Thursday, February 20, 2014

The House Judiciary Committee is continuing its work on the collateral consequences bill (H 413) as well as the juvenile jurisdiction bill (H 618). Both are back on the table for discussion on Friday. I’ve been asked to tell the committee that the VBA Board of Managers had already endorsed the collateral consequences language back in 2010. As far as the juvenile jurisdiction bill goes, I’m not certain it has the support to emerge from the committee even with the amendments. Obviously the states attorneys don’t like and four have developed their own protocols to achieve much of the same results as the bill would achieve if enacted, at least according to them. One committee member pointed out that this is an election year and one or more states attorneys may not be in office next year and their protocols may leave with them.

Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled time to mark up and vote on S. 263, the bill I discussed yesterday concerning extending authority to assistant judges to sit with magistrates on child support contempt cases. it will probably have enough support to come out to the floor.

Last night was the public hearing on the retention of the six judges whose terms expire on March 31^st. only Jackie Fletcher, Court Manager for the Environmental Division testified in support of Judge Walsh. No other witnesses appeared. However, a couple of letters and emails were received by the committee. Tow of them concerned Judge Maley; both related to the wind case on Lowell Mountain. Parties to the civil case complained about his handling of the matter. But with the case still pending (almost two and half years after he made his rulings) he was hesitant to go into too much detail about the case. The second email concerned the criminal case that resulted in the conviction of some trespassers in the area where Green Mountain Power was attempting to erect towers. He defended his rulings in that jury trial and told the committee he (and the judge that handled pre trial matters) had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The final communication was about a serious and difficult homicide trial which prompted the relative of the victim (at least I believe it was from a relative) to write that, during the trial, at various bench conferences the attorneys and the judge could be seen and heard to be laughing. Judge Davenport. Who was in attendance, explained that sometimes “lowering the temperature” helped relieve everyone’s stress. The committee “got it”, especially when she analogized it to conference committee tensions in the waning days of a session. But it got me to think that maybe we aren’t sensitive to what others, not familiar with courts, must think when they see attorneys advocate and argue and then seem to be “enjoying” themselves along with a judge. It’s just something to think about I guess.

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading.