Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Alright. Welcome to the house judiciary committee this Thursday morning, May 14, and we're gonna get a preview of h nine three seven. It's the miscellaneous judiciary bill, and it's the proposed amendments that the senate judiciary put in. I hope to understand there is one additional amendment possibly that's going to be put in on the floor over there, but we can talk about that one, I suppose, when we actually get the bill. But we're just trying to set this up to understand where we're gonna head with this if we're going to potentially concur or do we have further amendments or do we want a committee of conference. But this is just a preview, and I will now turn it over to state council. Thank you very much for your patience. It's good. I'm assuming that you have been patient. We learn patience on this job. Oh, yes. It's so good. It's an skill. Yeah.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning for the Rochester Channel's Office of Legislative Council. And we're going to take a look at draft 7.1 of the Committee on Judiciary Amendment to H nine thirty seven. So this is on the calendar in the Senate for a second reading. So it has not passed the body. This may be the final version, may not be. So I'm going to walk you through the individual instances. Hillary is joining me for this because there are a few sections that she was working on with members that then got put into this particular amendment. And so I'm going to turn it over to her. I'll kind of just identify what those sections are, and then I'll turn it over to her so she can discuss those with you. So looking at the first instance of amendment. So this is amending your version of Section two, and that is the underage possession of alcohol or cannabis statute. So you And guys did something to make it like an automatic reinstatement for those, if you recall. And then Will O'Farrell contacted Senate Judiciary and asked for a further amendment in that section. And it relates to if you look at the language in the amendment in subsection D. So you'll recall that was it last year that you did the big substance abuse, so that bill, right? And I think that this

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: is just

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: another oversight in that bill that just needs clarification from what I understand from the attorney general's office, is that so you see the subsection D that was added as part of that bill. And it talks about the DMV commissioner issuing a notice of violation and the suspension. So you recall that the way that it's structured is that the only offense that you get an automatic suspension of your driver's license is for the point zero two and operating a motor vehicle. So that has an automatic suspension of the driver's license. Other ways you could wind up with

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Or two with a senior?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, this is for the youth. So this section is just dealing with 21 alcohol and cannabis possession. So last year you added a new type of offense that could get referred to diversion they'd be eligible for the programming. And that was if you were 21 and you had a 0.02 or over. And that would result in an automatic temporary suspension. There are other ways you could wind up with a temporary suspension. And that is if for the other offenses that are under that section, so possession of cannabis or alcohol, using a fake ID, that those offenses, if you did not contact the Diversion Board or you didn't successfully complete your contract with the Diversion Board, then you would wind up with a temporary suspension. So one offense gets you automatic. The other offenses are only if you fail to exercise fully complete diversion. This subsection D, the way that it's written and the way that it refers back to subsection C in that language on lines nine through 11, it makes it sound as though it's confusing as to the suspension language around. It sounds as though they would be issuing it for any of the offenses. And it's intended to just be related to that point zero two automatic suspension. Does that make sense to you? I didn't staff that bill last year, but So just view that as a technical correction that was requested by the attorney general's office. So the next instance of amendment, the second one, this deletes the House version's section regarding establishing the minimum age of 12 in underage tobacco possession. And that is because you have S-one98, which I think you might be on the calendar to pay for debate on the past floor. I'd have to double check. But that is a larger Pardon? Is it 198? S-one 198. Yes. Yes. And so that is a larger kind of tobacco focused bill that was in Commerce and Human Services. And Human Services was looking at the underage tobacco provisions specifically because when that bill left the Senate, the Senate mostly took out the penalties under that for anyone who's underage. I will admit I've been trying to keep an eye on this, but I don't know what finally came out is on the floor because I haven't read my calendar yet this morning. But because those issues were being dealt with by both bodies in S-one 198, we didn't want to have this particular provision around establishing the minimum age of 12. Because oftentimes, if you have two bills that are moving in the same session, we try to true them up if we can. Or sometimes we have the ability if two bills pass amending the same section through statutory revision, we have the ability to kind of blend them together. However, because of the way that they're structured and they were restructuring some of that statute, it was going to be hard to kind of blend and marry them after passage. And so Senate made the decision, oh, you know what? This issue is being discussed. It's part of the dialogue. They know what the issue is, and we should just leave it to them.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: But we don't know exactly what it says.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. We can find out. My understanding is they did consider it. The attorney general's office and the court, I think, had shared this issue. I talked with Jen, who was staffing that issue in human services. So it was brought up. I don't know where they particularly landed on that issue. So if you are interested in doing something to that section, I would suggest you do it through S one ninety eight and not here.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: It is up today. Right? So

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: again, just to try to make sure we don't have a traffic jam at the end with conflicting language. So the third instance of amendment, and this fixes a typo in the section involving renewal of family division judgments. The word was affirmation and it should have been affirmative.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Page you on, Michelle?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm looking at the amendment that Senate Judiciary passed. And if you're comparing that to what you passed, it's section five in subdivision B3C, which I don't know if you have the same version as I do, but my version is page 10 of the as passed by house version. And it says any affirmation action taken by an obligor. And it should just be any affirmative action. So just a technical. So now we're moving on to the fourth instance of amendment. And so this is where you have new sections that were not contained in your version. So the first new section is Section 40A. And this section clarifies that victims can opt out of any notification or other services that DOC is required to provide to victims in various sections of Title 28. And this was something that was requested from the Victim Notification Task Force group and will allow DOC to offer a menu of notification option services for victims. Hillary worked on this one. So she's going to, again, like I said, she'll follow-up and talk to you a little bit more about these particular sections that I identified. Section 40B, this is the language from S-one 183, which was home and land improvement fraud that was vetoed because of the typo. And so this is just the substantive parts of S-one 183 without the typo.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So where was your typo? It's not in here. It was vetoed because of a typo?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. I caught it right as soon as it passed, as I was doing it to review, to send to the governor's office. And I checked in with the attorney general's office, and I checked in with DSAS. And I was like, it just was an incorrect cross reference at the very end of the bill that was passed. And so I checked with DSAS and AGO. I was like, I don't think this is right. They agreed. We just missed it. I should have caught it. And so I emailed a governor's counsel and told advisor of that. But at the time, since we realized it immediately, Senate Judiciary had already decided to just fix the typo in miscellaneous. And I advised the governor's counsel that there was already a plan to fix the typo. S-one 183 was supposed to take effect July 1. I was just going to make the typo fix effective July 2 because you've been around here long enough. You know how we do that to the kinds of news proposals. So advised the governor's office that it was already going to be taken care of, and the governor vetoed it. And so we have to reenact the whole bill again.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Glad I've never seen it done before. Me either. It's just that was language that was changed in the bill that we sent over, and we just don't have that changed. Well, because of the wrong reasons.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. I mean, the language looks a little different because in the bill as passed, it has like the whole statute. You read it in context. I just put the essential language in there, but it is exactly the language that was in S-one hundred eighty three.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Absence the change that was

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, because you don't actually Without that typo, you don't even need those subsections.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Got it. Okay.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section 40 c, this section clarifies that the liability caps applicable to federal section nineteen eighty three actions under existing law in the Vermont Tort Claims Act also apply to the new state complies of action created in August, which is modeled in the federal law. This technical correction was based on conversations with the attorney general's office that the clarification would be helpful in case of any ambiguity as to the general assembly's intent. And that was Hillary's bill. And so she's going

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to follow-up and talk to

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you more about that section. Sections 40D and E, these changes were brought to the attention of the committee by Vermont Legal Aid. So what they do is so Section 40D amends Act 47 of twenty twenty three. So those of you who were here then may recall that the General Assembly created the Legal Aid's tenant representation pilot program, and the act included language that the program would begin only upon available funds. So you know what that language, the contingency language that we're seeing often, we're going to enact this, but you're only going to do it if the funds are appropriated. The pilot project was supposed to be in two counties, Lemoyle and Windsor Counties. So the funds were not appropriated until FY twenty five. And so the program actually didn't start until 11/01/2024. And so what the language does in 40D and then 40E is it extends the program from just those two counties to they could offer those services statewide. And it also just adjusts the time periods for reporting and things like that because it started later. So it's still a two year pilot project, but it's accounting for the later start date. And the language that you have in the 40E is just that the monies that were initially appropriated are to carry forward.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So 40b, does that mean that this has to go to appropriations probably since it has moved?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It did go to appropriations in the Senate.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: It did go to appropriations. Yes, it went to So we'll have to go there as well.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: For you to concur? I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: will double check. Okay. So that one sex of mice needs You mean,

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: like, they'll probably weigh you mean just that they'll weigh in?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Right. Yeah, they don't have that. So

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 40 F and G, these sections authorize the Human Rights Commission to disclose investigative reports resulting from a complaint that's initiated by a commission employee as opposed to someone, a regular citizen on the outside. And Hillary has been working with the Senate on that. And so she can fill you in on those. Any questions about any of the ones that I went over?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: You spelled 40 H.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I forgot. I just wanted my summary at 40 H. So 40 H. Yes, that is and I'm trying to remember the bill number. You have a bill still on the wall. We took it up earlier in the session too. But it was related to prevention orders, final abuse prevention orders. And you may recall there were two suggested changes that came from the network. It's Angela's bill. And the first change was, you'll recall that when they are making a determination whether or not to issue an order, the court has to first find that the defendant has abused the plaintiff. That's the first thing we have to find. Then the second one is that there's a danger of future abuse or the defendant is incarcerated. And so the first change in 06/28 was striking that the defendant is incarcerated and changing it to under the supervision of DOC. So in that case, and you all talked about that a little bit ago at the time, it would be so if somebody and it's only certain types of offenses for which the person is under DOC. So like if you had an aggravated domestic, right? And so there's a final order going to be issued. Let's say the defendant does a split sentence and does thirty days, but then has the rest of the time on probation or some type of community based service is that the court could order the final order, even though they're not actually incarcerated, but they're serving their symptoms in the community. And so that is this particular provision. There was a second provision in six twenty eight that had to do with the ordering for the defendant to continue to pay household bills for which they were previously responsible. That is not in here. So this is just that first change that was in 06/28. So I think Senate Judiciary said they were open to that other piece, but it came at the very end and they just felt like it needed more discussion about it in order to feel comfortable with what language to put

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: in there. They did hear from you before. Okay. Any questions from Michelle or any those? Alright, let's go to Hillary's sections where we're all deeper diving. No, I said that. Said that. Didn't start at all. Yeah, okay. Made very clear and I apologize. No, that's all right. Placeholder's just a preview and it's not. All

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right. For the record, Hillary Chittenden Ames, Office of

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Legislative

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Council. My three sections, the first is on page two, as Michelle mentioned. This is starting on line 11, section 40A. This is the victim notification provision. So this, as Michelle mentioned, was a request from the Victim Notification Task Force Group. Basically, Title 13 and Title 28 both contain provisions talking about victim notification. Title 13 is mostly about prosecutors having to notify victims. Title 28, in a bunch of different places, talks about DOC notifying victims. In Title XIII, because it's all in one chapter, there's a really clear language saying all of these required notifications, victims can opt out, victims can waive. In Title XIII, it's less clear because the victim notification requirements have been scattered. And it doesn't clearly say in all those places that victims can opt out. So the Victim Notification Task Force group said we want it to be clear that DOC can offer a menu of choices for victims to say, I want these notifications, but not these. And DOC's position was that for them to feel comfortable that they had that statutory authorization, they would like some clear language essentially saying, for any of our required notifications, victims can opt out. So that's the change that is made on page two lines 19 through 20. This is a section upfront in title 28 that kind of describes everything the commissioner is supposed to do. And it adds that summary piece, a new 25 to say provide notification and other services to victims. But notwithstanding any of the other parts of Title 28 or even outside of 28 that require the department to provide notification, a victim may decline any notification or other service provided by the department. So that section probably needs to be run by corrections and institutions, I think. They have seen the proposed They heard the proposed request from the task force group, and they have heard that this language was moving, and I think indicated their support for the concept. But yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So I'll go talk to Alice and see if she wants to have a drive by in there or not. Alright. Okay. Any questions on that one? Anybody? Yeah.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Did DOC say that they felt like

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: this language is clear enough?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Great. Their testimony in front of the senate judiciary was that they liked it.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: They liked it.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Or if not liked it, thought it

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: was sufficient for their All right. The second is on page four. This is section 40 c starting on line 13. And as Michelle mentioned, this is related to 49 that has passed out of both bodies and passed into law without the governor's signature. And so this was based on conversations with the AG's office. The Vermont Tort Claims Act covers suits against state employees. So as you'll remember, H-eight 49 envisions suits against local entities, state employees, or federal officials. And the Vermont Tort Claims Act essentially says you sue a state employee for courts or other violations. The state steps in to defend and indemnifies employees with some exceptions, but that's the basic idea. When it's a suit like Section nineteen eighty three, so that federal civil rights statute that H-eight 49 is based on, the Mont Tort Claims Act also says there's a cap to liability. So this clarification is to make clear that just like H-eight 49 is based on section nineteen eighty three for interpretation of statute purposes for how the Rent Tort Claims Act treats these kinds of causes of action. It should also treat the H-eight 49 action like it would one under section nineteen eighty three. So this specifies by adding on line 19 that where,

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I guess

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: lines 18 through 19, where the right of action is based on 42 USC section nineteen eighty three or a similar state statute. So that would include something like the cause of action under H-eight 49 or under a similar federal statute. The state shall indemnify the employee for the amount of the employee's liability. And then going on to the top of page five, subsection B, these are those liability caps. So the maximum liability of the state under this section is 500,000 to any one person. And there's a maximum aggregate liability for each occurrence of 2,000,000 to all persons. So this clarification just avoids any ambiguity in reading the parts of the statute together to clarify for H849.

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

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Not just reference the statute from H8.9 instead of, say, similar state statute?

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We considered multiple options. This was the one we went with. Both are options. So I think Senate Judiciary thought this worked. I think one possibility is, I guess this might be the best way to capture the way that you would read these statutes, even if this language weren't added. So the idea is you have a state statute that is supposed to be treated just like Section nineteen eighty three, except it's state cause of action and it covers federal employees. So the way this is phrased just kind of further confirms, just like that language in eight forty nine that says, interpret the state cause of action just like you would nineteen eighty three. This is another way to say statutorily, we are thinking of these things in the same manner. So this kind of similar state statute does that work, confirming that language in AG 49.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Do you think that it could open up the door for someone trying to push in another statute, arguing that it's similar to a nineteen eighty three claim? It's not the intended.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Interesting. I'm not aware of any other state statutes that create causes of action for constitutional violations. So I

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: think it would be hard. I think it'd

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be a pretty losing argument, is my thought. And if in the future there were to be more statutes of that kind, I'm not sure what you could have that is like section nineteen eighty three that isn't H. Eight forty nine.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: So in some ways, I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: think it's a little bit of

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a closed universe even though the language is expansive. But it's another way to mirror the construction of this particular statute where its current law is 42 USC section nineteen eighty three or under a similar federal statute. And so I think this is a way to both kind of stay consistent in the way this provision is constructed and also, I think, affirm the way H-eight 49 constructs the cause of action, which is to say, just like Section nineteen eighty three, but the state cause of action and a couple of federal employees.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: No, that makes sense. Great.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Better answer than my first one. Got there. All right. And then moving on to the third of my three sections. This starts on page seven. This is section 40 F, starting on line 18. So Human Rights Commission, for anyone who has not recently been aware of everything that they do, they investigate and enforce state anti discrimination and civil rights laws. So that includes fair housing, public accommodations. And public accommodations is pretty broad. So it can include hospitals, prisons, roads, schools, businesses, police, or other services. So this change is making a change to how Human Rights Commission, essentially investigative records and decisions are treated. The baseline right now, what's confidential? Everything is confidential except the person being investigated can access the investigative file upon request with a couple exceptions. But they can see the case that's being put together, investigating them. And the Human Rights Commission's final determination, essentially the process is that Human Rights Commission staff investigates, they put together an investigative report that goes to the commission, which makes a final determination and final decision of whether there are reasonable grounds to think that discrimination occurred. So under current law, if the commission's final determination finds that there are reasonable grounds to think discrimination occurred, then the final determination can be made public, which includes the identity of the person investigated. If the commission does not find, finds there are no reasonable grounds to think discrimination occurred, then they cannot release the final determination or identity of the person investigated. So that's current law. The other relevant piece to this change is that there are two ways to start Human Rights Commission investigations. One is any private person can file a complaint. The other way, and which the Human Rights Commission then evaluates, investigates, determines if there is a prima facie case to pursue an investigation. The second way is that a Human Rights Commission employee can file a complaint if they grounds to think there's a prima facie case of discrimination. There was testimony in front of Senate judiciary by the executive director of the commission that those employee initiated complaints are generally for broader impact kinds of issues. But I will defer to testimony forthcoming from the director of this committee to talk more about that. This change only pertains to complaints filed by a Human Rights Commission employee. So this doesn't cover any investigative materials related to complaints filed by private parties. Those are still treated the same way the current statute treats them, which is mostly keeping things confidential. But for a complaint that is initiated by a Human Rights Commission employee and that investigation, the complaint files and investigative files, just like under current law, stay confidential, except that the person being investigated can access the investigative or request some of the investigative file materials with some exceptions. But the change, this is page eight, starting on line 10, adding a new subdivision three, there's a change for an investigative report. So as I mentioned, you start with a complaint, you have an investigative file, which is like everything that you collect in doing your investigation. And then the commission staff produces an investigative report, summarizes, here's what we found in our investigation. Here's what we recommend, whether there are reasonable grounds to think discrimination heard or not. And the commission then considers that for their final determination. This would make the investigative report in any investigation initiated by a Human Rights Commission employee not confidential, so it could be produced in response to a Public Records Act request only after the commission has issued a final determination and after the parties have been notified with two exceptions, except that the commission shall not proactively disclose any report. So there was discussion in Senate judiciary that they wanted the commission to be able to produce the investigative report in response to a Public Records Act request, but not proactively post it on their website. So that language says, yes, disclose it in response to a request, no, post it on your website. And the commission shall not disclose a few categories of information that are really carryovers from parts of the existing statute. So even though they can produce the investigative report, they shall not disclose and would have to redact the identities of any non party witnesses to the investigation if good cause is shown to protect the witness's confidentiality and information the release of which may be prohibited under state or federal law absent court order.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: So if it's otherwise supposed to

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be confidential under some statute, should still be redacted. Those two exceptions exist in the current statute for when a person being investigated asks for part of their investigative file, those two kinds of information can be withheld. So it's consistent in that way with how the current statute treats those categories of information. The third category that the commission shall not disclose is the identity of the parties and any information that would identify the parties if the commission finds that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. So I mentioned earlier that under current law, when the commission makes a final determination, if they find there are reasonable grounds, then they can release the identity of the parties. But if the commission finds no reasonable grounds to think discrimination occurred, then the identity of the parties and any information that would identify the parties stays confidential. So this carries that over to the investigative report as well. So just like under current law, if the commission finds there are no reasonable grounds, then it can't disclose information that would identify the parties or the identity of the parties. And that will be true for the investigative report under this subdivision as well.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Are there any circumstances where,

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: in the first instance, when they did investigate, there were findings and they would release the report, but the victim

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: from lots of small state does not want that released? Is there anything Interesting. So under current law, the second circuit has found it's not clear that the statute permits the commission to release investigative reports. The commission does not currently release investigative reports. I think the best first answer to your question is that this only covers complaints initiated by commission employees, which there was testimony that that's more systemic, it's not a private individual's It's not investigative

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: supervisor said individual's X, and their supervisor was like

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. So I think in that case, that would be a non party witness to the investigation. If they're not the party filing the complaint.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: They're the affected party, but they're not the part.

[Hillary Chittenden Ames (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think if the non party witness, if someone involved in the investigation, but not a party thought their information should not be public, that they should maintain their anonymity because they still work somewhere or otherwise, then I think that is that if good cause is shown to protect the witness confidentiality, I think the Human Rights Commission will be better positioned to speak to how they handle this in investigations. But one concern generally is that to get people to talk to you, you often have to say, I'm not going to go out and tell everyone what you told me. And so I think there are norms in place for why you would protect that information. But that'll be best place for when you get there. Right. Running through. All right. The last change related to this issue is on page 10, section 40 gs. So because this makes a change, this is on passage. Without section 40 gs, it wouldn't be clear to the commission what to do with investigations that they currently have pending. So if a law passes, there are still things ongoing that it would apply to. Maybe the law applies, maybe not. It would certainly apply to any investigation that started after the law takes effect. But the language that Senate Judiciary chose was to specify that this change to how confidentiality records are handled should apply to any pending investigations by the Human Rights Commission. So if the Human Rights Commission has an investigation, again, initiated in a complaint by a Human Rights Commission employee at the time that the law takes effect, then they would be able to and would have to disclose the investigative report as provided in the section we just talked about.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Any other questions? Thank you very much. So we will now hear from some witnesses. We'll start we'll kind of just walk down the road as we go unless do do folks have any body time constraints? If I was gonna start with Willa, then I would go to I think I would go to Willa, then Jennifer Bowman second, and then Essie third, I think is my line up. Well, I guess Todd is here as well.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We'll be watching.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Alright, thank you. Okay,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: will do. Thank you, Willa, for being here. If you could talk to us a little bit about the need for the first instance of amendment on page one of the of the bill.

[Willa Farrell (Attorney General’s Office – Court Diversion and Pretrial Services)]: Good morning. My name is Willa Farrell. I work at the attorney general's office with court diversion and pretrial services programs, and we were just the suggested change is to provide clarity. As Michelle explained, my understanding last year when, the legislature added point o two violations. So, people under the age of 21 who have a blood alcohol content of 0.02, that those individuals be offered the opportunity to go through the Youth Substance Awareness Safety Program, but that at the same time they would face an immediate suspension similar to the, civil process for adults. The way the language came out of act 45, it sounded like all youth should be suspended immediately, and that was not my understanding of your intention. So the proposed addition is just to clarify that the notice of suspension is only given for the violation subdivision p b one e, which are the point o two violations.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Any questions on that? Seems fairly straightforward. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Go go ahead. Hi, Willa. I'm just wondering if you brought this up to the senate.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: And what

[Willa Farrell (Attorney General’s Office – Court Diversion and Pretrial Services)]: they I only realized this, you know, about I don't know. It was after the bill had gone through your committee in the house, so I contacted the senate judiciary and Michelle Childs with the suggestion, and then Michelle explained it to Senate judiciary.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: And they and they didn't make the change for some reason?

[Willa Farrell (Attorney General’s Office – Court Diversion and Pretrial Services)]: Excuse me. No. They did make the change.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Oh, they did. This is all from the Oh, okay. This is all their recommendations. Not This the first thing I've been confused on this morning and I got an hour and fifty minutes left so they made me more. I'll be with you. Any further questions for Rola? So thank you for being here and thank you for being well I'm assuming you were patient as we took a while, but thank you.

[Willa Farrell (Attorney General’s Office – Court Diversion and Pretrial Services)]: It was multitasking. So yes, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: All right, thank you. All right, so we'll go to Jennifer Coleman, I think, is going to be commenting on, do I have that, on the fourth amendment? Fourth?

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yes, okay. Cool. Yes, thank you for being here. Nice to see you.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Oh, good morning. Nice to see you all. And I appreciate you being behind schedule because I was as well. So it saved me a lot of stress. For the record, Jennifer Pullman, I am the executive director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, but also specifically for this testimony, want to note that I was the chair of the Victim Notification Task Force group that was established under Act 64. This late in the session, I still have hope. And I'm going to say this is a simple recommendation. It has been vetted through HCI. It's been vetted through Senate Judiciary, and it's a concept that has been brought forward to you. I'm gonna speak obviously just on the fourth instant of amendment. And I don't think that this is a foreign concept for this committee, but just to give a little bit of context, we've been talking for a couple of years about the issues with victim notification, most specifically, sort of post conviction, but there are issues across the board. Of the pieces was that what currently exists in terms of notification is that there are many different notifications that DOC offers, but there's no option for victims to choose what they receive. There used to be that option, but now it's either all or nothing. And it was really important, and that was one of the things that we brought to this body a couple of years ago, that we get back to that model because it doesn't work for every victim. It doesn't work for every survivor. There needs to be choice, restore some control, restore some agency. So that was a paramount goal of our group. It was actually established sort of in our charge as well. And what ended up happening was that as we worked on this, we identified a stumbling block, wherein DOC was saying, well, we don't know that we can do this. I mean, were working on it, but they were like, we don't know that we can do this because all of our obligations under Title 28 are definitive. There's no way that we can't not provide the notifications. So we look at Title 13, specifically 5,304 B, wherein there's a statement that pertains to the services that states attorneys, victim advocates provide that allows for an opt in or an opt out. And what we wanted to recommend and what attorney Chittenden Ames perfectly captured was that victims who are receiving or able to receive rights through Title 28 could have that. And that would then allow DOC to move forward with the menu, which again, hearing from the field was really a paramount goal of our group. So this was a consensus recommendation. It was a group made up of state attorneys and Vermont State Police, DOC, the network, survivors. We had representation from disability rights, victim advocates as well. And it felt that this was an important starting place so that DOC could continue their work to develop a menu. I do want to mention, Chittenden, you had noted about speaking with Chair Emmons, and I invite that conversation because her committee has been wonderful on this issue. We've testified a couple of times on this, and basically what she told Attorney Chittenden and I was go chase it down in the Senate. She knows what the language is. So in terms of that piece, I feel really confident that that will be a very quick conversation relative to the ones that you've been having lately. So just want to say that we've tried to button up all those pieces and think that this is a pretty much in the spirit of what the miscellaneous judiciary bill exists for. So thank you. No,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: I appreciate that. So we'll talk to Chair Evans and thank you for laying the groundwork for all that as well. Any questions for Jennifer on this? Seems fairly straightforward, and we have been hearing about this for a while. So thank you very much. Appreciate Thank you. All right, let me see where we are next. Actually we'll hear from Todd Dambles really quick because that's next on the list. Hopefully, duly will be short. I think it's, please join us, Section 40C, the indemnification of employed.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: Morning. Thank you for having me. Todd Dayloos, Assistant Attorney General. Hillary's description and explanation of this change is spot on. This is really, again, about ensuring that Act eighty seven forty nine fits into the existing tort claim structure in the state of Vermont. I think there is a strong argument that it fit under the existing language in fifty two zero two of title 12, which essentially says if you're sooner an individual employee of the state, the action lies against the state of Vermont. That said, as Hillary pointed out, there is some language in fifty six zero six that could be strengthened and adding that simple, I think, three or four words makes sense, our standpoint. And to answer your question, Rutland, it was really remember, it's not somebody is the acts that fall under the Tort Claims Act are really about limitation of damages because this body, as the voice of the sovereign, gets to determine what the sovereign's liability is. That's what the tort claims limitations are. So that's essentially all we're doing, is making sure there wasn't potential unbounded liability yet.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Okay. Any questions on that?

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Yeah. I just have a background question that we went over before, but if somebody is suing an employee and the state, the suit against the employee of personal aide would be dismissed because of Is that right? Yeah. I mean, it's a

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: little more nuanced than that. But essentially, the state will defend a state employee assuming the alleged acts aren't reckless or grossly negligent. There's language in it's also title three eleven o one, I think. But I'm stretching my brain back to when I used to do this work. So, yeah, the the quick answer, yeah, three VSA 11 o one defines an employee, and fifty six zero two of title 12 says when an act or omission of an employee of the state acting within the scope of their employment has caused damage, the exclusive right of action shall lie against the state of Vermont. And then there's that exception which says not if it's gross, like negligence or illicit.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: So if it's gross negligence, all bets are off and somebody can sue the employee.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: The state won't defend them. Yeah. And

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: if there is a judgment, the state is not reimbursing the employee.

[Todd Daloz (Assistant Attorney General)]: But I will say, it's very rare.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: I bet it is, but I just was kind of curious. And if there's a judgment and the employee was not reckless, the state puts the bill Rule insurance looks like they have something.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Whatever. It states the bill. Thank you. Any other questions? I did that. I love it at work. Alright. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all very much. Yeah. Thanks, man. Alright. So we'll go to Sessie Weiss next to join us. And of course, he's on Spectrum. Sorry, guess you. It's 40 B, and it's page five of both following.

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Good morning.

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

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: For the record, I am Bessie Weiss. I am special assistant to the executive director of Vermont Legal Aid and, was just formally interim executive director. Happily, we have a wonderful new EV. And, yes, I am here, regarding section 40 d to talk about our tenant representation pilot project. As Ledge Counsel Michelle Childs said, what this language change does is it simply allows us to expand the legal work that we're doing under the project statewide, to other counties. It was in Act 47. It had been limited to Memorial and Windsor for a variety of reasons. We did not get as many cases from L'Evoire and Windsor as we thought we would. One reason being the delayed appropriation that happened in 2025. So the start of the pilot was delayed, and the start of the pilot unfortunately coincided with construction in the courthouses in both those counties. So, at this point, we are simply making the change to be able to more We have the capacity, the appropriation is enough to allow us to expand statewide or at least in some other counties. We're ready and able to do that, And that would be allowing us to help more Vermonters until the pilot project comes to its end at the October.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Given that we have a landlord tenant bill that is moving through the body, should we be thinking about making sure that eligibility requirements are evergreen for any kind of change that comes from changes in that bill. And I honestly don't really know where that's at in the I

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: don't think that's necessary because this was a separate act and a separate pilot project. And so I don't think that the passage, if the landlord tenant bill was to pass, I don't think it would influence this

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: change.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: The change as far as the statewide, if that makes sense, that just more meant something that we're not actually talking about, but the eligibility requirements for who would

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: be eligible for the pilot program.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Is anything that's happening in the landlord tenant bill

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I'm going look at our lead coordinator has been closely following. Yeah.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: And so I'm sure this would have I think this is work we've been doing for the last year or so.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, okay. And we didn't want this pie to add this at all.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Yeah. No. I'm more met yeah. I'm more met if something were to change from that. Figured.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Okay. Okay. It's all good.

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And as alleged counsel said, the reporting changes align with the delay in the start. So they align with, you know, the original stat act

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: So so there was later. 11/30/2025?

[Bessie Weiss (Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: There November 3. Yes. There was a report. One month it one month later. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Unwind 13 on page six if that's Require a report on the page that's already scanned against the report. I can ask Michelle about that. Any questions?

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Just a simple question. I have a similar question on line nine, page seven. I guess maybe it's correcting when the program actually began. But it's in the past.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Yeah, I'm assuming. Ask. Just curious. And this is at Yeah, page seven, line six, and that's

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: line six, then line nine changes it from 07/01/2020 through to 11/01/2024. I'm wondering if that's just because that's when things actually started moving and so it's just reflecting that. Believe that's what it is. Yes, that's what I understand. Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: That's when we got the funds distributed from UNS. Any Any other questions? So we have two witnesses more, I'll on with those witnesses. You for having me. So, Ben, if you can join us, we've been marching through a great overview from legislative council of section 40 f. It starts at the bottom of page seven and almost at page 10, I believe. Could all you need for this. Talk talk us through just a little bit.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Okay. Thank

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

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. For the record, my name is Big Hartman. I use theythem pronouns. I'm the executive director and general counsel at the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission. I am grateful to have an opportunity to speak with you here in the end times or whatever we're at. And I appreciate you taking time to hear from me today. Yeah so I am just here to talk about a very small section of your miscellaneous judiciary bill and. This is really an administrative change affecting a very small portion cases. As you all are aware, in the past four years, the legislature has really expanded our investigative and litigation capacity while also expanding the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act protections that we enforce. We take this expansion really seriously, and we are constantly evaluating how we can use the tools and resources available to us to increase our impact in advancing full civil and human rights for all people in Vermont. So one of the tools that we have in our existing statute is the ability to initiate investigations as the agency, rather than relying solely on a named complainant to provide a signed assigned notarized complaint for us. And I think that this is a tool that has not been utilized very often, but we are starting to use it more and more as we have some capacity to do so. And we find it's appropriate to do these kinds of HRC initiated complaints. In other states, they call them director initiated complaints. When we're looking at kind of a broad issue that could impact a class or a large group of people, or in instances where, for one reason or another, a complainant may not be able to get a signed complaint to us, but it's something that's a significant enough issue that we want to investigate it. And so this legislative change would really just impact the confidentiality of such an investigation. We are generally very restricted by our confidentiality provisions in Section 4,555 of Title IX. We are very restricted in what we can share with the public about our findings and the basis for them. And while parties do have access to our investigative file, they may do whatever they want with those. But in terms of what the HRC can make public, we're very limited. When we have an individual complainant who we're investigating discrimination for, they, like I said, can access the investigative file. They get a copy of our investigative report. And if they wanna go tell the press about that or publicize that, they can do that. When there's no complainant, there's actually not a way that the public could be informed about the outcome of our investigation, other than a determination, which is generally a very vague statement of discrimination in housing based on disability, for example, it's not an in-depth review of the facts we considered and the legal analysis that we conducted. So this provision to add the language in section 4555A3 enables us to provide, in response to a public records request, we can provide the investigative report to a requester, which right now we feel there's some ambiguity about whether we would do it and we would not do it. I routinely receive requests for investigative reports and I do not produce them. And so, again, it's not for all of our complaints, the vast majority of our complaints do involve in individual complainants, but the very small number of complaints that the HRC feels it's worthwhile to initiate our own investigation on. There seems to be a gap in how accountable or public that the outcome of that investigation would be. It's pretty straightforward. Happy to answer any questions anyone has about that.

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

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Thanks for being here. Thank you. I'm wondering, page eight, line, fifteen, sixteen, where it says identities of non party witnesses shall not be disclosed if good cause is shown to protect the witness' confidentiality. I was just wondering when and how the opportunity to show that good cause would come up?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Well, we usually will hear from it from the witness. When we are contacting somebody who's not a party to a complaint, is just providing some third party testimony to us, they are often going to flag for us if they have concerns about their name being public. We may have for ourselves, high in profile case, for instance, another reason that we would think for ourselves, this is someone whose identity we can protect without compromising the public's right to know. Yeah.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Okay. So it's something that you've already encountered, in a sense, over the course of regular business, and there are established practices.

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Yeah. Our rules do address this, and we use it sparingly. We typically will disclose, and this is the same kind of limitations we have in providing investigative files to parties, which we're authorized to do within the same exact limitations. So we have had people who have provided testimony to us and expressed in the course of their testimony or in scheduling with our investigator, hey, I'm really scared that if I tell you my point of view of the situation, the facts that I recall, that the person I'm accusing of doing wrong is going to come after me. They're going to make my life miserable. They're going to try to retaliate against me. Is there a way that I can provide this to you anonymously? And we have mechanisms that we use to do that. And we the information they provide is still available to the parties, but their identity isn't. And sometimes we see that we need to shield a little more because if you hear that recording, you're going to know exactly who that person is. So we're just always trying to be really thoughtful about that. But we haven't encountered that type of situation too often, thankfully.

[House Judiciary Committee Member (Unidentified)]: Are there any instances where there is both an investigation or complaint initiated pursuant to the internal version that we're talking about, the 44.54 B, and also done the other way by an outside party? Could there be two investigations going at the same time?

[B. Hartman (Executive Director and General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission)]: Generally, we discourage that. And if we know that somebody has filed a complaint of the same things with another entity, we typically will not accept that for investigation or we will dismiss it. Like, they file a lawsuit and we're in the middle of an investigation and they're alleging the same things that we're investigating, there's a concern about issue preclusion. And so we will our rules enable us to dismiss the complaint at that point in time with no prejudice to that party. But it just avoids having two conflicting findings of fact on the same claims.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Last witness is born until we move on at eleven, we'll go back to January. Charlie, you could join us. You're going to comment on 48, I believe.

[Charlie Gosselman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Indeed. Good morning, Charlie Gosselman. I'm the policy director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, and appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of Section 40H. This language would ensure that relief from abuse order access when defendants are under the Department of Corrections supervision is accessible to survivors. You may remember, all the way back in February, we discussed similar language in this committee, but just wanted to provide a brief refresher and the opportunity to ask any questions. So this was an issue that was identified by attorneys working with survivors in the Vermont Network's Pro Bono Legal Clinic. As you know, RFAs, also known as domestic violence protection orders, are critical legal tools for survivors. They are civil court orders that protect a survivor or a plaintiff, and they request that order directly from the court to check their safety. To obtain an RFA, a court must find that the defendant has abused the plaintiff and that there is either a danger of future abuse or that the defendant has been convicted of one of the serious offenses listed in the statute and is currently incarcerated. So examples of those offenses include domestic assault, murder, and L and L with a child. The miscellaneous bill would replace currently incarcerated with currently under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. So this proposed change would capture those who have committed those serious offenses and are incarcerated, as well as those who serve shorter periods of incarceration and subsequently live in the community on probation or parole. As a result of plea agreements, it's common for individuals to serve very short sentences or even no time incarcerated for domestic assault. So this revision would ensure that these victims can also avail themselves of civil protections. Even if a defendant is under DOC supervision, the risk of harm to a survivor, as well as the survivor's fear, can remain very real. In these situations, it may be more difficult for a survivor to meet the threshold of proving a danger of future abuse, even if the underlying conduct was severe and recent. It's important to update the statute to close this gap and ensure that RFAs are accessible to survivors who need them. And I appreciate your time and consideration. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair, House Judiciary Committee)]: It's fairly straightforward. We have not probably got those questions last time on the other part of the building, and that's not been great. So any questions for Charlie? See, thank you very much. Thank you very much. So like I said before, this is kind of a preview. I do know that there is, I understand there might be one amendment, a four amendment related to changing the word expungible to sealable for the $200 bail limit. Really correction, that's an oversight from last year's Sealy bill, which we had in a bill that they didn't get to in the Senate. But it's very important that we clarify that. So I understand that the animal cruelty bill is on the calendar now. I'll probably do it again just so we're ready on Tuesday. And I think we only need to hear from the State Council and probably Alicia Malay. Probably that's all we need to really to cover that. Understand the youth offender proceedings bill, age six forty two, has changes that we may find issue with. And because we are trying on the house side, we're aiming for the twentieth. I mean, that's optimistic, but that's just telling me that we don't have a lot of time for further amendment and sending it over to the Senate. There's a chance that we then move that bill. So if we have amendments or I mean, so for that bill, more likely than not, we'll ask the committee to have a committee conference. I don't think that's gonna be necessary for the animal cruelty bill from what I just understand from my counsel had said that there's not like any significant things. And we're likely, if we get 193 out, which I plan in the vote tomorrow morning at the floor, because there's gonna be a token session on Monday. So whether we voted it out today or tomorrow, it would be on the floor on Tuesday. So I figured that would do that tomorrow. So I think that's it. So we'll just take a well, if everybody could come back at eleven to see if we have invited some folks from Dale to to get in on the latest one ninety three. You know that we've gotten that confirmed. But we have Katie McLenn to do a walk through of the latest at 11:30. She's not available until 11:30, just check-in at eleven to see if we actually have witnesses then.