Guns, medical marijuana and alternative justice bills will be prime focuses this week in Montpelier.
Full days of testimony on all three subjects will help legislators decide how to proceed with several major bills that have made it halfway through the Legislature this session.
In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has planned an all-morning hearing Wednesday on H.735, a miscellaneous fee bill that contains a section about firearms.
The measure would allow law enforcement agencies to charge a fee and store guns surrendered as a result of relief from abuse orders. The bill also authorizes federally licensed firearms dealers to hold the guns.
Because of a lack of safe storage facilities, friends or family sometimes store the guns. Advocates for victims of domestic violence, law enforcement officials and others say this option is insufficient and potentially dangerous.
The Shumlin administration brokered an agreement last year to work language into the fee bill rather than create a separate bill that could become a vehicle for other gun control measures.
The House passed the fee bill and referred it to the Senate Finance Committee. Finance Chairman Sen. Tim Ashe, D-Chittenden, is also on the Judiciary Committee. Ashe said Judiciary will report to the Finance Committee and potentially suggest changes.
Judiciary Chairman Dick Sears, D-Bennington, Monday said many groups were itching to testify on this bill.
“Since it’s passed the House we’ve heard from various other folks who would like to see amendments to it,” Sears said.
Senators plan to hear from anti-domestic violence advocates as well as law enforcement officials, who are pushing for the storage measure, as well as gun advocates, many of whom oppose it.
Vermont attorney Cindy Hill, a member of the National Rifle Association, has written a letter contesting the constitutionality of ordering a person not to possess firearms as part of a relief from abuse order.
Others are concerned the proposed storage fee ($4 per week plus a one-time $25 retrieval fee) is too high or too low.
The governor’s office also plans to offer several amendments, Sears said.
Sarah London, an attorney for the administration, Monday said the amendments suggest technical changes, including adding a reference to the federal definition of firearms and making it clear the law does not prohibit the lawful sale of firearms.
Sears said he agrees with the goal of the so-called “safe storage” section.
“The underlying premise, I think, is a wise one,” Sears said.
Risk assessment and pretrial services
The House this week plans to focus on a bill that the Senate Judiciary Committee vetted during the first part of the session.
A wide-ranging criminal justice reform bill focuses on tools the system can use to learn more about people who are arrested and offer them alternatives to incarceration.
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday has a full day of testimony scheduled on S.295. It plans to hear from law enforcement, the courts, the defender general, the Department of Corrections, anti-domestic violence advocates, health officials and doctors.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the top priority of the committee of the Senate bills,” House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, said Monday.
Lippert said his main questions are about the breadth or narrowness of offering precharge and pretrial programs.
In addition to other measures, the bill gives prosecutors the option to allow people who have been arrested to participate in precharge programs that address substance abuse, mental health issues or “community-based restorative justice principles.”
In addition, Lippert said he wants to understand what is built into the pretrial needs assessment the bill establishes.
The legislation creates a system for screening people who are arrested to learn more about whether they are likely to flee or might be dangerous to the public. The goal is to give courts more information when setting bail and conditions of release.
“It’s important that you protect due process rights,” Lippert said.
The House Institutions and Corrections Committee also plans to examine sections S.295, as does the House Human Services Committee.
All three committees are scheduled to meet Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. in Room 11 for a presentation by Doug Marlowe of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals about criminal justice reform.
A third bill scheduled for testimony this week is S.247, dealing with medical marijuana dispensaries.
Human Services Chairwoman Rep. Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington, said her committee wants to understand the changes the Senate made and why.
“We’re really taking fresh eyes on what the Senate actually did and looking to see if there’s any way to address the issue of children with major epilepsy,” she said.
The bill eliminates a statewide cap on the number of registered patients who receive medical marijuana from a dispensary. It also allows for two additional dispensaries to open and increases the amount of marijuana a dispensary can have on hand per patient, among other changes.
The Senate amended the bill to remove post-traumatic stress disorder as a condition that qualifies someone to receive medical marijuana. Pugh said her committee plans to consider a House bill that would add PTSD as a condition.
Also in the House this week is a Senate bill about forfeiture of animals in animal cruelty cases, as well as one about eyewitness identification policy and recording of police interrogations in cases of homicide and sexual assault.
