Mixed reviews for crime and courts - Bennington Banner (subscription)

While the dust hasn't quite settled yet, this past legislative session was an interesting one in terms of crime and punishment.

Our friends at VTDigger recently published an overview of crime and court related bills put forward by lawmakers this year. They dealt with everything from marijuana legalization — which may not be settled quite yet — to sex and drug crimes, ethics, and immigration.

After Governor Phil Scott opted to veto the marijuana legalization bill earlier this month, he said he'd be open to letting it pass if legislators made some changes in time for a June veto session. The changes are reasonable and easy enough to make but even if they're drafted, opponents have ways of blocking the legislation.

To pass the bill in the two-day June session, a rule would have to be suspended, something that House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, has said he's not willing to do, reports Seven Days, a publication based in Burlington. His stance is understandable. Republicans in Vermont don't seem to win many battles these days and killing the pot bill, which had bipartisan support as well as opposition, might help air the dust out of their trophy cabinet even if it does go against the will of most Vermonters.

There's ways around that rule, many of them hinge on Scott, so soon we'll see just how willing he is to make legalization happen. Had the Legislature, specifically the House, not dragged its feet so much on this perhaps the bill's progress wouldn't be so tortured. The House was fairly split on the issue.

Another area where the Legislature stumbled was in creating an ethics bill. Kidney stones have been passed with greater enthusiasm. Lawmakers hated the bill largely because it requires them to divulge financial information about themselves and their spouses. The State Ethics Commission the bill creates comes with laughable levels of staffing and no enforcement powers, effectively making it a glorified clerk position.

The Legislature also passed a bill specifically targeting the manufacture and sale of fentanyl, a powerful opioid illegal drug manufacturers mix with regular heroin to increase its potency. Fentanyl has been blamed on numerous overdoses and overdose deaths and even poses a threat to law enforcement who risk incidental exposure through skin contact. We expect this law will be every bit as effective as the existing ones. Vermont keeps saying it can't arrest its way way out of the opioid crisis, but that seems to be the only method it's capable of expanding upon.

Where the Legislature did well was in taking a stand against President Donald Trump's anti-Muslim immigration orders. VTDigger reports that S. 79 requires the governor's approval before "...any law enforcement agency in the state enters a particular type of agreement with the federal government under which local or state police are deputized to enforce federal civil immigration law."

It also limits the amount of information law enforcement has to share with the federal government in order to prevent a "Muslim registry," something Trump, while campaigning, indicated that he'd create.

Other solid moves from the folks in Montpelier include: Eliminating the statute of limitations on sexual assault and extending the limitation on sexually exploiting children from six to 40 years, creating a sexual assault victims' bill of rights, and lowering the wait time for the expungement of certain crimes.

The legislature also deserves a thumbs-up for not allowing Vermont to become the last state in the country to outlaw bestiality. Prior to this session, we were one of eight states without a law specifically prohibiting it. Better late than never.

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