Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: I want to.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay. Great. So

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: We are live.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I still have a question. Good morning. We are back in senate for this year. It's January 27. We have general counsel from the Department of Corrections here with us. And, you haven't testified here before, so we can just quickly, go around and introduce ourselves. Mister Mattos. Oh,

[Senator Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: yeah. Chris Mattos, represent Chittenden North District, Milton Westford, Fairfax, and.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Then Senator Tanya Vyhovsky, I represent the

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Chittenden Central District, which is the rest of Essex Town, Essex Junction, a little bit of Colchester, all of Winooski, and most of Burlington.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'm Nader Hashim representing Windham County.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Bob Norris, County, and the town of Auburn, and I'm also Senator Philip Baruth, also from Chittenden Central.

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: Excellent. Thank you very much.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Great. Well, yeah, thank you for coming in. I we had a few questions regard I I believe we kinda give you a heads up as to what we're trying to hash out here. And on page two of the bill that we have right now, line 12, there's a reference to state, town, and municipal buildings. And I believe there's some questions or just general curiosity as to how this bill could potentially impact the Department of Corrections as it relates to civil arrests and or around Department of Corrections facilities. So, any thoughts you might have, we're happy to.

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: Thank you for having me this morning. Really no thoughts that I'm here to offer from the Department on this. We don't see any issue with it, in so far as the impact on our facilities. Both our prison facility themselves and the probation and verbal offices, I'm assuming encompasses all of those. Those certainly have no concerns about that. Civil arrest is not something that we deal with in these facilities. So the individuals, they're in our care and custody in some way, they agree on a criminal order, a substance order that we work with. So, the impact itself, I know, I noted under the definition including immigration proceedings, but again, there's no civil arrest that would take place on a border lounge. We the AC operating facility. And

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: and you had mentioned probation and full. You don't see any issues there either with folks who are coming to check-in or anything like that?

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: No, I guess more so a question on what the assist is. To clarify, we don't notify all of our authority to engage individuals on our property, like a criminal authority. But we don't, there's a suggestion about assisting. I don't really know what that means in context, but UFC does not alert officials that would be seeking a civil arrest. We do have individuals that I'm just trying to imagine have child support obligations that may be coming in to report, but we don't notify people that's gonna be present. And as far as individuals that travel between us and the court facilities, again, know, court copies of public records is something that had an alert fashion to it as far as the case of the operations go.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Committee, any questions or comments? I was yeah. I'm sorry.

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: I was still confused with DOC's involvement here because obviously, I don't know if you can hold on several new banners from Marshall and Normandy control. No,

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: No. I mean, civil detainers, it's work of art for us in relation to the authority spokes, the federal authorities show up with their paperwork that has our visit to it, particularly with the operational proceedings. But we hold them under USMS contract that we have that I know you all are familiar with. So, I guess the short answer is yes, but they come through the federal authority and have the proper charging documents.

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So, the only possible exception I could think about is if someone, say, switched to the the criminal system to crack, and there were logs in the general population, and then the criminals got word of this as far as them coming into the facility, not placing them in their custody or moving up the population. Would have occurred.

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: Well no, they would have to be, and maybe I'm confusing your question, they would have to be in our population on state charging document or another charging document anyway. We wouldn't just hold the individual without them being in a proper proceeding to do so. So hopefully I'm not confusing what you're asking me, but I don't see any situation where we have a transfer authority in that way. There are occasions where an individual may be brought in and handled a federal proceeding under the marshals authority, and then the marshals put them into the custody of another federal agency. But that's all under their federal authority. We don't have any involvement in that. So, we just don't get involved in that business,

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: so to speak. And I will refer to being held on state statute then after the bath. Correct. Correct.

[Vermont Department of Corrections General Counsel]: And so, to be clear, it is not the policy or practice of the department to reach out and notify if you receive a civil detainer, an immigration detainer on an individual, just identifying them that they're being looked at for whatever reason by federal authorities. And then they go on a state court and are released. It's not our practice to then notify any federal authority that in fact they're being released. We don't engage in that either. There wouldn't be any opportunity for us, and if they, again, if they don't have the right charging paperwork when they get to the front door, then we would reject them anyway.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Senators, any other questions? Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. That's helpful. And definitely clarify some questions I have. And, yeah, thanks again for coming out. Excellent. Appreciate it. See you. Bye. We have fifty minutes slashes. Uh-huh. Maybe we want to just have a general discussion on how we're feeling about this bill right now. Any particular pieces that we want to consider changing or not changing? Senator Mattos and then Senator Vyhovsky.

[Senator Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Like I said before, just like the child care part. Yeah. So before pre k years. And then also just kind of dialing in on what traveling to, I understand entering, remaining at, and then returning from. So the traveling to and returning from, what does that encompass? I think I got that last week, but just kind of really understanding what that is for the time frame. Yeah.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah. I think just in response to that real quick, believe Rick is coming in. I believe we flagged that for Rick. Okay. And body that's coming in this weekend might have imagined that, but we can we can have Rick if we have the time, have him come back in to do a walk through the new burden. Oh, and I I did ask him to kinda take a deeper dive into that particular piece regarding the to and froth and whether it's just going to apply to courthouses or how we make it also apply to schools and other places.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: And I

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: think well, actually, I'll just leave it there. Senator Vyhovsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Yeah. I I share Senator Mattos' desire to make sure we're protecting children under three. If they're at childcare, that is not defined as Pre K. I also just wanted to update the committee that language is being crafted that we had talked about last week. The ACLU and Legislative Council came together, and that language that I had said I'd work on is in progress. And hopefully we'll have something for the committee later this week or early next week. And then, of course, you know, the question around municipal buildings, I think, is helpful. I guess the real question isn't what is municipal, but what is a building. So I think, yeah, that's I just wanted to update the committee that that language that I had promised is in process.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. And that was the language for the traveling to and from part, or was that something different?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: No, that was some of the language around making more defensible the civil action, and then some intent language around making just shoring it up and making sure that the bill is as defensible as possible. I had nothing to do with language around the traveling to and from, but I do want to hear from Ledge Council. And I also, knowing that this is you know, was my bill, if there's other language the committee wants me to work on, I'm more than happy to take the time with Legislative Council to try and craft things and bring us back what is needed. So just let me know what you need from me, and I'm happy to do the legwork.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, I think the other piece that I wanted to see added was churches and worship and so I suspect Rick's comment and find some more testimony on that as well as we get them back. I think those were my pieces that I was curious about and then, of course, everything related to schools as well. Mhmm.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I I will say on the traveling to or returning from it my assumption has always been that there's a line from your your domicile or your place of work to the courthouse and back to maybe those two places. Seems to me if you go to a court proceeding and then let's say you drove out of state, you're not protected that whole ride out of state. Seems like it's more narrowly focused to making sure it's gonna be built from where you work or where you live to the courthouse or if there's a place in this. Because otherwise it could be, you know, it's been a week since I went home, but in effect, I'm just trying to go for a week to my house and I've protected that whole week. Is that how you you see it? Or

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: There's there's there's a funny legal phrase that I can't remember up up right now that he talks about when you're going from point a to point b, but you go off the path and has to do with employees and whether or not they're negligent.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Well, I'm also thinking about kind of when people can't drive, but there's an exception to good work. Yep. And my understanding of that is also that that it's a relatively strict line. You think you can drive to work but you can't then add on like a trip to Pennsylvania. On the way home. So, it would be great to have Rick just clarify and and clearly, it hasn't been an issue with court procedure which we added earlier. That's been in statute. So, but just for our own understanding, I think that would be good. My

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: recollection from our last conversation around this is we had also asked Rick to check-in to see if there was any definitions of this in our Good Samaritan laws, because particularly around the drug checking facilities, we had included traveling to and from. And so I think as we figure out how to define this, it's probably going to make sense to, you know, as you said, Senator Hashim, hear what Rick has discovered in his research.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other discussion on this? Thoughts, concerns?

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: I have some thoughts and some concerns. Obviously, particular subject to court, I think, is rather clear when the court's already accepted. There's a few of the places for protection that I'm not really all that thrilled about. We're proceeding within law. Schools have definitely asked community based shelters. It's a question mark. I'd like to see a little bit more about that. Health care facilities, that's fine by me also. I do have a certain state county and or municipal buildings.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I was wondering, it's the frolic and decort. Frolic decort. There. Is it is it

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: prohibited to frolic and detour?

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: It's projective. It's a measuring of what is considered a frolic versus what is considered a detour Gosh. Or a negligence.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: So going to Pennsylvania, frolic, but you gotta get snow kind of way home.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: That could be a detour. But anyways, so

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Came up to that remarkably quickly.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well, it's my phone because it wasn't in my brain. But it was, yeah, anyways. So, I mean, I think we've got a good idea of what we need to dig deeper into. I feel like we've got schools almost squared away, and it sounds like there's still a bit more definition work that we have to look at for the community based shelter section, which I think we tasked Rick with. Yeah, we we gave him language regarding that, and it was taken from the federal recommendations or the federal guidelines that had previously existed and that were ascended, I think, year ago.

[Senator Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Was that, forgive me, was that just for, like, emergency shelter, severe weather shelter, those types of shelters, or?

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And domestic violence shelters. We had Charlie from the San Diego, and there was some language that that was also taken from the federal rules

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: that are no longer Over that. No longer exist that cover domestic violence shelters. So in reference to when Charlie gave the testimony of the nature of domestic or their service domestic shelters, why would that come into play because the Fair and Harsh Police and Policy already covers victims and or the witnesses involved in domestic assault? So what was the example given as to

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I believe it's the general idea is somebody who is taking shelter, they're in one of these shelters, and they're the victim of domestic assault, having federal agents go into a place like that to remove somebody disturbs everybody. Disturbs everybody and doesn't really raise them to have a society without its own use.

[Senator Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So it says the NIP doesn't federal government can just ignore that. It's just for a local state law puts on to a very harsher prison policy. Yeah. I wanna look at sign of open.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Anything else? K. Alright. So we can go off live and