Criminal justice

Under the bill, fathers in prison would be able to take parenting classes, visit with their children in a child-friendly space and talk to them via free video calls.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and Vermont resident, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Colchester this month.

Lawmakers and officials agree it isn’t ideal to imprison Vermonters out of state, but they say bringing them back would put in-state prisons dangerously over capacity. 

The program lives in a space distinct from the cold surfaces of the rest of the prison. In the room two green couches sit atop a patterned rug, with a shelf of toys stacked against the wall.

Said a co-curator: “It’s a way of recognizing someone’s humanity. Often in prison situations, we think the best way to do things is to deny people their humanity.”

State employees working with victims say the system doesn’t work — some even tell people not to sign up. For one woman, an “unbelievable gap” led to life-altering danger.

Usually up to 20 detainees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement are held in state prisons on a given day.

Almogalli sees herself in the students: Winooski is the only majority-minority school district in Vermont, and its students come from more than two dozen countries.

“Prisons are the least transparent and most understudied public institutions in the country. So doing research inside prisons — people just don’t do it, and therefore they’re like these black boxes.”

Mejia was working with her legal team to file for asylum and apply for a visa for human trafficking victims, said Migrant Justice.

Tent City, as the encampment was known, sat tucked in a patch of woods behind the downtown train station and Food City grocery store.

Vermont’s only women’s prison, Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, is half a century old and in terrible shape. The state has set aside millions for a new facility, but construction is years away.

The bill would bar people from having guns, frames or receivers that lack serial numbers or transferring them to someone else.

Legislators added the original bill’s language to H.878, which deals with “miscellaneous judiciary procedures.”

The bill would target shoplifters who steal multiple things in one county within a two-week period. If the combined value of the goods exceeds $900, an offender would face the same fines and imprisonment as the current felony.

If cameras catch you driving more than 10 mph over the limit, the rig takes a photo of your license plate and you’ll get a ticket in the mail. 

Lawmakers made the changes after hearing testimony from state officials that called the bill’s language vague and lacking in precedent.

The bill would fill what supporters say is a gap in the law. 

The bill says if people agree to use protection before or during sex, neither party can remove or tamper with the condom without the other’s consent. The bill would allow survivors to seek damages in court.

The bill would hold drug sellers responsible for deaths caused by their distribution of laced drugs, even if doing so was down to mere carelessness.

The bill would limit Vermont police interrogators from lying to detainees. But lawmakers doubled down on details that got last year’s version of the plan shot down.

The bill would codify the practice of pre-charge referrals so the process is the same regardless of county.

Expungement entirely wipes someone’s conviction from the official record — the goal being to see them treated as if they had never been convicted.

Nationwide, 27 other states have a maximum fine for towing, but Vermont doesn’t.

“In the damages part of the legal process, some defendants were still using the argument that a person could be responsible for their assault,” said one of the sponsors of the bill. 

While the Murray family has searched for answers in the case, a growing cadre of amateur sleuths have fixated on the mystery, causing disruption for Haverhill residents.

Under current law, first responders employed by the state don’t have to prove PTSD is related to work when seeking workers’ compensation. The new bill would give that presumption to more state workers.

Ghost guns are firearms built at home using kits that come with all the parts needed for a gun. The unassembled parts aren’t considered guns by federal law and have no serial number.

If a business is culpable, H.614 allows police to seize any equipment it used for illegal activity. Furthermore, the bill increases fines and limits the logging activities of businesses with two or more outstanding fines or judgements.

‘It’s not necessarily doing anything to reinvent restorative justice or restorative approaches; it is making it so it is more streamlined access across the state,’ Dolan said. ‘This is trying to get some consistency and also respect the uniqueness of each county.’

Vermont State Police announced last week that troopers had finished an investigation into the incident and that no criminal charges would be filed. 

Meanwhile, a state police investigation lingers and the boy’s family is in touch with an attorney.

After 27 years with the Winooski Police Department – nine of them as chief – Rick Hebert retired at the end of last month, leaving a legacy of strong community-based policing. Now, the city has a gap to fill, and Winooski residents have a question to answer: What do they want from a new police chief?

Support from migrant rights activists is competing with concerns about the legality of the proposed policy change and, from law enforcement, wariness about restrictions on their jobs.  

Now the Vermont Department for Children and Families is perhaps two months away from setting up temporary quarters in Middlesex in a state complex most recently used for inpatient mental health.

Committee members are confused on what their vote meant — and now need to revote, a Criminal Justice Council admin told CNS.

The Department for Children and Families has been in and out of the Statehouse in recent weeks to initiate the process of building a new rehab and detention facility for juveniles in Vermont, the latest steps in a plan drafted back in December. 

Shelburne will offer $10,000 to new police officers and dispatchers over their first two years on the job as part of a new retention and recruitment program.