A Judiciary subcommittee on victim services voted to recommend a statutory change to the state’s address-confidentiality process so that victims who request that their addresses be kept confidential on criminal protective orders have their addresses sealed from subsequent access.

The committee said the change responds to a case in Stamford in which a victim’s address was included on a protective order despite the victim’s request that it remain confidential. Members agreed the issue required a statutory remedy rather than piecemeal administrative fixes.

Megan Scanlon of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence moved the recommendation that the subcommittee ask for a statutory change to the address confidentiality statute; Representative Tammy Nuccio seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote; during discussions, Nancy Tyler, the survivor representative on behalf of CCIDD, said she would abstain from approving specific language without seeing the draft and noted, “as an attorney, I'm just going to just state without seeing the language, I'm going to have to abstain because, obviously, words matter.”

Shauna, the meeting facilitator, told members she had circulated draft statutory language prepared by staff for review. Members agreed the draft would be sent to the group’s legislative liaisons to refine and prepare a formal bill or legislative proposal; the subcommittee did not adopt final statutory text at the meeting.

Participants reported some technical difficulties sharing the draft during the call; one member said she could not open the attachment and the text was posted into chat and re-sent by email. The group agreed to continue work through the legislative liaisons and to move the recommendation forward to the larger council for the October 1 meeting as a draft statutory-change recommendation.

Next steps include liaison review to finalize language and, if agreed, preparation of any fiscal notes or legislative filings through the standard process.