The second round of public hearings, this time for the retention of Judges Davenport, Suntag and Wright, was much quieter than the first. No one testified either for or against Judge Davenport; one lawyer spoke in support of Judge Suntag while two environmental court staffers supported the retention of Judge Wright. In addition, one lawyer spoke against the retention of Judge Hayes; he had previously been allowed by the committee to appear this week instead of last. His complaint went to issues of judicial demeanor; he cited a sense of disrespect on the part of the judge to both the prosecution and defense bar. He said that both clients as well as members of the public see that dismissive, condescending attitude and it hurts the public image of the courts. His requests for a meeting to discuss these issues have gone unanswered. The judges will return next week to respond to committee questions and/or comment on what transpired at the public hearings. The committee is scheduled to vote on the recommendation to the joint assembly on February 26 th. The full vote is scheduled for Thursday, March 13th.

H. 458, the “digital corporations” bill is on its way to the Senate having passed without opposition in the House; kudos to the Business Association Law Section, especially to Peter Erly and Tom Melloni, for all the work that went into this bill. That section has been busy in preparation for this session. At the Senate Finance Committee Tom Moody testified in favor of S.227, the licensed lender bill that makes an exception for “angel investors”. Brian Murphy appeared at the House Commerce Committee in support of H. 775, a bill that would create low profit limited liability companies under our corporate code. These are being referred to as L3Cs. Brian was able to explain to the committee the workings of 501(c)3 organizations and how the creation of L3Cs would help program related investments of non profits.

Since no week goes by without some discussion about title to real estate, I want to bring you the latest in the ongoing prebate/rebate issue. Yesterday the Ways and Means Committee heard from legislators sponsoring two bills that accomplish the same thing: keeping the three month period from April 1 to June 20 th a permanent period for the seller to recover a prebate directly from the tax department thereby taking it out of the closing equation. The committee didn’t appear sympathetic to either legislator; they are just not seeing the problem or are believing the tax department when it says “there is no money to do that”. The department maintains that beginning this year, since the education monies are not going to be transferred to the towns for payment in November to the school districts, that it doesn’t have the money. If either of these bills (H.569 or 642) were to pass, the tax department will ask for an appropriation to make the prebate payments.

We are continuing to work on H. 722, the real estate bill that I mentioned last week and that we’ve asked the Property Law Section to review. Although the House Judiciary Committee does not appear to have the time to work on this bill to make the crossover deadline, there is a bill that came over from the Senate that we hope will be the vehicle for these changes. It’s S.171, the bill that dealt with attorney’s discharge of mortgages. The committee will also consider adding language from H. 68, the notice of mortgage bill.

You’ll recall that I’ve written about the court fee increases that will accompany the increase in the judiciary budget for fiscal year 2009. Filing fees in superior, family, environmental, and the supreme will increase from $225 to $250. After much discussion that fee package passed the house and now resides in the Senate Finance Committee, which of course has jurisdiction over the revenues of the state. Last week that committee received S. 357 from the Senate Judiciary Committee. S. 357 is a comprehensive domestic violence bill. The issue is the funding sources for the DV programming. Part of the funding will come from an increase in the surcharge on criminal cases and traffic tickets from $26 to $39. The second source is an increase in the filing fee for family cases only from the present $225 to $275!. This was over the objection of the VBA and the judiciary. The Senate Finance Committee agreed to both, knowing that the House will have different ideas and well, basically, punted the ball to them to deal with.

That’s not that unusual. If you’ve been reading this report since the start of the session, you’ll remember that I testified against the new filing fee of $100 for appeals from a decision of a magistrate to a family court judge. (Presently there is no fee). The Ways and Means Committee approved the entire fee proposal without taking out that section. Again they left it for the Senate to deal with. I guess they’re even now.

Next Friday, the Probate and Trust Section will present its work to the House Judiciary and we’re hopeful that with the support of Peg Flory and Willem Jewett that we’ll be able to begin the process of making some sorely needed changes to our probate laws.

I’ve written a couple of times about S.224, the non unanimous civil jury bill and S. 187, the six person jury bill. Well, both appeared and disappeared from the calendar of the Senate Judiciary Committee over the last two weeks but now I have been assured by the Chair that neither will be taken up this year. That does not mean that the interest in one or both of these is gone; expect them to return next year.

I just returned form a discussion in House Judiciary about H. 180, the bill as introduced that would have required the Attorney General, AAGs, States Attorneys and deputies to be admitted to the bar of Vermont. That bill no longer contains the State Attorneys due to constitutional limitations on the legislature’s power to change the constitutionally created office. The committee is divided on the question of whether to extend the requirement for bar admission to the AG with some believing it may be perceived as targeting a recent non lawyer candidate for that office. Deputy states attorneys and AAGs are covered in the requirement, however. The latest addition to the bill is the requirement that probate judges be attorneys, with a grandfathering of anyone already in office as of July 1, 2008. I mentioned in an earlier report that this comes from the legislative study committee report of November 2004. Judiciary is expected to finish marking this bill up next week.

Thanks for reading.

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