By Guy Page

During my appearance this morning on WVMT’s Morning Drive, host Dan Feliciano asked if the Legislature this year gave police and the courts more tools to reduce crime and drug abuse.

I told Dan, ‘yes, kind of.’ There were no big gamechangers. No Build the Burlington Bastille Bill. No expansion of cash bail. But the Legislature did pass some significant criminal justice laws. Here’s a quick list. More information is available on the legislature’s website.

Act 4 (H.2) – delay of ‘raise the age’: This act extends the implementation date for the “Raise the Age” juvenile justice initiative, which aims to charge children involved in criminal conduct as juveniles in the Family Division rather than as adults in the Criminal Division, from April 1, 2025, to July 1, 2027. The Department for Children and Families is required to provide status reports to the Legislature on this program’s implementation. It also raises the minimum age for a child to be subject to delinquency proceedings from 10 to 12 years old. 

Act 8 (H.118) – Expanding the scope of hate-motivated crimes: This legislation broadens the State’s hate crime statute to include conduct directed at third parties and groups of people based on their actual or perceived membership in a protected category. 

Act 9 (H.259) – Preventing workplace violence in hospitals: This act mandates that licensed hospitals develop and implement a workplace violence security plan based on an assessment of high-risk areas. Key elements of the plan include options for omitting last names on employee name tags, ensuring a de-escalation-trained employee is always present in emergency and patient care areas, and requiring a trauma-informed care and victim support liaison to law enforcement and victims. Hospitals must also establish a workplace violence incident reporting system. Expenditures for implementing these security plans are excluded from certificate of need requirements. 

Act 12 (S.9) – After-hours access to orders against sexual assault: This act enables individuals to obtain emergency protection orders against sexual assault outside of regular court hours, mirroring the process for emergency domestic violence orders. It directs the Court Administrator to establish procedures for obtaining such orders during nights, weekends, and holidays. 

Act 30 (H.41) – Abuse of the dead body of a person: In response to the heinous murder and and corpse mutiliation of an elderly Enosburg woman, This act creates a new criminal law prohibiting the knowing, intentional, and unauthorized burning, mutilating, disfiguring, dismembering, or destroying of a dead body, classifying it as a felony. It also enhances felony penalties for such acts if committed to conceal a crime or avoid apprehension, or for committing sexual conduct upon a dead body. And it modifies the law regarding unauthorized burial or removal of a dead body, converting it from a criminal offense to a civil penalty.

Act 39 (S.87) – Extradition procedures: This act makes changes to the duration a person can be held in Vermont while awaiting a warrant from the Governor of a demanding state, extending it from 30 to 90 days, with a possible extension of 30 days (total 120 days). It also recognizes a previously signed waiver of extradition as valid in Vermont, treating it as if the fugitive consented to return to the demanding state, though the fugitive may still challenge its validity.

Act 41 (H.44) – Amendments to impaired driving law: This act introduces several changes to impaired driving laws. It mandates compliance with the collection of an evidentiary blood sample issued through a warrant, making knowing hindrance a criminal refusal charge (though a person cannot be convicted of both DUI and criminal refusal). It ensures the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles receives police officer affidavits for DUI notices of violation. The act also ensures a separate DUI violation can be charged for each person who dies or is seriously injured in a single DUI-related crash. 

Additionally, it creates an Impaired Driving Processing Task Force to study implied consent during DUI investigations, aiming to minimize the length of law enforcement encounters and reduce processing requirements.

Act 45 (H.105) – Expanding the Youth Substance Awareness Safety Program: This act expands the Youth Substance Awareness Safety Program (YSASP) to include underage violations for cannabis possession and impaired driving. These violations are no longer treated as delinquencies adjudicated in the Family Division but are instead referred to YSASP for remedial programming, leading to automatic license suspensions for impaired driving violations and reinstatements upon successful YSASP completion. If a participant fails to meet program requirements, infractions are adjudicated as civil violations.

Act 46 (H.222) – Civil orders of protection: This act amends the definition of stalking to specifically include behavior conducted through the use of technology. It authorizes courts, after a hearing, to award temporary possession of a vehicle to a plaintiff in cases of temporary emergency domestic violence civil orders if necessary to escape or prevent further abuse. The act also allows courts to order a defendant in a final domestic violence order to complete an approved domestic violence accountability program, though a violation of this condition would lead to civil contempt proceedings rather than a criminal charge.