We are going to get started, and we're going to start with Brooklyn and Donnie, who she's great. Before we do that, let's go around the room and have folks if they can just tell us. I'm Jerome Likani from Welcome Media. I'm Alex Smart, I'm taking notes for the women's coalition. I'm Mellie Silver, I'm with the necrastic group. Sarah Robinson with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. I'm Carolyn Houston, I'm from the Division of Children and Domestic Affairs. Derek Gomes National Rifle Association. John Walter from the State of Davis. Chris Berry, I'm with the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Sydney Ferrer, I'm from the Spaulding High School. Is it a white woman from the Spaulding High School? Chloe Gerard from the Spaulding High School. David Chair with the Attorney General's Office. Eric Davis-Gone, owners of Vermont. Mike Charling, Department of Health and Safety. Hi, I'm Lauren Davis. Chris Herrick, Deputy Commissioner for the State of Davis. Calvin Cutler with the WCAX. Great. Welcome. Welcome. I hope you'll walk through, but working on one is a great meeting and just have some narrow feedback. So, great. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Representative Ann Donahue. And I wanted to address you on a very narrow subsection of the bill that's of concern to me. So, I will focus you in on it and explain the concerns. It's Section 9 of the bill, and it is where the ability to seek an ex parte, and I'm only focused on the ex parte part, that's part of the subsection, ex parte erpo orders adding family member and household members under ex parte when applied to a risk of self harm. So, just to set the context, it's the sub part of the sub part of the sub part. And I'll spell it out, I hope, a little more clearly. So, you know, some of the issues to me, this is not the same. There have been people have said, well, you know, our current, you can get ex parte orders by family member under our current domestic abuse processes. This isn't the same as that. This is specifically adding the risk of self harm. And what's important is really needing to look at what we have in statute for risk to self harm. The other avenues that we do have that can result in immediate intervention. A person can be immediately brought to a hospital and then there's a neutral doctor who immediately says whether or not taking the person's rights away because they are risked to self harm is permissible. So, there's kind of a neutral role there that's an existing route in statute when there's that kind of a risk and includes that the person has a disorder of thought or perception that impairs their judgment. And therefore, they are a risk of harm to themselves. So, the real question is if those criteria that we have established in statute is when we intervene with a person's rights in that context, if they don't, if they're not in existence, should we be creating a removal of a person's rights? So, just to drill down a little more, I supported ERPO when the bill came through. I support it, I support the thinking behind it. And I support family or household members pursuing an ERPO in court. In the court process, filing the petition or seeking an extension, I support the language that you've added there. You're in front of a neutral fact finder in those contexts. You have somebody who's making a decision based on seeing the opportunity to respond, seeing who the petitioner is and what they're saying. And I don't oppose having an ex parte process when there's a danger of harm to others that family members can access because that is like our current law in terms of domestic abuse. We're balancing that risk to other people in an urgent situation and expanding the access to seek that to the family or household members who are the ones at immediate risk for themselves. But what I don't support is the ex parte ability of a family or household member when the issue is risk of harm to the individual. Because, and they're two really important, because as one of them I mentioned is there is actually an existing mechanism to address that concern. But the other reason is to understand the dynamics where you're involving the degree of risk of family emotion. And easiest way to guess in terms of like, you know, parents worry tremendously about their children and that's a good thing. We want parents to worry about their children, their adult children. But that worry can be really out of context of reality because that's what human emotions are about. And so when there isn't any kind of neutral assessment, you're opening up a possibility there that's really putting things out of context. And I want to give just two little anecdotes. One is about ex parte orders in general because of the situation I observed last summer and how these things can happen. And I know you're aware of this, you deal with the judicial aspects and, you know, we balance the risk of abuse of the process against the risk to others. But this was a situation where a person went to court seeking an ex parte emergency change in terms of child visits and saying that the visitation, the exchange of the child needs to happen in a neutral location because I have a real fear of my personal safety when I'm dropping off or picking up my child for visits. I am really afraid of the escalating risk of violence and the harm to myself.  The last time, in fact, I almost fell down the porch steps trying to back away from this aggressive landlord. And so I have really fears and concerns about my own safety. And so the judge, I think, very appropriately, given the emergency ex parte request relief, the judge actually, what the judge said is this landlord, home share person cannot be present whenever the children are being picked up or dropped off. That's the way to address the safety on the emergency basis. And that all sounds great. What the judge didn't know is that the petitioner in this case was a fairly muscular 40-year-old man and this aggressive landlord that was putting him in fear for his life and safety was me. I was the person. And in fact, it was a little bit of truth in it because I had actually recently confronted him, which he really didn't like because what I said to him is, if one of the kids comes back with a bruise again, putting you on notice, I am going to let DCF know. And so after that confrontation, he went to court saying, I don't want to have to deal with this person anymore. I'm afraid for my life and safety. This is an example of how, as we know, there are ways that the process can be used when there isn't the ability to be seeing who the people are in person. So the other anecdote is on the issue of how family dynamics can play into how parents may want to protect an adult child. This also involves me. So this goes back a number of years after I was still in my recent past recovery from repeated hospitalizations around severe depression. And I lived next door to my parents and I was pretty open with them about things. And one of the things they knew, because I had shared with them this, when I had talked to my doctor about what's the most important things that I need to be doing to protect myself against relapse. And my doctor had said, you need to protect your sleep. That's the most essential thing. Protect your sleep. Got it. I got that. So Christmas comes around. All my siblings are up visiting from out of town. They're all having a good time. It's getting evening. My parents are ready to head to bed. Siblings and I talk about, let's get a movie. Let's rent a movie. You can come over to my cabin next door. We'll see the movie. Great big plan. We'll pick a movie. Everybody's going to come over to my house and see the movie and then go to bed. And then kind of one by one, my siblings, one of them calls me and pops by and says, you know, I'm actually really tired. I'm going to go to bed. I'm not going to stay up for the movie. Kind of one by one and all of a sudden it sort of falls apart. Maybe we don't step to watch a movie. And I only found out later that's because my mom went to each of my siblings and said, this is really critical that Anne's sleep be protected. You can't be a party to keeping her up a couple hours to watch this video. This is critical. We have to protect Anne and, you know, put the squeeze on them enough that they didn't want to challenge that and they all dropped out of the movie. That's how caring, very worried families operate, but it's not necessarily a balanced judgment or, you know, when you get to the point of taking someone's rights away. So that's the basis of my concern that in this narrow sub-piece, we have the avenues already in law to be able to protect a person if they are a danger of harm to themselves and it can happen right away. So we don't need this other avenue that removes any kind of a neutral ability to look neutrally at whether this family concern is really valid and should result in even a temporary removal of rights. Thank you, Anne. A couple quick questions. Can each of you refer me to the area of law where there's already the mechanism? If you have that, and if you don't have it right now, I'll be in the position to do that. I can send it to you more. The definitions of, is 18VSA 7101, but the actual process for transporting a person to a hospital is a slight, I'll send you that section. Okay. The other question is, so you're okay as far as a family member if it's not the temporary exception? Yes. Bringing the petition or asking for an extension, I am completely fine with that because it's a neutral, yeah. Thank you. So Anne, I appreciate your willingness to share your examples. And in that situation, it does sound like people having more information might have been helpful. But I want to share with you a couple of examples of things that I'm aware of happen to constituents or friends. So child is in college, roommates start calling the parents and saying, I'm really worried about Joe. I think he's going to, he's saying he's going to kill himself. In Vermont. In Vermont. Yeah. I'm really worried. I wanted you to know. Okay. So that's one example where it's like, okay, you have multiple people saying, Joe's sleeping all the time and Joe's acting all right. Like, Joe is not at home. Joe is in a dorm.   We have such a high suicide rate in our state and they can be taken immediately to the hospital and assessed immediately as to whether in fact they are a danger to themselves. In both cases, if the person doesn't want to go to the hospital. That's correct. In both cases, if the person doesn't want to go to the hospital, that can happen. That's the statute. Right. Yeah. So law enforcement has to phone in and get a warrant to transport against the person's wishes. And then they have to be assessed by the doctor right away or they can't continue to be held at the emergency room. But there is therefore a neutral assessment that there is actually a danger. Whereas if the family member can immediately just get in order, there isn't any neutral assessment that this is a real danger. Wouldn't the person still go to the hospital to get assessed? In which... If the family member goes to court and asks for... For an ERPO? For the ERPO? For the part that you're saying... What I'm talking about... Right. No, that doesn't require the person to go to the hospital. That's the family member is filing for the ERPO. There's no doctor assessing the person. They're not being sent to the hospital. This is purely... But if they are going to the hospital and they're assessed and they are in danger, they're not going to be admitted. So maybe them not being in the home will sort of trigger some other steps that could end up being helpful. So I guess I'd like to hear what you see as the downside in this particular wording.  Wait, it didn't result in an ERPO. I get it sort of was a temporary state of man. So I think the downside is that a family assessment of a level of urgency is not subjected to any kind of neutral party background. It's already balancing out family members who may be overreacting. That you're removing it from any kind of neutral assessment. Which we've basically never done in law anywhere in terms of a person at risk of harming themselves. There's always some neutral piece. And even under filing the petition, there's a neutral that comes in front of the judge to assess or balance. So it's supposed to be neutral in that case? Yes, they are, but I'm talking only about ex parte. There isn't the neutral. That's the problem with the ex parte. There's no neutral role. It's purely a panicked family member without anybody saying, Wait a minute, maybe you're overreacting. There's no assessment. I'd like to say the 18 VSA records again because I clearly wrote it down at home. It's 18 VSA 1701 is where the definitions are that are defining when it's, That's where you drew actually I think two years ago the danger of harm to self being shown by establishing threatening or attempting suicide. So those are definitions. That's not the section that establishes the process and I can send that to you. It's near there in 18 VSA. And I think I'm hearing you say for the ex parte, You think it still makes sense for family members to be able to file the motion if they're concerned about harm to others, but it's just self harm. That is correct. So I'm trying to think about how we would do that in terms of language. I don't know any thoughts or we can talk to Eric at first. Yeah, I think it would just be a sub part of that and exclusion saying, just like you sub parted and said this has to be during court hours, you'd say, and this doesn't include when it's risk of harm to self. This particular. So we're not going to have a committee discussion or vote or anything. You know, and now we've got lots of testimony and we're going to be. I appreciate you hearing that. Yeah, and I want to make sure that you're able to share. Thank you. And I'm happy for people to chat informally about it. Okay, great. And I will send the citation. Great. Thanks so much. Eric, that's Patrick with the office of legislative council here to talk again about the most recent amendment to 8 6 10 and actually leading to firearms and domestic violence. I'm going to try and see if we can pull the most recent amendment up so we can see it as we do the walkthrough. Proposed amendment. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. They just used it. Oh, there we go. Okay. Is it on though? Because the light doesn't look on the projector. It might have just powered itself off. Yeah. It doesn't. Now it's washing down. No, it should work so far. Too much of a delay from the last one. Thank you. Well, just for purposes of making sure we're on the same page, literally and figuratively. The version we're looking at is draft number 6.1. Folks have had a chance to see either a hard copy or a copy that has been posted. I know it might have posted it last night. There we are. They're coming more apparent there. So again, proposed strike all amendment 8 6 10 again. Similar to what I mentioned last time, you remember that changes between this draft and the previous draft that I'm trying to illustrate by highlights. This time I've used a different color coding for subsequent highlights. The yellow highlights will show the changes that have been made last draft of the draft before that, and changes that have now been proposed to be made. This to the previous draft are in blue. So yellow prior? Absolutely. This time it worked out. Although I noticed, I don't know if anybody else had this issue, it's much easier to see this way. Whereas if you print out a hard copy, it's not really dark. So another advantage of technology, I guess, is visually much easier to understand what the blue highlighted language actually looks like. So in a successive draft, anything that is blue now will be yellow. You mean next time? If there's another one. Haven't gotten that far yet. Interesting question. It would occur to you, I wonder what color might be a little lighter on a hard copy. It's easier to read. It's not that bad. It's not that bad good. Alright. We don't green, red, and purple work. Oh really? Oh thanks. I'll keep that in mind. But maybe, you know, we'll cross after you come to it. So first provision has to do with the default procedure. Remember this issue we've talked about several times in here. This is the provision in federal law with respect to firearms transfers that permits a firearm to be transferred after three days during which period there has not been a response from the NICS system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. So ordinarily the NICS system is contacted and NICS will let the seller know if the proposed purchaser is a prohibited person, falls in one of the prohibited categories. But if within, if not, if they have no answer to that question to the proposed seller during that three day period of time it is permissible for the seller to go ahead and make the sale. So that's what essentially in a nutshell with the federal law is and Vermont firearms transfers piggybacks onto that federal law. So what you have in front of you, you remember some version of this has been in the bill since the beginning. Originally the proposal was that the transfer could not go ahead at all until there was a positive response from NICS that the person was not prohibited. So conceivably that could go on indefinitely, right? Because if the positive response never came back then the transfer couldn't go forward at all. The version that you looked at last time stepped back from the indefinitely proposal and instead proposed that, well, there was no response back within 90 days then the transfer could go forward. And the new proposal you see in front of you reduces that 90-day time period to 30 days. So that would mean that if within, if after 30 days there has been no response from NICS to the proposed seller saying, okay, the person's not prohibited, go ahead, if there has been no response, then the sale can proceed anyway. So in a sense it keeps the concept of a default proceed but the default is after 30 days, not after 3 as the federal proposed. That's just about how it works. And that's a day as a day. Yes, exactly. A day as a day, exactly. Not business days but calendar days. Just to understand the thought process, could either one of you just tell me why 30? Right, well, so I'm going to backtrack and say why 90. The 90 was based on testimony that we heard that after we heard 88 days and we heard 3 months that the FBI just stops. And we heard testimony that still that 90 days 3 months would ever seem like a long time but we also heard that the 3 days, there are cases that haven't come back within those 3 days. So 30 days seemed... So you're trying to sort of thread the needle between the two. Yeah, exactly. And knowing that other states do have time frames in that lead. Also, by leaving it open and it is introduced and it wasn't facially unconstitutional. I don't know if that's the correct term. But it seemed like we could have gone that way as introduced but again, this is just my balance. And is this consistent with states that... And if you don't know this, this is fine. I'm just trying to understand. This is consistent with states that have put a time limit that is not unlimited. Is this sort of a typical... I think New York and California have used 30 days. Other states have used shorter periods. Right. There are some other states that have used 30. Okay, thank you. 10, 30. Did you know about the assuming it's okay? Like, do the other states also assume after 30 days it's okay or do they require positive combination? I think they assume it's okay. They sort of have a default procedure but it's a longer... But it's not like what we need to hear, they're okay. Correct. It's kind of essentially just lengthening the period before the default procedure goes into effect but then the default procedure goes into effect. Right, I think that's a fair way to look at it. It might be for you and Martin or anybody who might be able to answer. Is there any numbers as far as how many more people... I mean, we've heard numbers the three-day which, of course, can be close to a week depending on weekends and that type of thing. So many... It's a large percentage of the people fall within that. 10 days, how many more people would that catch? You're 30 or 90. I mean, we... Say the difference between 10 days and 30 days, I mean, is that percent so small that it's almost insignificant? I mean, just if we wanted to dig a little deeper on the number of days. Yeah, somebody may have some answers on that. Yeah, I don't have any data on that. All right, should we move on to the Relief from These Orders section? Sections, I should say. So now we're changing subjects and this deals with Relief from These Orders, often referred to as RFAs. You may recall that I'm just going to point us to the language here real quickly but this is existing languages to refresh everybody's recollection about how RFAs work. Remember, a person can go into court and seek an order from the court and you'll see line 10 and 11 here in existing law. Actually, really line 9 through 12 is kind of what... to target your attention on. And the court can make any orders that it deems necessary to protect the plaintiff or the children or both if the court finds that the defendant has abused the plaintiff. So there has to be a finding of past abuse, right? Yeah. And that there is a danger referred to abuse or that the defendant has committed one of those listed crimes with the danger of further abuse, excuse me, the most common finding. But so this is what's in existing law. So you have this process set up where a person can go in. If there's been abuse in the past, danger of further abuse, they can get a court to order and there's a long list, you may recall, of which things the court can order. They can order the defendant to stay away from the victim to order about parental child supervision, that sort of thing. There's a long list of different factors that the court can include in this protective order that it would issue. So what the proposal has been in 8.6.10 from the beginning in one way or another is there be a requirement that the order, the RFA, the relief from abuse order, has to include some provisions related to firearms, right? That's the proposal that you've been looking at. And there's several different provisions related to firearms that are proposed to be in this order. And the first one we're looking at there, where you see the highlighted blue and yellow language has to do with relinquishment. And we've been talking about that subject under, should the order be required to include an order that the defendant relinquished firearms? As the language was when it was initially introduced, the answer to that was a very simple yes, the relinquishment was required at all. And these, I should also just a moment, remember this is the final order we're talking about. You kind of touch on this a little bit in a different context when you were talking with Representative Donahue this morning. But there's also an emergency order piece of this which is done ex parte where the plaintiff goes into court by themselves. Right now we're looking at the final order, which is when both parties have an opportunity to be in front of the court and to be represented if they so choose and have that ability. So that's the stage right now. The original language had said that the order at this stage would require relinquishment. Then there was, you'll see in the highlighted yellow language that's now struck over on the top of page five. The next concept was, because remember there had been discussion about whether relinquishment should be mandatory or not. Whether it should be discretionary on the part of the court or whether it should be required in all circumstances. That was the debate that the committee was having. So one alternative that was proposed last time was that, well, okay, relinquishment would be required unless the court makes this written finding by clear and convincing evidence that relinquishment wasn't required to reflect safety. So a different approach is proposed in this version. You see that highlighted in blue. And this is that relinquishment would generally be required if and sort of dependent upon this court finding that you see highlighted in blue, which is if there is evidence that the defendant is in possession or has access to fireworks. So again, this is at the final hearing. So this is a court hearing. You have the judge in there. Ideally both parties, not always both parties, but both parties could be there. And so that's why it's phrased in terms of evidence because you add a formal hearing. That's when the court takes evidence. If there is evidence that the defendant is in possession or has access, then the order would include a requirement that firearms be written questions. So that's the proposal. I have a question about that. So we're not sort of citing an evidentiary standard there. Converance or clear and convincing. And so when it just says if there's evidence, what is the standard of court apply? I think in that case, it's really the way it's phrased is that if there is any evidence. Any evidence? Yeah. That's the way I would read it. Same question. So I have a question about same sentence. Don't most people have access to firearms? Like, isn't that a given? I mean, unless they're on the list already in which case. So I guess I'm just wondering that, like, just undoes. Well, yeah. Oh, sure. That's a legal question. No, it probably isn't, especially if it's like preponderance of the evidence. Sure. There's a gunshot next in the next town. No, it's an interesting question about, you know, how the court would interpret the term access to, right? Interesting question. I can't answer the practical question. How many of you? Why the most people have access to firearms or not? But I suppose it depends how you read the term. Right. Which is, you know, it's an interesting point. They may want to ask the court and other practitioners how they would interpret that language when you are able to have them testify. Does everybody get a sense of that proposal? So no changes to the other pieces that are required to be in this order. You know, there's the, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In the, at least where there's no questions, there's been a couple of questions around the table that I think some clarity, some legal clarity would be helpful with. When someone is, when a relief from abuse order, a final relief from abuse order is issued. Is that, is that person no longer eligible to possess the purchase of firearm? Yes. Yes. For the duration of the order. For the duration of the order. Correct. When the order expires, then the person has the, it's legally permissible for the person to possess. That is, regardless of whether the order specifically mentions firearms or not. Correct. That's federal law. Okay. And also a proposal in the bill. Right. To make it consistent with federal law. But under federal law, if you have a relief from abuse order, that is, a final relief from abuse order that is issued, for the period that that order is enforced, are prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Yes. Okay. Thank you. There was just some confusion around sort of when that kicked in. Thank you. Right. So I can just tell it, and that's why, actually this is one of my suggestions as far as having evidence of possession of firearms. Because before we just had both in the final and in the ex parte order, actually in the final, we just said, you have to relinquish firearms. But in the rationale for that was because it's illegal to possess firearms anyway. But I still felt that we needed to, you know, have a separate order of relinquishment if there were firearms present. I don't know if that made any sense. But somewhat, but I, could I try a different way and see if that works for you? Yeah. That I'm reading this to actually make it a little bit clearer for the person that the order is issued against. Right. It reinforces the fact that a person who has a final order put in place may not know that federal law prohibits them, whereas this would make it abundantly clear that if they possess firearms, they would be in violation. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think the other part is that this component is to ensure that you get firearms out of the situation. Which they have to be anyway. Right. But that doesn't necessarily, I'm sure there are instances where an individual becomes a prohibited person. Like they are incarcerated for a felony. That doesn't mean that the law enforcement is going out and seeking relinquishments, seeking those weapons that the person may or may not have. This in the domestic violence situation, we want to have that action occur. So if there are firearms there, remove them. And the other provision means that you can't now then go to a dealer and purchase firearms. So it's remove the firearms that might be there. The other provision, even though it says possess, is really aimed at making the person a prohibited person for the duration of the order so that they relinquish their weapons. They can't just go and purchase the weapons. Do you know that Eric, if the, and I'm sorry if we've asked this in one of the other drafts, but so does the order then get put into the next system so that if, you know, I have an order issued against me, it does not mention firearms, but now I'm prohibited from, it's for the length of time of a year. So a month from now I go still wall under that order, go to a licensed firearm dealer. Will that show up in the system so that the licensed firearm dealer would be told you cannot proceed? I don't know what the court's process is for passing those down to next. My understanding is they do. I think that I know that Jeff Wallin testified they pass on convictions. And whereas it's, I don't think, correct. So I think it's, I think it's whether the court passes that information. But I'm not a hundred percent sure. There might be others who would know the answer to that question better. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. One more question. I think for Martin, on page four, line 20 and 21, I'm assuming that what you said that was your language. So I guess my question was going back to what Barbara was talking about is what was your intent for the meaning behind access to firearms? That's a good question. I'd like to hear from witnesses on that as well. I think I picked it up from another provision that we had. I took it from the provision that we had for temporary order. And that we have the same or access. And I think we need to hear a little bit more about what that means. I mean, I agree that Barbara's raised this ambiguity and we have to address that self. No, I just didn't know if you had an idea since you had it. I don't think your intent is to be as broad-brush as perhaps she was saying that because you have access through not being a person, that you're thinking of personal access. Like I can personally access at this point. That's the idea. The idea that it's a firearm. I think elsewhere we talk about the language of possesses or controls. And I think the access is maybe a little too fuzzy. I mean, we have to go to controls instead. I think that's definitely one we need to. Because access could be a family member, right? Access would be fairly easy. Just try to understand the intent. Right. So the other provisions that have to be in the final order, you see there haven't been any changes to them between the last track. The most recent one they involve is a Roman numeral two, three and four. Roman numeral two is that if the order includes a requirement to vacate, then the order has to prohibit the defendant from residing as a residence where firearms can be accessed by the defendant. Roman numeral three, it has to be this information. I think that's what you were getting at. There's information that has to be provided to the defendant. They're prohibited from possessing firearms until the expiration of the order. So the order has to contain that statement to the defendant. And lastly, that if the order does require relinquishment, include all available information regarding types and locations of firearms subject to the order. We have some language about forms that hasn't been changed. The complaint and the affidavit have to include specific provisions regarding the defendant's firearms, permitting the plaintiff to state with particularity the types and locations of any firearms in the defendant's possession ownership or control, for that another person does on behalf of the defendant. That brings us to the emergency relief section. This is, again, the ex parte provision that allows the plaintiff to go in and seek this order ex parte without the presence of the defendant. You'll see, again, similar concept here. This is, and I say we're dealing with relinquishment, similar concept in a sensible when is relinquishment going to be ordered. The same topic that the committee has been discussing all along and as well as with respect to final orders. You can see the language is similar concept. It makes sense sort of linguistically that it's a slightly different because at this stage of the game there isn't going to be any evidence presented in a formal court hearing. Remember in the final order it's phrased as if there is evidence that the defendant's possession because there's going to be evidence presented at this hearing. It's a court hearing. Whereas in the ex parte situation it's not necessarily that at all. It's someone seeking an order from the court perhaps not even during court hours. So there isn't going to be evidence referred to here. So instead the language is if the plaintiff's complaint or affidavit which has to be submitted in order to get one of these orders includes information that the defendant is in possession of or has access to firearms. So same idea, some sort of indication, but in this case the indication isn't going to come from evidence because there isn't any formal evidence taken. It's got to come from the plaintiff's complaint or affidavit. And if it includes information that the defendant is in possession of or has access to firearms then relinquishment is required. That's the proposal here. I don't understand the difference. I don't think there's a difference in terms of substance, in terms of that it's just really based on some information that's being provided. I think the only difference is sort of a context in which the information is presented. It's referred to as evidence in the first one because it's presented in an evidentiary context in a court hearing where that's not happening here. So it's just information that's in the complaint or affidavit. So you're just clarifying you don't see any significant change in that. Oh, I see what you mean. Difference between the versions. I understand the difference between indicates and includes. Oh, I agree with you. Yes, just a little bit. Sometimes you forget when the witness is sitting here. Similar provisions that we just went over in the final order are also in the temporary which is again about the vacate premises. If the order includes the requirement to vacate then it prohibits the defendant from residing at the residence where firearms can be accessed. Same language on informing the defendant that prohibited from possessing until the order expires and as well as information about the type and location of the firearms. This is Roman numeral three and four. Roman numeral five. This is connected to the sorry. Yeah, I'm actually I want to back up. Yep. If it's okay to have a discussion on that access because I'm looking at this a little further and remembering a little bit more what my thinking was at that time. The idea of saying access to firearms is really trying to do shorthand for essentially the firearms that would have to be relinquished. If you look at the top of page five it talks about defendant's ownership or possession ownership or control or that another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant. I believe the concept was that access was getting at that in a more shorthand manner that probably in hindsight is not necessarily the best approach and perhaps it actually should say along the lines of if there's evidence that the defendant possesses owns or controls firearms or another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant. I mean it's a little more awkward but I think it nails down what we're after. Should we define access then? Well I'm just suggesting that we just repeat that language instead to make it very clear. Defendant possesses owns or controls or another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant in firearms. So that's what it was trying to get at and it's probably better to be clear and have more language than just try to have access and compass all that. And that also makes it clear that access has somewhat of a different meaning when we're talking about the requirement to vacate. In that situation it's just access. It's just being able to get your hands on a firearm in that other residence. Can you say that again Martin? Well there's another, access is used again in the provision regarding, includes a requirement to vacate. Can we say prohibitive defendant from residing at a residence where firearms can be accessed by the defendant? If we have access in the other place I think we're trying to get at two different meanings of access. So there it just means being able to get your hands on a firearm. So the idea is if there's reinforcement all those firearms that the person possesses owns or controls or somebody else on their behalf possesses owns or controls should be relinquished. If they're not, you know, if they're being vacated from the premises they can't live in other residence where they have access where they can get their hands on that other resident have the firearms at that other residence. And I guess going back to the vacate thing because I had asked a question before and so if somebody vacates the residence are the guns still confiscated? Because they don't have access to them anymore. That's a good question for some of the witnesses. I don't know the answer. So Martin, with your proposed acts does it allow somebody to go to a store by again? No, that's the other provision where they become a prohibited person. But before there, because I was just trying to make sure of the emergency order. No, that's all right. So the person that's not supposed to have a gun if he has to leave his home and he goes to another person's home that person there has to give up his guns? No. The person who is subject to the order is not supposed to go to a residence where that person wouldn't have access to a gun. Resident. Resident. What happens if he has no other place to go? Presumably he should ask wherever he's or she's going to reside to make sure your firearms are locked in the safe so they're not accessible to him. Thank you. So we're moving on to another provision that is proposed to be added to be included in the emergency order. A couple other provisions actually. We were just talking about vacating the residence, that's one piece, but we'll see if you skip down to Romanum Rule 5 there. The order has to also notify the defendant that, and this goes back to you may remember, the issue of essentially it's one served, always served. Remember that concept was it's based on statute from New Hampshire that generally speaking when someone has been served with an emergency order and by served I mean that means a law enforcement officer goes and personally serves the person with the order that says you have to get out of the residence or you have to stay away from this person, whatever it may say. After the law enforcement officer personally serves the emergency one that first time, the language that you have proposed in here is subsequent orders can be served by first class mail. So subsequent orders don't have to be personally served. It can be sent in the mail to the person. So with that as background, this is a related piece to that which says that this first order, the emergency order has to also notify the defendant that after they have been served with a temporary order issued for certain to the section, so that says after they've been served, personally served, right, law enforcement officer came and served on them. After that the defendant shall be required to adhere to the provisions of any subsequent order immediately as the proposed new language here and shall be required to adhere to the provisions of any subsequent order immediately upon issuance of the subsequent order. So in other words, that order is effective when the court issues it, if they've been served personally with the emergency one. If they haven't been served personally with that emergency one, then that doesn't kick in. They still have to be served personally with the final order. Not when they've received it? Not when they've received it, though? You mean when it becomes effective? Correct, that's the proposal. The emergency one's already in effect. Right, the emergency one's already in effect. Yeah. And related to that is the next piece, you see Roman numeral six, the order has to also notify the defendant that subsequent orders may be served by first class mail. So that way they're on, they're aware of the fact, I think the committee was discussing the point that they should be made aware that they should be checking their mail just in case they would receive a subsequent order in the mail rather than it being personally served. And lastly, there's a requirement, also new, Roman numeral seven, inform the defendant that third party storage of firearms is not permitted unless the court has made the findings required by and then cites to Title 20. That's the provision that generally covers storage of firearms that have been taken in custody by the state in connection with relief from those various sort of specific provisions about what the state does with them, how they can be stored, and there's a provision that permits third party storage. In other words, not the state or firearms dealer, but you can have a third party that might be able to take a look at that for a second here. Let's see. Oh, sorry about that. Yeah. I'm not seeing that one here. Mike, is that Lincoln posted by any chance? The one I sent this morning? The, uh... Just to refresh. Did you see it for a second? It's a statute that's referred to just going to point you to the language so you can see what findings the court has to make because that's what's being referred to here. Anyway, there's some findings related in other words. You can't have a third person which would be a friend, a relative, or somebody like that.  Sometimes refreshing it just refreshes the old one. You're on yesterday, you're not on today. Oh, that's the fact or two probably. Thank you. Days of day. That's right. Thank you very much. So, what finding does the court have to make? You'll see. That's in 2A there. The court may order that the person more of the person to a person other than a cooperating law enforcement agency or a dealer unless the court finds that relinquishment will not adequately protect the safety of the victim. So, the court has to... If the court finds that relinquishment to this third person won't protect victim safety, then you can't do it. So this is just kind of roping that in so that there has to be some notice provided to the defendant that you can't store your firearm with a third person unless if doing so wouldn't be provided safety to the victim, which is what's required under Title 20. Do you have other questions? Yeah, a couple of them. And they may be more for Martin or you. The idea of findings in the court, I remember there was a bit of a hang up when Judge Morrison was in here about the court making findings at this stage, at least that's the big recollection that I have of it. Are you referring to that line 20? Yes. This current... No, so it looks like the court finds as the language that's in there is that different than findings? So, the language that you just showed was... unless the court finds, is that different than the court making findings? So, you make a good point there. My concern and we'll have to hear from the judge is whether that provision is appropriate for an ex parte order because there's... when it's an ex parte order, is there going to be an ex parte who's going to store the firearms for the individual? I suppose. I mean, if the if the person, the petitioner has that information or suggests that, but I don't think that information and then we can ask the witness is even on the app of David. There would be a question of whether this is appropriate and this is something you can ask the other witnesses for the ex parte order that's something that belongs more appropriately on the final order. So, I don't know what kind of findings... unless the app of David somehow includes the information that this person is willing to take these firearms when they're relinquished, the court will have no basis to make any findings at the ex parte. Maybe what would be helpful is I can't recall what it is that you're... what are you trying to get at here? What's the intent of having this piece in for you? It is to try to... I mean, it's in... my understanding is it's very seldom that a third party would take and store the firearms, but it is to tie that in as an option for storage, essentially. I mean, it is already in existing law but it is clear to tie this to the whole RFA process. So, because the person can't store with the third party unless the court makes the findings, you're just clarifying by having that language tie into current law by putting it in here. So, essentially this is saying in the ex parte that that's not where the firearms are going to get to be stored. Right. Unless the court has made the findings, but the court's not going to be able to make the findings temporarily. So, maybe it is fine there, but it's essentially we're saying, yeah, the court they can make those findings, but there's no way they can make those findings if they've seen that ex parte. Well, we're from other witnesses, but this is notification and information to the defendant. Right. It jumped out at me because we had heard that there were concerns at certain levels, and I can't remember where it was about asking the court to determine certain things, so I'm just trying to at this point try not to pin what the legal side of it is and also what the intent of the proposers is so that I can you know, so it's clarifying to me to know that the intent is to is to just clarify the laws that the person is already subjected to anyway. So, it's helpful to know that. And make sure that that person is informed. All right. So, moving along, there's no changes between this draft and the previous one regarding the forms. This is just some statements about what the complaint for legal abuse on the affidavit in support have to include in specific provisions about defendant's firearms, questions permitting the plaintiff to statement actually went over the same language in the final order, actually. There's some specifics here about the return of service, remember the return of service is what when the law enforcement officer serves the order, their return of service is a form that goes back to the court and lets the court know that the order was served. So that way there's a record kept that the RFA order was actually served on the defendant. This is simply stating and we'll get to it further on when it's referring to some provisions that have to be in that return of service are stated down below and this has to be in the form as well. Section four, no changes to this. This is the crime that we were talking about earlier that if you're subject to a relief from abuse order, you're prohibited from possessing firearms. The lines 20 and 21, the final relief from abuse order, those are already prohibited by federal law. I mean the person is already prohibited from possessing firearms by federal law. The addition to Vermont law proposes that someone subject to an emergency order is also prohibited. We're now getting into service and the warrant issue which had been in the previous draft. The language that's existing, you see lines 11 through 18. This is existing law. This is the concept that again as I mentioned the emergency order has to be served generally by a law enforcement officer. The provision in subsection B that you're looking at in existing law says that while the defendant goes to the final hearing, if they're actually physically present there, then they are, and this is line 13, and they receive notice from the court on the record that the order has been issued shall be deemed to have been served. So in other words, if you went there and you're physically present, you're deemed served at the final hearing. This presumes that you were served with the emergency order. And if they're notified on the court on the record you're required to adhere immediately to the provisions of the order. So again, these final orders effective immediately on the defendant who's there. And then goes on to say though that even when the court has previously notified the defendant of the order, it still requires that the order be transmitted for additional service by a law enforcement agency. So the proposal here is to provide another option there. That if they've been previously notified that the order doesn't necessarily have to be served again. It could be served by first class mail. That's the proposal. So there was some issue about addresses and making sure that it got to the person. So given the earlier language that says once somebody's been served with the emergency one they're responsible for any future ones how do do they know ways to because you were just saying to make sure that the person knows. But do they know it would be mail to you or you can go to the court and get it just so that there's no question of I didn't know how to get it and it didn't go right in the mail. Yeah, I don't know who. That might be a better one for the witnesses too. I know the language does provide for that the emergency order has to tell the person that it could be coming. The subsequent orders can be coming in the first class mail. So they're unnoticed in that respect that they may get some orders in the mail going forward. After they served the first time. And that was the testimony of Judge that the person has put on notice and has the responsibility to let the court know that he or she's moved or not there. And that's in line to page 10 that hasn't been any changes to it but you see that's the language about once they've been served kind of starts on page 9. Once they've been served with temporary order they can be served with subsequent orders by first class mail. The defendant shall inform the court of any changes to their address. So that kind of gets that. What kind of crime is that in it's back one section to line one line one of of that page. Oh right there. That is a misdemeanor. Does this line up with our other bill? Another bill about classifications? What it lines up with is the other firearms provisions. That's what I track that with. One year or two year misdemeanors are common for the firearms offenses. So I don't know the answer to the in the sense that the classification bill is you know establishing classifications based on the length of the period in jail it would fit into one of those categories but I'm not sure it's on my head which one it would be. But the year and the the number of years in the fine would be appropriate to within those categories. It might be a class A misdemeanor as my guess. Alright. So another proposed change here you say highlight in blue again existing law is that subsection C talks about how abuse orders have to be served at the earliest possible time like law enforcement officers take precedence over other summons in orders and the second sentence there are lines seven and eight existing law says orders shall be served in a manner calculated to ensure the safety of the plaintiff. So you see that's really calculated to ensure the safety of the plaintiff the proposal is that it has to be served in a manner calculated to ensure safety. In other words that's a broader concern not just the safety of the plaintiff it might be the safety of the law enforcement officer or the safety of other people living in the household you know there has to be generally served in a manner calculated to ensure safety of you know whoever might be involved but that's the proposal there. Now we're moving on to the return of service forms this is the thing I mentioned the form that the police officer has to bring back to the court and say yes this got served the order got served what has to be in it that's listed here these are the required provisions of this return of service form see the first one has an addition from the previous draft the previous draft it said whether firearms are relinquished by the defendant it's said to say whether and how many firearms were relinquished so whether or not the firearms are relinquished and if so how many there had been a provisioning sheet that's now struck that whether or weren't was going to be sought by the officer that is not a required piece of the form now you remember because the concept there is that remember relinquishment isn't necessarily required in the order it might be it might not be depends on whether there was evidence presented when the application was filed so if relinquishment is not done if firearms are not given up it's conceivable that the officer might think that there were still firearms on the premises or in the defendant's possession so they could conceivably go seek a warrant and say well there might be a violation of a law happening here I'm looking for a warrant to search for firearms but this provision that that statement be included in the return of service is struck so that doesn't mean they can't still do it they could still go seek a warrant they had the right facts but just doesn't have to say one way or the other in the return of service along those same lines you see there's a lot of struck language here now all this provisions two and three is entirely removed and that was all about this process of requiring the officer to make certain searches if they do have probable cause to file an affidavit and an application for a warrant with the court if they have some suspicion that there may be firearms present but but it doesn't rise to the level of probable cause they have to do a supplemental investigation so all those procedures are struck and that doesn't mean that doesn't prohibit the officer if they actually do have facts on which they could base probable cause to go actually and apply for a warrant this is just merely not having that requirement in statute we'll hear from but remember there were concerns about the operational you know concerns and sort of dating how the law enforcement does their job and so we'll hear from this as to why was taken out and hopefully response to those concerns I just wanted to comment about when we get into this operationalizing this process we asked the individual stakeholders would be involved in that to get together to try to work out how this would work so the department of public safety the AG the network Vermont police association I believe the court as well we asked them to get together and try to tell us how this would work and I think this is the result from that effort the part we're about to get into so so that does transition us into this language about the warrant so the requirements about the officer applying for a warrant or conducting an investigation have been removed you still have some language regarding a warrant so it authorizes the court we see the language is changed from may that's in line 4 on page 12 so the court may issue a warrant if it finds and you see this new language in lines 5 to 7 that's really a procedural reference in response to an application for a warrant filed under rule 41 and that's the rule that governs the procedures for issuing a warrant so that's basically saying that the court's going to make this finding after an application has been filed under rule 41 which is the way it is ordinarily done but if it makes that finding there's probable cause to believe and then you have two different factors listed there that come sort of based on the New Jersey case that we talked about early on that dealt with seizing firearms in these really some of these sort of situations but the findings that the court would make and it may issue a warrant if it does so if it finds there's probable cause to believe there are firearms in the defendant's possession ownership of control while in order with a firearms relinquishment conditions in effect so if you've got this relinquishment condition in effect and they've still got firearms and Roman rule 2 that certain seizure of the firearms is necessary to protect the life, health, or well being of a victim on whose on behalf really is being sought the court makes those findings that it can issue a warrant new language in subdivision B just says that this isn't going to be a grant the court permission or warrant for some other abuse prevention violation so it isn't going to be viewed as the only way in which there could be a warrant issue if there's some other basis now this is also a new proposed subdivision subdivision 3 here this has to do with some some contact between law enforcement officer and the plaintiff remember the plaintiff is the person who's filed for the order they came in and said I've been abused and asked the court for the order and that order has been served right so that's where we are in the chronology the order served then the law enforcement officer acting on behalf of the agency that served it is required to and this is line 18 required to attempt to contact the plaintiff after firearms are relinquished or seized in connection with the served order so after the order has been served and if firearms have been relinquished or seized then there's a requirement that the officer and officer contact the plaintiff they have to loop around and make a communication or contact so they have to attempt to contact the plaintiff but there's nothing in here that says that they have actually to get a hold of them anyway just pull him a call and they weren't holding to it yes I think you're right it requires an attempt but the attempt is unsuccessful that's still permitted and just to tell them that the firearms have been seized that's a good question I don't think the language doesn't describe what needs to be communicated so that would be a good question for the witnesses what the intent is there but the language just says attempt to contact so as to what needs to be said or if anything that's something would be a good question so that's the warrant process what's next here is immunity so this is officers serve these warrants or they have to bring these returns of service back to the court they may be required to seize firearms under certain situations the firearms may need to be relinquished so they may need to be transported somewhere so all those things may apply so this provides some immunity which means they can't be sued and then we sort of phrase this broadly you'll see lines two and three agencies and officers are immune from civil or criminal liability it means they can't be sued or criminally prosecuted for any act undertaken so anything you did or omission made something you didn't do in good faith reliance on the provisions of this section so that's broad anything they did in good faith reliance on the section they can't be sued or prosecuted for and there's some illustrative examples here but remember that including is not an exclusiveness that just includes these the really operative language is two and three any act undertaken or omission made in good faith reliance but the illustrative examples are a. failing to learn of locator seize a firearm b. returning the seized weapon to the owner the owner is not a prohibited person and then there's a few that are proposed to be added cd and e. causing damage to any property including a safe damage while accessing firearms d. enforcing the court order or e. conducting a search or seizure pursuant to an exception to the warrant requirement so those are just variations of what the officers mean again this is a reference to the firearm storage section generally which we just took a look at 20VSA 2307 and this is basically saying that non-evidentiary firearms that are relinquished are seized in connection with these RFAs are subject to these general processes for how firearms are handled in title 20 specifying that it's non-evidentiary firearms because obviously if the firearm is evidence of a crime that's in connection with the assault or something like that there are separate procedures that enforcement agencies use to handle their evidence and this is only applied to non-evidentiary firearms not in connection with evidence of a crime you have another section of struck language here and this is basically the reporting requirements that you had in you may remember the agencies required to report back on the number of statistics about the number of orders served final orders served that sort of thing number of firearms collected it was also a public safety department report required here so all that stuff has been struck proposed to be struck why was that all proposed to be struck I thought wouldn't it be a good idea for us to have I think you'll hear from reports of terrible things and I don't think there's any changes to any of the IRPO sections those are all the same as we've seen for the past couple of drafts again getting a couple of separate reporting sections at the end of the bill just some minor tweaks to this you'll see this department public safety report on their modernization program it backs out the requirement that they report now it just says has to inform the Judiciary Committee about their modernization reform program which includes data collection and reporting but you see it gives them another year doesn't have to be until 2021 same thing with the Attorney General report in section 14 on their firearms technical assistance project that's a report to you folks the Judiciary Committees but it gives them another year in which to do it yeah well just while we're on that right now it's gone down a bit earlier but would we have somebody informing it's not a report necessarily informing the committee when it's not in session in December shouldn't we push that to January 2022 I think often reports are before this session in case there's any post legislation that might come out of it just to inform certainly that's unusual but again I'd like to hear from the folks to that's all I have that's the end of the walkthrough any other questions so I know we're at the lunch hour however I want to check in with David and Commissioner it's going to have David go excuse me Commissioner I know you're going to go Bob one or maybe at one how long I'm not sure but I likely could come back you still would prefer to go later than right now I can if you want me to start doing just a little bit of I'm not sure how much I have to offer so I'm happy to start now if that makes sense for you or wait until you come back David how about you start David share with the Attorney General's Office thanks for having me this morning I'll try to move quickly the my primary mission here to start is actually going to be to go over a consensus memorandum that I believe the committee was given in your materials and it is from the Vermont Police Association the Vermont Network the Office of the Commissioner and our office and it does propose a few additional changes that primarily address concern for law enforcement I'd say both 610 as well as this consensus memorandum are the product of hours of meetings to do everything we can to make sure that this is operational and so I just want to go through these changes I don't think you'll find them particularly dramatic in terms of how the operation works but I did want to take some time to sort of do a second very brief walkthrough on that and so what we see in blue here though that is also yes certainly so to be as clear as I can 610 is also the product of extensive negotiation and agreement with 6.1 sorry if I didn't say that correctly so that was a meeting that happened last week and those changes memorialize that agreement there were a few more points that we have worked to accommodate in the consensus memorandum that you'll see in front of you that I believe are in your materials so yes 6.1 is the product of an agreement and there's a little bit of further agreement that we are wanted to put in front of the committee certainly apologize for not getting that all in sooner I know that the Vermont police association may have a few additional suggestions beyond this but this does include the four entities that we that I just mentioned in terms of having come together on these changes so I'll move through them fairly quickly but please stop me if you have questions on page 7 line 11 if you order firearms this will include all available information starting the type and then we are adding number the type, number, and location of firearms that is our first proposal see that it is the proposal is to simply add number so after the word type in line 11 you would add the word number and that is just to make sure that all the information that can be reasonably put on the order is put on the order that's for the sake of clarity for law enforcement and for judges who may be trying to enforce an order we move ahead to page 9 on line 17 down here at the bottom there is a current edit there and the proposal here is to strike the word additional and add the word personal so it would retransmit the order for personal service line 17 line 17 page 9 and again these are mostly I should say this one in particular is really just a clarification issue if we move on to page 11 sorry can you explain what the difference is what's the what's the rationale for what's the difference between personal service and additional service the intention here is to make clear that this is going to be service upon a person contrasting that with the set next lines on 18 and 19 where you could have service by first class mail which would not be service upon a person so it's just making very clear that difference between the two types of service on page 10 lines 23 21 at the bottom of page 10 now lines 20 to 21 the proposal would be to simply say strike the weather and at the beginning of the I and simply say how many firearms were relinquished by the defendant and add at the end of that at the time of service so making clear that we're talking about firearms that may be relinquished at the time of service and I believe the weather and was struck really as just a clarification piece somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on that but I believe that was just to say how many encompasses the weather so let's just say how many and again stop me if you have questions but I will move on to page 11 and we are looking at lines two and three again a clarification issue will strike if obtainable with reasonable effort and add and change it so it starts at the defendant's mailing address for service of future orders if provided by the defendant moving down a little bit here to right after that actually the proposal would be to add a little three sorry little three I little three right immediately following line three it should also indicate whether a lot of the proposal would read little three would say whether a law enforcement officer has attempted to contact plaintiff after service prior to the return of service being filed with the court so an indication as to whether an attempt to contact the plaintiff has been made moving down to line six to eight subsection C in addition would be made that says after the word orders at the end of this it would say following completion of the information in subsection A so you know saying we are going to do this return of service but to clarify the return of service will be after the completion of the required stuff that you need to fill out or accomplish named in subsection A and will further add failure to properly complete the information required in subsection A will not shall not affect the validity of service and the point there is to make sure that nobody can nobody who is the subject to an order can attack the validity of the order because you didn't fill out all the little pieces here the point is you got the order you know what's in the order and you have to follow the order is that standard practices or is that different in this is that unique I think what we are trying to do here is just cut out so there are I will say there are it is not infrequent to have litigation about validity of service it is something that comes up and this is just an attempt to cut off one avenue of litigation just to say hey just because this aspect of it wasn't filled out the main substance of the order which is maybe a stay-away order maybe an understatement vacate whatever it might be the main substance of that order is in effect right but for other crimes or this is a crime it is an order but for other like situations do we put this provision in or are we creating or are we doing something slightly different for this group of orders I think that we I am not sure if there are perfect analogies here in terms of this type of relief from abuse orders are their own entity and law you wouldn't serve someone in criminal law I am assuming it is just a totally different piece so I am not sure if there is perfect analogies to other areas I think that this is just trying to clarify that you are not going to defeat validity of service on technicalities the substance of the order will stand regardless of whether these things were these things happened in subsection and this was requested by I believe this is actually from the Vermont Police Association and we think it is a good idea so I am not following that language at all not the second sentence that is clear but the clause that you added at the end of the first sentence is the intent there that the return takes precedence after the required information has been completed so I would suggest rewriting that I am sure we defer to your intent okay thanks for clarifying moving on to page 12 on line 7 the proposal would be to the proposal is not explained it may seem to be a big change but we don't actually believe it can have a huge effect proposal would be basically from where it says rules of criminal procedure put a period right there and strike the rest of the page the reason for that is that some of this language is basically imported from an older version of the bill that included a different vision of how this would happen including civil service basically the rules around warrant service are contained within rule 41 there doesn't need to be additional conditions on that there did need to be when we were trying to essentially invent a new type of warrant service but we are not trying to do that anymore but we are trying to provide additional caveats and subdivision or subsection B capital B again this is sort of this was protective language that I think was put in in all reasonable caution but the group got together and really felt like that just wasn't necessary it's understood that for any current circumstance we need to say that again for line 17 through 20 it was the agreement of the group that the best way to and I know there is some discussion on this section around the table earlier it was the agreement of the group that the best way to accomplish the sort of point of contact is really going to be through crew training and operational implementation stuff and so that was the group agreeing that that was the best way to move forward with that we are getting there sorry for that run down here page 13 line 17 actually let me make sure I don't make a mistake on this so let me do the last bullet point on our memo first on page 13 lines 1 through 12 in the consensus memo there it has been provided that immunization from liability language coming from the Vermont police association and the group has no objection to including that language and it's my understanding that a chunk of this language actually is modeled on other states what other states do and Vermont and other places so we're not reinventing the wheel here so that's replacing line 1 through 12 and so and then the final bullet point that I have and I have one other that I want to talk about very quickly but the final bullet point is line 17 on page 13 will be amended so that after actually it's between line 17 and 18 it's amended so that damage or deterioration of firearms relinquished or seized, the two words or seized will be added and again that's limitation of liability language that nobody has an objection to that nobody in this group had an objection to so during your testimony you referred to the group several times could you tell me who the group is so I know who supported this yes it is the Vermont police association the Vermont network against domestic and social violence the officer of the commissioner of public safety and our office, the office attorney general yes the four people we don't have can we make sure that some of the other groups that may have an interest understand what this is doing so that we can get more complete testimony this afternoon and make sure that once we aren't on there and I will say we've tried to keep the main operational interests a prize of this so the judiciary has been reviewing all of this and they will be able to put there and put in and our hope is that these are really primarily operational concerns and we've tried to keep everybody in order yeah I just want to make sure that if we're going through like for example judge we're said later and he's yeah so judge has been a part of this process he has seen this memo and I think he'll be ready to so but not part of the group my understanding yeah I don't believe that he officially signed on but I also don't think he has significant concerns I guess the question is not necessarily who's signing on the letter but what group has seen this language well so it has been posted I do want to emphasize it has been posted on the on your site so anybody can access it I believe that in addition to the folks on here which include multiple people in each of those entities I believe the judiciary is the other main entity that has been reviewing thank you where is it posted it's under Sarah it's under general so I could confusion on the label there I just have one other point of clarification that had come up in an earlier question and I shouldn't take too long I hope on page 7 there was a discussion with legislative council on lines 19 for 21 which was about the third party storage issue and mainly what this is doing is just making it making current law clear to a person who's part of these proceedings they use current law that third party storage is not permitted until the court unless and until a court makes a finding that it is permitted and that's really all that this is doing is making sure that people know that that's the law this is bottom of page 7 lines 19 to 21 and that was all I had to say on that thank you now it's good alright so we're going to go back to page 610 and to David I'm wondering if you could join us again because I rushed you sorry and I'm not sure if you have other things to add but I'm wondering if you can again kind of give us a smartie text of 610 and what's been referred to as other memo and if there you know 6.1 is point 2 with this memo or is it how they relate to what other sure I'd say they are both part of an ongoing collaborative process that a lot that bunch of people really try to get together and address operational issues around making it happen I think there's really a lot of agreement on the underlying policy issues here which is making sure that people who are subjectually from these orders don't have easy access to firearms and the committee heard a lot of testimony on the value of that I don't think there's any disagreement on the importance of that and so these are both of these are really just I think we can all look at them as a unit they are one sort of unit as in terms of us moving forward in an effort to make sure all the operational issues are addressed and this as a practical you know the policy isn't really a matter of debate among a lot of the people who are working on this and just these are practical efforts to implement a policy that has a lot of agreement and I should say just as a you know the consensus memo as it's titled that we just went over was sort of directly worked off of 6.1 so it's not like it was coming out of nowhere it was working directly off of what had already been established with a lot of discussion and would you say that it's a mostly technical substitute to I think that I would certainly characterize this as primarily operational issues making this a work of all policy and so I would not say that these are matters of deep policy disagreement obviously we can get into semantics about what counts as what counts as substance and what counts as process but I think that the overall thrust of the work that's being done here is really focused on operational issues and there's not significant agreement on the underlying goal that we're trying to achieve I'm just confused so the so just a memo so we have 6.10 in front of us and then we have this memo where so there's been conversations around the table about how to get stuff worked out so that's where 6.1 comes from and then these four groups continued to work on it and came up with some basic clarifications that you'd like the committee to consider to put into 6.1 therefore creating a 7.1 but you're not you're supportive of 6.1 but you think there's some this group feels that there's some clarifications that would make it run smoother I think it's a very fair representation but all four I think are saying that right well so there are groups that may have additional that do have additional requests beyond this but I think what you said about this document is completely correct saying yes it's all part of a process of coming to agreement and this is a continuation of that process and everybody's working together right but if I asked any of the members that are listed in the from section would all be supportive of this memo being considered for inclusion in a draft of the bill yes okay the question that's less about the memo in the process actually more about just the bill at this point is that so just and it seemed like you're representing the a person that may be given over you and this so we know that there are instances where federal law prohibits someone from being a possession of firearms in the instance of really criminal abuse proceedings and part of what we're trying to do here might have been square up state law with someone with that provision and so and I feel like we've heard this testimony before but just to refresh my memory what how can Vermont law enforcement agencies and prosecutors enforce federal that federal provision and what are the limitations currently well certainly there would be limitations in terms of you know theoretically a Vermont officer could make an arrest on the basis of a federal criminal violation but after that it would not be handled by state attorneys and the local folks who are much more likely to have on the ground knowledge which really happening in any particular situation and it would not be a practically workable system to have two different federal government which and they don't do a lot of this frankly trying to work on these local issues with individuals who are in intimate partner situations so it does even just when we're talking about the prohibition on people are subject to a final release from an abuse order if we just sort of limit it to that although this bill is doing more than that if we just limit it to that even there there is very important practical impact in terms of making sure that you know local entities can act and operate as a unit which again the sort of local state attorneys do a lot more of that with local police and let's remember that there is an important addition expansion that's happening here with respect to people who are subject to preliminary you know emergency release from an abuse order and can you you said that frankly the federal government doesn't do a lot of enforcement can you expand on that I don't have data on that so I feel uncomfortable going too much beyond that but I do feel comfortable saying that this is not a focus of U.S. attorney's offices at least they're not going to be doing these cases en masse like if local it makes a lot more sense for this to be handled by our local officials this type of work to be handled by local officials yeah no just happy to answer questions and if there are any more I think I've gone through my piece thank you good afternoon the record Brian Greerson chief superior judge speaking to draft 6.1 of h610 and I'm also looking at a consensus memorandum date of February 12th which I think the committee has been reviewing with David Scheer this morning and this afternoon let me just give a little background as to my involvement in this you'll see under the from section I am listed there this memorandum after some days of hearing last week I believe the representatives from domestic violence and law enforcement I'm not sure who got together themselves and discussed the issues that were out there I believe that was last Friday and then over the weekend I corresponded with Beth Novotny BPA and with Sarah Robinson and then Monday morning it kind of coalesced with a draft from VPA and a memo from Sarah and I was invited I think on Sunday night to the phone conference Monday morning so I was involved in the discussion it was about a two hour discussion and it was a lot discussed which has ended up here I did not sign this for reasons I'll explain one it's as a practical matter I don't sign on this type of document but just by way of example for instance the last two bullet points all involve liability for police and I would not offer an opinion in one way or another or approve or disapprove of what they're doing that's entirely in their hands so that's an example of why I would not sign this document and I'll go through the items in general I agree but I have some overwriting concerns that I think it's important and some of it you're probably sick of hearing me say it I did receive a copy of a memo from VPA that I think it will be some testimony later today and there was one paragraph that caught my attention that kind of brought things home to roost for me it's captioned unresolved safety concerns and this is from the law enforcement perspective safe removal receipt of relinquished firearms at an unfamiliar location with unknown number of occupants under circumstances the officer has limited or no control you know that paragraph for me at least capsized what the committee is trying to do and what everybody all of the witnesses are trying to do but it's interesting as I look back on the discussion that's taken place we started with provisions from New Jersey law that talked about civil warrent and we've moved a long ways from that but remember that one of the hallmarks that distinguished New Jersey from us was the way after our orders are obtained through law enforcement we've moved away from the civil warrants we're now down to the procedure that everyone is involved in and that's good but what we're still trying to do is bootstrap improvements on a system that is really not working when I read that paragraph from law enforcement I think of the difference between them receiving an order at two o'clock in the morning that says serve this order which includes relinquishment of two, three, four, whatever any number of firearms at this address as opposed to them being involved at the beginning of the process so they can learn information that will assist them in performing that in a safe manner so I know that's not part of the bill but I just want to remind the committee what's really happening here is that the after hours process and relinquishment now even in New Hampshire I mean I know the committee is looking at provisions I know they heard from Judge Carbone I spoke with her yesterday the testimony she gave so I'm familiar with that I've looked at their process to some extent but keep in mind when they are ordering relinquishment they're almost invariably doing it at an emergency order that again comes through law enforcement so they're involved at the beginning to understand really what situation they're getting into so with that in mind I have one overriding concern that the longer we're talking about this bill the more I'm hearing from judges as they read it and get back to me and that is the idea of this once served always served I think the committee is making a mistake if you will the further they get away from personal service of these orders because ultimately what this process is all about is order but enforcing that order and what I'm concerned about and what I hear judges saying is that when these cases come in for enforcement if we keep going down this path of service of orders exclusively by first class mail the issue that's going to be litigated is not whether the person violated the order initially they're going to have to litigate whether the person is properly served and on notice of the order and it just concerns me with the circumstances we see particularly self represented people not only in this docket but any dockets in just maintaining that that obligation if you will with the court and I think when we get away from personal service you're increasing that risk my suggestion would be and the committee is probably not familiar with it but the current statute says we'll follow the rules of civil procedure for service and that has various steps in it personal service sometimes we can't reach the individual there's what's referred to as tack orders and so they have steps in which if the first process doesn't work go to the next step since relinquishment may not always occur as a result of that emergency order if we're at the final hearing stage and relinquishment is being ordered for the first time it has to be served by personal service it doesn't make any sense otherwise if you're asking for relinquishment you're not going to count on an order going out by mail maybe getting there maybe not so I would emphasize that as a result of an order of relinquishment you're going to want personal service I would also suggest maybe I can go to the section of the bill where it would go in so I was looking at page 11 it talks about what goes on that return and I'll have some other thoughts on that but let's start with that one the change is to read on line 2 the defendants mailing address for service of future orders if provided by defendant it is the proposal so the first thought I had was that's fine but the defendant is under no obligation to give the police they don't have to and in my experience sometimes people give an address that isn't their address they just make it up so one solution maybe is to provide what we refer to as a notice of appearance for self-represented litigants it's a form that the court has that could be included in the paperwork we're serving that puts the person it's a separate standalone document it's not one that's going to be tacked on to the back of the order it's a standalone document that clearly says that they have to notify the court that they're representing themselves if they get an attorney and representing myself I understand that I must one notify the court in writing of any changes of address phone number, email give or send copies of the parties there's a place to put not only a street address when you ask somebody their address again two o'clock in the morning if you're kicking somebody out of the house vacating what their street address is may be different than a mailing address so this would capture that and it would be perhaps the first step in putting the individual on notice not because the police can ask for an address but there's no reason why that necessarily would come about just put them on notice that if you're going to represent yourself if you're going to appear in court this is a form to do it and some formal notice that they have been served with that they have to do then the burden is on them and not whether the police properly took the address down through to at least eliminate that and I would further suggest that when we're talking about that section on 11 when we get to the final hearing stage because keep in mind all of the emergency orders will be personally served so when we get to the final hearing stage there ought to be a provision that calls in my view for personal service if at the end of pick a time frame that makes sense to the committee maybe at the end of 30 days if personal service has not been affected because they can't locate the person then notify the court and then we can proceed with mailing out the address by that time at least there's an attempt for personal service could be down the road when you're trying to enforce this order of simply a piece of paper that shows that the person was served with the order and it's either signed by them or not signed versus going through to determine the validity of the mailing address going through a record to determine whether or not the person was there and the judge said the right things on the record so this would allow for personal service which is the best form of service particularly for these types of proceedings for enforcement and then followed up if it's not happening and the reason the time then send out the order by mailing obviously that's having been able to serve the person personally in whatever it is 30 days mailing the relinquishment order was probably not going to have accomplished so the personal service at the emergency with the emergency lead from the abuse order but the idea is to make sure that that person is not noticed who's receiving it, the defendant that they have to show up at the final hearing if they don't whatever order comes out they're immediately bound by that order to prevent the concept of the gap and what you're suggesting as far as having some reasonable period of time that reasonable period of time becomes the gap where there's not that protection of an order because the order emergency order will have laps and the final order will not have been served I appreciate what you're saying about the relinquishment that if there's a relinquishment order in the final I appreciate that that probably has to be personally served but if that final order doesn't have that the person should be bound by the terms of that order because the person wasn't informed so isn't that how New Hampshire's handling isn't that what happens in New Hampshire if you don't show up you're bound by whatever that final order is as long as you reserve the emergency I believe that's the way it is set up over there if they do their orders by person service but I also understand at least from my brief discussion with Judge Carbon that most of the relinquishment issues arise as a result of the service of the emergency order so I'm putting inside the relinquishment part of this but so I don't think, I don't understand why the enforcement of the order there really has to be consideration of what the address was that it was mailed to because under the terms of this bill it was at the time it was issued by the court that it became operative and what ties that person into it is the fact that they were served a temporary order with the explanation that you need to show up because you're going to be bound by that whether you show up or not so I don't understand why there being argument about whether the address was right or not if we're required to notify them of the final order being issued we've got to notify them one way or another so the notification is with the order, the temporary order the notification is you show up on this date at this time if you don't whatever order is coming out of there you're going to be bound all this stuff is I guess it's a man of duty my understanding is that the subsequent service by mail or any other way is not for notice really it's sticky you have to go ahead and get the hard copy into the person's hand but as far as being bound to it it's actually once it's issued and it's because they were served earlier on the temporary I understand what you're saying and I think that you're running a risk of an order a subsequent order being challenged if the terms of that order had changed from the temporary to the final and that person isn't on notice and they haven't been served with it I think you're running a serious challenge How is that particular challenge in New Hampshire because you would think that they would have crossed that bridge in New Hampshire at least I didn't I didn't go into that area with Judge Carbonman I didn't talk with her about that issue quite frankly between her schedule and mine and I'll be glad to talk with her about that but I'm hearing concerns and I'll call the judges who are responding to me about that very issue that the lack of service the lack of notice is concerning to them the ultimately the due process argument of whether or not the person has been properly notified I'm not sure what the reluctance is to have personal service Again it's that gap who they are in hiding where the addict can't be served so there's no longer an operative order against the person that's where the concern comes from that's what we were trying to address with this is that gap between the lapse of the emergency order and the service personal service of the personal service of the final so I would have to look again at the New Hampshire statute there may be ways to say that the temporary order remains in existence till served with the final order if there is a final order and again that would allow the temporary order to remain in effect until you accomplish service either in person or by mail if you're unable to affect personal service in that may accomplish it I haven't looked at that from a procedural constitutional perspective but that may take care of the gap you're talking about and still allow changes, modifications to that final order that we believe the person needs to be put on notice of what if there are changes so I think that could address the final order I mean the gap that you're referring to but what it still misses from what New Hampshire has is if in fact there's some modifications to that order to the temporary order that again would not be in effect until that final order is served whereas in New Hampshire it would go on to affect the media even if there were changes because the individual was notified they needed to show up and therefore would be followed by whatever happened that's had to carry I look back at the form that we're using now I believe the defendant is notified that they have to show up or that they're gone by changes but I'm I'm just concerned at when you ultimately get to enforcement that this is all about I don't understand why we wouldn't have the best possible process of service for these types of proceedings and that's all personal services so could we the personal service requirements still forget about the mail but still the person is bound upon issuance I mean yeah it's the personal service that allow the law enforcement officer to go over it to go over any changes but if you're hiding or they can't track you down you're still bound by by that order because you didn't show up yeah I understand that's what New Hampshire reads I understand this is a proposal all I will tell you is that many judges again have gotten back to me concerned about issuance versus served with the order with those changes so they just see that as an area where they're not going to be surprised if there's litigation around that and I guess that's what I want the committee to understand you can perceive the way this is laid out I think it's important that the committee be aware that at least from the judiciary's perspective we have real concerns about that process it's not to frustrate any particular party it's to make sure that if we're going to issue orders if the order is followed there's never a concern the only time it's going to be an issue is when there's a claim that it needs to be enforced and the first step in any enforcement whether it's through the court or through the state's attorney process and the violation of an order it's going to be how is this order served and I understand what the statute in New Hampshire says they've had that system for a while because I understand so I don't know what the litigation has been we had one case in Vermont involving the Hampshire's process but I cannot tell you that it involved this very narrow issue of whether serving the final order by mail was proper or not but it was an example of a New Hampshire order after a jury trial after convictions being reversed by our Supreme Court because of a service question it was different than mailing it was this idea that the person was president at a final hearing they left and the attorney was given I believe a copy of the order and that's what the state's attorney was relying on they don't as I read the case did not address whether or not they had attempted service by mail and it didn't work or the court just never sent out service by mail the issue isn't there and I wouldn't want the committee to say that except it goes back to the issue I was talking about and that's the enforceability of these orders that's the first issue so judge I actually this morning was worried about how do we know the person got the order and so I was wondering about okay what if it's sent certified mail so they're signing for it but I know people avoid paying certified mail they return and then they decide they're not going to pay or like an email where it was received and read so in order to address the problem that Morton was trying to address what if the dates were like if there were some overlapping dates so it's like the emergency order is 30 days but at 20 days there's a hearing there's there is a little bit of overlap between temporary and permanent orders we actually have a final hearing quicker than New Hampshire does in other words these cases come in no more than 10 days often times less than 10 days because of the particular court proceeding New Hampshire's process is different their emergency order lasts I believe Judge Carbone told you essentially 24 hours or next court business day person has to apply for what they call a temporary order in that order if granted and that can be ex parte would last for 30 days before they have a final hearing but again the activity that we're talking about and what I think law enforcement and domestic violence folks are concerned about is when that order is served again it's law enforcement involved from the beginning in New Hampshire and I think my impression from talking to Judge Carbone was that that's where most of the almost every order I think she said calls for relinquishment so it's that initial step with police involvement I mean the other thing is that there's no other service by first class now it just seems awkward that this one is because it just stands out as why are we I think they're without knowing all of the methods of service there may be a point in a process where service by first class mail is is allowed but as a as a lower resort I mean the old rule of thumb we learn in law school day one is when you send a letter to the last known address and it's not returned it's presumed received I have a fair feeling that many of these are going to come back to the court return to send their address unknown person unknown and that's what's going to be sitting there so you can say yes that's what the statute says but that will be the issue that will be litigated so my suggestion is look at that closer and I think with this notice of appearance the police can ask for an address again the person isn't obligated at least this would put them on notice that if you want to receive notice of future hearings represent yourself as most of these folks here's the form to fill out and it's fairly simple and we can rely on that what they're going to say is the address they gave the police is in other words the police put it down made a mistake and you can avoid that by putting the obligation on them instead of law enforcement is the idea behind this point so judge in order sent out for personal service I understand you can get there but you can get there and the person can be there and it's easy to hand off but sometimes that may not be the case we know typically how long it can take to do something like that or you mentioned tax orders how long if you know where the person lives and you know that they're residing there so I don't see it for this process it's usually in debt collection they know the person is behind the door and they're just not answering the door so it is available because as I said the statute follows the civil rules but it wouldn't make sense in this no one would make that request I shouldn't say no one would it be rare but in the time frame between when the order is issued and when the person served with it under current law is that person subject subject to that order before they receive notice of it the current law there depends if they've shown up if they've shown up then they're presumed but right now the order that's issued temporary order has it runs out on a certain date so that's what I'm saying we could look at the language we use in that temporary order and extend the life of the temporary order would be one way of looking at it until the final order is issued so I'm still trying to understand whether the person's under obligation before they've been served before they've been served I'm sorry I didn't understand so the court issues it but until they get it they're not and then the the rules around you know this is the problem with not being attorneys don't worry you're way ahead of the game by the time I'm not going to thank you the when I was in the I think I had a phrase this so the rules that govern this is this Vermont law, federal law, or constitution we're talking about Vermont law and obviously the Vermont Constitution I mean any law you pass has to make a constitutional standard right is the concern something that is is the concern that and I know you I'm trying to not ask a question I know you can't answer I'll tell you so the concern that we would be not noticing someone is that in violation of constitution or is that in violation of state law think of it this way the ultimate enforcement is a criminal charge so the argument would not be by the court it would be hearing an argument from the defense that this person was not properly unnoticed these were the terms of the order that he or she is supposed to violate that's where the argument would come but would that be the service rules in constitution or state law in the constitution as an overarching any statute has to make constitutional requirements and so I think they would be raising the concern of lack of due process I wasn't getting proper notice that's an oversimplification that's the way I would see the argument coming sometimes I need oversimplification we all do particularly with this bill as we talked for two hours yesterday it was good but there was a lot of discussion so the other side of it something along the lines of what we're seeing in the memo here on page 11 and I know that this isn't related to this but we wouldn't be able to put something like this in the statute to say that it would not affect the validity of service or something like that to fix that problem so I'll make that a segue to the other sections on page 11 before you go ahead just a question from the point of question so is the notice of appearance served with the order already no but would we have to write that in as a requirement for with an RFA that you have to serve the notice of appearance as well the form the affidavit we could include it as part of we send out the complaint the affidavit the order and there's instructions on those documents as to what they have to do include the return of service I don't think you would but I'll think about that so unless there's any other questions on on top of page 11 small double I again I would suggest that you don't want to put the burden on the police but this may be a substitute for the the defendant provides it fine it would be more important to have this document so it's their statement and not what the police said they told this would be their representation this is my address this is where I again I and I've mentioned this before oh they've added three attempts of tempers that were made to contact the plaintiff is that is that what it says oh yes so I'm reading down on one, two, three, four looks like the fifth bullet whether law enforcement is attempted to contact plaintiff after service there's nothing wrong with putting it in there but it doesn't add anything to it to me it's just filling up the return with information that I don't the return should be in some respects as simple and understandable as plaintiff was served I mean excuse me defendant was served in hand and they confiscated firearms or they didn't confiscate firearms I would expect the police as they do now would contact the plaintiff to let them know the return to say that they have to do it as I would say as soon as has attempted to contact the plaintiff after service prior to the return of service I mean I'll be able to reach them I just I don't think it adds anything I think it's just it goes without saying I guess is the simplest way I can put it that I don't think it needs to be in there but if the committee feels that they had something that's obviously your and that would my comments would be the same section B the court shall provide a copy of the return of service to the plaintiff by the time we get that return if the police have already notified the plaintiff they have it if the plaintiff wants it it's a public record again it's not something that we're opposed to but I just question whether it's unnecessarily you want to document that someone both the plaintiff and the defendant will read and understand and get to the most important things and the more that's on there the more they're going to miss see the same comment return of service shall be filed with the court the earliest possible time shall take precedence over the summons and then they want to add language orders following completion again just putting in that complete this in that fashion that doesn't affect the validity of service it may not but there may be many other issues that do it's just identifying one particular piece that I again I look at those sections as they go without saying and I don't think they need to be on a return so let me just clarify that so it goes without saying as far as what the court might want to understand the court doesn't need to understand any of that that's what I'm trying to get at right so if it's serving another purpose which is to provide some information to the plaintiff you don't necessarily have a comment about that I mean it's from the court's perspective you don't need it but if we're trying to get this information to the plaintiff this is seem to have been suggested in numerous occasions as a good way to do it and I assume your comments doesn't go to that component no I understand that all I'm saying is you now have a document that there are things that you want somebody to focus in on and understand I'm just concerned that this document is getting longer and longer for information that sure it's good to know but I'm assuming again that the police have already talked with the plaintiff to have them check a box that said we attempted to talk with the plaintiff or they did but if law enforcement is good with this one way or another I assume that you don't really viewpoint on that I don't I just don't think it's necessary that's my point I don't my other concern and maybe I misunderstood again it's that same bullet about page 11 line 68 revised to read return of service we wouldn't want any delays service whether they've contacted the plaintiff or not in other words all the information they want down there what's critical is that that return get filed as soon as possible and so I guess that's the other reason I'm concerned about all of this going on a return and important to get it served get it filed with the court because until we have it we can't provide it and oftentimes I think I mentioned in previous testimony we don't even get to return sometime until the day of hearing it just happens so those are the reasons why I didn't sign on to the memo and I think those are the only comments I have I don't I wasn't here when Eric did the walkthrough on page 4 at the very bottom lines 20 and 21 the copy I had this is more grammatical than anything else it would just be to take the language that's in blue and put it at the end of that clause I think it reads so that then it would read the court order shall require the immediate relinquishment until the expiration the order so forth and so on if there is evidence of defendants in possession or has access to firearms so I think it just would read better I just want to follow up on a discussion we had about that language I'm not sure if you were to hear yet more than that there were questions about really what does access to firearms mean and I could certainly have you give us your interpretation but let me throw an idea instead that I had proposed to change that language to make it clear that if there is evidence, albeit at the beginning or end at the end of that section as you mentioned have that instead say if there's evidence that the defendant possesses hands or controls firearms or that another person possesses hands or controls firearms on behalf of the defendant to really clarify or not have that perhaps ambiguous term access in there instead I don't know if you have any comment on that at this point I mean if you're asking me whether that would clarify it or not well let me ask you how would you interpret access on a case by case basis that's the problem I mean if you try to define that I think one of the issues we discussed for instance whether or not if you take the key to a gunsafe or if the defendant is living in a home whether the gunsafe and he doesn't have a key to that gunsafe does he have access to the firearms in that case I mean that's you wouldn't have possession or control the word access I think that's the issue possession or control is certainly different than access so it depends how broad do you want to make this or how narrow you want it to be access is obviously much broader than possession or control I've always been puzzled by the or that another person possesses owns or controls on behalf of the defendant I'm not sure that owns is the appropriate but if some other person the own really stuck out for me so I really did not understand that I don't think I've ever expressed that from the committee before but I think at one time I made a note to cross out owns in that part of the phrase that it's really possession or control so I'm the person who had the concern this morning and I just wanted to tell you what my concern was I was saying almost everybody has access to guns because they can go purchase one so I'm not so sure I take the part in this right so that's how they'll take care of that right but that would be his suggestion well that would be another problem but you just pointed out so these are going to be complicated cases but it's reasonable to assume that access means going to a gun store and get one access is a very broad term very broad term so I'm just a little bit confused so I think I heard that we started out with this bill and we were going down one path the path has now been changed to a different probably in a different certainly state and now we're trying to I just said state just to try to liven it up you like the new Hampshire right I was going to say country but I didn't want to confuse people it seems to me that this bill is talked about is getting so law enforcement cannot do their job they're going to put and it's not their fault they're going to put more people at jeopardy trying to get there guns, domestic violence whatever which I agree with domestic violence there's a problem and then it's going to go to the court system and for the most part I believe I've heard the court system saying this isn't going to work well first of all as far as the comments about law enforcement I'm going to leave that to Chief Fakos and whoever else is here I can't say that this is something that isn't going to work for them this process can work I just want to make sure that the committee is aware of the impact that the judiciary sees going forward that some of these things clarify procedures we're adding in new procedures and anytime we add new procedures we're looking at it obviously through our lens how is this going to affect us and so my comments were not so much don't do it but look at the way you're doing it and be aware of the risks when you change a process or adopt a new procedure of consequences of doing that and so when I'm talking about New Hampshire's model for instance that's a piece that they use different than ours and maybe it's work for them their procedure is a little different than ours and I think you have to weigh that as to whether we take a piece of their procedure or do we adopt the whole process and I haven't certainly had enough experience to know whether their system is something that I would recommend to the committee or anyone else but all I'm saying is this is the process we're using and when you add on to it just be aware of the consequences of that and when you take away what we now use as personal service I know there are times when the person is difficult to find and the police can't find it and so there should be an alternative method of service so sorry no go ahead so I guess what I'm concerning what I'm really concerned about is as I understand it we're the second safest state in the nation I think we're taking a situation here that we could be opening up a whole new can of worms that could make a pretty good situation a lot worse and put certainly public safety more at risk DCF I think a lot of people involved I'm really really concerned so I'm not sure I can respond to that I'm starting with the DCF course is not involved in these types of proceedings that's number one DCF this is a totally this is a civil process this does not involve the state in the sense that it's the state's attorney or prosecuting attorneys until it gets to the criminal state but DCF is not involved they're involved only very indirectly if it spills over if the children that may be subject to a relief from abuse proceeding are also involved in DCF so it's only an indirect connection at best this is a purely civil process that quite frankly for the most part the plaintiff the person bringing the complaint controls the process as it should be because that's the way the civil process works as opposed to the criminal process where the state's attorney is acting for the state so this is purely civil and that's why in going forward as we change the procedures I just want the committee to be aware of some of the risks that I see when they change those procedures not to do it but be aware of the risks and maybe a little bit other ways so it's perhaps trying to adapt to what New Hampshire is doing partially but adapt it to our system and say let's attempt a person of service is all I'm suggesting and if it doesn't work then you can always go to an alternative method of service at least on that that issue Matt? I think Ken brought up some points that are sort of rattling around in my head a little bit and I'm really sympathetic to what we're trying to do here but I think there's just been this nagging fear in the back that's that keeps coming back to me around it because I recognize that there's some potential flaws in the system over time and we're trying to make people as safe as possible and make them understand make sure that we're doing everything that we can to protect them and make sure they understand what's being done but I guess I keep coming back to we're trying to work some changes to the system that I'm not sure if do you I guess the blunt way to ask it is do you believe that the system is flawed as it exists today or broken? The relief from abuse? Yes, the system as it exists today that we're talking about changing I didn't know I think the system works in the sense that it depends on how you're looking at the system how you define the system and this is my view and not the entire issue but I view it as a procedure for someone who needs feels they need protection, security that this is the vehicle to do that and in that respect I think it has it has provided a forum for extremely difficult issues to be addressed you know the this issue of domestic violence and other witnesses that have said it it's one of the most complicated issues that we have to face in it I think it's difficult for individuals who do not have to deal with it on a day to day week to week basis to really understand how difficult it is people make difficult decisions under very trying circumstances sometimes economics driving it it's not just physical emotional things the number of issues that come into play and why people decide to go forward or not go forward is an individual decision and it can change overnight and so this system is designed for someone who needs protection to be able to come to the court and get that protection and what the quality is and in my discussions not only with law enforcement but domestic violence folks to a great extent the system relies on self-report in other words you are going or contemplating going to another step of search warrants it started out as Representative Gosland said that the search warrants would be new to Vermont you now are considering processing those requests through the criminal process which is appropriate because what you're really looking at is if a person is not supposed to have firearms the potential there is for criminal offence and that's where the police should be involved and that's why search warrants under the rules and procedures that we follow is probably the best most effective way to do that I don't want to I don't want to sound like you know the broken wheel but where the system I think has changed let's put it that way over the 20 or 30 years that after hours process has been in effect that's where we've seen real changes I mean that was a system that it worked I mean it's a very simple statute all it says is the court shall provide after hours access and law enforcement shall work effectively work with us but it's very simple there's no guidelines for the court there's certainly no guidelines to say what the police have to do or not do and over the last whatever number of years that process has been in effect law enforcement has changed in terms of their availability after hours we used to staff staff after hours request exclusively through court volunteer staff members that were willing to be on call to go out in the middle of the night at one time they would go to a police station to process these orders and it seemed to work but over the last few years and currently out of 14 counties I believe the last time I checked I only had four counties where staff were still willing to do this which means we've had to go to contract personnel and we have now changed the process where for the most part these requests are being done by telephone which works but not as effectively as person to person but the risks of sending staff or contract personnel out in the middle of the night with a victim it expands the risks for everyone we had staff members meeting in the parking lot of a police station with no one in the police station process these orders no one's going to convince me that that's safe for the victim or for the personnel and so what I'm saying is if you look around at other states we have to be looking at how can we make this system improve this system and so my I think the system works but I think it does need some changes but I think the committee is contemplating now is important really ought to consider perhaps going to the next step and having police involved earlier in the process I'm not suggesting it doesn't but that's what every other state does so I'm confused it sounds like the idea was that in places where where things have worked the legislature's often less prescriptive and allows the allows the judiciary or the judicial system or law enforcement to develop organically based on what they're seeing did I understand that incorrectly? I think so that's not what I was trying to say I was trying to say that I think the system works I think the system needs to be to be looked at and see if there ways of improving safety and the additional element of where linkishment orders and enforcing those orders is important by not having the police involved at the beginning to assess the situation they're going into is is a different different risk for them certainly and so this has to be done the right way it's an important process and I do think it works it's complex I mean when I look through a lot of the sections of this bill I sit there at a great value that makes sense that makes sense hearing you talk about it I wonder whether in some cases we're making things almost more difficult whereas the idea of someone being able to get out of really move your sorter down the road because they can say that they won't serve properly is not something I would have thought I'm not saying they can get out of it easily but I'm saying that that could become another challenge to the enforcement when whatever information we get from the plaintiff on that late night call and that's put in the order in other words I believe Defendant has two lung guns and a fire a handgun and that's all the information we have and we put that on the order and that's the order the police will receive and then they've got to go to that address serve that and demand those fire entrances really all they can do at that point this order says you have to relinquish and our information is you have X, Y and Z Defendant may say X and Y but not Z and the terms are over and then that's where I'm saying this self-report starts where do you go from there and that's what the issue will become that's what I'm saying I have no doubt the police upon service of that order will go back to the plaintiff with it without the languages in this bill and say I've served so and so and this is what we obtained and you tell me more about why you think there's a third gun and that's where this whole process will start as to whether or not there's enough information to obtain a search warrant to perhaps go back and find out if there is another gun there the difference being that if the police were involved in the beginning they would have that discussion with that individual and say well tell me what those guns look like where do they where do they keep them in the home or do they keep them in their car in other words it's that kind of investigation that I think will make the relinquishment order more meaningful not for the court but for the person that has to go out and serve that order and do what police do and that is investigate and make sure that the case they present to the court as strong as it can be under the circumstances that's that's where I'm saying I think you earlier they're involved with this process better sure certainly not speaking for long of course thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you sorry it's noisy back here thanks thanks again for having me it's been a long day talking so if I I can't speak any other languages so that's not a danger again Mike Charling Commissioner of Public Safety I'm happy to take questions I'm going to be brief just a couple of points on the progress that's been on 6.1 robust effort on the part of the network the judiciary AG's office the BPA I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out but lots of conversations it's been pared down which is helpful just a placeholder that my general look at these kinds of things is less is more the more it's easier to operate if we make it more streamlined and being the bill is introduced from the original introduction to the 6.1 version is easier to operationalize because it is less complicated so the more we streamline the better off that is it is there's there were I just lost the thought so I'm going to jump from the second to the third thought the third thought is it would be remiss if I said it's perfect there are still operational concerns around there are safety concerns around how to execute the stuff and there isn't magic to doing it so I'm not sure there's going to be perfection I know you'll hear from the VPA some additional thoughts on some strategies that might help to mitigate some of the the risk factors but it's just important to just put that out as a placeholder I don't have a specific answer 6.1 is is an improvement and overall this is an important topic so it's important to keep working to get to the best possible best possible version some of them some of them exist already because anytime we're talking about trying to acquire firearms in a search and seizure scenario there are risks this creates another avenue for sort of another lane of travel for that kind of operation to have to happen so it just creates another lane of risk and trying to find the balance of how to create the policy and the operating methodology to execute it in the safest possible way is complicated so that's the best description I have just a follow up to that as far as how to to address the safety as I've envisioned this is once we get the court to issue an order the order goes to law enforcement and then law enforcement should have essentially complete discretion to execute that order to execute the subsequent warrant to get the firearms paying attention to whatever issues that are in safety and logistics and I'm wondering if I'm missing that somewhere are we tying law enforcement's hands in exercising their discretion to do this in a safe and effective manner and next question I guess associated with that should we be doing that in the context of the document telling them how to exercise their discretion safely and effectively let me do the first one I may have to ask you to repeat the second one because I'm on my fourth hour of testimony today and because of the virtue of your education you ask compound questions which