From the beginning of this year’s legislative session, when Gov. Peter Shumlin outlined marijuana legalization as one of his priorities for the year, the stage was set for a showdown on pot.
But though the debate over legalization was a loud one in the Judiciary committees’ rooms, it was certainly not the only item on the agendas. In fact, by the end of the session, the House and Senate Judiciary panels had put out a banner crop.
Although the pot legalization question fizzled, lawmakers turned out bills that adjust the juvenile justice system, establish privacy protections, reform the driver’s license suspension system and more.
Driver’s license suspension and traffic safety
Vermont’s driver’s license suspension policies have been the subject of considerable scrutiny in recent years. An unpaid traffic ticket can mount to a license suspension, and the costs of getting back on the road have proved prohibitive to many Vermonters.
In two separate daylong restoration programs last year, residents of some counties had an opportunity to pay off old traffic tickets at reduced rates.
H.571, which began in the House, is an effort to address the issue on a statewide scale.
Under the legislation, which won final approval from both chambers late last week, there will be a three-month statewide driver restoration period beginning Sept. 1 when Vermonters will be able to apply to pay off outstanding tickets from before July 1, 2012, for $30 apiece.
For tickets issued after that date, Vermonters already have the option of a monthly payment plan, but according to testimony, that program is underutilized. The legislation also gives judges discretion to take into consideration whether a defendant has the ability to pay a traffic ticket.
The Senate Judiciary Committee added a separate House bill, bulking up Vermont’s statutes on fair and impartial policing, into the DLS legislation.
That provision builds on a law passed several years ago requiring law enforcement agencies to collect data on traffic stops. Though the data has been collected, very little of it has been made public. Under the new law, all law enforcement agencies will be required to submit the traffic stop data to be processed and made public.
Much of the bill takes effect immediately, and many of the remaining sections kick in July 1.
The House Judiciary Committee spent several weeks early in the session crafting H.560, a bill on traffic safety. Among other things, it expands the use of ignition interlock devices — machines attached to the ignition of a vehicle that require the driver to pass a breath test for alcohol in order to start the car.
That bill passed the House in March but was dissected in the Senate. Ultimately, the interlock provisions ended up passing as part of H.876, the omnibus transportation bill. Under the new law, drivers who have been convicted of a second or subsequent count of driving under the influence will be required to have an interlock device for a period of time in order to have their license reinstated.
The House also passed language in April that would have approved the use of roadside saliva testers for detecting whether drivers are under the influence of marijuana, but the Senate did not move forward with it. Language in the transportation bill requests a study on issues with enforcing laws against drugged driving.
Juvenile Justice
Lawmakers made several adjustments to the way youthful offenders are handled in the criminal justice system for the first time in several decades.
H.95 applies several changes over the next three years, extending the ages that qualify to be handled on a juvenile docket for some crimes.
The bill mandates that any case involving a defendant younger than 18 — except in the most serious crimes — must begin in juvenile court, though some may then be transferred to criminal court. Currently cases involving 16- and 17-year-olds may begin in adult criminal court at the prosecutor’s discretion.
Also under current law, only people under the age of 18 qualify as youthful offenders — a status that involves more coordination of services between the Department of Corrections and the Department for Children and Families. H.95 says defendants younger than 22 may be eligible for that status.
The bill also requires inmates younger than 25 to be held separately from the general population in Vermont prisons.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate “hailed the bill as a significant accomplishment.”
Privacy and DNA
When lawmakers reconvened in January, the bones of S.155 were already largely in place. The Senate Judiciary Committee met several times in the fall to put together the pieces of a bill on privacy and technology.
The bill takes on privacy issues as they relate to technologies including cellphones, automatic license plate readers, drones and electronic medical records. Both House and Senate committees took extensive testimony on the bill and largely kept the same components in place.
Lawmakers opted to retain current practice for data collected by automated license plate readers, which are devices attached to some police cars that scan and store information about license plates on the road. Under the bill, that data will continue to be held for 18 months.
However, the committees disagreed about how readily accessible the data should be. Ultimately, after negotiations in a conference committee, they agreed that after data has been held for six months, law enforcement will need a warrant to access it.
The bill also spells out when a warrant is required to access certain cellphone and electronic communication information.
Lawmakers also wrote policy guiding the use of drones by law enforcement, though no Vermont agencies say they are currently using the technology.
A separate bill, S.10, expands the collection of DNA samples from people convicted of crimes.
The Senate Judiciary Committee began working on that bill in the first half of the biennium, but it was tabled because of a hefty backlog of samples at the state forensics laboratory. The effort was resurrected early this year, once the backlog was cleared.
The version that passed the Senate would have required anyone convicted of a misdemeanor who spends 30 or more days in prison to give a sample — a considerable expansion of current law, which requires only felons to give samples.
The House honed down the proposal. The final version of the bill, agreed to in a conference committee, narrows the original proposal to people convicted of certain misdemeanors, such as stalking or violating an abuse prevention order. The bill takes effect with the governor’s signature.
Other key initiatives
Before adjourning for the session, the Legislature gave final approval to a slew of other initiatives related to the criminal justice system. Those include:
• “Ban the box”: H.261 prohibits employers from asking job candidates about their criminal history on the initial application form. The governor signed the bill earlier this month, and it will go into effect July 1, 2017.
• Criminal threatening and stalking: Lawmakers put together S.154 in part in response to the killing of social worker Lara Sobel last summer. The bill creates an enhanced penalty for assaults on social workers. It also establishes a new offense of criminal threatening. The final legislation includes H.818, a House bill intended to ease the process of getting a protection order for victims of stalking.
• Victim notification: H.533 began as a relatively uncontroversial bill codifying policy about notifying victims when their attacker is released from state custody. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee attached a measure creating a controversial animal cruelty investigation advisory board. The notification parts of the bill take effect July 1. Parts of the animal cruelty sections will kick in July 1, 2017.
