Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Good morning. It is April 15. We're taking backup H578 and we have Erica Holm here. So if you'd like to introduce yourself,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the floor is all yours.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Thanks. Thank you for having me. Thank you for taking up this bill and putting so much time and energy and effort into it. My name is Erica Holm. I am here to provide testimony identified as a co executive director for Central Vermont Humane Society. But I did want to also mention that I am the chair for the Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board, which was is a board that was created by the legislature in 2015 by statute. And so we have been created to review, assess, examine all aspects of animal cruelty investigations and animal welfare in our state. So the board is made up of many different folks from different agencies. We have representation from the Department of Ag, the Public Safety Department, the Sheriff's Association, state's attorneys. We have private veterinarians, two representatives from humane societies or animal welfare organizations, the dog club of Vermont, and so on. So lots of various organizations that are involved in animal cruelty, whether on an investigative level or just providing good animal welfare. So I did submit a letter on behalf of the board late last night. Sorry for my delay. Just saying we are in support. Our board is in support of this bill. So I can also answer any questions that you think needs to be answered by the board and our stand on it. From the Maine Society perspective, we absolutely support the bill. There's aspects of it I don't need to spend much time talking about, just the bestiality laws, which were a long time coming, and so there's certainly nothing that we see wrong with increasing the penalties and making aspects of that a felony. More importantly, what I want to touch on are the two sections that really do deal with seizures and then the civil forfeiture process. Many years ago, shelters were able to help a little more in terms of law enforcement needing places for animals to go when they were seized. Seizures were also rare. I think surrender was worked on a lot more. And I know that Can I just ask the distinction being surrender, you get the animal back, and seizure, they're confiscated? So seizure is confiscated and held through the process of either civil forfeiture or criminal charges. A surrender is when the person who has the animals and is mistreating them agrees to surrender them to like sacred rock humane society. So for example, back in 2015, there was a case in Eaton with 90 dogs. And we spent an entire day there removing the animals, being examined by vets and determining, yes, this one's bad enough, can be seized, but spent the entire day really talking through with the person and convincing her to surrender. So we took a large portion of the animals out that day, surrendered to us, which meant that we could disperse them to other humane societies, get them the medical care that they needed right away, and get them into home.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: And so just to clarify, surrender means you surrender a title?

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Correct. The the owner of the animal is surrendering title to whatever agency is taking. And it could be the state who might be there without a supporting agency, and then they can turn it over to an adoption agency to work further on it. That was also prior to there being a civil forfeiture process. So one of the reasons everybody worked so hard for it not to be a seizure is because you could have waited years while it went through the criminal process. I think Lisa Mylot mentioned Franklin County Animal Rescue that had seven or eight dogs that were held for over well over a year and bankrupted that organization. So human societies have been more and more hesitant to help in seizure cases because even though there is a civil forfeiture process that's relatively new, it's still it's not timely. And so taking in more than one or two dogs in a seizure case can tie up your facility in ways that cripple you. And it's also not healthy for the animals to be left there indefinitely. Having a civil forfeiture process is definitely better than what it was with waiting for the criminal process that can be delayed and delayed and delayed. So but it's still too long. I know Lisa mentioned to you folks last Friday about the horses out of Townsend and that they were seized last June or July, and they're still waiting for the final ruling from the judge. And that's the third seizure out of that one location, and the other two were, you know, given ownership to the state. Special forces, a place to keep them and then care for them and feed them and bring them back to health is really, really cumbersome. It's difficult enough for those of us that manage and handle dogs. And especially the climate right now with the housing crisis that we have going on in Vermont, and especially fewer housing. Places are allowing pets. So there are people who are losing their current housing and having much more difficulty finding the housing that will let them bring their pet with them. Excuse me. So we're seeing a lot more surrenders of animals that have been in a home five, six, seven years, are truly part of that family, and they can't find somewhere to live with their pet. And so we have been managing our surrender appointments as best we can, triaging them for, okay, you waited till the last minute and now you're just about homeless. So we're going to take that in over somebody that says, you know, I have to move out in thirty days. We'll schedule that appointment out further. Having our panels taken up by animals that we do not own yet. We don't know if we're going to get them in a civil forfeiture case, but we are feeding them, caring for them, exercising them. They take up staff time, volunteer time, medical care in many cases, because of course often if they're taken in a COVID case, they need medical care. So there's lots of work and time and effort that goes into that. Plus even on the administrative side, obviously we're keeping very specific records for those animals slightly different from what we care for in our normal day to day operations because of having to go through a court case for them. So we do support tightening up these timelines as much as possible. I don't want to take away judges' ability to have discretion, obviously, in their cases and their rulings, But giving them the ability to just extend this out indefinitely is going to mean that fewer human societies will step up and help. The state has nowhere to send animals right now. The goal is that eventually the state has facilities in some form that can help feed in animals as needed. We also feel that as cases happen and they're adjudicated in favor of animals being taken away, we will see a decrease in animal cruelty cases because people are going to understand there's a consequence for their actions for making animals. That they will do stuff. Or they'll be more likely if they surrender quickly rather than fighting through a seizure process. I work with law enforcement officers now when they're going to go on a case and talking with them about ways they can negotiate a surrender without trading away criminal charges. We don't want to say, Well, if you surrender the animals, we won't charge you with these heinous crimes. We want them to be charged if they are committing animal cruelty under our statutes. But we also we don't want them using the animals as leverage if possible. So it has to negotiate both. Surrender is in your best interest, especially financially. And so hopefully we'll see that go down as these things are working through. So that's sort of the timeline part of it. I know also have brought up the issue of attack order or nail and mail, and I just wanted to point out for the cases that I have been involved in regarding seizing animals, if the owner or offender was not on-site, the expectation is they should be coming back to care for that animal within a certain amount of time. So if they aren't coming back to feed, provide water in a timely manner to see that TAC order, then that in itself is committing the violation of our statute. They are giving them food or water within twenty four hours, then that alone violated it. So my expectation is that if that attack order is there, they're going to see that in a very reasonable amount of time. And if they don't, then the animal's suffering even more. And a current case, you know, the only water that was there was frozen solid, buckets this tall, frozen solid. Not just a little film of myself at the bottom. So that owner may not have been coming there daily. If he was, he was not swapping out the water. But still the expectation is he should be there. So I would love for you folks to approve a way that we can certainly be aware of and respect people's property rights, but recognize that these are living, sentient beings. It's not somebody's couch or TV that's being taken away from them. So those are the biggest points I wanted to touch on. Did you have any questions for me?

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I'm wondering about you mentioned that that one agency went out of business. I guess its facilities were filled with and was the data and math title too. I'm wondering about the the security post. You can post security. And this is page 18 of the bill. Don't know if you can

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: find I think I have a different version. Well aware of that.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Yeah. I'll describe what I'm asking. So on page 19 it says,

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: The court shall hold a floor with

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: your hearing that the request is made within fourteen days after the seizure by a person claiming the legal interest of the animal at the time of the seizure. And I believe fourteen days is a shorter window than it currently exists.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Well, that's also an automatic trigger the owner has to request the hearing, which is a wonderful change.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Yes. And then it says, if the defendant has requested that the security be reduced or waived on the basis of financial hardship, I'm just wondering how common it would be for someone whose animals are seized that they would be in financial hardship and therefore this period because that if they claim financial hardship then a hearing has to be held within thirty days and the thirty day period can be extended for good cause shown. So suddenly you're at what, say seventy four days if there's a hearing requested and then it's delayed another thirty days. So I'm wondering how often would people who are having their animal sees be in financial hardship in your experience.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I would imagine they're going claim that on every single case.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's accurate

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: or not, I don't know. If a judge chooses to waive it, that's certainly their prerogative. Right now, there is no bond security deposit. Nothing is held. And so the organizations that have the animals are paying all these costs. Frankly, if the animal is if the owner loses, then they supposedly owe us the money for our care. I would rather surrender and we cover all these costs than to drag this out any further. I would assume they're going to generally say a financial hardship. Think what the Department of Animal Welfare is planning for to create a cost inventory, it's not a lot of money and this person should be putting that into their animals anyway. So to say they can't afford a certain amount per animal per day to be paid to the organization that's feeding and caring for them is probably a little disingenuous. But they may be able to argue, Well, I already bought a year's worth of food. I was planning on feeding that out or whatever their argument might be.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Yeah, guess I'm just wondering if the whole point is to reduce the amount of time that, you know, humanitarian agencies have to feed and shelter the animals and, you know, put their own organizations at risk in doing so. This is the one moment where it seems to me suddenly the timeline would stretch out to two and a half months.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: That is a moment. There is no real Yeah, like they can extend it for good cause, so to find that. To be clear, having to feed a dog for an extra thirty days, it's not going to bankrupt any organization. What the issue is, is that you fill up the kennels with seed animals that we now cannot continue to provide the service to our community that we've been providing. So we're an adoption center, a boarding facility that I want some animal offender to pay boarding fees. We want to help animals in the community, get them in, get them into good homes. And so even though our adoption fees don't cover all of our costs that way, we're a 501c3 that we fund ourselves with fundraising. But it's really difficult to fundraise when you might have your kennels filled with animals that you don't own and you can't even talk about. With social media, there has been a change. In years past, we never spoke about any animal that was taken in a seizure because it was usually still going through a criminal case. And now it's very common for

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: people to fundraise. And just to clarify, this does say further down on the page that if you request a forfeiture pursuant to that subdivision, you then need to provide these funds security. But I'm just wondering if somebody is claiming financial hardship, they're not going to be charged those funds. Don't

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I think the intent of the law is that they would eventually be charged those funds. They're just not going to be required

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: pay.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: At that point. Yeah.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Thank you. Yes. Two quick questions then a shorter one. Do you have just a ballpark? How many organizations do we have in the state of Vermont approximately? What are

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: the costs involved statewide? So there are 12 brick and mortar animal shelters that have been in Vermont helping local animals for decades. Central Vermont Humane Society, we've been doing this for over sixty years. There are also a very large number of rescues that are usually foster based. There's only a couple that have actual facilities. Many of them, their business plan is transporting animals from the South into Vermont. Post pandemic, with the increases that we have seen because of the economy and housing and such, that there were so many animals being surrendered or abandoned, even some of those rescues are taking in animals and putting them into foster homes or try and keep them somewhere with kennels to help our local law enforcement agencies. Ballparking how many cases there might be would be very difficult to do because so many have been avoided. There's been nowhere for the animals to go. So a lot of law enforcement have been put in a really difficult position of seeing that there is animal cruelty happening in these locations where they're not being properly housed or cared for, but there's nowhere to take them to seize them. So, in '19, they've been left in those locations. So I think if we have better statutes to move these things along, we'll see an initial spike and then we'll see that dropping off. Even initially, we're talking about it's not like there's one courthouse that's going to handle all of these. So it would probably just be a couple or a few per court area per year. And a hearing is probably a couple hours depending on the evidence or the case. So do these facilities take pets? Well, yes. The brick and mortar shelters, 12 that have fed human societies or just male elder, do have cats. Yes. The rescue organizations, it's very rare that any of them are working with cats, but some of them have been taking them in to try to help.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Thank you for that. Senator Wilson? I was actually wondering, and I'm imagining that a neglected or animal cruelty case might be harder to foster. They may have challenging health stuff, challenging behavioral stuff. And so I'm wondering if you have any sense of how much harder, you know, we're relying on fostering out because we don't have a lot of brick and mortar spaces. Right.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: It's very difficult because these fosters for the rescues, these are folks who have volunteered and signed up to foster to basically take an animal off transport into their home, hopefully for a very short period of time before they're adopted out. Yes, the goal is that rescues are not bringing in behaviorally challenged animals and medically challenged animals. So these are often fosters who already have pets, and in many cases have children, and they just want to help. And this is a great way to have an animal that they're not admitting to at some time, or they may foster male, as we call it, but to add an animal to that home that maybe has come from a really horrible situation, you don't even know what behavioral issues may arise until they've had a chance to settle. And so it is very risky to put them into foster homes. Yeah. That's what I would

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: have expected if just having their social animals and social animals respond to the circumstances around them. You know, as someone who has a dog and has to foster it, I have to

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: put the safety of my dog first. Absolutely. And some of these, as we're starting to see puppy mills spring up in the Northeast Kingdom, so if you're getting animal birds like the husky case where there were 55 huskies, very undersocialized by normal standards, so they may not do well with other animals. And they may be really undersocialized with people and could potentially be at risk. Luckily, what we're seeing with these in the work that's being done with them by the NAACPCA is that they are actually pretty well balanced animals, but it's a surprise. Yeah. Well,

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I think Senator Baruth knows huskies can be challenging animals to begin with.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Well, yours is our category.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Are third breeds. Yes. They're special, but wonderful. So yeah, it does create a problem. There is also the issue that you have to look at. Generally in a court case, this is evidence. On the circumstances, if the evidence lies in the location, lack of food, water, appropriate panel size, that type of thing, then the animal might not be the evidence itself. You already gathered that evidence at that location. But if it's an animal that has been starved or injured or that living meaning is your evidence, and so you have got chain of custody behind us. You need to have proper care of that evidence as it's going through a court case. Just popping them into a foster home is also a little risky in that regard.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: So did you have

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: another question? Yeah. Are there enough foster harm on this? No. So

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: regarding the bill, one of the pieces that I wanted to dig a bit deeper on is on page 18 and a person claiming legal interest is situations in which there could be a contested legal interest. So I know unfortunately sometimes in some relationships when people are breaking up, somebody who's abusive may use the animal or use the pet as leverage, which may cause harm to the pet. And then I could see how that could lead to a forfeiture or surrender, but then maybe the other person who previously cared for the pet and maybe paid some of the initial adoption fees wants to take the pet. And so I'm wondering if that's something that you've seen before or you've Do you have any thoughts on that issue?

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Yeah, I mean, can

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: comment in a couple of ways about that. So we have seen, when

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: you work in animal welfare, you're not just working with animals, right? You are working with people. The animals' problems are really what result in people problems. So we are often working through these situations, maybe not in an actual cruelty case, but we definitely get involved in situations, domestic, splitting up using these kind of animals surrendered to us when one spouse was using them against the other. And we're going to work with the other person also to see if the animal will go back into the best situation possible. Having a statute that if one of those people was admitting animal cruelty and then the statute does not allow them to possess animals for a certain amount of time would be very beneficial because if we, say, gave that animal back to the person that also has a claim on them, now the offender can't necessarily move in there, correct? So as relationships between humans are sometimes mended, that person would no longer, they would not be able to be there with the animal and putting that animal at risk again. So having that kind of probationary or post offense restriction would be helpful in that case. But I don't think anybody is looking to ever separate animals from the people that love them and actually care for them properly. But I've often said to many people, love is not enough. You can love your animal fully and completely and I understand that. But if you're not feeding them and caring for them and giving them medical care, that's not okay. So if there's another party that was not involved in the offense and they have a legal claim to that animal also, I think that absolutely should be negotiated. It's never black and white.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, just thinking about the situation in which the person who was abusing the animal requests support that you're hearing and then perhaps their ex or some other parent about what happened. Want to make sure that the pet doesn't go back. If that hurts and I have a legal interest, I'm also going to make a claim. So I may work on some language just to clarify that in the event that it becomes a impassement issue.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: And they could also testify then, could they have any information about why that impulse should go back to that person? I think the

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: other part is regarding the TAC order. I mean, I understand the rationale that you're actually taking care of the animal. You'll be going there at least once every twenty four hours. I still think though that in order to make sure it's, that

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there aren't going to be any

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: loopholes or easy challenges, there still needs to be an additional, or rather a concurrent service, a process where the humane officer or police officers, right after nailing the order, they try to find the person and serve them in hand. And I think that really will just make it stronger in order to avoid a challenge saying, or if somebody could say, I was hiring somebody else to go and they weren't going and so therefore I didn't see the attack order or maybe a place that's conspicuous to the humane officer isn't actually conspicuous to the property owner or the pet owner or the livestock owner. So I guess that's just more of a comment, but yeah.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: No, and I appreciate that. Mean, really, that's what I said. I appreciate the work you're all putting into this, figuring out the legal language and making it as tight as possible. Put the last thing we want is to think that, Oh, have all this great stuff in place and then there's another little post for them to walk through. But also, there will be more and more pieces of situations where animals are being abandoned in homes. That's another thing too. So law enforcement or landlords, animal control officers are finding animals in apartments and homes. And that's a really hugely gray area right now because they're not stray, they're inside the home. So there's still that person's property, if they abandoned that property, then that is a violation of the statute. So could an order be left there? But they're not coming back. So then how do you reach them? So we had some animals once for three or four months going through the current civil forfeiture process with there never being a way to reach those folks. They had moved away. They didn't have any forwarding information. Nobody could find them. So we had to just go through the process of essentially they default by not appearing. And so that's something to make up on those. And again, it's not just the burden that places on shelters who are less likely to aid, But it is the burden that places on these animals to live in an environment that is not really such to their best well-being for really long periods of time. We can get them into a

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: good environment. Just one last question. So after describing a number of crimes, one of which is a felony if miners are involved, It says that livestock or poultry shall not be subject to forfeiture unless the person was convicted of abusing livestock or poultry. So they've abused their dog

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yep.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: But they also have cows or or something. I I'm a little up two minds about that. I think I think I understand that the idea is if this person is a farmer let's say and you take all of their livestock you're taking their livelihood. On the other hand there are some very serious sexual crimes that the person has been convicted of or charged with. So thoughts on that?

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I think we have a very strong Department of Ag who works very hard on behalf of our agricultural community and that there is a desire to keep that separate. I've been in sligh with those you mentioned. I would suggest that if somebody is committing those crimes with their dog, they are potentially probably also likely to do that with livestock. So I would like to bleed down the road, and that would then be dealt with. Again, that's just a huge generalization, but I think as Lisa testified, a lot of those crimes against animals are found in the same dark web areas that the crimes against children are found. That's why so much of this is really critical to the penalties on us. And so I think when people are evolving those types of ECIO crimes, it's crossing over. There's no difference in your line between an investigative chap and a livestock animal. Sure. Okay. Thank you.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: you for coming in. You're welcome. If as your work intrudics, if you have any other questions, especially anything that you think members of the HCI would be, pretty answered for you. I didn't, please let me know. That's tough. Alright. Thank you for your hard work on this. I know you guys have a lot on your plate this year, but we appreciate that you give the animals attention. Absolutely. Thank you.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: We

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: might look the same

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: height. Yes.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Do

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: welcome to you guys need the snow screen right? Alright. So we're going into markup on this bill. We got some suggested edits from the other day. I'm somewhat, I hadn't spent a lengthy amount of time going through this death sentence, after my first day, I'm a little unclear as to what sections are being referenced because I see there's some underlines but then there's other sections that are new that are underlined but I'm not sure if they where they match up with the actual subsegments still so I don't know if you folks at the time, if you were able to go through it and see what's new versus what's old. We were. Oh, yeah. So I guess I'll turn it over to you guys if you want to share your initial, any of the differences that you could highlight for

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: us and what the proposals are. Happy to. Great. Eric Fitzpatrick from the Office of Legislative Council.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And Hillary Chittenden, the Office of Legislative Council. And we're both

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: here this morning, just so the committee knows, that topic in our judiciary team portfolio of animal cruelty, animal welfare is generally in the topic of the attorney position that Hillary bills. I was starting it this year because Hillary was onboarding in January, but now that she's further along in the session, we're gonna be transitioning this to Hillary's portfolio, so that's why we're both here now. So in the future, which might even be tomorrow, depending on when you next look at this, it might be that you just see Hillary or not. We've both been looking at this over the last couple of days, and

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: I think we can both chip

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in as far as the market goes this morning. Sounds good? Yeah. All right. Excellent. So that being said, there wasn't anything in, so I was taking some notes as well during the last time the committee was talking about this, about potential areas that you might have some ideas about possible events, Senator, Shane, you just mentioned some, for example, when you were speaking with the previous witness. I jotted those down, and as well we have, as you mentioned, some suggestions from Lisa as well, the Director of Animal Wild Rare. So we can start with those. But just so the committee knows, I don't have anything. I didn't catch any changes the committee was really thinking about until the forfeiture process on page 14. So if I'm missing something, let me know. Or if the committee members see anything before that, that was the stuff about sexual conduct with the animal and making that a particularly with respect to video images, making clear that that's part of misdemeanor crime, making it a felony when it involves a minor. I didn't hear any changes about that. All the other provisions related to corporate share of an animal in the future, the other possible consequences that could be imposed by a court. That's the second piece of proposed, second issue that's addressed in H578 about expanding to be when it will reside with a downside, that sort of thing. So I'll turn it back to the committee, but I didn't get anything, but please correct me. Senator Valhovsky.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: So one of the things I raised, and I know it is underlying statute, is whether or not we think that sexual contact with an animal should ever be just a misdemeanor. Right. You know, I sort of, I don't know, kind of vaguely can understand the concept of a child is involved, but I feel like there's, yeah, I just have some questions about whether or not we feel like the underlying law makes sense, I guess. And like I said, I do know it

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: is current law. And they're different, but I was talking earlier and asked the question about your going through the process for having abused your dog. Yeah. It specifically protects your right to have any other kind of livestock unless you're accused of abusing that particular kind of lifestyle. I I think I have the same kind of question there. In both cases of psychic retreating incident was not as serious as to put it then.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Rather than Because of who or what is involved. Right. Right.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: You know, to what the witness said about the Department of Ag, I took that to be an allude girl to, you know, having done my time on the agriculture committee, I know that there are always attempts to balance the rights of farmers, almost sovereign rights of farmers against whatever regulatory scheme is being proposed. So I'm assuming that this represents an attempt to compromise as it decreases the amount of time, raises the amount of money that somebody convicted has, but it also protects their likelihood of making it as a family. I share So what you're saying. Don't know if there's a

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Well, can I circle back to and I'm just animals don't have the capacity to consent, much like children, and I don't think we ever treat sexual abuse on a child as a misdemeanor?

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Are we talking about the markup of Milag? No, just generally. Okay. So let's do the markup and the suggestions for Lisa Milag first, and then you can circle back around to other suggestions that we may have,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if that works.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Whatever you got. Before

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we just transition to that, just to sort of close that little loop on that discussion, another parallel to two issues that were being mentioned by the Senator Vaubschman Center group is that also the livestock and poultry sector, just so you know, is also existing law.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: It wasn't something that was created this year. Because it's been here twice underlined. Yes.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Dubbed, it's rephrased because it wasn't really clear. But it is like a role in place of the exemplified expression of motion. It's existing on as well. Not to say that the topic of question is totally up to you. All right, so having said that then, let's do move to the forfeiture section of the bill, which is also the only place that the proposed amendments were made by the email that everybody received, and that begins at least you Is everybody looking at the as passed by house version

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of those?

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Without

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: underlines. Yes. For strikeouts. Yes, exactly. That begins This section that we're talking about, the forfeiture starts on page 14, section five. So we're, the first issue we'll talk about then, and you'll see you have already talked about it in subsection A on page 14, lines twelve and thirteen, remember this is the general provision that requires that before one of these enforcement actions begins, there have to be a consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture. And then there was a Vermont Supreme Court case that said, Hey, that even though it says shall on line seven, that the failure to do that doesn't mean that the enforcement action had to be dispensed. So that sentence you see underlying on lines twelve and thirteen is a putting a statute and put the current laws and proven the prosecutor's court case. Now that was done in the House, that's not, so that's already, that's in the bill, it's passed by the House. The reason I'm highlighting that is because if you want to, this is a fewer matching center and shape where are the proposals and have the draft available Welfare's proposal where to that. Some of them are right here in this section. And for example, one is, and actually before I get to this, let's look for a second, because there's another place that's the same concept that's addressed with Bill Rapides Biveny, lines nine to 12. This is the case where a humane officer under current law, line nine, that struck new words, must, under current law, a veterinarian, excuse me, must accompany a command officer during the execution of the warrant. So in other words, so they're going out there seizing the end, right? Again, there as well, a similar sense was added in the very last sense. They are to be accompanied by the bed, doesn't mean that the enforcement action has to be dismissed. However, notice a difference, this is something that I just noticed, and this is our general recommendation here is going to be consistent. Whatever you decide, it's a policy called for you that is put, and we noticed this, I should have caught this in the house, that on line nine, it changes the must to shall if practicable. Whereas if we went back to the place we just looked at, the Secretary of Agriculture page 14, line seven, it says shall, and that impracticable wasn't added. Pretty likely a court would look at that and be like, the legislature amended this bill and they added this practical right here, but they chose not to add it there. That must mean something, even if the only real reason was that I didn't notice it. So whatever you choose, be practical, I mean, be consistent. So if you want to add if practicable here, good idea to add it on line seven as well, or don't add it in both places, whichever you prefer.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Is there anybody opposed to adding if practicable to line seven on page 14?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: That seems to make it more make to make it make more sense and not

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: be quite as contradictory. So I

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: would certainly support that. And now

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just would also point out that in Lisa's email, she was suggesting changing the shall to should. Our personal preference is generally use should. Stout if practicable is something that's not unusual. It's the same idea, same result.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Yeah, should just seems like you're admonishing the person. Right. When

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: should you not?

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: That's a very loaded word.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that's part of the challenge with these first three of the suggestions from Lisa, is each of these, each of the requirements that they're pertaining to, say shall, shall consult the secretary of agriculture, shall bring a surrendered animal to a vet, or shall bring a vet with you to seize the animal. But courts have found in all those cases that those requirements are intended to protect animal welfare, not affect the defendant's rights or the owner's rights to the animal. So I think for these first three suggestions from Lisa, they are trying to implement some of what these courts have concluded, that failing to consult the secretary, failing to bring an animal within seventy two hours to a vet who's been voluntarily surrendered, or failing to bring a vet, a licensed Vermont vet with you to seize an animal. The proper remedy isn't to dismiss the enforcement action or, you know, exclude evidence seized when you're executing a warrant. The answer is this is guidance for the humane officer and not something that a defendant can raise to try to challenge the evidence or forget the enforcement actions. So I think all of these edits are trying to capture that. I think one thought we had besides consistency, and

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: we can point out

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a couple other places where it might be worth being consistent. So on page 14, the suggestion from Lisa is to add this would be on line nine, page 14, line nine. After that first sentence so on line nine after livestock or poultry, the suggestion is to add, if needed, to determine at the end of that sentence, to add essentially, consult the secretary if needed to determine whether animal husbandry standards were violated, which later in this subsection, that's why the secretary or that's what the secretary will do if consulted. Here, it's if needed or if necessary, but the similar change that Lisa's suggesting in the next two subdivisions for voluntary surrender, bring it to a vet or bring a vet with you to seize the animal, the suggested language is if believed to be necessary. And so I think one choice for the committee is if it's based on a belief that it's necessary, useful to specify who, likely the humane officer here. And the we recommend that in each of these three sections that either do the objective, if necessary, to do what is specified or in all three scenarios, the subjective version, if you think sort of beliefs that's necessary. So choice for you, I think practical results not necessarily clear.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I'm a little confused about where the suggestion is to change the language. Is it, let's just take paragraph A? Yep. What is the suggested change then?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So on line nine, at the end of this first sentence, it would add, if needed to determine whether animal husbandry standards were violated. Call enforcement.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, no, period. Period.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Period. So

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the idea would be like that in the first sentence now says, the secretary shall be consulted prior to any enforcement action, right? But it's already saying the proposed modification is, if needed to determine whether an animal husband understands the provider. In other words, it's a qualification of the consultation. You don't have to always not. Which in a way these are also already addressed by having the chiropractic of old language and the failure to consult busy grounds for dismissals. So they're sort of looking quite meaningful.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Whether

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: How many times and ways do you wanna say Right.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Not a sprint of consultation request? My initial reaction is to not leave it to the discretion of the police officer, the humane officer. I think that should be a standardized practice where you consult to make that determination. That's my info take on it. Senator Hoskey?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I'm just trying to understand. So the way this is worded now, would it be would this apply only to agriculture cases, or would it apply to any time someone shows up to it a law enforcement officer shows up to an equal cruelty or neglect? Because it seems to me that it would be immediately able to

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be deemed not necessary if they were showing up to deal with a dog as opposed to a cow. Yeah. So on lines eight through nine, it's any enforcement action that involves livestock or poultry. So already Yeah. Never heard of of cases if I think

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: if

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they showed up for a dog, but there were livestock or poultry on the property, maybe there's a consultation requirement. But I think the whole way this is structured is that the humane officer shall consult, but the penalty for not consulting is not that the enforcement action is deceased. Okay. That sort of makes sense. This thought, because I think you said that the same suggestion So later in the bill,

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: they talked about consulting with a veterinarian? Yes. Some of the testimony we heard is those veterinarians often aren't available and the humane officers may be able to. So I wonder if the real thing is there is a veterinarian or humane officer could be the consultation to determine if medical care is necessary. Okay. Looked confused, so I wasn't sure. But I think

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the humane officer is already going to be participating in the execution of the warrant. Is that what you're thinking? Subdivision two, page 15.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Thank you. I was trying to reorient myself to the bill. Yes. Well, it's-

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But maybe you're thinking of it, but that one also is-

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: says a veterinarian licensed so to what I'm suggesting is it may need to be reworded a veterinarian or a licensed to practice or a humane officer shall impractical because it broadens the window of people that may be qualified to help deem what that animal needs. And we heard from Lisa that the veterinarians often are not available. Right. One way to do that is

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: as draft as amended by the house, you have a the veterinarian child, if practical, accompanied to humane officer. But the default, if it's not practicable Okay. Is it will be the humane officer.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because it's the humane officer that

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is That is. Imputing the warrant in So the search and

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: it's not law enforcement.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, no, it's not the humane officer. So the humane officer includes law enforcement, but isn't necessary. It could be the local animal control officer, just that's the way the officer but it might be a law enforcement officer. So maybe,

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I don't you haven't consult with

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a local animal control officer, because maybe Does a law enforcement officer as your officer require particularized training? Yes.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: But the ACIB was a big part of changing the definition of the main officer, so it used to include like humane society employees and such. It's a very narrow definition now, it's law enforcement, and it's the few animal control officers that are employed by law enforcement agencies. So animal control officers are not considered humane officers, and they are not all trained in animal cruelty investigations. So you do need to be careful about adding animal control officers anywhere in there as being qualified.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Correct. No, was suggesting the Human Observer to look at it, but that's actually really helpful. I think part of my confusion was that that definition is not in front of me. So

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: let's carry on.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think are the there any other questions on stat piece? The next question that I had was regarding this exclusion of evidence piece and I think you folks were alluding to that earlier. Can we talk a bit more about that?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is coming from several of the cases that Lisa had shared and what these first three edits are based on are cases where there was an enforcement function. And for example, the humane officer executing the warrant did not bring a vet with them when they executed the warrant. The defendant argued, You should throw out all of the evidence that the humane officer obtained while executing the warrant because they didn't satisfy the statutory requirement to bring a bet. And the court said the legislature didn't specify that suppression of evidence is a remedy for failing to bring a death with you when you execute the warrant. And we think based on reading the statute, they didn't want that to happen. So they, you know, denied the request to suppress evidence, including that along with dismissal of the enforcement action in these three spots is specifying that when the legislature is requiring that you bring a vet, that you consult, There's no intention that the proper remedy for failing to do that is dismissing the action or suppressing evidence obtained while executing the warrant. So then this

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: might be a question from Lisa, and maybe I'm missing something, but if the motion to suppress was denied, why would it be necessary to include this new line of excluding evidence?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think the idea is there can be value sometimes in specifying in a statute something that the legislature thinks the court has correctly held in interpreting a statute. So it's providing further clarity in a statute. I think it's a fair point that someone running into that argument again would read that case and say exclusion of evidence isn't a proper remedy, and avoid that outcome, but amending the statute to be clear about that could be useful for practitioners. It also might be needed if you add other language about the consultation because the interpretation of the statute and whether you implied that you intend that there to be a certain remedy can change depending on how much of what you say about the requirement.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think, I think, so next question would be, you know, in situations where perhaps there is evidence that should be suppressed, whether it's because, they're they would lack a probable cause or there would an unlawful search. Kind of worried about the blanket statement of excluding potentially all evidence.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the way it's crafted, I think it's an important concern to avoid, the way it's crafted is narrow. So failure to conduct the consultation shall not be grounds for exclusion of evidence. You exclude an evidence on a certain basis. Right? So if there is a lack of probable cause, that would be a different ground or basis on which to exclude the evidence. And we can, you know, take a second look and just make sure we feel really comfortable about how narrowly that's drafted. But as as drafted, it is specifying that the only ground on which you should not exclude evidence is the failure to conduct the consultation.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, that That one clarifies. Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Anthony was wondering where it would go, page 14, line 13. There'd be parallel language in each of these three paragraphs, but this gives you a good example. So the sentence would read, very constructive consultation should not be grounds for dismissal of the enforcement action or exclusion of evidence. So that's the concept, right? Yeah,

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'm good with adding that. I still have to read all those cases, but I don't, and the explanations were helpful, so I don't see at the moment any issues, at the moment I'm good with adding it, but maybe you're there, any other thoughts on that?

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: In reference to what?

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: The exclusion shallows. I'm looking at

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: the public cause, think you have to probably establish probable cause by issuing one, and then what the chair referred to as the attorney challenging the validity of the probable cause in the court, which is a separate, separate hearing himself, so I'm good with that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The recommendation we need to make, just like putting shallot practical in these three areas for consistency, is there would now be three areas where the provision would end with failure to conduct the consultation or failure to complete the requirement. I'll point out these three areas. Shall not be grounds for disability enforcement action for exclusion of evidence. So the first place that that would go is subsection a. This is page 14, lines 12 through 13. The second place that a similar sentence would go would be in subdivision b one, the bottom of page 14. This would come at the end of the sentence on line 21. So it would mean adding after the end of the sentence on line 21, and this is a suggestion from Lisa, Failure to have the animal examined and assessed within seventy two hours shall not be grounds for dismissal of the enforcement action or exclusion of evidence. So as Eric mentioned, a court reading through this section of the statute is going to say they're going to note if language is included somewhere in a similar section and excluded elsewhere. And they're going to find some kind of meaning in that. So my suggestion is to be consistent with that.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I have a little bit of concern with that prohibiting the dismissal of the enforcement action because can somebody volunteer somebody could voluntarily surrender an animal that could theoretically be in good health and then they're not examined over the course of seventy two hours. And while they are kept in whatever panel or barn, after a week or two, they degrade for some reason. Because they're isolated or for whatever reason. And then they get examined, let's say a week later, and they're in poor health. So I worry about that completely shutting out the possibility to dismiss an action

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if it's Do

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: you get I'm coming from?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. We had that same discussion. I raised the same question, which is like, is the voluntary surrender situation kind of different? Like, maybe you don't want that language here. I don't have an answer. I'm not an expert

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: in this.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I had the same question. I'm not sure. I had the same question about, like, slide 20. Do we want to say impractical, they are in a voluntary situation? Because maybe in that situation, kind of the opposite circumstance, I assume someone brings in an animal voluntary that didn't bury that shape. Do you still want that? Maybe you do want that. In that situation, maybe you want them to have to be fixed and amphorically, although maybe seventy two hours isn't always possible, so you have to have them kind of I don't know. But anyway, we have the same kinds of questions, so maybe you want to ask your witnesses that ask whether it makes sense to have it there also.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Put a little star next to that and come back to it. Thank you.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think the other place to consider it is in, this is page 15, subdivision 82. On lines 10 through 12, there's already been added failure to be accompanied by a veterinarian during the execution of the search warrant shall not be grounds for dismissal of the enforcement action. That's in the version amended by the house, specified by house, and Lisa's suggestion is to add at the end of that sentence on line 12 or exclusion of evidence. So unless as you flagged for the voluntary surrender, there might be a good reason to provide differently here, unless there is a good reason to think that exclusion of evidence should be treated differently for this requirement, Lisa's suggesting to add more exclusion of evidence to the act.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: That

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: makes sense to me based on your description of the course thinking of whether science or the animal's welfare or other.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So so the question is, are we adding exclusion of evidence to line 12? Right. That's it. I'm good to know. But now I don't seem to read them based on what I've learned so far to not have that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's another aspect of, we're still in these kind of first three changes, drafted by Lisa, and the same three provisions that we've been talking about on pages fourteen and fifteen. There's one other kind of change that Lisa's edits suggest in each of these sections. And it's we've already talked about one of them, but it's essentially right after the statute says that the human officer shall do something, it's adding to the circumstances under which that's important. So kind of describing, you shall do it if these facts are present. So the first one is that we've already kind of discussed but maybe didn't land on. Page 14, line nine. Before the end of the sentence, so the sentence reads, The Secretary of Agriculture shall be consulted prior to any enforcement action that involves livestock or poultry if, and this is the suggestion that Lisa would add, if needed to determine whether animal husbandry standards were violated. So that's a way of It's still not saying that failing to consult has a particular remedy, but it's adding more language about when law enforcement or a domain officer should consult with the Secretary of Agriculture.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And where is this being proposed on page 15?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's on page 14, line nine. It would come right after.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: There is parallel language proposed for the patient. The parallel language is proposing all

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: of you to submit some sort of qualifier on the

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: requirement that a complication be made in order to veterinarian company, that sort of thing. So qualifier based on whether or not, earlier was saying, the first instance is whether it's needed to determine whether an animal has been stranded or violated, and the last one is whether the accompaniment is necessary to stabilize the condition of providing treatment of the animal. So it's whether or not

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: you want to be a little more

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: specific about that or just keep it impractical along with the kind of related. If you don't do it, it doesn't get excluded for this message. I thought,

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So I mean, initial take was to kind of put a pin in the idea of if needed to determine if standards were violated,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that there shouldn't be

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: a consultation with the Secretary of Ag, whether or not law enforcement thinks there needs to be one. I think the agency of Ag has a better understanding of the protocols and everything. Best for them to make that.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I generally agree. I think all things being equal, know, that consultation. But this certainly strikes me as more, you know, if on the one hand we're talking about what's for the welfare of the animal and what's, you know, due process for it. Seems like it goes in the middle because it's required as a shell and if we add, if we don't add anything, it seems to me somebody could argue that it should be thrown out because nobody consulted with the secretary about traditional practices. So it seems to me it does need qualification and I don't have a choice about whether the practicable or suggestive language is the way to qualify it.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think it's practicable. Makes sense. I mean, there are certainly common sense things that an officer can observe and make a determination, but there may be situations where it's unclear to the officer and maybe they have more time and they can correspond with the agency back to clarify questions that they may have. But I think if practicable, that covers the scenarios where there may not be the time necessary to contact the agency of ag. So I'm good with practicable for now, then we'll see if he wants to change anything else and then

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: he can discuss that life off.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Does it imply, according to normal practice, you say the secretary that a deputy couldn't, in their absence, with?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, they could. It doesn't have to

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: be that

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: individual. Generally speaking, I don't practice means. I know it doesn't say or designee, but that's generally the way I would refer to names here at the party. Yeah. And then you have, because of that final sentence, it wouldn't be thrown out, even if they don't do it. It was done saying, you know, failure to do it is ground up for dismissal. That's made clear in

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: the final sentence. It's different that

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, so that's an answer for this subsection A. Similar suggest this is saying a similar suggestion in subdivision b one. So this is this would be page 14 at the end of line 21. The sentence that right now is on lines 20 to 21 would read, the humane officer shall, you've added it, practicable, have a surrendered animal examined and assessed within seventy two hours by a veterinarian licensed to practice in the state of Vermont If the leech necessary, and this is what we sort add, if the leech necessary to stabilize the condition of or provide treatment to the animal. So same question, is it practicable, is qualifying the shell already, is this further detailed? Does anybody want to stick with it practicable or add this kind of further detail about when the female author should be

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Bring up surrender and two of us. My opinion for the voluntary surrender, the animal should be examined and assessed within seventy two hours period. That's my opinion, but, May,

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: do you have any thoughts? Yeah, Just one. Hiring the the industry to end the bug. It's if practical is added in there, I take voluntary surrender at 06:00 at night on Friday night, Monday happens to be a holiday. Everybody's broken the law here. But I get that ambulance within seventy two hours. It could happen,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's all I'm saying. One other option is, here, the requirement is both bring to vet and do it within seventy two hours. And if your point, senator Hashim, is you definitely want it to be bring to vet, but you want some flexibility about seventy two hours Right. You could have it read that the humane officer shall have a surrendered hand while examined and assessed within seventy two hours, comma, or as soon as reasonably practicable, comma, or something like that. Which would give the flexibility of the time frame, but not suggest that the anvil should

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not be brought to an end. Yeah. That makes sense. That

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: does make sense to me. I also am, and I just don't know the answer to this, like from my Chittenden County context, we have multiple emergency events. I can get my dog seat within seventy two hours even if it's Christmas. But I don't know if that's true. Somebody just not eviction me down. That is not true. Okay.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think if reasonably, reasonably practicable. As soon as

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: reasonably practicable? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mhmm.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any other thoughts on that?

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I would say we basically have versions of

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the same language. And I'll take care of that.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: But I do appreciate your point that that is more about the timeframe and less about whether or not it needs to be done.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And it addresses the point you were making earlier that having it done as soon as possible is important so that if there is some deterioration in the health of the animal, that can be addressed. So I think to round out the stress of these first three sections, the last one is page 15, we got banned subjection B2. And the suggested edit would be at the end of the sentence that runs from line eight through line 10. So a veterinarian licensed to practice in Vermont shall, if practicable, accompany the humane officer during the execution of the search warrant. And before the end of this sentence, at least a suggested edit would add, if believed necessary to stabilize the condition of or provide immediate treatment to an animal being seized. So again, this is kind of adding some qualifying language about why and when you should bring the vet. And this might be a circumstance where I think, again, you could leave it as if practicable, and failure to do it doesn't mean you dismiss the action or exclude evidence. Or you could add some, qualifying language like what you suggest.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: If we add the qualifying markers and still keep it correctly, seems like a lot of qualification for a shall. Seems like at that point you should just rethink having the shall acquire the.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's all. Yeah. I think having if practicable and the if believed necessary could create some

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Countervailing recommendations.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: I'm personally, I'm fine with the language as it appears, as past house, because we are adding flexibility, and we're also saying that if that isn't there for any reason, it doesn't mean it's just dismissed. So it seems like the flexibility that she's looking for is already there without needing additional scenarios which must not be at risk.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you could ask Lisa or other witnesses if there's a particular, if they see a particular value in adding the kind of qualifier she is suggesting.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: Because let's say it goes further out. Let's say there's a general shortage of vets and they just can't find a vet under this language, that would be fine. Don't know, seems like six is one happens.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: At six. I was. I mean, I I hear Senator Baruth's point, and if they can't find a vet, I wouldn't want it to hold them up in taking the animals from a dangerous, unhealthy, or school situation. And I know, I don't think we've heard it in this committee, but we have the other animals, you know, in my other committee, what we've heard is that there is a massive shortage of vets in most of the state. And so if someone's called every vet in the county and none of them are available, I wouldn't want them to not be able to seize those animals.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'm open minded to just keep if practicable, and then add, or exclusion of evidence, end of line 12, consistent with how we have it in other sections as well. Yeah, I think if practicable, it's sufficient for us. Any other thoughts, committee, on that section? Anybody opposed? No,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I like the consistency with the other sections. Alright.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And perhaps a more roundabout way than, I could have done, but I think that runs us through the edits, the first three of these as edits to these three sections. So I think we could move to page 18 and kind of the next bucket of corrected edits that has to do with further than notice. So

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I guess we can go ahead we could

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go ahead and read what the So this is on page 18, lines five through 11.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: That'd be

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: helpful for a moment if

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you have a minute or two, you've been on what we're talking about here though.

[Erica Holm (Central Vermont Humane Society; Chair, Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board)]: Perfect, I'll give you that. Okay, thanks.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Actually, so the bottom of 17, just sort of, so this, we're now in the forfeiture piece, right? We've just been talking about procedures prior to the actual forfeiture of the animal. Let's say the animal does get forfeit by humane officer. Bottom page 17, what happens then? Well, unless the person claiming a legal interest, and there's that phrase, Senator Hashim, you were concerned about legal interest, just to note there real quickly, Hillary and spoke about this with the existing statute, ownership interest could be a better way to phrase that, because then you're talking about a co owner situation. A bit of ambiguity with legal interests, what does that mean? Put the debt covered. But sometimes animals do have co owners. And in that case, the existing law does preserve the right of, you know, sometimes it creates difficult situations as the committee was talking about earlier. For example, there's a family law situation involved in divorce or whatever it might be, there are any number of situations where that could cause problems, but that is the existing law. The panel has more than one owner, could be returned to one owner if the other one is the one who's

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: directly coerced by the violation.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if you're to eat that, I think our suggestion was, whoever appears to change legal to owner. Oh, sorry, ownership. Yeah. Right.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I'm fine with that. All

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right, so that point aside for a second. Unless a person claiming an ownership interest in the animal requests a form of security and post security, over at about stage 18 now, or request that the security be reduced or waived out of base of hardship, then title is forfeited fourteen days after teaching. So if you think about how that works, animal control officer comes to the place where the animal lives, they sees the animal, fourteen day clock starts ticking. At that moment, they give notice to the owner, if the owner's there. Hey, here's notice. There's notice of your rights. You can ask for a hearing if you want. You can request financial hardship because if you don't, you gotta start paying security soon. And that way, they are apprised of their rights. Have this a constitutional requirement here. Someone's property is being seized by the government. What does that consist of post and security? What is

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: that amount? Or what does that That's

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: going to be you mean, like, what's the amount? Actually, that's going to be elsewhere in the bill. The director of animal welfare has to, by rule, issue amounts and periodic payments schedule. Yes, that's the idea. It's going to be different depending on that event. So that'll have eventually, hopefully, will be in this notice that the person gets, if they're there. If they're not there, that's when the tacking comes into play. Although that's a question for the committee, you want them to be, do you want to be taxed whether they're there or not? Policy question about

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: that. Makes my suggestion about the sort of nail in renail system, which I think seems to make me, it does not seem to make me, I know how I feel, it makes me more But I also have the question of sort of what would be, I mean, I'm just thinking of some of these circumstances. I go to a field to well, I mean, I know because I'm not a main officer, but I go you know, someone goes to a field to rescue horses, and they're what do you tack it to? There's no building. There's no so there's that piece, but I didn't have more security around the sort of tack and nail scheme.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah. What I'm seeing in her recommendation is the ninety six hours, they nail it and then over the course of ninety six hours, what is that, four days? They have to make attempts of service. I'm wondering if there should be at least one attempt to serve the person in person prior to doing the attack order. Yeah. I know with, you know, when you make a motion for alternative service, you have to at least have made an attempt to serve the person or you're aware that it's impractical. I don't know. I mean, there's so many different circumstances where maybe prior to getting the warrant, you've tried locating the person. So I guess I don't know where I'm going with this, but is there a way to require an attempt of service and then if you realize we're just in a field in the middle of the woods and we don't know where to go, you've got to attack it on something and then make subsequent attempts. Is that doable?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you're likely have a fence if you are seizing animals somewhere that someone has domestically. Could be a place for attacking in a field, but fair point, that there could be a scenario where attacking would be physically challenging. You can certainly draft requirements that someone, a defense officer, attempt service in person before they can resort to attacking. I think one challenge I see practically potentially with that is humane officer gets their warrant. They show up at the home thinking someone could be home. It's not an abandoned house, but the person is not there. There is no person there. So they can't personal service. If they are required to try to effectuate personal service before tacking, it means they're leaving the home and spending some time trying to effectuate service. And then they'd have to come back again to tack. That's not that's certainly a possible requirement. It just would take more time than what the original kind of TAC provision would allow because they're they're leaving before they can come back. So as long as everyone's thinking about that

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But you said from

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: this on the vertical to read papers and, hey.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is that an attempt to Mhmm. And then they

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: can I wish That's too That's too, yeah? I wouldn't want to add another layer to it. I agree with Senator Vahovsky that nail in the nail or whatever you call it would maybe it's more than what exists currently and seems to me.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe you can't get

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: ahold of somebody by email. Maybe the attack doesn't work, but having both of them fail seems almost very unlikely to me. And that does seem like a good faith attempt to offensurate synthesis.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yeah, I'm fine with that. I think, I mean, as long as it is reasonably evaluated to inform the owner of service and seizure, then I think we'd be on safe ground with the nail and nail idea.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The active personal service wants when they show up there. They're out there, so they nail it and they nail it. So I think you're right. There's a good argument there that that's reasonably calculated under the circumstances to provide notice. So we

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: do have Maria on the Zoom for the next bill. So we'll take Senator Mattos' question and then just a two minute break and then we'll come back and probably we'll definitely have to revisit this. Yeah, I was just gonna say

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it kind of reminds me of the landlord bill that we were working on. So

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think it makes sense that we

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: assume after what five days that it was received in the mail and the oral or whatever it is.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Member)]: And they show up in every oral and they're gone. They're going all the twenty eight days.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I bet you if that's something you have at the post. All

[Senator Nader Hashim (Chair)]: right, so thank you and we'll revisit this. I think we'll make that decision. Yeah, thank you. And let Maria know we'll take a two