by Guy Page
Gov. Phil Scott June 1 vetoed S.6, a bill for law enforcement interrogation policies that “would make it more difficult to investigate and prosecute young adult perpetrators involved in serious crimes.”
It’s the sixth veto of the 2023 session, and the fifth likely to face a veto override at the June 20-22 special session of the Legislature.
Gov. Scott offered the following explanation:
“This bill started out as a reasonable approach to expand existing constitutional protections prohibiting deceptive and coercive interrogations for juvenile offenders under the age of 18.
“As passed, this bill would make Vermont an outlier by offering these expanded protections to young adult offenders up to the age of 22, despite Vermont’s already robust constitutional protections. There was uniform testimony in opposition to this bill from the entities charged with promoting public safety, including crime victim services and child advocacy centers, that this bill will remove tools from law enforcement used to investigate very serious, violent crimes at a time when our communities are not feeling safe and are asking us to do more.
“This bill would make it more difficult to investigate and prosecute young adult perpetrators involved in serious crimes, such as narcotics trafficking, sex offenses, including sexual assaults that happen on college campuses and child sex abuse cases, and internet crimes against children.”
Other bills vetoed by Gov. Scott include:
S.39, legislative pay increase
H.386, underage voting in Brattleboro
H.494, state budget
H.509, non-citizen voting in Burlington
S.5, Clean Heat Standard (overridden by Legislature last month)