Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: We are live. Good morning.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We are in senate judiciary. It's March 31. We're taking up h 05:40. We have ledge counsel here with us, and dare to say that this was a pretty straightforward simple bill. So we heard some testimony from Judge Zoning and basically this bill implements the recommendations from the post adjudication reparative program working group. And just in a nutshell, you remind us of what those policies are? Sure. So Kill Your Chuttering Aims for the

[Hillary (Legislative Counsel)]: Ask Legislative Council. The Reparative, the Post Adjudication Reparative Program Working Group was created because two years ago, an act made a bunch of changes to recharge diversion, and the working group was supposed to look at statutes and make some recommendations about how to make the post adjudication or sort of justice approaches consistent. So that was the goal of the changes here. I think the most important thing is that the bill creates a new section. This is on page two, line 13, a new section entitled 28, section nine thirteen, called Restorative Justice Program Referral. And that essentially captures in one place, one stop shop, all the information regarding referral to a restorative justice program, either as a sentence or as a condition of a sentence of probation. The main news most of it most of the section just moves language from other parts of the statute into one section so that it's easy to find all in one place. The new provisions are the relevant factors a court shall consider. The court can consider any relevant factors that the statute for the first time lists some examples of what those factors would be. This section also refers to standardized forms and standardized procedural rules for post adjudication appropriate program referral across the state. So that is what the court administrator to make our forms and Supreme Court at their discretion. But that's it

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: in a nutshell.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Great, thank you very much. Just to refresh our memory on this, and do you happen to recall the working group that had the attorney generals, states attorneys, and defenders on it, if you happen to?

[Hillary (Legislative Counsel)]: Let me double check. There was a DOC representative, Judge Zoney chaired it, And then representatives from restorative justice community centers across the state. So the working group did not itself have representation from the attorney general's office or DSAS. But I believe yes. In their work, they did hear testimony from the office of the attorney general, and DSAS. So another point to speak more to exactly who they heard from and what they heard, but they did take that testimony.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thanks. We did hear from the chair of the working group supportive of this and did say that it influenced the results of Act 180. And that group heard from witnesses that I just described. This is a question for the committee. Do we feel like we need to hear directly from the attorney general, state attorneys or defenders on this particular bill?

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: It seems pretty tactical.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Moving to be easier to found in the statue, right?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah. That's how I understand. Does anybody want to hear from the other witnesses that testified in

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: the working group? Anybody

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: have any recommendations as to the language you want to change or are we good with the bill as it's written?

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: I just want to make sure those individuals that we didn't hear from, were there any oppositions whatsoever to do this today? Everyone's supportive of the side ticket.

[Hillary (Legislative Counsel)]: So I believe Chief Judge Zoning testified that the entire working group was on the same page in support of the recommendations. And in the testimony on the House side, there were not objections raised. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Anything else? Well, I would entertain a motion to move H540 out favorably. Okay. Any further discussion?

[Jill (Committee Assistant)]: Senator Norris? Yes. Senator Baruth?

[Jill (Committee Assistant)]: Senator Matos? Yes. Senator Vyhovsky? Yes. Senator Hashim?

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

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We have Boris Erworn. We would like to work this.

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: Thank

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

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: Thank you, Hillary. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Jill, got more. Next up, we have page four through 10. Good

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: morning. For the record, Michelle Child, Fox is a legislator, we're taking a look at H-four 10 as it cuts the house. So, I'll just give you a little background on this. So, I don't know if any of you guys would have dealt with it, but there is currently a definition in Title 28, the Corrections by Whole of Recidivism. This was adopted, I don't know, before Justice Reinvestment one. And it's a pretty complex definition. We'll see it here because it's rechecking this bill. And my recollection was that it was at the time, leading up to the first necessary investment, and Senator Sears was going to a lot of these CSG conferences in different states for trying to get a handle on how can we measure what's working, what's not working, coming up with a definition of residues to collect the data, to look at what programs and strategies are working. And that's what some states were using at the time. My understanding and also from the testimony in the house was that this definition isn't used with any frequency in recent years. It's one that was supposed to be for DxT. But as things have been evolving the last few years, right, and you've been moving more towards collecting a lot of criminal justice data, looking at programs and sentencing and different strategies that you want to more There's been talk about having a more workable definition of recidivism. And also, House Judiciary was interested in starting to create one place in statute where you're collecting all kinds of different data and asking for reports. Right now they're kind of scattered in different places. Some are in Title 20, some are in Title 28. And so what this bill does is it creates a new chapter in Title 13 in your Crimes and Criminal Procedure title where we're going start putting all this stuff when you're asking for certain, you know, from courts or data collection and things like that. It repeals the old or the existing definition of recidivism and adopts a new one and then asks for certain annual reports from the statistical analysis center, is, I we don't really quite understand how it works, but I'm sure VPL can explain it to you as well as crime research. Is that every state has a statistical analysis center. DPS contracts with CRG to be that for Vermont. And so they're the ones, and I'm sure you have them in many times, and Monica and Robin from CRG were very involved in the draft, the language and the proposal. So that's just a little quick overview. We'll take a look at the language. In section one, you'll see it's the creation of the new chapter on criminology measures in title 13. And then you start out just with one definition and that's for recidivism. So for purposes of this bill, recidivism means a relapse in a criminal activity as evidenced by an individual who's convicted of a criminal offense after receiving a criminal conviction for a previous crime. So it's kind of just the plain language meaning, understanding of what we think of when we think of recidivism. You have one conviction, you're later convicted for another offense. So for the purpose of determining the recidivism event, it's going to be the date of arraignment for the subsequent offense. And so that would be, so if you have a conviction, the first conviction, and you'll see in the last sentence of this definition on lines thirteen-fifteen. 15. The clock starts when, for the first conviction, when someone is either released from an incarcerated sentence, so if they're sentenced at any time in prison, it would be on their release date. Otherwise, they're sentenced to something like probation, a non incarcerative sentence, it would be, your equal sentencing date. So that's like where you start captivating from the first offense.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Michelle, I'm not trying to split hairs, but we should on line 13, should it be the tolling for calculating recidivism rather than the clock? Seems

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: The clock is how CRG refers to it, but I'm happy to change it for tolling. I have no preference. So if you would like that, I mean, I think of tolling just using what is statute of limitations, but it's fine to use here if that's or you could ask them when they're in here. I don't think anybody

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: go ahead. Just a small thing that I noticed, but it's Okay, not sorry.

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: And then, so we go from the date of sentencing, if they're sentenced to a non incarcerated sentence, or the date of their release, if they're sentenced to some term of imprisonment, right? So that's the first point. Then the person is subsequently convicted of another crime, but instead of using that, the same thing, they would use the Avraign Med date for that. And that's just because of the availability of data and how they were calculated, and I think CRG can talk to you a little bit more about why that was their recommendation. So the next is requiring some annual reports from the SAC. So you'll see subsection A annually on or before April 1. So this is reoccurring. You'll see an appropriation at the end for these annual reports. That's just for the upcoming, for FY '27. But it would be something that would have to be at ongoing funding. So, submit certain reports to the committees on judiciary as well as the committee on, corrections and institutions and the senate committee on institutions. Then moving on to page two, then here's your list of the annual reports. So the first one is bail rates. So it's an annualized report on bail rates including hold without bails, the monetary amounts, and fail posting information aggregated by county. And the report is to include data on pretrial detainees held in Vermont correctional facilities including the crime type and the jurisdiction for which they are held. Second one is the report on recidivism. So, will be using that definition of recidivism to calculate, And you'll see there in the second sentence that the rate shall be calculated using a three and five year period. Again, that's a recommendation that came from CRG around how far you look between the first instance and the second instance. Seven and three are arrests and clearance rates. So, it's an annualized report on arrests and clearance rates and arrests are to be organized by type of crime or party. Sorry. Type of crime based on NIBRS information. Or, this is looking at what are essentially the 20 crimes with the highest number of convictions. What is that like top, they kept referring it to like the top 20 crimes, but it sounds like a game show, I was trying to figure out how to describe it there. So it's the ones that are most often charged and there's convictions for. So what do you most often see throughout the state? And so the first one is a report dealing aggregated information on the number, type, and length of sentences, including fines, for those kind of top 20 crimes. And then B is a report detailing the total combined number of years of probation and incarceration sentenced by the courts for that previous year. You'll see the report is to include analysis of which crimes and counties contributed the most significantly to the sentences that were imposed. So that way you can look and see and say, okay, for unlawful press pass, right? And let's say that's one of the top point crimes. You would be able to see county by county how those are being dealt with in the different counties because you're always looking at kind of looking a more unified system, making sure there's small equal adjustments in all the counties. You could compare those and see if there's any kind of outliers in terms of what a couple counties are sentenced in approval for much longer than other counties.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: There it goes. So equalizations throughout the county, so does that maybe mean that you made it sound as though that one county is setting somebody more than the other county, that we want to make sure it's fairly done across

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: the board Well, it's up to you. It's a policy decision.

[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: The county who's not using that same level of probation, they doing it the right way or the wrong way? Well,

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: that's for you to decide. I mean, think the thing has been, you know, since I've been in this job is, you're saying, at the various counties and make sure that for a particular fence, it's not some huge difference in how you're treated whether you're in Bennington County or Chittenden County. So in terms of what they're doing there and whether or not you want to adjust the statutes in terms of sentencing, it's up to you what to do with that information. But that's information that members said that they wanted, is to really look and see whether there are outliers one way or the other.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: The equalization? She mentioned it since talking about it. Shah, I know you mentioned talking to the CRG about the deputation, I'm still a little I'm confused by definition here saying that it's a relapse criminal activity as evidenced by an individual who

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: was

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: convicted of a criminal offense after receiving a conviction for a previous crime. And the date of the recidivism event is the treatment date, the subsequent offense.

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: So if there was no conviction, so someone, let's say probable cause was found at arraignment, but the case is later dismissed, that would not qualify as part of the cinepiz. Have to wait through and the person would have to get a conviction, then based on that conviction they would go back and look at the arraignment date as the incident date, right? Because you can't tell, you can't, It's not possible for them that the data should be looking at truly like when the events was committed, right? Because it's gonna vary in people's arraignment, you know, it will not be close in time or it may. Those are the those are the the points that they said that they can easily gather the data and then you can just fill it up.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: That that helps to clarify that because I didn't want a situation where we're taking arraignments, that they'll be dismissed.

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: There has to be at least two convictions. It's just saying like where you put the pin in. Put those in the rave. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay. That's all. Thank you. Windham, any other questions? Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: Sorry about that. That's okay. Sorry.

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll go quick. So, BH3, the MAP B is just that there's the collecting demographic data. So, those reports are to include race, gender, age, and other demographic variables when those are available. C is just saying anybody who has data that is needed for these reports is to be working with and providing that data to CRG so they can compile these reports for you. Section two is the existing definition of recidivism in Title 28 as applied for use by DOC. And I'll just kind of read that to kind see the differences here. So the new definition is basically you're convicted on an offense and you have a prior conviction, right? Current definition is the department shall calculate the rate of recidivism based upon offenders who are sentenced to more than one year of incarceration, who after release from incarceration, return to prison within three years for conviction for a new offense or a violation of supervision resulting in the new incarceration case sentence or time started on the violation is at least ninety days. So, pretty narrow and specific. So that is being repealed. Section three is just removing a cross reference in Title 28 to that definition. Section four are your appropriations. So for FY27, it's money appropriated from the general fund to BPS for contracted support for the SAM. And then on five, you'll just see the amounts there.

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: So

[Michelle Childs-Fox (Legislative Counsel)]: $10,000 for the bail report, 10,000 for decidivism, dollars 10,000 for the arrest clearance rates, and $4,000 for the annual sentencing reports.

[Sen. Philip Baruth (Member)]: Great.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any questions? We'll line up some other witnesses with us and keep working on it. So okay.