Legislature(2003 - 2004)
01/30/2004 01:10 PM House JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 398 - DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FATALITY REVIEW TEAM Number 1175 CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 398, "An Act relating to domestic violence fatality review teams." [In members' packets was a proposed committee substitute (CS) for HB 398, Version 23-LS1321\I, Luckhaupt, 1/29/04.] Number 1181 REX SHATTUCK, Staff to Representative Nancy Dahlstrom, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor, offered to respond to questions on behalf of Representative Dahlstrom. He said the committee was thorough in looking at the bill during the previous meeting. Number 1191 VANESSA TONDINI, Staff to Representative Lesil McGuire, House Judiciary Standing Committee, Alaska State Legislature, began discussion of the amendments adopted during the meeting on 1/28/04. Turning to Version I, she pointed out that inclusion of the language "or earlier" on page 1, line 10, creates sort of a discrepancy because it may be contradictory to specifying that a review team can only be started once a case has been completed or adjudicated. MS. TONDINI explained that although one of the amendments adopted at the bill's prior meeting added a definition section for the purpose of defining domestic violence, this change does not appear in Version I because domestic violence as defined in AS 18.66.990 already applies. MS. TONDINI turned attention to the page 2, lines 7-8, of Version I, and noted that it provides that "serious physical injury" has the meaning given in AS 11.81.900, so Version I does not contain a separate definitions section. She indicated that the other amendments adopted on 1/28/04 have been incorporated into Version I. MS. TONDINI reminded members that at the meeting on 1/28/04, Representative Gruenberg posed a few technical questions to the drafters. She turned attention to page 3, line 2, of Version I, specifically the language "or" following "team", and said [the drafters] decided to leave the language as "or" and the sponsor agreed. Ms. Tondini, in conclusion, turned attention to page 3, line 13, of the original bill and explained that the language "damage" was changed to "damages". Number 1381 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS moved to adopt the proposed CS for HB 398, Version 23-LS1321\I, Luckhaupt, 1/29/04, as the work draft. There being no objection, Version I was before the committee. MR. SHATTUCK turned attention to page 1, line 10, and expressed concerns about the language "or earlier"; he said the sponsor would prefer to [delete the language] "or earlier" because it was felt that it would impact cases that perhaps were "in play". REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said it is his belief that it is a good idea to have "or earlier" included in the language because it gives discretion to the commissioner or the person in the municipality to do it earlier if he/she wanted to. He said he couldn't foresee a situation off hand that it would involve, but his gut feeling is that there could be such a situation. He remarked, "It's a chicken soup amendment," and suggested that [law enforcement] obviously would not do anything to "screw up" the investigation. He said he thought it was very clear that [the committee] is not authorizing that. He also said he would hate to see [law enforcement] "hamstrung" from the investigation because [investigators] may think they may get a witness at some future date and technically it is not put in the closed files. REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS said he tends to agree with eliminating the language because, in an ongoing investigation, an investigator can't comment on the case at all. He said that in a high publicity case there may be political pressure on [officials] to convene [a domestic violence fatality review] team because of the facts of the crime, but [because the investigation is ongoing] the district attorney can't talk about the case. He remarked that although he understood Representative Gruenberg's point, he didn't want to run into situation in which somebody convenes [a domestic violence fatality review team] to look good but people can't be completely forthcoming. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG suggested that [law enforcement officials] are going to be bright, educated, sophisticated, very highly trained people, and he didn't want to see them prevented from doing something [involving] an old case. He explained that some murder [cases] can go on forever and never be solved, and those are the kinds of cases that have a problem which could be addressed via HB 398. Without "or earlier" remaining, he said, he is afraid that exactly the opposite will occur. Number 1565 ALLEN STOREY, Lieutenant, Central Office, Division of Alaska State Troopers, Department of Public Safety (DPS), testified that if [the commissioner] wanted to [convene a domestic violence fatality review team] before final adjudication, then maybe such could be qualified via use of, "an earlier appropriate time" or something along that line. He said he could see that there may be an incident in which it would be necessary to review the process at an earlier time, but he could also see that it could create conflicts in the course of an investigation if done at an inappropriate time. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said that suggestion would work for him. MR. SHATTUCK said the sponsor would agree with that [suggestion]. REPRESENTATIVE GARA said he didn't want to lose sight of the purpose of the domestic violence fatality review team, which is to figure out how somebody ended up becoming a victim and where the system failed. He said once the information needed to review a case is [complete], the domestic violence fatality review team will act responsibly and indicate that it is the time to investigate it. He said sometimes there is the problem in that a case doesn't get adjudicated because an issue goes up on appeal, and one would not want to make the domestic violence fatality review team wait when it should just figure out what went wrong and why the victim became victimized. He said this is one of those statutes that no matter how it is written there would be unintended consequences one way or the other, and even though there might be that time when the domestic violence fatality review team would be improperly convened, he would be willing to take that risk. Representative Gara said the earlier suggested discretion is something that should be given to [the convening authority]. CHAIR McGUIRE surmised that the drafters are saying that adding, "or earlier" renders, "has been completed or adjudicated by law enforcement" irrelevant. She indicated a preference for not including "or earlier". REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said he thought, "or earlier" is important because normally one would want to wait until the investigation is completed. CHAIR McGUIRE said it would be fine with her to do something along the lines of what Lieutenant Storey suggested, but didn't know who would determine when it would be appropriate and when it wouldn't. Number 1719 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS suggested amending the language on page 1, line 10, to do exactly as Lieutenant Storey said by deleting the word "earlier", so it would read "or at an earlier appropriate time". He remarked, "Generally speaking, you'd wait until the adjudication was finished, but you could make determinations and not be willing to give the other ... folks some benefit of the doubt." REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said he thought the person to determine that point would be the convening authority. He stated that he was in support of the amendment. Number 1759 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS moved to adopt Amendment 1, to make page 1, line 10, read as follows: "completed or adjudicated by law enforcement or at an earlier appropriate time, a domestic violence fatality". There being no objection, Amendment 1 was adopted. Number 1774 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS moved to adopt Amendment 2, which read [original punctuation provided]: pg. 1, Line 7 after state Insert: for which the Department of Public Safety has primary responsibility for providing police services. Number 1781 CHAIR McGUIRE objected for discussion purposes. REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS said Amendment 2 came from the sponsor's office. He explained that at the previous meeting the committee had discussed wanting to ensure that somebody had the authority without getting into a "turf battle" between a city or a municipality and DPS. MR. SHATTUCK said the sponsor would prefer not to offer that amendment from [DPS] at this particular time. Number 1803 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS withdrew Amendment 2. Number 1809 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELS moved to report the proposed CS for HB 398, [Version 23-LS1321\I, Luckhaupt, 1/29/04], as amended, out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, CSHB 398(JUD) was reported from committee.
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