Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Kelly Sac, Mr. Chair? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? I assume this isn't working. Yeah. I can't I can't hear you all. But Lynn said that she can hear me. Well, I guess I'll just talk. What would the chair like me to do? I am happy to testify, and if there are questions that people want to send my way, I'm happy to receive those. I don't want to take the committee's time, and I'm not sure what the issue is on my end because I was just listening to you all on YouTube. And my volume is up. Thank you, Lynn. So I'll just proceed. If that's okay, Mr. Chair. Well, good morning. Thank you for the invitation to testify today. My name is Jennifer Pullman. I'm the director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, and we are here in support of S-one 193. In particular, the edits that were offered yesterday in the walkthrough from the state's attorney's damage, DOC, and the AG's office. The original version does not mention victims at all, so we really appreciate the language that they included on page nine. I did put some documents on the committee page. The document basically is the Act 27 Workgroup Report, which I think most of you may remember commissioning back in 2023 when this issue was yet again on the table as it has been for years. There was a task force created to look into recommendation around, forensic facility, competency restoration, and some of the other attendant issues. I was vice chair of that committee, at the time and a report was produced in 2024. In that report, and I'll point to it on two occasions, there is a recommendation for the establishment of a facility as well as recommendation for victims' rights. I'm not going to get too much into the weeds on this. Certainly, the center has testified for years on this that we are in need of a stronger forensic system of care and really appreciative of the committee taking time to hear from survivors who have been impacted by the lack thereof. Whatever we establish, we need to include a competency restoration piece. We are one of two states that doesn't have one, and I know Kelly Carroll referenced the fact that one of the victim survivors who we've been working with over the years, her sister was killed in 2010. The person was found incompetent and essentially warehoused for nine years with no efforts to restore that competency and with no services. And the only information they got was when they found out that he had passed away. So that is something that we need to change as a state for the benefit of all simply putting somebody in a locked facility for nine years without efforts to restore competency is not a place that we want to continue to be in. I do want to say that because of all the testimony, all I've learned and the work that we did on the task force, I really appreciate you taking the time to think about all the different considerations that are at play, and I appreciate the work that's ahead of you. I do want to indicate though, in that report, as I mentioned, there was a recommendation by the majority to establish more facility as well as a better system of care. And some of the people that were on that work group who voted in support of a facility were providers. Vermont Care Partners, Vermont Press Intervention Network. They felt that there is a small number of people that they can't reach out to anymore, that cannot be serviced in the community and that something needed to be done. So it's not just the traditional folks, it's people that are providing the services. So I'm assuming if this bill does go over to health and welfare, you'll hear from those people. But I just want to emphasize that again, the Vermont Crisis Intervention Network, Vermont Care Partners, those representatives on the committee had all suggested, all recommended that we need a facility. I'm not going to get into the weeds on what it looks like when we had the work group meeting. We certainly didn't talk about where it would go and what it would look like, and I know the committee has talked about, you know, whether it goes within DOC or not. But that's again, that's something that you've already heard from subject matter experts and, my opinion is unnecessary at this point. I do just want to focus on how can we take at least some small steps to involve victims in a more meaningful way, given all the considerations you have in front of you. And again, want to thank you from hearing from survivors because the experience and harm to them is the same. But depending on the direction the case goes in, it's a dramatically different experience for them. If it goes to the criminal justice process, there are rights all across the board, at any point in time to information, to be heard, for notification, and for restitution. If it goes the other route, if incompetency is an issue or insanity, what I've heard from advocates is it's like the door closes immediately and it goes into a black hole. There's no one at damage for them to speak to, and there's no information. And so one of the pieces that was important back in 2024, and it's reflected in this report, was that victims would have some right to share their experience in court, to share what that impact was. And in 2024, passed, you did provide a right for victims to submit something in writing. What passed out of the Senate and House Judiciary included the recommendation from the Act 27 Workgroup, which was that a victim would have the right to use their own voice to deliver that statement. That was not a part of what ended up passing. Why is it important for a victim to give their statement themselves? One of the interesting findings that the National Crime Victims Legal Institute learned based on a national survey was that the most important piece for victims and survivors in terms of how they view the system, how they view their experience, was not the outcome, but it was whether they felt that they were heard. And I think that in these cases, I just want to bring that to bear that submitting something in writing through a prosecutor does not have the same weight at all as allowing a victim to use their voice in a proceeding. And understandably, the considerations are different in these proceedings because it is about a clinical decision. And maybe it might not have a difference, make a difference, but maybe it might. But the most important thing is it makes a difference to that victim survivor. And if there's a small way that we can do that, I think it's worth doing. And I know there's concerns about privacy. I know there's concerns about balance. But this committee in 2022 led the charge to think about how we can do that in juvenile proceedings. And what the committee and what the law that ended up resulting from this conversation was that for juvenile proceedings, victims could go in just for the sole purpose of delivering their statement. And that would be all. And so there was that carve out for those proceedings. So I think it can be done. I want to underscore that in the Act 27 report, which had a very diverse group of people, and if you look at the report, you'll see who was on that group. Everybody supported that recommendation that a victim could go in just for the sole purpose of delivering their impact statement. To the extent that language is included in the walkthrough of Attorney Bianchi's recommendations yesterday. I really want to encourage this committee to consider that. Whatever you do, that's a piece that has not been controversial to date. It has been, again, passed in different forms and it was a recommendation of the Act twenty seven Workgroup. So I'm hoping that, again, whatever you all come to in terms of a decision, that that is a piece that can be, in my opinion, restored because it was in earlier iterations of these proposals. I can't take any other questions. There may be other pieces that could come forward. I know there's a bill in the house that I've already testified on. It's hard to understand where those intersection points might be because we don't, really know what this is going to look like. But I do want to say I'm very confident in the relationship that we've established with DMH over the years. And I really trust that this is an ongoing conversation and that I do want to appreciate Karen Barbara for being very transparent and a really good partner on these issues. We'll just keep that conversation going. Again, thank you for elevating this as a priority. And I urge you to whatever you do again, just include or bring back that right to appear. I wish I could read lips. Sorry, thank you.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Back to six months. Please let me finish mine. Okay? Yeah.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: Know, it's not quite right.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: That's right. But you can correct me afterwards, sir. Right. So, if once they've been committed and while they're in the forensic facility, if they met all requirements, they prove that no longer incumbent. I'm I'm assuming they file up some type of petition to go back for the the judge of court to show that, yes, they completed all this stuff, and the state would be there. So at that particular point in time, once they still have that burden approved after they've seen all the information that's been presented by the defense that they met all the requirements, now they're they're confident in staying out? Or

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: I'm sure that the defense wouldn't be saying that they were confident to stand trial. The department of mental health would come in and say, this person is now confident to stand trial. The the maybe the defense would have another expert take a look at the person either agree or disagree. Then the court had made the determination again about whether they're confident to stand trial. Department of Mental Health might be of the opinion that that was the case. And and just to be clear, the the state doesn't have to prove that they're competent. The defense has to prove this is what was trying to so the defense has to prove that they're incompetent before you get to that point. So once they're in the custody commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, they will then be evaluating that person and say, well, now this person has been restored to confidence. And people who have this have mental illness, and one of the cases that is most pointed on it is the Burlington case, the Burund case, is a guy who had suffered from severe mental illness, but he goes in and out of confidence. Sometimes he's poorly psychotic and has no idea what's going on. Sometimes he's more stabilized and he he goes in and out. So there are times when he is, times when he isn't. He can change during a trial. He could change at any time. So these are like medical determinations. But that argument is had between the Department of Mental Health who might say they're confident and the at that point and and legal aid represents them at that time. What if the Department of Mental Health says they're confident, then we go back to court. Defense will have the person evaluated because defense lawyers aren't involved during that other stage. And the court will determine, yes, okay. They're confident to stand trial and then we go forward with a trial or whatever.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So do you agree with that end of it or just that the legal label will say that, okay, they're they're now in comp they're now confident state trial.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: Legal aid would probably not.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Or DMH.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: DMH would.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: It's, again, it's the state saying, now this person can be subject to the jurisdiction of criminal court or it would be the state, meaning, mental health or the state's attorney saying that this person, if it even if it competent, should still be held. It's just their that's their responsibility because they are the ones seeking to hold the person or to try the person. Thank you. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: If there were the procedure to be changed in such a way that, say, every six months it is the burden on the state to come in and say, once again, yes, this person still poses a substantial risk of injury and needs to continue being held. Does that satisfy the concerns that you're raising?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Anything

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: else? Not right now. I do wanna have my fellow folks take a look at this. They always seem to have a lot

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: to say. Yeah. There there was one more change that we're either going to take out or modify, which is on page three, flying the left, where I think there's some uncertainty as to whether the way that's worded is constitutional. Somebody is unlikely to remain competent outside the facility. But again, this

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: Yeah. That's I found that interesting. There's also I mean, I can't find read through it. It sounds like type of stuff, but I where, like, words were not there. But I'll I'm not when I go through it word by word, line by line, I'll I'll figure that. I I did have a question about that because I don't final the use of there's a final disposition is attempting to replace or receive some verdict in the person's underlying case. And verdict, I get that student specific. I'm not exactly sure what their final disposition means. Yeah. You may

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: have to talk about that. Right? Yep. And

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: you're acting asking the court to try to predict I mean, they they can come to a medical determination with some folks that they they do they do it now that the person who bought person usually is it again similar language, but they're not likely to or move on or return to competency. Oftentimes, that's with, traumatic brain injury cases or

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: or, you

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: know, about lowly disabled folks or people who are you know, have severe severe psychosis. So, you know, that's that's something that's done now. We have to be careful of this tying that finding to the criminal disposition of the case, it really is a medical determination. Does it look like what happens to the criminal case? Is it really related to what we do with the mental health case. And that was that line is there. Criminal case, we just got float down there. But once we're in mental health case land, what happens on that other side is not, you know, whether it's dismissed without prejudice or which I'm assuming that might be a final disposition. Would that be a final disposition? Or does it have to be dismissed with prejudice? Because without prejudice, it's not really final. It's just financially hanging out there. So, I mean, that's you know, I mean, I you've got that issue highlighted to discuss. That's something I would wanna talk to a appellate about. I don't I don't know that. I don't know what that means. You know, we talked about in in criminal cases, you know, final adjudication of, you know, upon sentencing, you know, that kind of thing. That's a real final disposition. Before that, there really is no final disposition disposition unless it's dismissed with prejudice. So we this is might be an area where the terms of art might be more important than our general kind of understanding of, well, well, that's over, which I think is you know, I know what you're getting at. There might be a better way

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: to get that language. Then we can discuss committee discuss it further.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: What's the time frame you have?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well, crossover is at the end of the week After. Commuting. So Yeah. We can I don't want to say we've got time,

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: don't I if going

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: to done? Bill. And the other piece, you had mentioned Vermont Legal Aid is typically the one that handles the mental health piece of this. And so Oh, that's to say that you don't want that the federal general wouldn't be handling these cases.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: We would not handling that part of these cases. You know, the interesting thing is, though and this is what I found the difference all around the state when I I and it's probably with relation to the house bill that I was pulling the folks. Like, what what do you guys do in your particular counties once there's a finding with confidence or you agree that there's insanity because it doesn't really have to the jury. And some are like, legal aid takes over and we don't have anything to do with it anymore. Others are like, well, we just handle handle it all and legal aids along for the ride till they end up being until we get the order of hospitalization or non hospitalization. And others say, we act as co counsel. So it's all over the place. And part of it just is how do how does that reach of that county happen to how it evolved after the law changed a few years ago that legally would take over the hearings regarding the orders of hospitalization or non hospitalization. Some are annoyed that, like, legal aid is supposed to be in. Why am I still here? Others are like, I wanna be there, and we drive the truck. And then there are others who are really acting jointly. And so it's I'll tell you, it's a bit of confusion for me. But by and large, nobody wants the law change that says that legal aid comes in once the body of the Senate.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah. Nobody

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: is of the opinion anymore that they would like to have legally not take the they want legally to continue to take over the case, at least under the statute after finding the confidence or insanity. And, I mean, both I know Chad was concerned about that, and he left me a message that they will get back to him yet. But changing it back is not what they want. And every time he has a different opinion as to what happens in reality on the street. So

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well, thank you.

[John Campbell (Executive Director, VT Dept. of State’s Attorneys & Sheriffs)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thanks for sticking around and being here off short notice for this. Yeah. No problem. Do we have do have Erica in the Zoom? She's in the meeting. Hey, how's it going? Can you hear us?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: I can. Okay,

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: excellent. So thanks for coming in on short notice. You're here to talk about S183. So if you could just introduce yourself for the record, and then the floor is yours.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: I my name is Erica Marthage. I'm the Bennington County state's attorney, and I've been doing this work since 2001.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Fantastic. And if you have, any thoughts on s one eighty three, happy to hear.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: So I do. Changes to the home improvement statute over the years have been have significantly impacted at least my department's ability to prosecute those cases, mainly because the prior to the change in the home improvement statute, it really was focused on the criminality of the behavior. So the the intent was not that you knowingly entered into a contract. It was that you were knowingly frauding someone. Right? That you would enter into a contract with someone to do work on their house. You either didn't show up or showed up a couple of times, but not nearly enough under what you were supposed to be doing. There were certain inferences that we and, you know, circumstantial evidence that we could offer that would go to prove that the intent at the time of entering into the contract was to defraud this person. So for example, if you had someone aside from just the not showing up to do the work, you might have a situation where someone who has literally never done a roof on a house go to someone in the neighborhood and say, or just knock on doors and say, Hey, your roof looks pretty and we had this happen in Bennington. Your roof looks pretty bad. I'm not sure it's going to make another winter. And then they would secure a deposit from someone. Maybe they would show up and do, you know, a day's worth of work. Maybe they would strip the old roof off and then they wouldn't come back. So then the police would investigate. I'd get a lot of, you know, stories about, you know, oh, you know, busy and doing this other work and whatever. I could still rely on the fact that the intent to defraud was there from day one because they didn't, they're not qualified to do a roof. They've never done one. They just were there to take money. The way it is now, and I decline a fair number of these cases that I get now because they really are contract disputes. They're not criminal. And I know that's been a super unpopular decision on my part, but it goes to both what I believe my ability to prove is, and I look at some of the other entry orders and decisions that have come out of other courts around the state where the court is essentially saying, I don't know how the state is prosecuting this case because they don't have any direct evidence of fraud. It essentially is a contract, because you have some of the ones that I've received are, for example, a teacher and a social worker in Bennington are building they buy a house, they're completely gutting it and remodeling it. They enter into a contract with a builder. Multiple changes to that contract happen over a period of nine months to a year. I have hundreds of pages of text messages, emails, you know, screenshots, taking pictures of the, you know, each other. They're essentially both unhappy with how things are going. I have the builder saying, you know, they're changing things every day. They're telling me they want the window moved. They're, you know, whatever. They want a different color door, and I've already ordered this. And and then I have the homeowners saying, yeah, part of the contract was an agreement that as things developed and changed, we would be allowed to make changes. I declined to prosecute that whole case because it although it technically could probably be fit under the statute, me proving that in front of a jury that there was an intent to defraud is virtually impossible. I think mostly that goes back to the fact that we just don't have regulation in this state on builders, and I think that there are multiple levels of builders that are supposed to, you know, you have the general contractor, they're virtually zero, well there are zero regulations on general contractors, and those are obviously the people that are then going and making agreements and contracts with the actual laborers and the subcontractors and supply folks, and as it trickles down, it just really falls apart when you have a general contractor who maybe is just calling himself a general contractor. I was telling Kim when we talked about this, I have there are two or three they look like the election signs that you put up that there are two or three folks working in my neighborhood that are convicted felons on conditions of release that are calling themselves general contractors, and they're taking money from my neighbors. And you know, I can't imagine that that's all going to turn out well for everyone, but it's frustrating to me because it's just it's not something that we my my office does not have the bandwidth to prosecute civil case. Essentially, what is a civil case?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I do. Thank you, Erica, for being here. I'm sorry. I've got I have a couple questions. So Sure. Know 283 183283 183. The bill Yeah. We're talking about proposes to shift back to that sort of criminal charge. Does that change anything for you in sort of navigating navigating this? This?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yeah. I don't think I don't think one eighty three shifts back to the criminal. It just adds an intent. Okay. But it adds intent as to entering into a contract.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Okay. And so then my my next question, and this is the question that we've sort of been grappling with is, it make more sense to shift those cases to the AG's office in your

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: It definitely does. It it did back when we changed it. So I and I actually have sent letters to folks that write to me very unhappy that my office is not prosecuting a particular case, and we do prosecute some of them. The ones that What I do is I get all the cases as they come in, and I'll get at least one a week of this type of case. When I'm in an office where we're all carrying four or five, you know, one of my attorneys has 600 cases with his name on it. You know, these cases are competing with violent felonies, you know, with domestic violence, with drug trafficking. So I don't these are not at the top of the heap. But when I get all of the cases, they come in typically as a case review. I look at it, and if I see things like other criminal things that I could charge under a different umbrella. So, you know, I've had a number of cases where folks put their general contractor on their home improvement line of credit so the general contractor can then pay for supplies or whatever. I've had cases where the general contractor is using that essentially as their own bank account and they're pulling money to do other projects, and so I'll prosecute that. But if I get a case that legit is just what I just described to you where it's really a back and forth on contracts, I say, I decline to prosecute it, and I send a letter to the victim saying, You should speak with the Attorney General's office because this could fall under a civil action. It's not something that I'm able to prosecute criminally. So I have no issue with continuing to look at them. The problem is once they leave, once I say I'm not prosecuting them, they just dead end, and I don't think that's right. I'm from a family of builders, so I have kind of that breadth of knowledge that lifelong builders, literally everyone in my family is a builder. I'm the only one that married a lawyer. My sisters all married builders and my parents were way more impressed with that. They, actually the gold prize was someone married a lump, someone who owns a lumberyard, WW Lumberyard, and that's like the end all be all, but they, I get it, I know, so I'll call my brother, I'll call my nephew, they're contractors and say, Hey, what do you think about this? If somebody asked you to do this, and sometimes it's people that come here from other states where there are a lot of there's a lot of regulation, they come here and they're shocked because they're like, they think that if someone has a sign on their truck that says general contractor that they're actually a contractor and and that they have some regulation attached to that. So when I then say I'm not going to prosecute it criminally and I need you, you know, I'm referring you over to the attorney general's office, maybe someone in consumer protection can look at it, because that's where it really sits better with me, that it would sit there, that it's a consumer protection issue, that the ones that are truly criminal, sure, they stay criminal. The ones that essentially how the statute used to be, you know, you'd take money and don't show up or you'd take money and But sometimes now what I get is somebody will take money and not show up, but they don't show up because maybe they got a cancer diagnosis or they got a, you know, their wife died or whatever. It's like, that's not an intent to defraud from the beginning. Typically, those people will just give the money back or make other arrangements. I'm talking about the people that are actually just they're taking money, and they either don't have the skill set or they don't have the intent to complete the job.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: In the instances where you do take these cases up, how long do they typically take?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Years, years and years. I have one I want to say that is in the that has a might have a 22 or a 23 docket 22 docket maybe. And and the issue is there I more people will come out of the woodwork. So I'll have a case that I charge someone in 2022 and then their name's in the paper, and then I have four more people come out and say, you know, this person did the same thing to me. And those are the ones that are actually criminal, the ones that I'm charging. The ones that are just really bad general contractors or really bad builders like, you know, I have kind of particular feelings about it. Like, I don't think that being a builder is just like a fallback job. Like, train to do that and you apprentice and you go through, you know, being a journeyman and you learn how to do it, and that's just not the case in Vermont. Like, people just like I said, a lot of people that's if I had to pick the two top jobs that defendants coming in and saying they need exceptions to their curfew for, it's carpenter and painter.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: This sounds like a complicated mess.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: It is. It's a it's a huge mess. And I and look. I'm a real Vermonter. I'm okay with, like, I don't wanna regulate everything and everything, but I just I struggle with the ones where I, like I said, I'm calling my family and saying, like, I don't know. This just seems to me like, you know, you have people building a house and they're changing things in the contract every three minutes, and the builder is saying, like, look. I'm doing the best I can, but you already ordered you know, I already ordered this, like, custom ordered door, and now you I literally get those, and I think this is not a crime. Like, somebody ordered a custom door, and then the people don't like it, and now they're trying to stick the builder with it. And, you know, I'm like, that's a contract thing. That's not something that should be clogging up our criminal justice system. Plus, you know, we always end up with a lot of attorneys involved that are not necessarily normally involved. You know, you have homeowners that will get their own attorney and then, you know, defendant will hire an attorney. And because if it's someone who's reputable, they're actually concerned about their, you know, their reputation and so they're it just everything it takes a really long time to get through these cases, and I need experts, And I definitely don't if I have to pick between hiring an expert in a homicide mental health case and home improvement fraud, I'm definitely saving my money for the homicide.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: That makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, I I guess what I'm what I'm taking away is there isn't a simple solution that we're gonna probably do this year because we need regulation, and I'm sure you are aware of

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: how Well, I mean, my simple solution is, yeah, give these to the attorney general's office.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Well, then

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: that was gonna be my next question.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: If you

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: thought doing that would at least help.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Oh, a 100%. I mean, right now, I don't even have anybody I can tell my constituents to call. Like, I, you know, I say, oh, well, you know, registry there's that, you know, did you check that? I mean, it's like nobody's checking the registry. So, you know, if there were and I have no issue, like I said, of continuing to be someone that's reviewing it and then just saying this doesn't, you know, this doesn't fall within our purview. We're not gonna be able to do anything with this. I do think that some of the decisions that have come out of the courts too are pretty interesting and open up that can of worms too about like what the bigger issues may be, but in the short term, I think absolutely just having the attorney general, I don't understand why this isn't under consumer protection.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So hi, Erica. In interest of time, we've got about six minutes. I do have one quick question.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Sure.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Out of the 14 states attorneys, are you all I'm not I'm not asking you to speak for all the rest of them. Are you all pretty much in in in unison on this decision here as to, no one disagrees with this?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yes.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Another state attorney said, no. No. This this is what I'm gonna do or No. On the same page.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: No. I don't know if you I think you were there when I I think there's only been one other time in, you know, my twenty years that I was able to tell Senator Sears that we all agree. Definitely the state's attorneys from day one were like, these are contract cases. Why are we handling these? It's just we're not we're not the best suited for them. We're not we're criminal attorneys. We're so

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Oh. Yeah. If this one eighty three was to pass, would you would still have the option of saying this is not a criminal case. This is a civil case, and you would refer that to, as you stated earlier, to the AG's office?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yep. Yeah. And that's what I would do, and that's what I'm gonna I mean, that's the difference. It's what you know, and this is where it's gonna be up to you guys. Like, it's your your sense of how you feel like whether this is urgent for you to deal with for your constituents. Like, if you have folks in your areas that are reaching out to you and saying, look, like this isn't right and this happened to me or whatever, if you, you know, you wanna be able to we're not gonna change. You know, I do not anticipate the state's attorneys are going to change the way that they are doing business now, like so any of the state's attorneys that are doing what I'm doing, which is looking at them, taking the ones that can clearly show criminal intent and moving forward, all the rest of them are just going to be by the wayside. So if there's no other agency that can deal with it, that's pretty unfortunate.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: And my last question is, so if this bill was to get out of committee, can actually pass on the floor. This wouldn't impede your process to begin with anyways. Could you still look at it and refer to AG's office. Correct? Yep. Okay.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yeah. That's exactly what I would still continue to do. Yep. Okay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. Sorry, Erica. I just stepped out for two minutes. But committee, are there any other questions? Or we got a couple of minutes left. Comments?

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: I

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: mean,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: attorney I almost made you the attorney general. I was about to call you attorney general.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: No. Thanks. Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I I can understand that too. Pretty clearly, you know, like, said that what makes sense is to give this to the AG's office. I don't know where the committee lands. I want to support getting these to a place where it makes sense. I don't know if I'm yeah, I don't know. Said the language to do it is on the wall already, but I don't know where the committee stands on that. And I appreciate you coming in and sort of walking through. I guess my last question for you is, do you feel like moving that in that way might bring justice to these cases quicker?

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: I don't know that it would be quicker because I don't you know, the courts are you know, it is what it is. But the It certainly would be in the place that it should be in. What I would say is you've already kind of gotten the state's attorney's answers. Like, we're not filing the ones that And this was not anything we ever met about ahead of time. We didn't talk about it ahead of time. It just kind of started, that's how things kind of started sugaring off. Like we were hearing from other counties like, Oh, my court issued this decision and I have this and on our listserv, can you believe that I got this case? What am I supposed to do with this? This would be a week long civil trial, and that's definitely not something that we can do. I mean, I have to go on that schedule a year in advance for a week long homicide trial. So, you know, I think to They're definitely not gonna get any justice the way it is now because I it is my belief that none of the state's attorneys are behaving in a way differently than me. I think they're not saying I'm not taking any of these. They're looking at them, and they're making that same assessment that I am, like, Okay, this is a case that makes sense for the criminal world, and we will continue with this case. But I think the ones that are not being filed criminally, that's just gonna continue to happen.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. So I believe we're gonna hear some more testimony on this next week, and we'll land somewhere. But thank you for your help.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: I imagine you will. Right? And I'll be in Quebec, so enjoying all the snow.

[Jennifer Pullman (Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: So Enjoy.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Yeah. It's just a nice vacation.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yes. Yes. February vacation.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thanks again for coming in on a short notice too.

[Erica Marthage (Bennington County State’s Attorney)]: Yeah. No problem.