Vermont's Senate Judiciary Committee holds first hearing on state's sex offender policies

By Megan Stewart, Politicker.com Reporter

Vermont's Senate Judiciary Committee convened Thursday for the first of more than half a dozen hearings set to examine the state's dealings with Michael Jacques, who has been charged with kidnapping and murdering his niece, Brooke Bennett, in June.

The committee hearing follows a Wednesday report from Vermont's Attorney General's Office in which Attorney General William Sorrell, state attorneys from thirteen of Vermont's counties, and representatives of victims' advocacy groups revealed five proposals for legislative changes to the state's policy regarding sexual offenders.

"Shame on us if the Brooke Bennett tragedy doesn't lead to improvements in our laws and policies in the sex crimes area," Sorrell said in a statement. "We prosecutors are in agreement," he stated of their conclusions.

Bennett's death prompted Gov. Jim Douglas' (R-Middlebury) political opponents to place blame on his administration, and has become a recurring issue in the gubernatorial race.

Following Jacques' arrest, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and House Speaker Gaye Symington called for an investigation into the early release of Jacques, but said that because of her gubernatorial candidacy, she spoke to state Sen. President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin about conducting an investigation.

"With the safety of our children at stake, it is clear that an outside body must conduct a full investigation of every aspect of this case and our parole system to determine how this failure occurred," Symington said in an earlier statement.

Douglas launched his own internal investigation and called for a special session to pass a new set of policies-specifically Jessica's law which garnered some support among constituents. Jessica's law places a 25-year minimum prison sentence on convicted child sex offenders, but in an article by WCAX, Sorrell said that passing the law would "mean more trials, more victims that go through trials, and probably result in less convictions because the iffy cases we have right now, where we've got problems, we usually bargain them down." Symington echoed the attorney general's discontent with the proposal, which she said in a statement that the law is something "victims rights advocates and prosecutors tell us would result in more harm" to others.

Days later, the Vermont Democratic Party released a video taking aim at current state policies regarding sexual offenders and charged that Douglas avoided key questions about the staffing practices of Vermont's Corrections Department and Special Investigative Units, or SIUs.

On Tuesday, Symington called for Douglas to fully staff additional SIUs in Washington, Lamoille, Orleans, Caledonia, and Northern Orange counties, saying that they were "effective crime fighting tools." Wednesday's report from the Attornery General's office supported the use of SIUs.

The second Senate Judiciary hearing will be held Friday, followed by two on August 28, one on August 29, with the final two sessions scheduled for September 11 and 12.

Megan Stewart is a Politicker.com Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

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