Which one do we gonna, do you want us to start with? Okay, we'll go, we'll go sweetest fruitiest to sour and spiciest. All right. So the first one is orange strawberry, just meant to be like really mild, fruity. This is actually featured on a website called The Daily Mom, one of the top back-to-school products. So it's like just, it's really, it's really approachable. It's not, it's not intense or anything like that. Yeah. It's got a nice pink color, you get that from the strawberry. There you go. Thank you. Tell us what you think. Great smell to it. It's got smell, which was actually something we were super, super excited about. Yeah. It's really hard to get powders to have a smell to them. That's delicious. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have predicted that. Yeah. No, I was, that was the achievement of the food contest. Like when they pulled that off, I was like, wow. I could drink that all day. This is really good. Really easy. So remind me of what's in this one again. It's got organic orange, organic strawberry, a touch of organic stevia, which is a natural plant-based sweetener. And when I say a touch, I really mean like. It doesn't take much. Right. Yeah. So you're usually buying stevia at like a grocery store in a packet or something. We have it in like the this thing and I think it'll last like 10 years. Right. Yeah. And most of those packets are like a 10th stevia and then nine tenths filler, because it's so intense. So we really have like just a little bit. And then we have the scorpic and citric acid. The scorpic acid, they're both naturally occurring. Citrus acid, the scorpic acid is just vitamin C.  It's bright, you know, sharpness. And that was just because we wanted to help the strawberry. It was pretty sweet. So we want to bring out that one a little bit more. Delicious. Yeah. What's the next one? All right. Next one is the turmeric orange ginger black pepper. So like I said, the turmeric and orange are full. Or the turmeric and ginger are full spectrum. So the nutrient content and each of them, yeah, nutrient content, each of them is the same pre and post processing. What's really good for you in turmeric is an active compound called curiculum. And so we're making sure that that is at the same level as pre and post processing. And then black pepper, there's an active compound called piperine. And without, without piperine, it's really difficult for your body to absorb curiculum. So that's why we're including the black pepper.  But let's see, it's spicy, but it is like, it has like a kick to it.  This is the one I'm most interested in because if I was out in the store and you know, I bought emergency before and other like powdered drinks and stuff. If I had seen turmeric, I don't know that I would necessarily jump to get that. But the way I've been listening to you describe it all day is, it's definitely captured my, my interest. Yeah, smells good, looks good. So that's tasty too. You know what's interesting? Oh, you're right about the kick of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in a very good way. It's like, all right, it's there. It's something's working there. This is really funny. I'm just going to share this because it happened, yeah, it happened a couple of days ago and I just very tried it and sent it to Will. We got our very first one-star review. On Amazon and they just ripped us for the black pepper. It was just like way too much black pepper. I was trying to water it down, but my mouth was on fire, disappointed. And I called Will and I was like, there it is. And it's funny because it is something that like there's a moment where you kind of take it personally. Right, it's your baby. They're talking about your baby. Right, it works really hard on that. And then there's also moments just like, okay, like it's not for you. Like we have all these other five-star reviews.  But what do you say? Do you say something like, bad batch? Do you ever respond to those? Because sometimes I see like the owner, especially on like Google reviews or Yelp, it's like the owner will come in. We are so sorry that you had a bad experience. We hope we can make it up to you later. Do you ever respond to people like that? Yeah, you know, this is literally the first one, 48 hours ago. So I've actually been thinking about that. Yeah. What was interesting about it was like, and I was seeing this to my girlfriend last night, I was like, I felt, I also feel really bad because I sort of set this person felt like, when they ended up with disappointed. Yeah. Like I was like, oh, they think I wronged them. Like I really wasn't trying to like wrong them. And it's a bummer, you had a bad experience. I also don't agree with you, but I'm not trying to like hurt you. Totally. Totally. Totally. So I got it. There's going to be some problem for each other. Will you ever tone down the pepper or do you think it's right? I think it's right. Yeah. Like you said, this just wasn't the product for that person. Yeah. I mean, you can't please everyone. I think it's, I think it's right too. I like it. I mean, I think that what this, the market we're speaking to. So I mean, if this is a test for you, the next one we're about to try, ginger lemon cayenne, which was the initial inspiration for the product. I love ginger lemon cayenne. Like it's just, it's just masochistic. Like there's nothing, it just hurts. So like it's sour, it's spicy. Will you ever do a variety pack? So that way someone can try all three without committing to 20. We're looking into ways that we can do like a sampling, where we get people a sample. So they can try it all three before they buy them. Got it. And then we have some ideas for that. Yeah. That seems to be the perfect thing for the individual sachets. To know like we're, I don't know if I'm going to want 20 of this, but let me take one of each. Exactly. And it'll be fine. Have you heard from your customers a little bit about how they're using it? Is it mostly a morning product? So it's, it's been, I mean, I think it's, it's been actually really a mixed pack. So like morning and evening seem to be the two times. And I need a lot of photos of people using it on airplanes. Like a surprising photo of people using it on airplanes. That's such great PR. Yeah. It's a really cool, and we have, there was like a family friend who's an airline flight attendant. So ginger, lemon, cayenne pepper. It's just sour and spicy. I like it. If you don't like it. I can smell the lemon. Yeah. Not a bad thing. It's meant to be painful. What's interesting to me is Oh, that is, it's like sour. And then like the heat kicks in right away. Do you have any, well, I'll say two things. What's interesting to me about this product is typically when things come in powder form, you always get a choppiness, even if it's very like a hint that this doesn't have that, which is great. Sure. I've heard a lot about carbonating this. I've been thinking about that this week. Like this, you can make a ginger beer. I'm such an alcoholist. Yeah. No, no, no, this is something I actually, if I had more time, this is something I need to test. Like this morning, as I was getting ready to come over here, I was like, if I had more time, I'd be making carbonated. I just want to try making a carbonated shot. Yeah. It's like, what does this taste like in carbonated water? Because I've had literally the last month, like eight people. Because then SodaStream becomes an easy player, right? Totally. It's already in package form. Totally. No, it's, it would be, it would be. It's a flavor profile. It would be a really easy addition. Nice. And in terms of, you know, what you were saying about the chalkiness, I mean, you'll notice is, you know, some of the bottles that have been sitting for longer, they do settle. That would be a good one to put in any, you know, like dissolvents or fillers. The other thing is, if you go to a juice shop and look at a bottle of juice, it settles. Like at the bottom of that juice, including juice, there's this sort of, anything natural settles. And people don't realize that, but it's just shaking. You're good. Which one's your favorite? The last one. On the ginger.  And then you're like, I liked it. Let's keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So the ginger one has, so cayenne pepper has, oh, I got some cayenne pepper when I throw it. Yeah. Cayenne pepper has an active component that gives it spice called capsaicin. The same stuff that's in hot sauce, right? Yeah, so capsaicin is basically spice. Yeah. It's basically just like, capsaicin is a lot of things. And what you're doing is you're, when you're measuring the heat of different products, they exist like on a Scoville heat level. Sure.  Because you're implementing some sort of cayenne pepper. Or cayenne pepper in capsaicin comes at what's considered 30,000 Scoville heat units. Okay. Which exists like somewhere between a serrano and an habanero. There's a little bit more than a serrano. Serrano is spiced with a jalapeno for reference. A little bit less than a habanero. But we put in such, like so little this, it's pretty palatable. The capsaicin, back to my original point, is a natural deep ingestion and a natural pain relief. Okay. And so it's, you know, if you're, if you're stuffed up, it's great if you're cold, and also like can be soothing to the throat. It's actually another company that I heard of, just through my research that makes cough drops just with cayenne pepper. And the whole idea is like that. All right, it opens you up. Yeah. It's soothing to the throat. I like the other two. They're all delicious. I can't decide which one I like best, though. If I'm getting sick, I do one of the turmeric and one of the ginger. Otherwise, I'll drink it. I'll drink it. How many do you drink a day? What did you say? One. Okay. You can drink like two to two to three. I would say a day. At a certain point when it comes to vitamin C, and this is why we only have 500 milligrams of vitamin C, and ours is close to 1,000, which is a lot of the vitamin C packets you have out there, your body can really only use about two to 50 milligrams. So after 250 milligrams, you're just pained out. Right. Now there are studies that show if you get sick, your body can actually use more vitamin C, but it's not looking like it's 5,000 milligrams, or really even 1,000 milligrams. So that's why we sell it on 500. The other thing is if you consume 1,000 milligrams at 8 a.m. or 500 milligrams at 8 a.m. and 500 milligrams at 8 p.m., like you have a better chance of actually for more of that vitamin C at those two time periods that your body can't control. Oh, it's just all in once, right?


so quickly before the video starts i didn't actually realize this until i was editing it i'm actually editing it right now i'm just adding this part at the beginning just to warn you guys that i don't know why but the game didn't go in full screen so and i thought i had obs or whatever i think i might have been using bandicam i don't know whatever i was using to record it i thought i had it just focusing on the video or the game i guess but apparently not and so you can see like my little dashboard and like the window so sorry about that but i didn't feel like recording this again because it took 25 minutes half an hour to record i don't know and i could record it again but it's my first you know my first reaction to the game and i thought i would keep it because i didn't want to fake another reaction i could have just said oh you know i've played this game before but then it wouldn't be that fun so just telling you guys right now sorry about that i will make sure to fix it in the next video of this so super super sorry but here's the video all this is power up challenges oh my god this is what i get for doing more custom night games loads more challenges awesome god this is going to be the next urn exit game silvent e seal duct orange hammer z and return 1120 i got his you know what hey does every custom night game need to be all right so hello people of the internet my name is johnny and welcome to psfc ultimate custom night this is a game that was suggested by a comment which one you ask well it was this one right here so i thought i'd check it out now i don't know any of these characters or what they do these muzz spiders simply block your view all right so minuitas comes through the ducts all right so i think just to start off the video on a high note where we are going to set alt to 20 there's not 50 characters in this is only 48 and let's just see what happens okay so 48 20 mode right off the bat don't expect me to win or expect me to win if you want if that if you have such high hopes for me but right now i'm very scared because i don't think i'm gonna be able to do this oh nintendo night where i where i have to do 20 episodes on this just to get it done with all these challenges uh boys feel my pain feel my pain oh my god oh thanks for holding that sign out for hello oh hey oh box how is my camera scott what the heck whoa whoa hey hey seems you've learned how to burn it seems i have oh power not power heat right game over continue like this you may need it thanks phone for interrupting yeah happy birthday kuba i sent my friend had birthday message because it's his birthday today so he just replied saying thanks all right so um let's just do a challenge humanoid's attack one what do these characters do pound pound in a shell comes through the left hall close the left door when he is close to the camera all right uh little moustachio boy comes through the vent door he will attack unless you close the vent or audio cues will help hi that's super helpful miss shella comes through either the left or right let's say for her footsteps and left then shut the door all right front and pretty appears on the screens in your office breaking the ventilation press t three times to get rid of him he will not appear unless the office is above 90 degrees hi so break the ventilation i don't know that means i don't know if that's good or not which pound to the shell rightfully appears in your office put on the mask all right mask adventure bound to your shell when his mini game appears press g to attack his opponent if you don't attack your cameras will be disabled for periods whether it's lazy shell what are these names comes through the right door he will you will hear a loud knock in the left or the wall when he is there all right comes through the ducks closely appropriate ducks comes through the ducks closely appropriate ducks comes through the left door close the appropriate door appears in the office close the appropriate office wait no flip your cameras on put on the mask all right slowly materializes into office you must shine your light all right so this seems good enough i guess not too bad it's kind of just simple u and n oh a u c n god now i have u and n in my head ultimate custom night mechanics if that makes sense like doors ducks vents some of them are weird like the press g to attack and press t three times so it's the it's the big headed guy with the wires coming out of his face that i need to hit t three times and then it's the one with a minigame where i need to hit g to attack the opponent awesome and i also have to keep it above hey oh right it's not my part that's not the right part so i need to keep it below 90 degrees i'm pretty sure it said whoa you can zap people at the doors that's pretty good and i think ah shoot i keep pressing z for flashlight that's not what it is what i should probably do is look to see the people in the beds and the ducks oh g g g g g man good game but you know no bread all right i'm good oh my god so many controls in the cameras all right all right it's fine we don't need cameras for this what are you up there where can i honk whoa whoa wait i think i have to wait till 90 this is one of my strategies with you and and hello whoa wait when am i using power for okay wait hold on oh can you repair let me get i can't even see who i got jump scared by all right office starts cool that is probably one of the most descriptive items i've ever gone in a game right whatever i'm i will beat this i'm determined to beat this it just may take me a while that's all i'm also guessing that each night is 4 30 4 minutes 30 seconds because when we got to 1 a.m it was at 45 seconds and usually usually unless this is unique to this game it goes till 6 a.m it goes from 12 to 6 might have been you that got me i honk all right so far this game is awful just because there's no nose to honk developer if you're watching this add a 30 nose to honk or whatever main character is in this game please make it so that you can honk the whole one go ahead and honk the nose i guess i'm dead whenever so the mustachio guy whenever it freezes when you go in the camera you know you're dead right space bar to continue you could have power up after every death because if so that's awesome stashio guy comes through the vent or he'll attack unless you close the vent or audio queues will help i just got uh i thought that was an audio queue for the guy at the door all right whatever if i so there's no noise sensitive and rachonics here so i'm gonna see if i close everything is there only one vent and one duck ducked i guess not duck because if so how long could i survive all right whatever it's not a vent how do i get to vents some cranes i love cranes all right there's that guy whoo hello how do i get to the vents am i just stupid or do i not see how you get to the vents oh god well i'm dead i wasn't paying attention to my heat what you see the vents like that i don't like that they do take a while to reach the door pretty peaceful right now pretty pretty peaceful i feel like you should be able to honk the nose i'm so wrong man god i kind of scared me a bit sometimes the graphics for the doors when they're down this might just be my laptop for new comers to my channel i have a very old laptop it might just be that but sometimes it looks like they're not closed all the way like that actually that it's not there at all many months of ultimate custom night and fan games of it i would have button layouts down but nope uh just wouldn't be me okay so i should be good right yes hello plus five power oh my god i didn't even have a look at that oh that's so helpful but that means later nights are going to get so difficult just happy i beat one night why is it going past six why is it going past six so none of these people ducks close in public duct comes with an officer and i'm putting a mask on people appear to be a fredian actual custom night unless there is i don't know you guys can tell me if you know you'll follow him too all right so awesome so i'm just happy about that if i find out later on that there was a character like that s f c u c n


All right you guys so in today's lesson we are going to talk about cleaning a point-and-shoot camera now This is really important because cleaning a camera can extend its lifetime and it can make it Run better and take better photos. So we're going to do this to an old camera that I have laying around I use it for a lot of things and you can see that this video like some of the other ones that we do like This are going to be sped up in certain parts. I recorded the video separate from the audio So here we are looking at the different items that you'll need. I've got some lens cleaning fluid right there And I just showed two cleaning cloths I've got a brush and another brush and then that right there in my hand is Some optical paper that is for cleaning lenses right there. You can see I also held up some q-tips So now we're going to start by rubbing it off with one brush now I have that one the brush that I'm using is sort of more of my body brush I use it for wiping off things that aren't lenses and that don't touch glass really You can see it looks like I'm touching the glass right there, but I'm actually just cleaning the barrel And so I'm going around Kind of scraping out all the little different spots around all the different crevices And now you can see I want to move on to the lens so to do that I've taken out a battery so that it doesn't close while I'm cleaning the lens I've turned it on opened everything up and So now the batteries out I'm gonna lay it on its back here so I can take a look at it now It's a little bit clean usually before I would start with the black brush that you're seeing on the table right there But because the lens is clean, I'm going to start with This glass paper right here this optical paper the q-tip. There's no dust or anything on there It's been recently cleaned at least the lens has been recently cleaned So I take a q-tip and oops it looks like I was not holding on to the paper there very well And just kind of wrap the paper sort of carefully around that q-tip not too tightly kind of leave it a little bit loose and then I'm just going to take one drop of this Optical cleaning fluid and this cleaning fluid sort of acts like a lubricant so that you don't scratch the lens and Helps kind of wash away some of the things that are on the lens. It's not necessarily It's a little bit similar to rubbing alcohol But you don't want ever want to use rubbing alcohol on a lens so here you can see I'm just sort of dabbing Dabbing the lens a little bit. I'm not pushing too hard not pushing really at all Sort of dabbing and here you can see I've got a little some dust has kind of come out from the edges So I pushed that away with the brush and now I'm back to cleaning and so I'm just kind of Carefully rubbing and sort of a circular motion, but not pushing no pressure right there So looks like I've got it just about done so I'm pretty happy with it So I'm now going to take that q-tip which is a little wet and I'm going with some cleaning fluid I'm cleaning off the barrel of the lens So this is getting the dust that was on the barrel of the lens because when the lens goes in and out it catches Some dust and sometimes if you do that enough the dust way it sucked into the lens So I'm cleaning that off now I put the batteries back in and check and everything looks fine So that is good to go Now it's time to brush off the body now, especially the LCD screen on this gets on this camera gets very dirty So I've pulled out my body my body cleaning cloth now There's an old lens cloth that I had from another from a long time ago That's now very dirty and I just use this now for For washing off my cameras so that they are good and clean So here I've put a little bit of lens cleaning fluid on there You can use it for the body too, and I'm just sort of carefully not pushing too hard not scraping or scrub scrubbing I'm just sort of brushing off Carefully, but not with a little light pressure the screen and the body and all the different things All right So now you can see I've pulled out one of the q-tips and put a little bit of fluid on it Now it's time to clean the viewfinder so some cameras are going to have viewfinders and they're classic for catching dust I'm not exactly sure why but cleaned out the viewfinder and then I kind of cleaned around some of the buttons There were some sort of grime this camera gets used for a lot of sort of outdoor adventure stuff and gets a little dirty Inside the battery compartment. It's pretty clean in there But I'm just going to check anyways rub off the contacts And you can also check down in the bottom of it and make sure that there's nothing down there Open that little plastic bit clean that out and now I got some fingerprints on this while I was using the q-tip so I'm cleaning those off right there which takes a second and That's pretty much it the camera is now ready to go and just in a few minutes You have a clean camera. We're going to move on from here to some more technical things in the next unit


Hi, and welcome to another Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement, Evening with Legal Beagles. Tonight we have with us the Chittenden County State's Attorney, who is Sarah George, and she has agreed to do a little community discussion on a recent proposal about eliminating, at least she, would like to eliminate the request for monetary bail. And that she announced that this summer, and it has received some controversial response. So I'm here with Sarah to talk about bail and what it would mean if it was eliminated monetarily. With us also is, and Sarah, as I mentioned, is the Chittenden County State's Attorney for Chittenden County, which is an elected office, correct? But Sarah always has four years in office, right? Rather than just two. And with us also is our Mina Medic, and she can introduce herself, I think, but she works as part of the State's Attorney's Office in the office which deals with sexual assaults, right? And sexual violence, and that she has been with that office for a very long time. And I wanted her here because, maybe to talk a little bit about what she does in that office. But tonight we do have with us, again, Sarah George. And so she would like to lead this discussion about bail, correct? So we have to change places. Okay, hello, everybody. So I think what Sandy had hoped I would do is just start by giving a little background on what cash bail is, how the system works, how it's supposed to work, and how it actually works, which is an important distinction. So first of all, I am Sarah George. I'm the Chittenden County State's Attorney. I've only been the State's Attorney for about four years, and January will be four years, but I have been a prosecutor in the same office, the Chittenden County office, for 10 years. So when I first started, I was the domestic violence investigator, and then the domestic violence prosecutor for three and a half years, and then I took over a general case load, and then again became the State's Attorney, the elected position in January 2017. So I've done a lot of different policies over the years. I guess just as a little bit of a background, I actually got into law wanting to become a public defender. That was my goal. When I got my master's degree, it became incredibly clear to me how unfair and really unjust our criminal legal system is, and I wanted to be a part of fixing it. And as law school went on, I did an internship at a prosecutor's office, and then I also did an internship at the public defender's office, and it became abundantly clear to me that prosecutors are actually the people in the system that can do a lot more good, and that's no offense to public defenders. They do incredible work, but prosecutors have a lot of power and a lot of discretion, and have frankly used that power and discretion to get us into the mass incarceration problem that we're in, and can use the same power and discretion to get us out of it. So I decided to become a prosecutor, and so as State's Attorney, I've been trying to implement as many policies as I can to frankly level the playing field a little bit. We talk about equal justice, and Lady Justice has the scales that are equal, but that's not our reality at all in the system. And one place that even in Vermont, we like to think that we're immune to this, but our system disproportionately impacts people of color, black, brown, and poor people especially, and Vermont is the second in the nation for disproportionate black and brown people in our jails compared to our population. It's pretty devastating when you see the numbers of how many people, or if you ever go to a jail, and you walk around a jail, how many of them are black and brown people. And part of our system that most demonstrates that is our use of cash bail and pretrial detention. And so I think to start, I would say that cash bail is a mechanism that we have and that was put in place in order to guarantee or assure that people show up for court. So the idea behind it when it first came about was that if you think that somebody is a risk of flight, like they're not gonna show up for court, you require them to pay this amount of money and they pay that money and because they've paid that money, they have some reason to show up for court. And that's how it's been used, but unfortunately in reality, how it plays out is that it holds poor people in jail and it lets rich people out and it doesn't actually, there's been a lot of research and data done recently that shows it doesn't actually make any difference about whether somebody will come to court. So the one thing it's supposed to do, it's been proven not to do at all. And what it actually does, again, is really drive our numbers up for pretrial detention, which COVID I think highlighted for a lot of people in this state, how many people were holding that have not been convicted of any crime. And that every single one of them, at least in Chittenden County, when we got our list, every single one of them had a public defender, which means they're poor and none of them had private attorneys because if you have a private attorney, you can afford a private attorney, which means you can afford your bail. On top of that, during COVID, people haven't been required to come to court. So we are holding people in jail on cash bail because we want to assure that they show up for court and yet we're not making people in the community show up for court. So there's this added atrocity, in my opinion, of continuing this use of cash bail. Again, when we got our list, when COVID first hit and we were all trying to get as many people out of jail as we could, the first thing I would say is that I was incredibly grateful that our office has done as much as we have to keep people out of jail because our list was actually lower than a lot of other counties and we have a quarter, closer to a third of the state's population in our county and we had less people being held pretrial. So that was great. It made the work less for us. But even then when we got our list, again, not only were all of them public defenders, but a lot of them were black and brown people, which is just the reality of how cash bail plays out. And so we actually stopped asking for cash bail back in January of this year and slowly just sort of started seeing how it played out. We didn't make a big announcement of it because, frankly, that's usually what gets me in trouble is these big announcements and we just sort of did it. And as you can imagine, not only did the world not end, but well, it's a lot happened since then, but it didn't impact our cases. It didn't impact people showing up for court. It didn't impact public safety. And I think part of the reason it felt important at some point to announce it was because of that, it was because of this conversation and really highlighting for people what cash bail actually does, what it doesn't do, and why I think it's important that this become law because what we've seen in Chittenden County, even yesterday when I was in court, is judges continuing to impose it anyway. And frankly, in some ways, I think in spite of us making this really big, bold statement, I made the statement multiple times that I view cash bail as ransom and that offends some people because there's a lot of people in this state that are continuing to ask for cash bail. And so when you put it in words that are frankly disturbing and upsetting, people take it really personally. And I think our judges have done that a little bit and they're imposing it anyway, which means that then we have to file motions and then we have to really litigate to get these people out of jail. And they even say, when they're imposing the bail, they'll say, I'm holding you on $5,000 bail. And that's the problem, is that their goal is to hold the person. It's not to get the person back into their community where they have routes and ties and services. It's to hold them because they don't like the behavior, but that's not what cash bail has ever been for. I also think it's really important to point out a distinction when people think, when they hear that we're no longer asking for cash bail, they think that means that all of these dangerous people are back in the community and that we're not addressing public safety or we're putting people at risk. There is an entirely separate statute called a hold without bail statute. And that statute is made for violent felonies where we think there's a risk of public safety. We still do that. We are still limiting the amount of times we do that, one just because we don't want more people in jail, but also because we're not having trials right now. And so it's really important for us that we're not just putting people in jail on this idea that they'll have a trial within 60 days, which you're entitled to under the hold without bail statute. But also we just wanna be very mindful of who we're putting in jail right now. But we are still using that. And I just think it's an important distinction that bail has nothing to do with public safety, not just my opinion on that. The statute does not allow you to take public safety into account when you're setting bail. The only thing you can take into account is flight risk. Is this person going to flee the state? Is this person not gonna show up for prosecution? Which is actually one a really hard thing to prove because often people will travel very far to answer to their charges they think they want to. But it also, again, hasn't been proven that cash bail will do that any better. So I just, I wanna make sure that that's really clear for a lot of people. I think the only other thing I would point out is the really scary truth that when people are held on bail, they are far more likely, and there's a lot of data and research to prove this, they are far more likely to plead guilty to things that they're not guilty of because they wanna get out of jail. Where if they were in the community while their charge was pending, they would actually litigate it. And far more often than not, probably win. Or at least get a far better deal once the parties sort of understood the faults in their case, for lack of a better word. So I know a man now who has had, he had a very, very long record, a lot of charges. And he came into my office to talk about expunging a lot of his old criminal record because now he owns a business and he's doing really well. And when I went through, he was in the system at 11 and was in a correctional facility, the day turned 18. And when I started looking at all of his old convictions, I realized that he was pleading out on the day he was arraigned because he knew he was gonna be held. And he knew that if he just pled to the charge as soon as possible, he'd have a better chance of getting DOC to release him sooner. And he was saying to me that, I actually didn't do that, my buddy did that one, or maybe I did, but that one was self-defense. Like he had all of these claims to these cases and some of them he was like, yeah, I did that. But even if he had admitted that he did it, he never would have got the sentence today that he had gotten back then because the prosecutors know in that moment they know they have the upper hand. And as much as I hate to admit it, that's taken advantage of a lot and especially when people are in jail. We say that like, I know that I have said it before when I was doing domestic cases, when somebody might be in jail. And I would say, well, maybe they'll be more likely to plead this case quicker. And I didn't mean it as a like, plead to something they're not guilty of. I meant like, maybe for the victim's sake, this case will resolve sooner. But the other side to that is that people will plead to things sooner, despite maybe having a valid defense. So cash bail just makes that even worse. So that's my pitch. We do not ask for it in Chittenden County, but again, it is still happening. Judges are still imposing it. And because it is not statutory, it's not happening in other jurisdictions. And again, even if other state's attorneys decided not to, it would still allow for judges to impose it. So I think it's really important that this become a legislative fix. I wanted to ask you a question. When I was in the legislature, there was a proposal to change the laws around bail. And it was clear to me at that point for the very first time that people didn't realize that pre a plead of guilty, or pre trial and resulting in a conviction that the reason for bail at all is that people prior to trial are innocent. So that people who are presumed innocent still should not be in jail at all. So that's the reason for the question of bail, because the question then becomes should these people be held in jail prior to any guilty plea, right? That's the reason they're presumed innocent. So why then would you lock up a person who's presumed innocent? Right, and even more importantly, if that person presumed innocent has access to money, they never spend an hour in jail and could be in Mexico by tomorrow with absolutely no attachment to the money that they gave up because they have plenty more and won't care about coming to court where that same person or that same charge or maybe a much less serious charge being held on a lot less money, will sit in jail for months while their case is pending. And again, I think it's important to sort of lift up this idea that we are even more so now. People are being held in a jail that they cannot socially distance in, that they are not being given all of the proper PPE or anything else that they might need and we're not having court. So their cases are prolonged even further and longer while they are presumed innocent. Right, I have a question, Sarah. Who is responsible for paying the court when defendants go to jail for lack of bail? Yeah, and so this is a great question. I mean, I don't know if everybody heard it at home, but yeah, so the question is who's paying for people while they sit in jail and I think it's sort of ironic in some ways that all of these people are being held in jail because they can't pay a sort of arbitrary amount of money. And again, a lot of it is $5,000 or less, which means they need $500 or less to have a bail bondsman bail them out and they can't meet that. So that's the sort of imagine not being able to come up with $500 for your freedom. So while they're sitting in jail and their inability to collect $500, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars to keep them there. So in the United States every single day, we spend $40 million every single day in the United States to hold people pretrial that have not been convicted of any crimes. In a year, we spend $140 billion to hold people that have not been convicted of any crimes in our jails. Young people, a lot of young people, all poor people, a lot of people with mental health issues, a lot of people with addiction issues or substance use disorder and a lot of black and brown people. The question is, can you repeat the question because we can't hear it. But I don't know if that might have been the last one. I'll just leave it up. The question before that, I think I sort of answered or said what the question was. Barry? Back to the question, once the question is, does the whole idea of bail bondsman defeat the purpose because the person puts up 10% and says, I'm not gonna get back. So how do they have any more incentive other than to fear that the bail bondsman is gonna track them down when they go to Mexico? Right, yeah. So bail bondsman's require a 10% down payment that is non-refundable and then they cover the rest of the bail and if you don't show it for court then they come after you for that remaining portion. And you're absolutely right. So the question is sort of how does that give any incentive and the theory is that the incentive is you don't want this bail bondsman coming after you for this money. I think a lot more bail bondsmans are now doing like civil forfeitures for people, like they'll go after your car or they'll go after your home. Although a lot of people that are in these positions don't own those types of properties and so there really isn't a lot and that again goes to the evidence and data has shown doesn't actually increase one's ability or likelihood to show up for court. Yeah. How does conditions of release play into the public safety concerns or address it? Yeah. So the question is how do conditions of release play into the public safety concerns? Maybe you should explain, first of all, most people don't even have a clue how the court works. Yeah. Even in arraignment, they don't know, so. Yep. You could explain conditions of release. Yeah. So when somebody is charged with a crime, our office gets that paperwork from the police department and we look through it and just determine what we're going to charge, if anything, and whether or not we're gonna divert it to a restorative justice program or a diversion or drug court or whether we're actually gonna charge the case and go through our normal process. If we do that, then we also fill out this conditions of release form, which means these are the conditions that we think this offender should have to agree to in order to be released. It's somewhat of a, everybody is getting released, so it's probably not a great use of the term. But anyway, and some of them are only, you need to come to court when you're told to or you need to tell the court when you change your address, those types of things. But some of them, we do use on more serious cases if there's a domestic violence allegation, then we might say you cannot have contact with this particular person or you must stay 300 feet away from this person or their residence or their place of employment. We might give them a curfew. You have an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew where you have to be at a court-approved residence. They can be very restrictive. The law requires that they're the least restrictive while still serving public safety purposes. So we have to be mindful of that and be careful that we're not just asking for a lot of conditions because frankly that sets a lot of people up to fail. And then we've just got new violation of conditions charges and that doesn't do anybody any good. But that's an important factor for us, especially if we're not asking for bail, to make sure that we have the conditions in place we need to ensure public safety while also making sure that we're not setting offenders up for further charges. So if somebody is found with a felony amount of heroin on them and admit to the police that they use heroin and that they need help, back in the day we used to then ask for a conditional release that you not possess heroin.  We know that person is struggling with addiction. To say overnight, okay you just got found with this so now we're gonna make sure that if you possess it anymore it's another charge. When really if they possess it again, it's just another possession of heroin charge. They don't also need a violation of conditions of release charge. So we try to be really cognizant that we're not setting people up but we're also making sure that we can do what we can to help them in the meantime which is also complicated by COVID when we don't have all the services available that we typically would for those people. Yeah. What are the steps to making your position on their law? Yeah, so the question is what are the steps to making to eliminating cash bail legally or by law? So it would be like any other loss. So I think it was two legislative sessions ago. They did some bail reform and that limited the number of cases we could ask for bail in but not by much. It was really, it limited really low level offenses that I didn't know people were asking for bail on. So it really didn't impact our office at all because we just weren't doing that but it was sort of a, from my perspective, it started out as this big bail reform legislation and it just got watered down like most things do. Ironically, this is actually a very easy one because in my opinion just needs to be the elimination of it and the policy is one sentence. It's actually the easiest policy I've ever written. So you would just, you know, we'd have either the House or the Senate would need to introduce a bill that just flat out said, you know, the elimination of cash bail that prosecutors, judges cannot, prosecutors can't request it, judges can't impose it and it would need to pass the House and the Senate and then it would become law. Just. Yeah, that's it. That's all we have to do. But yeah, it's simple in its steps. Yeah, in reality, I think there's just a lot of misunderstanding about what cash bail is for.  I can't believe you didn't hold them on bail and like you don't hold people on bail. That's the point. The point is to get out. It's just that we get this money and we don't get it. So another important, like we don't get that money. The court gets that money and the bail bondsman gets that money. We don't get that money. So there's a lot of misinformation. It would take a lot of educating, even the legislators I think and people that will use a lot of fear tactics and a lot of fear mongering to get people to think this is gonna make us less safe. That's the hard part, you know. Yeah. Go ahead. Is there any national context with that that's just happening here? Or is this kind of a move on a foot? Yeah, good question. So the question is, is this a national conversation or is this just happening here? So again, when I first became state's attorney, there was a lot of national conversation around bail reform, which happened in a lot of jurisdictions. Rachel Rollins and Boston are remember making like a lot of really big waves around bail reform and Larry Crasner in Philadelphia, Kim Fox in Chicago. There was conversations there in all of those places where they really significant, they got elected on those really bold policies and then they really limited the amount of cases that their prosecutors could ask for bail in. Basically misdemeanors, low level or nonviolent misdemeanors. The actual idea of eliminating cash bail, I had never really heard before last summer when Chesa Boudin in San Francisco was running for state's attorney, as a district attorney as a public defender whose parents are in cart or his mother isn't anymore. Both of his parents were incarcerated his entire life and his father still is in New York. And Tiffany Caban and she was running for Queens district attorney at the time and they were talking about the elimination of cash bail. And talking about misinformation and I was like, whoa. And I mean, I am a very progressive prosecutor and reform minded and I was like, that's a lot. And then Tiffany didn't win her race, but Chesa did. And in January, he implemented the policy in San Francisco. So he was the first district attorney in the country to eliminate cash bail, which is when I started, when he was announcing it, I really delved into it. Like I basically was like, if San Francisco can do this, we can do this. And that's when I really did a ton of research on it. I talked to Chesa a lot about his policy and that's when I told staff that we were gonna start to do it. So I'm the second in the country to do it. There are however, at least five district attorneys who won their primaries this year around the country and will take office in January that have promised to do it as well. And they're in pretty big jurisdiction. So, and two of them are in Texas. Yeah. So it's coming.  And, you know, I think that it's coming. I think Vermont would be a leader in it if we did it this legislative session, this one coming up. But before long, you know, like most things, people will realize that the world doesn't end. And in fact, we save a ton of money by doing this and we're no less safe. Did you have a question? You're saying one. Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought it had been passed in other states. No, I think, and, you know, New York last year or two years ago, like also did a lot of bail reform that is already like being pedaled back in their legislature. And there's like this really big battle because then basically the New York police unions just they have a lot of money and a lot of influence. Well, I think quite it. Because even police don't fully understand what cash bills actually for. They want it to be used to hold people. And I mean, and we have done that. I mean, it's, we have done that as an office. We've done that as a state where we get calls from these people that are just continuing to pick up charges. They're expending a ton of resources but they're low level cases and the police just get really tired and fed up and they want them in jail and the only way to keep them in jail is to set bail. And that has become a very common practice around the state, around the country. It's very misunderstood and it's very abused. Well, there's no presumption. There's no understanding that people who are in jail are pretrials yet. There's no understanding of that. How many people have even thought of that, right? That pretrial, they're not guilty of anything at that point, right? So they're innocent. But yet they're in jail and they're still presumed to be innocent. So that's where that, but... And a lot of times are offered that if they plead, they will get out of jail. So, you know, that's, so we think that they're dangerous to the community and need to be in jail before they're left guilty. But if they plead guilty, somehow they're no longer a risk to the community and that's just not, it's not true and it's unethical and it's unconstitutional. And the only way I think to really, you know, we, every county in Vermont, there's 14 counties and everyone has their own state's attorney and we all view things very differently. And the unfortunate reality to that is that justice has, you know, there's 14 levels of justice in Vermont and that's really unfortunate that if you pick up a charge in one place, if you pick up a charge here, you will not be held pre-trial on bail unless a judge does it over our objection, but then hopefully it will be quick and we can get you out.  That's, oh yeah. And then I think maybe Ellen had a question as well. What are the arguments for having cash bail? It's so, it's so obviously disadvantageous, poor people, it's blatant and no one questioned it before. Hi, Ellen, you may want to mute your mic. It looks like she did. Hi, Ellen. You know each other? Ellen, yeah, absolutely. I haven't seen her for a long time. What are the arguments for having cash bail? I mean, I think that is the question. And I think, you know, going back to passing legislation, that's the question because what I have found as a quote unquote progressive prosecutor is that I, when I make decisions or when I implement new policies, there's this demand that I show evidence and data and support or evidence and data that supports that policy. And yet nobody ever demands the same for a system that doesn't work and policies that have no evidence or data to support them. So, you know, when I talk about ending cash bail, my question back is always show me how it works. Show me the data or evidence or research that says people are more likely to show up if they give me this or the court, this arbitrary amount of money because it doesn't exist. I've checked, I promise you, I have checked and there is no evidence to support it. All it does is keep poor people in jail. Rich people get out and are just as much of a public safety risk if they are a public safety risk and poor people sit. So, you know, what are the arguments for having it? People will say, they will continue to say, regardless of the research that it's the only way to guarantee people will show up for court. They will often, as many do when they think that a reform is somehow contrary to victims' rights, they will say that victims will be in more danger or that people won't show up for court and so victims won't get their day in court. But none of that is based in any evidence at all. So, would you, I think there was another question, Ari. Would you say why you think then that there are so many disproportionately people of color in jail in Vermont, even though it's one of the whitest states in the union? Why do I think it? I mean, I think we just are not, we over police black and brown people and we overcharge them and we over prosecute them and we over incarcerate them. And I- Or sentence to? Yeah, yeah. And I don't, the why, why does anybody? I mean, that's just, it's clearly, I think that Vermonters still have this play into the racism involved in an out-of-state New York plate driving up the interstate in a nice car must be a drug dealer from Brooklyn. I mean, it's, as much as we would really love to say that that's not happening, the data shows it is. And then we get that person and I think some of this goes back to cash bail. We get that person and they have a New York plate and so we quickly will say, well, they're not gonna show up for court. It's like, Brooklyn's like five hours away. Like it's not, it's actually a really easy drive. They might, we don't have any reason to think they won't. But we'll impose that cash bail really quickly to make sure they do. And then we think, well, they live in New York and so we don't have, why would we put them on probation or why would we do community partnerships when they don't live here? So we're gonna put them in jail and our sentence is gonna be a jail sentence. You know, I think it just, at every step, we come up with some justification for it and then that gets really easy to do. And it's a lot harder to like really figure out the why, the real why. Also, in this community, there are many black and brown people who are also poor. So, I guess that's why. That's why they're pre-trial in jail. Yep, and I mean, this is like a whole nother conversation but that then means our juries are mostly white. And so. Is that still the case? Yeah, and I, you know, I've wondered a lot of, you know, last summer I was a trial on a Stephen Burke going case and so we had like 400 juror questionnaires that got sent out to the community and that we were, you know, going through and then we had 250 over a few days coming in and out of the courtroom to pick our jury. And there was a handful of black and brown people of all of those. And so then I started, after the trial, I started delving into like, well, how do we get these people? And it's, you know, car registrations and home ownerships. Potential jurors, right. Right, potential jurors. Car ownerships and home ownerships and voter registration, which are all things that poor communities and communities of color don't always have. It's just, you know, we're constantly feeding into the problems that create the disproportionate impacts. But is it also true that we are creating more poverty if we are posting, if we are giving bail to defendants that we're creating more poverty by putting their families through that? Yeah, not even just more poverty.  They could lose their job. They could lose their housing. Their partner might lose their housing or their financial assets, their community resources, their roots in any particular community. And then you're creating an additional stress for the people that are left behind to come up with this money or to not come up with the money. And then the additional guilt that goes with that of your loved one sitting in jail, well, your home, and that all makes us less safe. That all makes us less safe because that person's life is disrupted. All of these bad things happen. And then like I was saying before, they either post the bail and they're right back out but don't have a job or don't have, you might not have their housing left or they have to then fight to get their kids back or all of these things that we for three months, six months thought was really important that they sit in jail and they lost all these things. And it's just a terrible, terrible system. And it makes everybody less safe. Is there anybody that's on Zoom that wants to ask a question? If you do, you can just unmute yourself and ask. Can you hear me? You might want to work on it. If anybody has a question that they didn't put in the chat but are on Zoom and want to just unmute yourself and ask a question, please not. Anyone from the unmute? Just going back to the theme of how to change the laws and how to change the system. Do you have any ideas to what public opinion is or isn't about cash bail or about changing the cash bail system whether people tend to support that change or not? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that when I announced it. Do you want to repeat? Oh, so the question is, do I have any sort of inclination about what the reaction might be about eliminating cash bail? And I'll say that when I announced it, there was an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, letters, emails, calls about it. And the only negative feedback that I got was like trolls on Twitter, the trolls on Twitter that like don't like anything I do ever. And I really did and even frankly from law enforcement because one, we started it in January. So they, although I didn't announce it, a lot of them knew clearly and they're getting used to a lot of this stuff but they also knew that what we were doing was not what bail was for. And so it's not, they know that we were doing it wrong, that everybody's doing it wrong. You know, the federal system hasn't used bail in, I think it was like 1993 or something that they eliminated cash bail federally. Washington, DC, they eliminated cash bail. They only have, they don't have like, they only have an attorney general, they don't have a state system, but so there really wasn't any negative feedback there was definitely some victims or some people that wondered how that might impact their cases. A couple of our homicide cases that people were being held on really high cash bail, but that was by agreement. They actually should have been held without bail but the attorneys asked us to agree to a high cash bail that they agreed they wouldn't post. So there's a long story behind that. But so some of them sort of panicked hearing, just on the media that like everybody with cash bail is getting out, which of course wasn't true, but yeah, I think that the original, there will be pushback as there always is, but if people really look at the research behind it, they shouldn't, but I'm sure they will. Well, how do you answer? Somebody will. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sure that, I mean, it's been changing for weeks, but was there any interest in any from any legislature, like just like torques about writing legislation? Yeah, yes, definitely. Yeah, so the question is whether there has already been any interest from legislators about writing the legislation. And the answer is yes, several have reached out wanting to talk about how to word it, which again, it's like, it's probably the easiest bill that a legislator could introduce. But I'm excited, I think that there's a lot of interest in it in the legislature. And my hope is that the attorney general will also help push it through. Barry? I'll have to add to my good ear. So I think I heard you say that there are times when you don't ask for bail, but the judge on the judge's own initiative will impose it. In those cases, do they make adequate findings of fact? So the question is, when a judge imposes bail over our objection? Do they make a, what did you, what was your word? I mean, a finding, right, findings of fact. So as some background, there is a lot of, there is a statutory, there are statutory factors that judges have to consider before setting bail. And they all relate to risk of flight. And again, none of them relate to their criminal history or how old they are or anything like that. It's about like, do they have ties to the community? Those types of things. So yesterday, when I was in court, there was an individual who was being, who had been held overnight and we were doing his arraignment. And the judge, as usual, asked if we were, if we wanted the $50,000 bail that had been imposed overnight to stay in place on him. And I said, no, your honor, you know, the state does not wish to keep the cash bail in place, nor does the state think that there is any justification for cash bail to have been imposed to begin with.  And I made a point to say the last one was in 2003 and that he had not had any failures to appear since then. And then he made a point to talk about how this guy had just gotten released from jail, which doesn't matter. And then he imposed the $50,000, and again said, I'm gonna hold you on $50,000 bail. And I think every condition or release that there was. And on the case we had right after that, he tried to impose a responsible adult condition, which again, there's statutory cases that that can be done on. It's incredibly rare because that's a really big responsibility for somebody. And we had to point out for the judge that it's actually illegal to set a responsible adult condition on this type of charge. So the answer is no, they do not. I can think of one judge that does a really good job at making sure that if she did impose cash bail, that there, it was clear why, but she isn't in our court anymore and none of the others do. Any other questions? I do have a question. So how do you answer the question then about public safety? There is, I believe in the community, the perception that if you're letting people go, that it's a huge risk to public safety, but are there any other ways that a person who is a risk can be held? Yeah, so again, it's important to remember that that same person that's a public safety risk, if they have the money, will be out in hours if they ever go in. They may be able to post $100,000 bail that day, never go to jail and kill somebody the second that they leave. Cash bail doesn't make any difference with whether or not it mitigates your public safety risk, except for the fact that it likely will keep you in jail, which again, I think actually makes us less safe. But yeah, the other mechanism is the hold it out bail. We can only do that though on violent felonies, as it should be, when the evidence of guilt is great. And in those cases within seven days, we actually have to present evidence. We have an evidentiary hearing where we have to present evidence to show that the evidence of guilt is great. So there's a check on us very quickly, a check by us, I mean on the state, very quickly to know whether this is a baloney case that you're just gonna try to hold this person without bail for months on end. Within a week, we know how strong our case is. And what's the, isn't there a standard for that? As I recall it, clearing, convincing or something? I mean, I think it's the same as a 12D, so it's like the light and favor, light and most favorable to the state, it would be more likely than not. Yeah, I mean it's- More likely than not that that person would be a risk to public safety. And that they committed the crime. And then they released that there's no conditions that would ensure the public safety. It's a high burden, but it should be. It should be. I mean you're taking away somebody's freedom before they've been convicted of a crime. That should be a really high burden. And the irony is that the evidence and research and data is really strong that people who commit violent offenses are actually much less likely to recidivate. People who commit low level, nonviolent offenses recidivate at much higher rates. Low level. Nonviolent. Nonviolent, yeah. Retail thefts and possessions and unlawful trespasses, those types of charges are actually much more likely for people to continue to pick up where people that commit violent offenses are much less likely to commit another violent offense. Really? Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Any other questions? What? I know, Ramina needs to speak. Well, do you want to read that statement at the end? Go ahead. Leah. The way you empathize with people suffering under this system is moving and appreciated. Thank you, Leah. Who's that? Leah Turhoun. Any other final thoughts? Perfect. I understand there may not be any evidence as far as cash bail, the effect of the debt. People seem to think or say that, you know, if you let these guys out, the world will end, they'll be offended or something. Well, there may not be any evidence about that. We have cases as I recall from California. The judge ordered it. I think like $30,000 in it. And they made the same argument. The world's going to end.   And guess what? The crime law did go on with recidivism. So we do have evidence. And these people that were released, the distinction for them is they were convicted. So the presumption of innocence wasn't even part of it. And yet they were like that. And the world didn't end. Yeah, so are you talking about the recent release during the moment? No, this was a release that started maybe five years ago. Yeah, it's no California. It was based on over time. But the result was, I mean, the issue was the same. If you let these people out, the crime rate will go up. People will be fine. And if you were in California, you could let 30,000 more people go. Who are already guilty under the law, what about clean and carried child? And it didn't go up a percentage, but I think that was huge. As the presumption of innocence to that. It should be even higher. And it's upsetting that if the politicians or if the judges and it was their family that were part of the system, they would benefit because their family's generally a woman. But I think we do have evidence that we cannot put people in jail. And it's society doesn't end. Yeah. So the conversation is just the statement really more than a question. But it's that a lot of states, but California within the last five years has done a lot to eliminate or to minimize their prison population and have let out, I think, now with COVID, closer to 50,000 people from their jails and their crime rates have not gone up at all. And those are individuals in most cases. I think since COVID, it's more pre-trial. But at the time, the 30,000 that they had released were all convicted. And it was letting them out before their sentences had expired and it still didn't go up. So I think you're absolutely right. I think that there is this. And it's part of our national narrative. And so it's not super surprising that even Vermont has kind of got wrapped up in that a little bit. There is a narrative that people feel better about somehow, even though I would love to think people would feel better about knowing they're not any less safe. But for some reason, people get caught up in the idea that if these people get out of jail and return to their homes and their loving families and their support systems and services that they might need, that actually makes all of us more safe and it saves us so much money. We spend so much money, even in Vermont, on incarcerating people. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and sending them out of state to get COVID. And I just think that there's, this isn't totally on topic, but I just think it's important to really recognize that, maybe to Leah's statement that made me think of this, is that hurt people hurt people. And there is a lot of hurt in our jails. A lot of the people that commit violent offenses have been victims and survivors of violence themselves. And we throw a lot of weight behind victims of survivors when they're the victim or survivor and then we throw them away when they then commit an act of violence. And it's really appalling and I don't really know how we got there, but we really have to start doing it differently because the way that we respond to violent crime, I think is really appalling. We have a lot of work to do. And when I see some of the sentences that people got, back in the 80s, 90s, that they would never get today, that we would never do that today. And those people are sitting in our jails right now. And I have very little ability to do anything about it. So occasionally we're lucky, but not always. You're talking about lessening people's sentences? Yeah. Why do you have no power over that? No, so there's a separation of the once somebody is convicted, they are in the Department of Corrections hands, which is the governor's, that's an executive. It's out of sort of the judiciary, the judicial branch and it's into the executive branch. So the only way to truly re-sentence people is either to get really creative on some things, but if you really wanna do it by the book, it has to be a pardon or it really needs to go through the governor. And that's political, frankly. And that's part of the problem is it becomes political and not based on, would this person have gotten 35 years now? We think about Stephen Burgoyne from last summer. He got Stephen Burgoyne was found guilty of five counts of homicide. Was he the one that was traveling? Driving the wrong way on the interstate and hit a car head on that had five teenagers inside. They all died. We tried him last year and he got found guilty of five counts of homicide and he was given 30 years, 30 to life, which I am not complaining about that sentence. I think that's a lot of time for a very young man. But then we have cases of people that did burglaries in the 80s and got 50. They're still in jail. It's or had like a ton, you know, a lot of drugs or like that convicted of drug trafficking when really like they had a trunk full of drugs and they're still in jail. Like, you know, that to me is something we have, like it's just keeps me awake at night. It does, we have a lot of work to do. No, I mean, this actually just came up recently. Actually, this is something I've been working on a lot since I've been stated for me of trying to find some ways to get some people out of jail by resentencing them, but COVID again, like has really sparked this new conversation because when we were really looking at all the people that were serving jail in our communities and started realizing like that person shouldn't still be in jail. That was never our intent that they would serve all of that time. Why are they still in jail? They're in on a technical violation or they're in because they don't have adequate housing that we started talking about it a little more and we tried to pass legislation that would allow us to resentence it and unfortunately a lot of my counterparts in the state did not, they argued against it pretty adamantly. And again, use this idea that victims should know when this sentence happens, that it should be closure, they shouldn't have to worry that down the road a state's attorney might change the sentence and again, I just think that that's not the reality of it and we as state employees and as elected officials, I work for a victim of a crime the same way I work for an offender of a crime. I am an elected official to both and if something was done that is unjust that would not happen today, I believe it is my responsibility as a prosecutor to change it and also I would just say that most victims are okay with that. I think that it's really unfair to play into this narrative that victims just want people to stay in jail the rest of their lives. When you actually talk to them, I had one case that I was trying to resentence that I called the victim 28 years later and she couldn't believe the person was still in jail, could not believe it and was devastated. I feel like her, I was worried that I was gonna re-traumatize her by just bringing up the case. She was traumatized knowing that this person had been in jail this whole time and she had expected that he would have been let out years ago so I just think that it's, that narrative is wrong, it's false and even if it was true, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing the work it's about educating and making safety plans if they feel like they're unsafe rather than just throwing people away in order to avoid really hard conversations. I think that brings up an interesting thing about the role of a prosecutor and I guess most people think that prosecutors are hard-nosed advocates basically for the state but I always know that prosecutors represent the people, all of the people which really means the defendant as well, that the prosecutor has to consider the offender as well and be fair. That's the role of a prosecutor, that's their ethical role is to be fair to every single person including the person who's committed to crime. Yeah and especially because the person that commits the crime in 98% of the cases in Vermont at some point is going to be backing our community and so it's incredibly important that you make sure that person is returning to the community better than when you took them out of it and jail doesn't do that for one, jail does not make you a better community member, it isolates you, it makes people worse and so it's almost in some ways more important that we focus on making sure that the offender is healthy and we talk about correctional facilities, it's like they don't correct. The last thing I wanted to, I think we're almost out of time but I did want to mention something else about Vermont and that is that people in jail can vote. We are one of only two states that allow people who are incarcerated to vote and the other one is guess which one? Maine. Maine, Vermont and Maine. The only two that allow a person who's incarcerated and so I had a young man living in my house who is now in jail but his address is my house and I registered him to vote and he got his ballot. I'm gonna send it up to jail but people in jail can vote here. That was very controversial recently I think when they were picking maybe the candidates for the two parties, I think it became a lot of I guess conservatives is what we call them got really annoyed because Bernie Sanders was saying that people who are in jail have the right to vote and boy he got a lot of laugh about that. Yeah and even Senator Warren didn't think that. No Senator Warren, yeah because Bernie had to. The question came up, should the Boston bomber be allowed to vote?  Yeah and I think that if more states allowed people who are incarcerated to vote, the politicians making some of these decisions might think differently about the people that are incarcerated and might care a little bit more about their well-being. What does the Department of Corrections do to help people in prison vote? So what's their obligation? Their obligation is that they make sure they know that they can. I've heard different stories from different people who are incarcerated about what level they really go to for that. DOC says that they make everybody very aware and that they make sure that they have every opportunity to do so. The problem with the process in general and this is something I really would like to focus on for the next election is those pretrial people aren't gonna get that same opportunity because they may not know whether they're gonna be in jail two days down the road. So getting an absentee ballot or something isn't quite as easy for them. I think what I've heard from some people that really complicates it is our incarcerated population that's out of state which is unfortunately way too many people. Those people have very little ability. And again, I think Department of Corrections says that they make sure that those other jails are telling them and so they can get their absentee ballot but I don't have a lot of faith that that is happening. But with the people that we have here, if they're registered and their address is the jail, but even that like the jail, they get transferred between one jail to another with very little notice all the time. So in practice, I don't know how well it works but I think I'll find out. I'm gonna try to find out. I actually was working on a project with Kathy Fox at UVM about on that exact thing pre COVID our goal was really to like get into the jails and like register people and make sure that they could and that they understood their rights and then we're just not allowed in the jails right now. So we couldn't do that. But it wouldn't have to be you or the state's attorney's office. I think you could just get a volunteer if once you could get in the jail in the first place which you can't right now as Sarah said, but yeah. No, yeah, that definitely could be anybody. It was just something I wanted to do. Right, very good. The right to vote if you're incarcerated, I think entails also the right to unlimited access to information about issues and the candidates. And that ain't happening. No, for sure. Yeah, and you know that argument I remember being made actually I think it was probably around the presidential conversation around it where people were like, well that just means that certain politicians are gonna go in there and brainwash all of these incarcerated people. And well, and you know I said, what's the difference? Yeah, why would they do it to us? That's what happens to me every day. Like when I turn on the TV and the politician with the most money is talking at me and telling me what to think. So I think that the, you know, I totally agree with you. I think that that's a problem for all of us is finding a really good amount and reformation of candidates. Especially people who English is not their first language. People in more marginalized communities in general. That's an issue. And so why, you know, it's not surprising that our incarcerated folks would. Well, Mississippi television is probably not covering Vermont election issues very well. No, I'm sure they're not. I'm sure they're not. So what else have a question? Any final questions? All right, well thank you very much, Sarah. No, Armina. Armina. Armina's amazing. She's amazing. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is also my first in-person anything since March, so. What do you think? Wow. That's great. It's better than June. I miss people. I miss people. We all do. That's why we're doing it this way. Yeah, I think it's great. And I appreciate the spacing and the practice when it, you did for it. These guys did. So we do want to thank the Association of African Pacific in Vermont and Jacob, Oprah, and Tato for offering the space and for being co-sponsors even with this series. Thank you, Ellen. Thank you, CCTV, and thank you, CCTV and Megan O'Rourke for being here and the state's attorney's office, who is Sarah George. And the Caroline Fund is also a sponsor of this series and Vicki, which is the Vermont Institute of Community and International Development. Our next session will be next week, the 29th, where we'll be giving a talk from the Attorney General's office on the rights of a criminal defendant when somebody is charged with a crime. What happens? What does that defendant have the right to? Okay, and remember that one of the rights we're discussing tonight is that every defendant has the right to be presumed innocent until they are convicted, which is crucial, I think. It's the big thing. So thank you, everybody, for coming. I mean, thank you for coming from whatever office you're in.  So thank you, everybody, also for coming and seeing you on television. Thank you, John.