Updated at 5:59 p.m.
Gov. Phil Scott announced Friday afternoon that he’s creating a new court in Chittenden County that will address the county’s backlog in legal cases by trying repeat offenders.
The new court, called The Community Accountability Court, is part of Scott’s “response to increased concerns about quality of life crimes and disorder in Burlington,” according to a press release from his office.
The initiative comes about a month after Scott declared he had a plan to address public safety concerns, many related to drug use, in the Queen City. Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak previously claimed that Scott wasn’t doing enough to help the city combat persistent social and economic challenges.
The new court will channel additional resources for three to four months toward trying repeat offenders who have many pending legal cases against them, the press release said. It’s part of a multistep plan Scott plans to roll out in the coming days.
“These additional resources for the Chittenden County Superior Court will help alleviate the backlog, ensure people receive a trial, and provide the kind of immediate follow up that is necessary for (Burlington Police Department)’s enforcement activities to be most effective,” Mulvaney-Stanak said in the governor’s release.
She and Scott are discussing immediate solutions, like the new court, as well as long-term strategies, Mulvaney-Stanak said in the release.
A dedicated judge will be appointed by the judiciary to oversee the new court, and Scott will select a prosecutor to handle the cases litigated within it, the release said.
‘Truly big changes’
The day before the governor’s announcement, Defender General Matt Valerio sat in front of lawmakers in a Joint Justice Oversight Committee meeting, and told them he had “horrible news coming.”
His data, from July through September of this year, showed a large uptick in criminal cases in Chittenden County.
“I’m predicting a nor’easter for the next six months, lots of snow and ice and lightning and terrible stuff in the public defense system,” Valerio said.
Public defenders in the county are handling a 37% increase in criminal cases compared to the same quarter of last year, he said.
That’s a big issue because 39% of total legal cases in the state come from Chittenden County, Valerio said. So when that county’s courts are backed up, it has a really outsized impact on the state, he said.
In Vermont criminal court, public defenders represent more than 90% of people accused, Valerio said in an interview Friday. That means his office’s data offers a pretty accurate picture of the court’s overall caseload.
“Whenever you see big changes in Chittenden County, they’re truly big changes,” Valerio said.
Tim Lueders-Dumont, executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sherriffs, wasn’t surprised by the recent increase, he said Thursday.
“In Chittenden County, we’re seeing that the same group of people are cycling through repeatedly,” Lueders-Dumont said. Data he presented to the committee that afternoon showed that as of May 1 of this year, 44.2% of legal cases in the state involved people with three or more cases against them.
That issue necessitates the new court, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said in the governor’s press release.
“When a handful of people are cycling through the system with multiple pending dockets, we must pivot from simply delaying accountability to providing quick, meaningful court interaction paired with necessary treatment,” she said.
Throughout the month of September, the court system made significant headway on its backlog of cases, according to Valerio. But the recent uptick in the state’s most populous county could make things much worse, he said.
“I’ve never seen that ever before,” he said, referring to the spike in new cases.
Lueders-Dumont and Valerio, along with a host of other officials in the state’s criminal justice system, worked with the governor to create the new court, Scott’s press release said.
Conversations between state and city
During a Burlington City Council meeting Monday, Mulvaney-Stanak said she and Scott would be meeting during the week to discuss how the state can best serve Burlington.
Ahead of his meeting with the mayor, Scott met with a number of people in the Burlington community, Mulvaney-Stanak said.
“He’s been doing fact finding, as I understand it, around his own understanding of Burlington,” she said.
Mulvaney-Stanak said her office, after consulting organizations in the community, prepared a specific list of the city’s needs for housing, support for at-risk youth and support from the court system.
She hoped her meeting with the governor would address the “ongoing chronic issues around drugs and that low level stuff that continues to plague our city,” she said.
Scott called his meeting with the mayor “very productive” during a press conference Thursday.
“They had some suggestions of their own, more long-term than short-term,” Scott said. He said Thursday that he was waiting to hear back from the mayor’s office before moving forward with any plans.
“We’re not trying to force our way into Burlington, we’re just trying to help,” Scott said.
Shaun Robinson contributed reporting.
