By Guy Page
In the face of rising homicide and drug crime, Vermont must pull back from several criminal justice reform laws passed in recent years, Gov. Phil Scott told the State House press at noon Wednesday.
“We should learn from the failed experiments in places like San Francisco and Oregon, where even they are thinking of repealing many of the measures they’ve put in place,” Scott said.
Gov. Scott has been criticized for just now criticizing bills he signed into law (including reducing bail options) and not proposing enough criminal justice funding, such as more deputy state’s attorneys to reduce the staggering case backlog. Also he said now just isn’t the time, budget-wise, to talk about building a new state prison – a suggestion he floated several years ago.
What we can do is pass laws that make Vermont safer, he said.
“We can’t allow bills that fail to meet the moment, and especially ones that move us in the wrong direction,” Scott said. “We hear from law enforcement, municipal leaders, business owners, and retirees about their significant concerns about rising crime.”
Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison provided data showing violent and drug-related crime is indeed rising. For example:
In 2023 there were 27 homicides, of which 11 were drug related. Four were domestic-violence related – a category that used to be the leading cause of homicides, but no more. Of the 26 homicides in 2022, half were drug-related. Four were domestic-violence related. (None of the 2023 homicides were ‘officer-involved.’ Two in 2022 involved a police officer, Morrison said.)
When three unsolved homicide cases are resolved, the number of drug-related cases could climb higher, Morrison said.
Scott wants the Legislature to act on four key areas.
Reform Bail Reform. “The reality we face due in part to reforms that have reduced accountability including: conditions of release that don’t have the consequences needed to make them effective” and “our decision to effectively remove bail as a tool to get people to appear in court,” Scott said.
Current state law states a person charged with a violent felony may be held without bail when the evidence of guilt is great and the court finds, based upon clear and convincing evidence, that the person’s release poses a substantial threat of physical violence. That law was upheld last December by the Vermont Supreme Court in State V. Christopher Brown.
However, the law caps bail at $200 for misdemeanors and other, less serious felonies.
The Vermont Constitution (Chapter II, section 40) prohibits “excessive bail” and outlines what is excessive. Bail may be imposed in the case of violent offenses, and for more than 60 days if the offense is punishable by death or a life-sentence.
At least one prominent state senator has publicly invoked senate powerlessness to make bail tougher, under the ‘excessive bail’ clause. As commentator Bill Gillam wrote of an Addison County public safety meeting in VDC November 9: “Sen. [Ruth] Hardy repeated several times that the Vermont constitution prohibits excessive bail. “I just want to clarify and underscore that excessive bail is prohibited by our state constitution. It is not statutory,” Hardy said. “It is not something that the three of us in this room could introduce the bill about and change next session. We would have to introduce a constitutional amendment to the Vermont state constitution.”
Gillam said: “But no one is asking our local legislators to push for constitutional repeal of the ‘excessive bail’ provision. Instead, I and many other Vermonters ask lawmakers to bolster bail laws as permitted by the Constitution, which says: “All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties.”
However, should the state constitution need amending, this Legislature and the last have both shown themselves willing to undertake that task – as it did in 2022 with removing indentured servitude and protecting reproductive rights.
Conditions of release need to be revisited, as well, Scott said. “To put the challenge in perspective, we had over 5,000 arrest warrants for “failure to appear” issued last year. And over 12,000 of our 21,000 criminal dockets involve repeat offenders. The administration has proposed initiatives to limit this problem, Scott said.
Tougher drug laws for when death results – “We also need to strengthen our ability to prosecute when death results from these sales. One problem we have now is the defense of ‘willful ignorance.’ Dealers claim they didn’t know the drugs they were selling contained deadly fentanyl. They should just assume everything they’re selling is deadly.”
Delay raise the age: “We also need to delay the “raise the age” provision, which has put older, more violent offenders into our DCF system and created a number of unintended consequences that harm, rather than help, our youth.”
In particular, traffickers are preying on young adults, using them because they know accountability is less likely, Scott said.
Scott said the State of Vermont erred by moving forward with this policy systems were in place to handle the increased caseloads of younger adult offenders. Vermont still has no secure youth treatment and detention facility to replace Woodside, which closed in 2019.
Seal, don’t expunge – Vermont should allow sealed criminal records, with law enforcement access as needed, but not expungement. “Completely erasing criminal records makes no sense, especially when it comes to our collective concerns about repeat offenders, as well as gun safety,” Scott said. “Sealing accomplishes our goal, so past mistakes don’t limit someone’s ability to get a job or housing.”
“Some have described my approach as ‘tough on crime’ but the alternative is being soft on crime,” Scott said. “I’m not talking about going back to the approach of the 80s and 90s, or some wild swing to the right. I’m just asking lawmakers to meet me in the middle.”
In an upcoming issue, VDC will cover legislative initiatives on expungement, bail reform, raising the age of accountability, and other criminal justice reforms.
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Categories: Legislation
Perhaps closing the southern border would go a long way towards reducing the massive amount of illegal drugs pouring into our country.
That makes too much sense. Leftists would rather allow a problem to proliferate and then spend massive amounts of public resources to pretend to fix it while telling everyone that fixing the problem would be racist…
Our northern border is wide open and we never hear a word from our governor about that
I believe Scott created a sanctuary state for the people in vermont… I wonder how many vermonters are in favor of a governor doing this to them knowing full well the problems it would create for the residents in the state of vermont.
Now we’re hearing about creating housing for people who need it and I keep asking our great governor if it is housing for illegal immigrants but I never seem to get an answer…
Isn’t it amazing that the politicians we put in office don’t have time to answer our questions or care about our concerns for our beautiful state?
Remember Phil Scott sold us out when he denounced Trump and he voted for Joe Biden and the destruction of America under the Biden crime family…
We also have the head of the GOP heading us down a progressive path claiming it is the best avenue for republicans to take at the same time he claims he is a conservative republican…
Will someone please tell Paul Dame you can’t be both at the same time.
We have been sold out in the state of vermont and in America at the hands of the Biden crime family and those that support him.
These Progressives and Democrats don’t learn! They think they are smarter than everyone else and can fix the problem with the same solutions. More money for law enforcement is the cure.
Well more money for law enforcement may be a cure but we have to root out the corruption in our law enforcement agencies.. the rutland city police department has many police officers and the chief who are corrupt to the core… After having to deal with them and their lies it’s absolutely disgusting that we continue to pay these people to do their dirty work against us..
I never realized how corrupt the mayor and the alderman and the police commission are in the city of rutland vermont and then when I approached the state’s attorney Ian Sullivan about it he turned a blind eye to it all.
I would never agree with defunding our police but I think we need to get rid of the ones that are corrupt and not willing to do the job they are paid for…
Yes, of course! Why didn’t anyone ever think of that before! Tougher crime laws that go equally unprosecuted as do the current crime laws! Thanks. Governor Scott. This is but another sterling example of precisely why we elected you to lead the state.
First of all, we should absolutely be going back to the 80s and 90s as far as crime is concerned. And if the radicals in the legislature won’t meet you in the middle, will you recruit challengers who will?
If we were as tough on crime as Hillary and Biden were in the 1990s, that would solve the problem.
Yes, and even President Trump was too sympathetic to “criminal justice reform”. Many Republicans were. Trump was attacking Biden for the 1990’s crime bill, of all things.
Why are our police departments and DMV refusing to enforce motor vehicles driving around unregistered, un-inspected and uninsured? I called several times about several different vehicles and NOTHING was ever done…So as a result we are paying more for Our annual Registrations.
Were the vehicles you reported newer models still under warranty or were they clunkers that would not pass inspection without hundreds of dollars of repair? More and more people are finding they can’t afford to get their vehicles inspected and they can’t afford a new car. Their clunkers still work and they need them to get to work. So they become scoff laws and hope they don’t get stopped and fined. Maybe the police are aware of how difficult it is to get a vehicle inspected and are giving the working poor a break. Or maybe the police are afraid of being accused of racial profiling. I’m wondering were the vehicles you reported your neighbors?
…so if you want to avoid being pulled over, spend some time in the tanning salon and when the officer approaches your window recite the following: “no hablo ingles”…works every time.
Disingenuous is not even close in describing the “honorable” sen. ruth hardy’s explanation of bail laws. Gaslighting describes her action better. Nowhere in The Vermont Constitution is excessive bail defined. “Excessive bail shall not be exacted for bailable offenses.”
That’s it. No definition of what is excessive bail. So the matter of bail is indeed statutory. Perhaps ms. hardy could use a refresher course in Vermont’s Constitution and seek advice from better liars in the senate.
More than occasionally, ms. hardy and her cabal are wrong- and inflict damage and harm upon Vermont’s citizens while cloaking themselves from responsibility.
Every member of this legislature needs to listen up and pay heed to phil scott’s words. Listening to yourselves and your donors isn’t working out for your constituents. Us little people that you swore an oath to.
Chairman Phil Scott, you were neutered in 2022. There is a majority of sucking leeches currently slithering in the state house that could care less about your late to the game intentions, including the one from Addison County. The Vermont Socialist Republic is circling the drain and there is not a damn thing you can do about! The leeches are laughing at you!
Gov. Scott is one of the last rays of hope we have in the People’s Republic of Vermont.
He was neutered by our fellow “Vermonters” who blindly and obediently voted for pathetic flatlanders in the legislature. I fear the very idea of Gov. Balint, Gov. Weinberger, Gov. Baruth, Gov. “Charity”…God forbid.
I wish this article did not refer to one of the constitutional amendments ratified on November 8, 2022, as “protecting reproductive rights.”
That buzzphrase was the propaganda its sponsors, the majority of legislators, physicians, and Planned Parenthood wanted us to believe. They were effective in deceiving Vermont voters that Article 22 was about “protecting reproductive rights,” when, in reality, it was their slimy underhanded tactic for enshrining zero protections for moms and their preborn babies throughout all nine months of pregnancy. It was their demonic way of nullifying the Bill of Rights which guarantees each of us rights already endowed us by our Creator, namely the rights to life and liberty.
We already had reproductive rights. People are free to reproduce all day every day in Vermont. No one is stopping them. What should never be allowed is deproductive rights once a human life has been reproduced. That’s actually in our statutes already, too. It’s called murder.
i guess the only thing you can do is to vote down all your town and school budgets/// the buck stops now/// it will never happen///
Wow Phil where the hell have you been???? You finally took your head out of your ass and decided that it is now time to get tough on crime! Really!!! Is it because Burlington, Brattleboro & Rutland are now crime ridden cities, or because there is a murder once a week, or drug related crimes (in which you did NOT support closing the southern border). You are a day late and a dollar short….. but don’t worry the idiots under the golden dome have your back, LOL
gee phil , you can not show up at a gun fight with a rubber knife/// not sure where his brain is ,but i do not want to get a no trespass notice so i will be careful///
What about actually enforcing the laws which are already in place?
The laws in place are “racist” and not sensitive to the needs of those who were subject to a “rough upbringing”…
From your lips to Joe Biden’s old ears, he could close the southern border overnight. Possible now that an election is coming at him hard and fast,
But, but, but…..restorative justice! You didn’t paint black lives matter outside the capital for nothing did you Phil?
Re: King Philip the 1st Eunuch King of Castrati: “Some have described my approach as ‘tough on crime’ but the alternative is being soft on crime,” Scott said. “I’m not talking about going back to the approach of the 80s and 90s, or some wild swing to the right. I’m just asking lawmakers to meet me in the middle.”
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right, and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.” – Ayn Rand
Does this mean the stench of death is hitting the red, bulbous, broken-veined nose of Governor Empty Suit? The Govenor has spoken, the Legislature, Officials, and Judiciary ignores. Next….
I’m glad Governor Scott wants to get tougher on crime. It’s already way past time for that.
But speaking of disingenuous, it is he who officially removed all legal protections for preborn children and permitted every manner of violence against them when he signed Act 47 into Vermont statute on June 19, 2019. He’s no Hitler, but, what he did on that dark day in 2019 would be like Hitler declaring that the Nazis needed to crack down on brutality in its regime.
Good idea Governor. Let’s indeed see what we can learn from “failed experiments” in miserable, crime and drug riddled cities. Hmmm….let’s see…there’s Burlington, South Burlington………