On Tuesday, the House appointed its members to both the Judicial Nominating Board and the Judicial Retention Committee. Joining Senators Kittell, Scott, and Campbell on Nominating are Reps. Marek, Pellett, and Clark. The Bar’s election results for our 3 seats, divided north, south, and at-large are not yet in. The Governor also has two appointments to the Board. The new JNB should be constituted by 1 February.

House members of the Retention Committee are: Reps. Jewett, Clarkson, Flory and Gervais. The Senate members are Senators Campbell, Flanagan, Nitka, and Mullin. That Committee is ready to begin its work on Judges Katz, Manley, Cohen, Crucitti, Joseph, and Zimmerman. Review and public hearings should occur during February with a vote by the General Assembly in mid March.

Summer study committee reports in which the VBA played a part are being filed now. The first, a committee that reviewed chapter 55 of title 33 relating to juvenile proceedings filed its report on January 11, 2007. Here is a link to the report and the list on members. Many thanks to Pam Marsh and Adele Pastor for serving as the two VBA attorney representatives.

The criminal history records committee established in Act 169 (S. 262) completed its work on Tuesday of this week; its report can be found HERE: The Victims Rights Study Committee established in Act 193 (H.373) should complete its work on Monday, January 29 th; I’ll post a link to that report as soon as it’s available.

Act 192 (H. 856) created the Vermont Sentencing Commission, a permanent body with various responsibilities concerning sentencing practices, disparity, sentencing alternatives, recent developments in criminal law, etc. it is required to report in December 2007 for the first time and annually in December after that.

The VBA appointee is Tom Zonay who provided this report:

The initial meeting of the Sentencing Commission was held on October 4, 2006. At the outset of the meeting, the chair, Justice Brian Burgess, announced that Bill Clements, the Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Justice Research at Norwich University, had agreed to serve as vice-chair of the Commission. A general discussion was held concerning the Commission's charge. Representative William Lippert pointed out that the language of the enabling legislation was carefully chosen and that the intent for the Commission was not, as some may mistakenly believe, to adopt sentencing guidelines. Rather, it has a much broader mission. (See 13 VSA §5452 which sets forth the specified duties of the Commission). Notably, Representative Lippert pointed out that the Commission was designed to serve as an ongoing entity, as opposed to a study committee which would disband after making recommendations to the Legislature. By way of action, the Commission determined that in order to most effectively move forward it needed to first hire an Executive Director. A hiring committee, chaired by Judge Amy Davenport was appointed. Also appointed to the Committee were Matt Valerio, John Treadwell, Catherine Metropoulos, and Bill Clements. The position was to be advertised in accordance with a job description approved by the Commission. The Committee was to receive applications and report back to the Commission on its recommendations as to the qualified candidates.The deadline for applications was December 15, 2006. The Commission met on January 19, 2007.

Bills of interest introduced thus far this week include H. 87, the Uniform transfer to Minors Act which would replace the Vermont Uniform Gift to Minors Act. A copy of the bill can be found here:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-087.htm

The issue of “ancient roads”, now “unidentified corridors” has returned in H. 111
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-111.htm

This bill would add two years to the deadline for towns to add those unidentified “roads” to its town highway map or those roads will be discontinued. Even though the 2006 bill was debated at length and a compromise was made to roll out the date from 2008 to 2009 at the request of municipalities, H. 111 adds two more years (2011) and another $400,000 in grants to municipalities to research and map these unidentified corridors.

On Thursday, H. 141 was introduced with this statement of purpose: This bill proposes to permit the court to award primary, sole, or shared parental rights and responsibilities based only upon the best interests of the child, eliminating the current requirement that the court award primary or sole responsibilities to one parent if the parents cannot agree to shared custody. Here’s a link to the bill:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-141.htm

Last week I wrote that the Governor’s Commission on the Marketability of Title had filed its final report; here is the link to that report: http://www.brandsystems.net/vtbar/attorneyresources/reports/index.htm

You will find it is the second link under Real Estate. The third link will take you to two position papers dealing with the issue of certifying real estate specialists. Our rules of professional conduct prohibit us from calling ourselves “specialists” unless we are certified as such by an “organization…accredited by the American Bar Association to certify lawyers as specialists in a particular field of law…” (VRPC 7.4). A number of real estate practitioners brought a proposal to the VBA Board of Managers to explore becoming a certifying authority. The Board formed a Commission to study the issue and, after its first two meetings, the Commission is weighing arguments made in the two position papers. Roger Kohn has drafted the memo in opposition and Andy Mikell has written in favor of certification. Your thoughts, questions, suggestions are invited; please respond to me at bpaolini@vtbar.org. Expect to hear more about this both at the Mid Year Meeting on March 22-23, 2007 and in the VBA Journal.

Court Administrator Lee Suskin made presentations to both the House Judiciary Committee and the Ways and Means Committee on Thursday concerning the judiciary’s budget and collection of fines. I’m linking you here to three documents on this subject. The first is his memo to the Judiciary Committee setting out the Court’s budget request. Following that is my letter on behalf of the VBA Board of Managers in reaction to Lee’s appearance before the Board at its December meeting. There was much of interest in his presentation including the judiciary’s stated goal of all electronic filing by August 2012. Lastly, there is Lee’s memo about a collections plan for unpaid traffic fines, etc. You may be surprised as I was at the amount of money that goes uncollected from traffic tickets. CLICK HERE to read these documents.

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