House lawmakers Thursday night wholeheartedly endorsed a sweeping criminal justice reform bill, passing S.295 on a voice vote after zero debate.
What they passed differs significantly from the Senate version. The Senate must either endorse the changes or hash them out in a conference committee.
The bill lays out a process for courts to gather more information about people who are arrested before they are charged. A so-called “risk assessment” is an evaluation of a person’s risk of failure to appear in court or of committing a new crime.
The “needs screening” is a brief evaluation to estimate whether a person has a substance abuse or mental health condition.
The bill creates a new type of service provider, a “pretrial monitor,” who works with courts, attorneys and a defendant to help him or her comply with instructions from a judge, such as attending substance abuse treatment.
“I believe it has the potential to be a truly profound factor on the criminal justice system,” Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, said as he presented it to the House around 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
In addition to pretrial services, the bill asks the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs’ Association to develop guidelines for pre-charge programs, which can funnel people into treatment even before they are charged with a crime.
The bill builds on the success of a similar programs run by Judge Ben Joseph and Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, as well as Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan’s Rapid Intervention Community Court.
The House Judiciary, Human Services, Corrections and Institutions and Appropriations committees modified the Senate version.
Lippert said the House Judiciary Committee built on the work of the Senate while working closely with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration. Shumlin made this bill a priority, highlighting it as a way to help people in the throes of opiate addiction. He hired consultant Bobby Sand to guide the bill through the Legislature.
Lippert Thursday thanked Sand as well as Judge Amy Davenport and Karen Gannette in the Court Administrator’s Office for their work on the bill.
Next year’s budget has $760,000 earmarked for the pre-trial programs. A permanent revenue stream for these programs has not been identified.
One change the House made was to call for a phased rollout of the pretrial programs, to prevent the new system from being flooded with clients.
The risk assessment and needs screening will only be offered to certain types of alleged offenders, including those charged with misdemeanors, drug felony offenses and other nonviolent offenses, the House version says.
“We intend to increase public safety in the state of Vermont by providing a new system of pretrial services,” Lippert said.
The bill protects defendants’ due process rights and the Defender General supports it, he said.
The House Human Services Committee added a one-year pilot program with the Department of Corrections to continue the use of medication-assisted opioid addiction for people awaiting trial or serving a sentence.
The bill also includes sections about the opiate treatment drugs buprenorphine and naloxone.
It calls for stricter rules on doctors’ prescribing buprenorphine because that drug can be abused and sold on the street.
It calls for pharmacists to dispense naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug, without a prescription.
