Jail-to-court trips may be cut to save money
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By Dave Gram Associated Press - Published: December 12, 2008
MONTPELIER — Hoping to cut costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Vermont lawmakers want the state's courts to reduce the number of jail-to-courthouse trips made to ferry prisoners to routine court hearings.
The Legislative Committee on Judicial Rules made what one member called an informal recommendation to the Vermont Supreme Court that it adopt a new rule saying routine pretrial court hearings be conducted with the defendant participating by phone or video hookup instead.
State Sen. Vincent Illuzzi said the recommendation is informal because the eight-member panel lacked a quorum at Monday's meeting. The four members present unanimously supported the change, he said.
"You can just imagine the time and expense that's involved" in transporting prisoners for routine court matters, said Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans. "I just think we have to be more sensitive to those cost factors," said Illuzzi, who also serves as state's attorney in Essex County.
The state spends about $1.2 million on 23 full-time sheriffs' deputies assigned to various sheriffs' departments in Vermont's 14 counties, said Jane Woodruff, executive director of the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. In addition, the state has budgeted $384,000 to hire deputies on a per diem basis and $238,000 to pay mileage for cruisers used in the transports.
Any savings from those amounts would be welcome, especially since the department has been asked by the Douglas administration to cut $277,000 out of its $3.4 million budget for the current fiscal year, Woodruff said.
Illuzzi argued that sheriff's deputies' time could better be spent in traffic enforcement and other police duties. "I'd rather have them out there doing law enforcement work than providing an unneeded taxi service."
Illuzzi and others who would be involved in implementing the change said it wouldn't apply to more important matters, such as arraignments, changes of plea, competency and other hearings.
Patricia Gabel, a spokeswoman for the courts, said Thursday that not all of the state's courts have the equipment needed to hold hearings with suspects participating from another location.
"One of the challenges we have is that not all courthouses have the technological capability, so you'd need to invest in the technology that would enable these (proceedings) to take place. Right now, we're looking at cutting budgets, not adding to them," she said.
"We're on board, so long as we've got the resources and the questions are answered," she said.
Defender General Matthew Valerio, whose office represents or hires private lawyers to represent indigent defendants, said he wouldn't oppose the change, as long as it didn't affect "hearings in which someone could be deprived of their liberty."
"I'm not OK with it, but I'm not opposed to it," Valerio said. "I understand. We're in a very unique situation right now, fiscally. There's a lot of things we wish we could do that we're not going to be able to do."
Woodruff said the change would codify a practice already in place on a limited basis. A system for video conferencing was set up to link the Vermont District Court in Bennington with the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland, where Bennington County detainees are typically held.
"Unfortunately, it's either broken or people don't use it," she said. "It's not a popular mode of having people appear at court hearings."
Woodruff and Illuzzi said one advantage of cutting down on the trips would be a reduction in greenhouses gases emitted by sheriffs' cruisers. A draft rule considered at Monday's legislative committee meeting referred to "heightened concern regarding the generation of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions as a result of the number of transports."
But Woodruff, a former state's attorney in Orleans County, said she doesn't foresee a day when defendants are sentenced via video conference.
"I don't think you would ever hear me advocate that an individual should be sentenced to a correctional facility" in anything other than a face-to-face meeting with a judge in court, she said.
"You want them to hear and feel the impact of what they did and how they are going to start repaying society and taking responsibility for their actions when sentences are handed down by a judge," she said.
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