News & Commentary

The omnibus privacy bill (S. 155) the ACLU-VT has been pushing for three years crossed the finish line in the last 12 hours of the final day of the 2016 Vermont legislative session.

The state trooper involved in the racial profiling / bogus drug case the ACLU brought on behalf of Gregory Zullo of Rutland is no longer with the Vermont State Police, according to the Caledonian Record. "'He is no longer employed by the Vermont State Police,'" VSP spokesman Scott Waterman told the Record. "Waterman also declined to answer any other questions about Hatch 'because of the litigation' and referred all other inquiries about Hatch to the Vermont Attorney General's Office. A message left with at the attorney general's office, seeking further information about Hatch, was not returned by press time," according to the story.

Vermont has, unfortunately, seen another fatal police shooting of an individual facing mental health issues. The death Monday, March 21 in Burlington of 76-year-old Ralph 'Phil' Grenon from multiple gunshots fired by a city police officer raised yet again the question of why, when police are called to help someone in emotional or mental distress, the result is death.

The city of Burlington has been working on its decades-old (and neglected) mask ordinance, updating it and trying to make it constitutional. While recent proposed changes are an improvement, they're not enough. The redraft of the ordinance, soon to come before the city council for adoption, is unconstitutionally vague. In practical terms, the ordinance would likely continue to be highly susceptible to selective enforcement by police. It's also duplicative of other criminal statutes, such as laws on disorderly conduct and simple assault. Bottom line: It's not ready for prime time.

As has been well-covered by Vermont media, on Dec. 22nd a Burlington man and alleged drug dealer was killed by Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Vermont State Police (VSP) officers. The DEA, VSP, and other members of the Vermont Drug Task Force executed a so-called "no-knock" warrant at the home of the alleged dealer, Kenneth Stephens, in a densely populated residential neighborhood two blocks from the federal courthouse. Officers with the agencies involved said Stephens aimed a muzzleloader at them before he was shot. As stated in the federal warrant request and criminal complaint, the officers were aware of the presence of the muzzleloader before going in but did not know whether it would be loaded and ready to fire.

An ACLU-VT review of panhandling ordinances on the books in several Vermont municipalities shows that local laws contain provisions that are similar to panhandling laws in three other states recently thrown out by three different federal courts.

A year ago, we wrote about Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, a coalition of groups (including the ACLU-VT) working to end mass incarceration and establish a more restorative and effective criminal justice system in Vermont. It appears that many in the state agree with this goal. State officials are holding a series of public hearings around the state to gather public opinion on a possible legislative resolution that would call for shifting the focus of the criminal justice system away from incarceration.

A state official has outlined the rationale for Big Brother-like collection of information about Vermonters: If we're charged with a crime, we should have access to information that can prove our innocence. Government, in other words, should focus on data collection that might prove who HASN'T committed a crime rather than show who HAS committed a crime.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that marriage is a fundamental right and must be made available equally to straight and gay couples. The majority opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who said: "It is now clear that the challenged laws burden the liberty of same-sex couples, and it must be further acknowledged that they abridge central precepts of equality . . . Especially against a long history of disapproval of their relationships, this denial to same-sex couples of the right to marry works a grave and continuing harm. The imposition of this disability on gays and lesbians serves to disrespect and subordinate them. And the Equal Protection Clause, like the Due Process Clause, prohibits this unjustified infringement of the fundamental right to marry."