Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Hey. You're alive. Good morning. It is March 20. We're in Senate Judiciary. We are getting a walkthrough on page five forty and we have Lunch Council here with us

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and the floor is yours. Thank you. For the record, Hillary Jenner Abe, we ask the Ledge City Council. We have H five forty. This is a bill that adopts the recommendations from the final report of Post Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group. So context for what that working group was, in 2024, the legislature passed Act 180, and that act created a free charge program. But there were also existing diversion and restorative justice programs that were proposed adjudication. There were a variety of statutes. So Act 28 also created a working group to review and make recommendations about adjudication, diversion of restorative justice. And one of the ideas was to make sure that the references to post adjudication, restorative justice approaches and statute were clear, consistent, and that there were uniform operations and procedures statewide. So the working group had a number of members, including the DOC commissioner designee, a superior court chief judge, and five representatives from community justice community providers across the state. They had to submit an interim final report, they did that, and that final report recommended the statutory changes that you've seen in the bill. So moving to the language, Section one amends 13 BSA seventy-thirty. That's a section that sets forth the factors a court must consider in deciding what sentence to order. The change two changes are made on page two. This is lines two through 11. The first on line two, so one of the sentence options is referral to a community reparative program. As you'll see shortly, since the bill changes the, or I should say, creates a uniform program in another section, this change from forward to program is meant to be with that change.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Sorry, I might be lost. Are you what page and line are you on?

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Page two, line two. Although, if I'm looking right there, it looks like I have a different header on my printed version, so I might seal this to make sure that I'm getting the right page numbers. Great. So on your version, it is page one, line 15. And this is one of the sentence options, is referral to a community reparative program, and the changes for the program consistent with the other changes made in the bill. The second change removes several lines of language, but it's not substantive change. I'll point out this language just gets moved to what is a new kind of single source section for all the information about community cooperative program. The rest of section seventy-thirty really just has short lists identifying the sentencing options. So the fact that this has several sentences explaining what that option is, is kind of an outlier. So this change makes section seventy-thirty more consistent, and it provides that more detailed information about referral to a community reparative program in a later section. So any questions about that before we move forward? Perfect. In section two, this describes what the chapter establishes, the program for restorative justice post adjudication. The first change is on for you, page two, line eight. And this is a change to clarify what is current practice and law, that participation in a restorative justice program can be either a sentence or a condition of a sentence of probation. More on that shortly, but that change on page two, line eight, makes very clear that that is the case. It is made clear several other times as you soon see. The other change, a substantive one, this is page two of lines nine through 10. Under current law, referral to restorative justice program is available for civil contempt of a child support order. So if someone does not pay a child support order, they're bound in contempt. Current law would allow them to be referred to a restorative justice program. The working group report recommends removing that, and the report gave two reasons. The working group members said they had never seen it used that way, and they also did not think it was necessarily an appropriate use of

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: the birth order use program.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So I believe you know from other

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: witnesses who can explain that, but that was the high level reason given in

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: the report.

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So moving forward to section three, this is the real meat of the bill. Section three adds a new statutory section, section nine thirteen, with all the details about referral to the restorative justice program. So as a heads up, subsections A and B are not new. That's been carried forward from the language on pages one and two that was removed from section seventy-thirty. So not a change to current law, this is just putting it in place. Now this section is kind of a one stop shop for everything you need to know about referrals to the justice program. Subsection describes in current law what cases are eligible for referrals to the restorative justice program. No substantive changes there. Subsection specifies something I mentioned earlier that referral to the restorative justice program can happen even if the court does not place the offender on probation. This section also describes what happens if referrals to the restorative justice program is not a condition of probation. If the restorative justice board, corporative board program does not accept the case, or if the person does not complete the program to the satisfaction of the reparative board in a timely manner, then they go back to the court and the court will consider further substance abuse. Subsection C again clarifies that referral to the restorative justice program can be a condition of probation. So we have that a couple of times in statute now, to be very clear, that referral to the restorative justice program can be a condition of probation, but it can also be a sentence separate from a condition of probation. And in that case, if there isn't, if the board doesn't accept it or if a person doesn't satisfactorily complete it, then they come back to support for further sentencing. That's section D. So this is line page three, lines seven through 17. This is new, these factors are new, they're not somewhere else in the current statute. They're based on the working group members' experience, but they provide the kinds of factors that a court should consider, must consider, in determining whether to order that an offender participates in the restorative justice program. So these examples, one through six, of factors are not exhaustive. The statute or the bill says the court shall consider any relevant factors including So the court could consider relevant factors other than the ones listed here, but those factors might include these six and these six give an idea of what relevant factors may be. Moving forward in subsections E and F are both new. These are both getting at making sure that there is consistency and uniformity across the state. The working group report talks about the need in these two places to avoid geographic disparities in the use of the reparative program as a point is an option. So subsection E calls for standardized forms to be used across the state. The party administrator would be must create those. And subsection F calls for standard procedural rules to be used across the state, and that allows the Supreme Court to adopt procedural rules to support this. Again, the bill can't order its Supreme Court to direct them, but this suggests that

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: that it's can't they already do that with adopting procedural rules? I think

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: their existing authority would certainly cover that. I think the idea behind including it in statute would be to suggest that particular rules, procedural rules for referral to restorative justice programs would be useful. Other witnesses might be able to speak more directly to that. Section four, this is page four, lines three through four, are the effective date, and the effective date is set for 07/01/2026. Okay. Thank you.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any questions?

[Unidentified Senator (Committee Member)]: Yeah, just a quick one. So Hillary, so just for clarity purposes for myself, so when we're referring to the Community Repairing Program, this is the restorative justice program, the members of the restorative Okay.

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, so my understanding is that across both Title 13 and Title 28, there are a variety of terms used to refer to different sort of justice approaches. This, I think, tries to make sure that within title 13, there are some consistent terms used. I think there might also be some other places in statute where these terms will need to be updated and made consistent, but I think that wasn't necessarily within the scope of

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: the work. I will say that is a tough act to follow with that presentation because having been the chair of the committee and worked on the report I think that Dorri's explanation was exceptional. She got their election results. Think she's a superior judge. She correctly explained everything. What might be helpful to understand for the committee is that the working group met, the working group, as Hilary indicated, was designed to have myself together with individuals from community justice centers. And there was statutory requirements to consult with stakeholders and that was done. We reached out to all the entities under the act that we were supposed to. We heard back we had input from state's attorneys, the Attorney General's office, Center for Crime Victim Services, and also not just the representatives of the CJCs, but they reached out to their colleagues in every county, I understand. So we heard all the CJCs. We reviewed statutes, we reviewed input, we talked about appearance. And so the bill that you have before you really is an effort to make things work better and be, if you will, one stop shopping and the restructure moving some of the language from title 13 to title 28 was designed to have clarity so when people want to see how does the reparative program work here it is And there's the reference in Title 13 under Sentencing Alternative, Invitation of Title 28, and you can go through what's there. No substantive changes in terms of what cases are able to be sent. We didn't get into that recommendation. Importantly, one of the questions was asked, right now, what's the criteria? What are the factors? And we don't have any. And so that's why on page three, the working group included that there should be relevant factors that were identified for judges and the parties to consider them. And we also thought that it would be a good idea to have standardized forms across the state. And in answer to your question, Senator Hashim, I do think much lame with rules for probation violations and sentencing under the rules of criminal procedure that the court can adopt rules. This just makes it clear that everyone's on notice the court may adopt rules. But one of the points that the CJC's representatives highlighted was some forms. That's something that if you go to county A and county B, we're all on the same page as to what things look like. That's because the idea and the factors also, they help to reduce any potential geographic disparities. Great.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So I guess my other question, for you, judge, is beyond, adding in these factors that the court shall consider, are there any other substantive changes in terms of what types of defendants and what types of cases can go through the programs?

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: No. That was carried forward. It was intentional to not make those changes. Okay.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Because I was initially confused for a moment when I saw the differentiation between the probation conditions and then adding a sentence as a possibility because it's my understanding it could already be a sentence and not necessarily probation.

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: Correct. Under current Vermont law, an individual who, let's say you have somebody for a lawful mischief and the judge thinks they should go to the reparative program, The court can, if an individual pleads guilty, the court can say I am seeing you through the reparative program and they go to the reparative program and they complete it, their sentence is complete. The court could also sentence the individual to a term of probation and include the reparative program, which once they do the reparative programs, you're still on probation. And so the structure of the statute was to make it clear that we do have that first option because that minimizes that DOC, for instance, would have people being put on probation who otherwise may not need it just to complete the Reptarium Board and it makes it clear that that can occur.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So I guess in summary this bill one it cleans up the statutes and reorganizes it a bit to make it a bit more clear. It adds the relevant factors and makes it more clear for when sentencing comes around that it can either be a sentence or it can be a part of a probation condition. Is that kind of the summary? Yes. Okay. Am I missing anything else?

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: Would only note that the budget impact is zero Of course, it doesn't cost anything to do this. As I testified, I think in house corrections, this is a bill that everyone on the committee, the group was behind because we think it had it, it has significant improvements from where we are now. As you point out, it brings clarity and that type of clarity, that type of predictability benefits all of us coming to

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: the system. Great. Thank you. Actually, I guess one more question for maybe this is for Hillary. But the attorney general, state's attorney and defender general, did they testify in the house on this? And do you recall what they testified to if they did? I'd have to check. Okay. I do

[Hilary (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not immediately reflect if they

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: did on this bill. Got it. We'll reach out to them anyways to check that off and make sure there isn't anything that we're missing or anything that they wanted to chime in on. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Committee, any questions for judges on it? Okay. Great. Well, thank you.

[Unidentified Vermont Superior Court Judge (Chair, Post-Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group)]: Thank you.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you for the thorough explanation. Yes. Yeah. That's right. That was a great one. Okay. We have plenty of time. We see if Aaron and Claire can come in maybe 09:45. So one ninety three. Thank