The House Judiciary Committee, which I have the privilege to chair, has had a productive Session so far. Below, I highlight five bills that our Committee has already passed and that are on their way to the Senate.

House Bill 27 supports Vermont’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission. The Commission tracks domestic violence homicide trends, conducts in-depth case reviews, identifies factors that increase the risk of domestic violence, and recommends systemic changes to reduce incidents of domestic violence. H.27 would allow the Commission to review trends and patterns of near-fatal instances of domestic violence in Vermont, in addition to fatal instances of domestic violence. Expanding the cases the Commission can review will give it valuable insight into opportunities for intervention and prevention of domestic violence. In addition, H.27 expands the membership of the Commission to gain the perspectives of additional key stakeholders, including victims’ advocates.

H.41 would establish a felony charge for abusing the dead body of a person. The bill was introduced in response to a brutal murder last year in Enosburg where the murderer also burned the victim’s body. This new statute would prohibit a person from engaging in various types of conduct that constitutes abuse of a corpse. Specifically, it creates a five-year felony for a person who, without legal authorization, burns, mutilates, disfigures, dismembers, or destroys a dead human body. The bill also would create an enhanced penalty when a person commits this conduct with the intent to conceal a crime or avoid apprehension, prosecution, or conviction of a crime or when a person commits a sexual act with the dead human body.

H.44 would make a variety of changes to Vermont’s laws governing impaired driving, such as closing loopholes to ensure that the DMV is notified of license suspensions and creating proportionate accountability for noncompliance with warrant-based blood draws.

H.98 proposes an expedited confirmatory adoption process for individuals who conceived a child through assisted reproduction and are deemed to be parents under Vermont law. Vermont’s current adoption process is primarily written for more traditional adoptions that bring children into new homes and families. These adoptions appropriately require a detailed process involving lengthy and expensive home studies, notice to genetic parents, waiting periods, and other requirements. These extensive requirements are not appropriate in situations where the purpose of the adoption is to confirm legal parent-child relationships that have existed since birth and are already recognized under state law. Families created by assisted reproduction have established parentage relationships under Vermont law but other states may not recognize that status, which can become an issue when families travel or relocate. Confirmatory adoption allows for adoption decrees that must be honored in all states, which is critical to protect the childrens’ best interests and safety.

Finally, H.118 would expand the scope of Vermont’s hate crime statute to cover conduct directed at third parties and groups of people based on their actual or perceived membership in a protected category. Vermont’s current hate crime statute operates as a penalty enhancement rather than a separate criminal charge with its own penalties. Under current law, a person who commits an underlying crime that is motivated by the victim’s membership in a protected category – like race, color, religion, national origin, and others – may be sentenced to additional time in prison, an additional monetary fine, or both, if prosecutors invoke this statute. H.118 amends the hate-motivated crimes statute by replacing the phrase “the victim’s actual or perceived protected category” with “another person’s or a group of persons’ actual or perceived membership in a protected category” as the basis on which to impose the statute’s enhanced penalty.