to rely on governor's office to have to push us to own this. And so one of the suggestions when we read Representative Maguire's amendment is that there be an administrator of the accountability docket whose sole focus is on looking at each county, deciding what is needed, deciding the caseload there, in that who would be eligible for this, gathering those together, creating the communication that's needed, bringing everyone to the table, knowing those county specifics. And the suggestion we had was under the reporting sorry, I'm jumping ahead that this accountability docket staff coordinator, if can come up with a better name, has that 10,000 foot view and is looking at the different counties, seeing when the numbers are going up, pulling the resources together and saying, well, we need to go to Rutland, we need to go to Windham, we need to go to Bennington. Who's up next? And then as the program is launching, feedback potentially, and I don't know all feedback coming out of that one, I'll just say that right off the top. If there is like, Hey, two days a week is not working, two and a half days is not working, that person again is pulling everyone together to see what part of it's not working. Is there a transportation issue? Is there a part time issue? Is there a it's a contract public defender and they're contracted in another place on Tuesdays? So what is the issue? And then again, that's happening right now, but there's a lot of people who have a lot of other things that they need to be doing that are being pulled into those conversations. And so our suggestion within this amendment would be this is where we think the legislature could be incredibly helpful would be to designate that there be this coordinator for the accountability docket, tying together then the reporting piece that we would all want. And I do appreciate that the prime research group would potentially have a role in down the line data. But I think what you all want from these reports is immediate information for me to be able to come in. And Zach Waite did that. And Chittenden, he was able weekly to pull up his reports, to pull up that pie chart with the help of the governor's office, to have that coordinator be the person who was generating those reports on a regular basis, again, seeing, Okay, we're done here. We had scheduled sixty days, but you know what? Only took forty five to do what we needed to do, and now we're coordinating and moving on to the next location.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Would that take us to get laid off the court?

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: I wouldn't speak for the judiciary. Potentially. Potentially. I just know there's the folks who are running that, who are doing that work, again, there's a number of individuals who, again, have a lot of other things to be doing. And so if there's one person owning this, and it could be housed within the judiciary or housed within the agency of human services. That would be a discussion of where that would best be. But someone who has that level, again, of a representative Rachelson spoke about the authority to be pulling people in, saying here's the day. We would just throw that out as a suggestion. Again, it would be something that would need further conversation. But again, we want to pull back a little bit on comparing Chittenden and Rutland. We are in agreement that what we saw work is the flooding of resources at the beginning and then being able to scale back as things were up and running. Again, each county is going to be a little different, so we would not want to be tied to a specific day or time amount per county. But we, at the part where there's a designated prosecutor, we have no issue with that within this language. We had Zach wait, but it's important to remember that he was pulled from Waukesha County. And while he was working the accountability bucket, his coworkers were covering his caseload. And we would see that again happening as this rolled out. Peter Revere is dedicated to this docket when necessary. His coworkers will be covering his cases as needed. Slightly different numbers there. I do have some specifics within the amendment that I just want to point out. We're also going to reach out to Representative McGuire just to send a few edits. One is around the prosecutor position.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I was

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: just going to say, me pull up the draft because I realized this morning there was a new draft. And I was very happy to see that a few of our corrections were actually already practiced, which was wonderful. So whoever helped do that, thank you. On page three, section 33, dedicated prosecutor and lead public defender. Section a, the wording is a little odd to us that the governor absolutely can appoint a special prosecutor to serve this docket. But where it says or the governor would consider the appointment of a designated deputy state's attorney from the respective county, we would ask that the or be or the state's attorney designates a deputy state's attorney. We don't believe the governor needs to either consider or appoint. If the governor is appointing a special prosecutor, that's the governor's prerogative. But if we are assigning a deputy state's attorney, it's the state's attorney who would be doing that. So just a little bit of warning there.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So you'll send us this as well?

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Yes, happy to. This was fixed. That was also fixed. There were a number of questions around transport issues. If you ever wanted to dive deep into transport issues, Executive Director Tim Lueders Dumont would be happy to be here. He is out sick today. But I can tell you that this is a line item that we are keenly watching. This impacts our overtime. Again, we would put the funding as needed towards this this amendment went forward. But just know that we will be coming back to you with data on how these transports impact our budget, particularly our overtime. Along the resources, the other piece, page three, line 18. It says, the executive director of the department shall ensure victim advocates and administrative staff are available to support victims in the efficient operation of the prosecutor. If it's specific for this program, we would appreciate language as resources are available. We have to provide our victim advocates and administrative staff for all of our cases. But again, this needs to be supported with resources.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: Add a question?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: You need as additional resources are available? As resources

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: are available, only that this is a shell. You must do this. If we physically don't have position filled, the person there, we just wanted a little bit of room there. And again, at the moment, we're not asking for resources outside of what is floating around already, Hinjli. Maybe our way to support our operations. We, yes.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: So it's sort of like as those resources are available. Yes. You get more specific that you're not Exactly.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: That isn't what I have.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: If you can send that in the language related to the coordinator or whatever we call that.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Yes. And I believe that was in the draft language that Tim had sent.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, Tim did.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: I can resend that, and can I issue Representative Maguire as well?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: All right, so we'll go back to Terry and to run through the language. And I am going to ask if the folks in here, if in fact you, Judge Zoney and Jay Johnson and Kim can meet after this and see if there can be some agreement on some language, that would be great. I will just throw in there that I think the focus, as I was suggesting before, is not the number of days, but actually the reduction of dockets being the focus. But anyway, But let's hear what- So if

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: the priority is bumping their cases. Yes. So not really a connection to services.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, no, no, no. That's part of it. It's just not the days. It's separate things,

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: I guess I would just emphasize again, two separate things. One is we're dedicated to that function. The other is court. Court that works now, which is theoretically already bumping down basis. So what you need is more bodies, judges in seats at that point. So if that is your priority, is a judiciary conversation. If you're looking to incorporate the executive branch in a meaningful way, it has to be worth the investment. And right now it is not clear that in Rutland County it is worth the investment. That's just something I have to be clear here. If this is discretionary for the judiciary and mandatory for the executive, I think that that is something that we would seriously have to take back and reconsider. Certainly think of it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, absolutely understood. No, my point only is it's not one versus five days, it's are we getting these higher needs, four or more or five more DACA people with services and dealing with their cases expeditiously. That's what I understand.

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: And the thing is, what I heard was testimony saying that Rutland has already figured out how to do that. It may be, and this is not what we heard from the Rutland community, but it sounds as though the judiciary has already taken care of most of those issues. So if they're working on four more, they've got the five more, they've got rollers off in place, that is a question for the committee as well, right? I mean, at what point, I think the community has asked for it, whether the judiciary is expressing the view that they have got this already, is it even an appropriate concept for Rutland? We need to believe it is because this is something that the community feels strong about. The community does have the same issues, the same kinds of social issues as we have in Chittenden County, and again it goes to the 14 county system of justice.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: You got what you got

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: in Chittenden and now that's about Rutland and it's different, justice. So if that

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: is

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: problematic and from what I heard from the meeting yesterday, as long as it was the executive branch saying that as long as the belief was the executive branch was the problem, we're gonna hold our feet to the fire. But now that this is a judiciary issue, it's somewhat different. The answer can be no, we aren't going to do it or won't do it or we have stakeholders who are telling us they don't need it, that's never the position I'm in as the executive branch. So I would just say that as a matter of it was discretionary for the judiciary, which I believe it needs to be, it cannot be mandatory for the executive because at that point there is no demonstration that what's happening in Rutland is worth anybody's extra investment.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: President?

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: You don't understand that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Well, I mean, the language has a lot of challenge. Because

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: the court's prioritizing moving cases quickly because they only have eighteen days. So you don't always necessarily have appropriate cases before the judge to be here. Is Myers. You're pulling cases from other documents just to do, if there's a change of plea in regular court and that's scheduled to May, we're moving that to the accountability court because it can happen faster. They've got a warm body in a seat. And to Matt and Ariel's point yesterday, that works the way it's supposed to work. More judges, more time, you clear cases faster. So here it is not clear to me and I guess that the AHS resources are being used in a way effectively because of the structural reform. That's just my concern, and I guess everybody's meeting tomorrow, I'm assuming the NHS is at that meeting. That's my understanding. Will be, mean theoretically, don't know that I will hear, but folks from NHS will hear what's going wrong and what's going badly, but we right now don't know. I can say is I don't think that you can set Yesterday, what I heard from the committee is you can't set this up halfway. And now we're saying, well, we can't ever set it up halfway. So I just wanna be clear. Let me,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I need to move on on that. But I think you're misreading the committee. I think the committee wants to have the results that the Chittenden docket achieved throughout the state. And I'm looking beyond Rutland. That there needs to be flexibility for that. But what we're trying to do is handle these higher need individuals or in the criminal justice system with five or more dockets. You can change them to four, whatever, that we're getting them taken care of in the broader sense of services, hopefully, of getting them transported to the court, trying to expedite it so they're not in limbo for a very long time. That's what I understand the Chittenden docket does. That's what we want It's to have not like we're saying we want to pick up the Chittenden docket exactly with the five days and whatever. It's the results. And I just have

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: to be clear again, court time and flexibility.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Absolutely, that is part of us. Absolutely, I understand But that's part

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: just as long as there's an understanding that court time and flexibility is not what we have been doing. And going forward, you would have no guarantee of in any other county.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: We do need to have something set up preferably legislatively if it's actually possible in the short time that we have right now to try to ensure that the Chittenden docket is able to roll out in an appropriate manner in the other counties. And I would like to hear from the court as far as any changes to this right here. And also do suggest again, if it will be a benefit to have the stakeholders at least to where I'm here. I don't think from what I understood from Matt Valerio, he has to be at the table initially because he says he'll just respond to whatever But is we can circle around with that as well. But over to you, Terry, if you could go on

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: with question. Thank you.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I think we probably are running up against kind of a bit of a brick wall because our question was what if the use of word mirrors in the places, whether that means exactly or not, or modeled after, again, all the benefits. Then it's been raised before every county that asks kind of an explanation as to who in the county, how does that process work? And I know where it's described as organic, maybe that's the way that that question came to mind. As

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: an alternative, the chief spirit judge can assign a sitting or retired judge, and we just assume that the cost of retired judge would be paid. Is that true? There is enough money in the BAA through the end of fiscal twenty six, That's what it was there for, nobody was more surprised, an executive branch where no judicial resources were allocated, no limited judicial resources were allocated. The legislature, from what I understand, is taking money from a government program that is not well used for whatever reason and moving it into what we call accountability court, which is not a thing. So that's another concern I have is you take the resources to put it somewhere for something and that is not at all clear. Given this conversation about the mushiness of what it probably needs.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: So thank you, we just assumed that, but wanted to just make sure, because in our mind, that would be the best way to ensure the consistency past the pilot period to use as a sitting judge in that unit and then every child and judge couple their doctor so that

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: we don't lose ground. Sure. Mean, again, with four new judges and 26 new staff, it didn't seem like such a heavy lift. So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: this conversation, I encourage you to go on outside the committee as well. And let's go through with the rest with the committee. And then I do encourage that conversation. And hopefully today, so that we can hear where people are by the end of the day, because we are running out of time.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: This was briefly mentioned as well that we used the word willingness, which wasn't real word.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: You would say,

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I'm sorry. Ability of the judiciary to staff versus a willingness to staff. Then the reference to recidivism and the reporting, which Matt Valerio referred to in terms of maybe a very specific definition of that so that we have that guidance.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Alright, so yeah, I understand. So if there's money, you're okay with page two subsection A, which there is. Yes. There is in the Right, okay.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Modeled after the Chittenden

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: experience in some of Yes, understood.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: And we've already talked about the court shall run every business day for successive operating periods, But there are concerns with that. And that actually would lead to when it talks about pay shall happen for sixty to ninety days. Because it sounds like it would be possible to have it fewer than sixty days, presumably. So it might

[Jaye Johnson (General Counsel to Governor Phil Scott)]: be up to ninety days instead

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: of sixty to eighty Right, okay. So again, I'm gonna talk to Eric Maguire as well and also legislative council. And again, I wanna tie this more towards achievement of what this is supposed to achieve as opposed to x number of days, etcetera. That's what I think it should be tied to. And

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: it does say to include flexible and consistent court time and access to human services. That's what I see as the goals.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Can you please?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Please. Well, that's on page two, lines 13 to 14. Oh, yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Right.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I have question about that section 32 a. So the judiciary has received funding in the prior three fiscal years for the judges in the court staff?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, if you recall, the first one was a floating judge for the Southern Region, for example. And then the next year, we have the judge dedicated to the juvenile docket that comes out of the CHIM's monies, The judge dedicated to the treatment docket, that was just the one

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, yeah, but this says for the purpose of more timely disposition of cases, which me reading between the lines is backlog.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, but those were the judges I've just described, those were the positions, and that was a big reason for the request for them. The Southern judge float, the dedicated juvenile float, the dedicated treatment court actually, the dedicated juvenile judge, dedicated treatment court judge, and then a northern float.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Is that all backlog though? Considered backlog?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Definitely the Well, but backlog in combination for juvenile and treatment court, consistency of service and efficiency of service.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Again, what I'm reading into is more timely disposition of cases.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Again,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: in my mind, the backlog didn't go down that much for all that. That's the way I read into it.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I would also agree that if you are looking at, and you say it's a dedicated backlog, the implementation of any judicial resources in any court for any docket is something that will lead to reducing the backlog. The fact that we have a judge, like treatment court judge, that you may recall that one of the reasons that was beneficial was because it was not taking the criminal judge off their normal docket to address that. So everything, the decision of every case and every docket and every division has to do with reducing backlog.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, again, just wondering with all that extra help, the backlog didn't go down that much.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Well, I guess I'd just agree that it has not gone down that much. The other thing is we don't control the number of new cases being filed, and that results in the total number of cases pending.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: Keep in mind that it's not just a matter of this clearance rate number or backlog being produced, it's also a matter of the number of filings and the timely resolution of the new filings. And so it's really difficult to understand, okay, has things been working with the backlog? You may have only had 103%. Yes, but are we delivering earlier timely justice on, let's say, the landlord tenant matters? Are we getting those hearings sooner for landlords within thirty days now? And so it all ties in together and there's so many nuances there that just basing it on one number is unfair to looking at the entire system.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And Ken will take us home with, I think, the last question. Sure.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: So, I don't agree with the What was just said, I think if we were actually prosecuting and holding people accountable, we wouldn't have near the backlog we have. That's number one. Number two, because obviously, we just it's the same a lot of them are the same old people. That is very obvious, very evident to everybody pretty much in the state that follows us. Then the other thing is is is I I know and and I wasn't for, and I spoke up against it. When the judicial system broke off from ADS to to help make them more efficient. Has that helped with lowering the the backlog or has it increased or where are we at with that?

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: I'd say that initially it actually assisted because we were having so many times where there were difficulties without our ability to access our Odyssey case management system due to problems with ADS. That was when the downtime and the issues that we were facing there created significant impediments to being able to move cases. And that has been significantly reduced. Obviously, there's always going be tech issues that come up with problems every now and then, but nothing like we were facing. We actually had days where under ADS, we couldn't do work in some document because of how busy time, and it was slow.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: think we all had it at that time. So initially it was working well. How is it working now?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: It's working well.

[Hon. Thomas A. Zonay (Chief Superior Judge, Vermont Judiciary)]: The technological improvements seem to be assisting us in moving cases.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: And that move cost us what? The cost of taxpayers, what, 13,000,000?

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Independent network? The independent network?

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. I think it started at ten, and I think it's at thirteen, and I think it's still growing.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I would question that figure, but I can verify what it is. Thank you. The Yeah. Work was all done on budget. I know that. Every year, there's an increase because of whatever they

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: No, I understand that. It's what I feel strongly at the waste of 13,000,000 of 10,000,000 to begin with. So but we know that. So thank you.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: It has we do not have work stoppage in court rooms with 50 dependents waiting to go forward as we did before.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: Well, again, as it was said, and I'm not looking for whatever, but it's clearly been said, you have many more judges, you have many more support system in the staffing, in our judicial system, is not working near to what I would hope it would be as a representative of the state of the art.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: I'm sorry to hear that. We will continue doing our best, and we feel it has improved. Thank you. We very much appreciate the additional resources towards that end.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: All right, well, you.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: It's my pleasure.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So, and I hope I don't have to

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: go to court soon. I'm going

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: to be paying the price. Oops, Ken. I would still, I mean, I still would like to get some legislative structure around this. And it definitely seems way off, but I think it needs some work. And we'll see what we have and if we have to meet at nine tomorrow morning, or if we're going to have to ask for another short postponement of the miscellaneous bill. Or we may just all decide that it needs more work and we will rely on the Senate with our help, with our help all of the above. Yeah, right. To get this. Yeah, right.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: We'll do our best to do whatever we can to help. And we're happy to be a bit many times and come back tomorrow at nine too, if that would be helpful as well.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. And if if I'm suspecting if we are gonna try to get something this through, that it's more likely we're gonna ask for an extra day, and it's more likely that people should plan on meeting tomorrow afternoon as well. Making a already. What's that? Making a spay already.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: We have a minute. Right? Yeah. Have we'll what can we what can committee members expect for a discussion and, like,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I mean, could just well, let me throw this. I would like to try to work, and I'll bring in Eric Maguire as well and Michelle, to try to make clear that it's these goals or it's these purposes that we're trying to implement. I've got a list of consistent judge time, transport, providers of service, matching the people to the services and the like, and doing this in an expeditious manner for these higher needs dockets. I want to have that like that. That's the goal and that's what we need to achieve. And what are the benchmarks that we can have, if possible. I don't know if this is all doable, but I

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: think What's our opportunity? I guess, to be more specific, what is our opportunity to not have input from a language? Do we have that opportunity? Well,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: this language right now, as it is right now.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, yeah. That way we can I can take that informally just now? I'm just trying to be given a short time. We can wait until tomorrow to have a talk of the language, or I can actually, given what I've heard, been working with Maguire and Tom if he wants to as well, to try to move it forward and given some of the input that we've already got.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah. The one thing I'm thinking that would actually be a simple change throughout the document is to stop calling it the Chittenden County Accountability Court or whatever. It was a pilot program that happened in Chittenden County. And I think I keep hearing this really unnecessary and damaging, furthering the divide between as if Chittenden County had anything to do with how this was done in Rutland County. That's the sort of thing presented, and it's so far from the truth. And so I think the language actually perpetuates that misunderstanding. And I just wondered if we could change that. And it almost feels like we have to establish something. As Jay Johnson said, the community accountability part right now is a pretend name. Maybe do we need to call it something? A rapid I don't know what the name is, but it's not a thing that's been established that we're now rolling out to hopefully, every county that wants it in Vermont.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: You know, it it it seems to to speak to that directly. It was a pilot, you know, as Angela said. So why don't we use that as the identifier, you know, the community court pilot program, and then that gives it the overview and separates it to a statewide process without identifying hot pockets or, you know, separating us from them or any of those other modifiers that we've seen. You know? That would be a simple adaptation, I think. And I think Angela was on target with that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Alright. Any other burning ones at this point?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Maybe just a little bit of clarity about how a community requests it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Oh, yeah. I have that down.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: I just yeah. Think I can to you. Just some clarity about how community requests this, just so it's like hear that it organically is happening, but if we're going put it in statute, it should just be a little clearer.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Burditt (Vice Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Perhaps that's what we can do.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, just so if it's not yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Okay. So we have three more minutes, I think, till noon. So I do wanna go back to the court. The language in that 32 a as far as designating one of these judge positions that we have recently given you, it seems to me that it doesn't necessarily have to be one of these new judges. We can either ask you to designate a judge or to find a sitting or retriever judge to serve in the functions.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: That's true.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Then you wouldn't actually be having McVannis doing this because she's not one of those brand new judges, I assume. Okay. All right. I think we'll keep moving on it, see what we can do.

[Teri Corsones (Vermont State Court Administrator)]: We really appreciate your time, your attention, and consideration.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Thank you. Thank you very much. And we're adjourned until possibly nine tomorrow, or I will

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk, House Judiciary Committee)]: just