The Criminal Justice committee held six hearings in November. Finalizing its work on the bills retained from the early 2023 session. It was about fourteen hours of work sessions, and executive sessions. Deliberating on mostly the issue of our bail compromise. We killed a bill which would have given gun rights back to felons, and one to remove physical fitness requirements for our police officers. 

The bail compromise which we crafted put all the bail bills proposed before the committee into two House bills, and one Senate bill. It ensured the retroactive payment of bail commissioner fees for those who have not yet received compensation for their work. The committee heard testimony from bail commissioners that had over 50k dollars in back pay owed for bails he had issued in which the offender never paid. Bail commissioners are the ones determining whether or not an individual is fit for bail or should remain in holding until trial. They are going out to arrests at the darkest hours of the night to ensure that defendants get their fair hearing. The least they deserve is the remuneration outlined in statute. The bill, HB318, mandates sixteen hours of training for new commissioners and that the courts notify a victim at least one hour prior to the release of an accused perpetrator on bail. 

The next part of the compromise was contained in HB653. It recharged the Interbranch Criminal and Juvenile Justice Council with investigating and making legislative recommendations on updating the counts IT systems to ensure that every court in the State is connected to a single information network which tracks cases, bail, warrants and any other necessary data points related to someone incarcerated or out of parole or probation. Pre-trial services are proving to be incredibly beneficial to the county correction systems which have them. The bill seeks study of a statewide pretrial system which could bring those same changes to the State as a whole. Keeping people in the community as best as possible, and connecting alleged offenders with substance abuse and mental health services. As well as pre-trial supervision and monitoring to help with avoided court dates. 

The final bill of the three bills which made up the bail compromise which came out of the House Criminal Justice subcommittee was SB252. SB252 listed thirteen serious crimes, and removed jurisdiction of those arrested for them from the bail commissioners to the judges or magistrates. It also lowered the evidentiary standard set in statute which determined the threshold for whether someone is eligible for release on bail from clear and convincing to substantial evidence. The crimes listed for this change are homicide, 1st degree assault, 2nd degree assault, felony domestic violence, aggravated sexual assault, felonious sexual assault, kidnapping, felonious stalking, trafficking in persons, robbery, manufacture, possession and distribution of child pornography and computer pornography and, child exploitation. People who are accused of these crimes must be brought directly before the court when arrested during the week when the court is open the next day.

This compromise came from hours of diligent work by the members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety subcommittee on the bail system. All the videos of the subcommittee can be found on the NH House of Representatives YouTube channel. The bill, after a little more deliberation up until our last committee day, passed the CJPS committee unanimously. It will now go to the full House floor on our first day of the 2024 session, alongside all the other retained bills requiring action on the floor from the other committees. 

So marks the end of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety committees work for the year 2023.