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Senate moves broad judiciary technical bill to third reading with changes from judiciary committee
Summary
S.109 makes numerous technical and procedural updates across Vermont court and judicial statutes — from adult court diversion, remote records access, to expungement and firearms-surrender working group creation — and the Senate amended and ordered the measure to third reading after committee reporting.
S.109, the judiciary committee's annual miscellaneous judiciary procedures bill, received a broad report on March 19 and was advanced to third reading after the Senate adopted committee-recommended amendments.
Senator Matos, reporting for the Committee on Judiciary, summarized section-by-section changes that are largely technical or procedural. Highlights include clarifying adult court diversion availability statewide; changing the statutory mechanism for setting the number of superior court judges to a legislative determination; updating statutes relating to possession of tobacco by persons under 21 and civil classification for fake IDs; expanding remote access to court records for attorneys; clarifying attorney-fee procedures; repealing obsolete or unnecessary reports and councils; sealing certain guardianship records when petitions are denied or withdrawn; and establishing a firearms-surrender-order compliance working group to develop uniform procedures and consider storage or disposition options for surrendered firearms.
The bill also addresses automatic expungement for certain convictions and adjusts property-title statute language to account for modern practice (for example, when powers of attorney are used in real-estate filings). On the floor senators raised questions about sections repealing statutes related to public inebriation and asked the committee to look back at the original 2019 intent before third reading; the committee agreed to follow up.
The Judiciary Committee reported unanimous support (5-0) and the Senate adopted the committee amendments and ordered third reading.
