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Six days after the Supreme Court ruled that an 18-year-old former Fair Haven High School student’s alleged plan to shoot up the high school did not constitute an attempt to commit a crime under existing Vermont law, state lawmakers set out to change the law, and discard a century-old legal precedent.

Gov. Phil Scott has announced that he wants the revised law ready for his signature by the time students return from school vacation next week.

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In hearings in the Senate and House judiciary committees, lawmakers took testimony on a proposed law drafted by the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. It would lower the threshold for what constitutes an attempt by allowing prosecutors to apply a “substantial step analysis” as opposed to proving an overt act as is currently required.

John Campbell, department executive director, told senators that under current law it was simply too difficult for law enforcement to stop suspects like Jack Sawyer — though he steered away from discussing Sawyer’s case specifically.

“That is the problem here, there is little chance to deter an action that a person has a criminal intent to carry out — whether bank robbery or physical abuse,” Campbell said.

“We’re saying this law is antiquated, over 100 years ago it occurred,” he said. “In order to protect the public we should have the ability, if we show substantial steps taken, that we are able to prosecute that.”

As it stands, some lawmakers and prosecutors have argued, a would-be school shooter would have to be walking toward a school with a loaded gun in order for it to qualify as an attempt under current law.

Much of the discussion from lawmakers focused on how a new attempt statute could be used to intervene in a case like Sawyer’s without also policing speech and thought, and potentially violating the first amendment.

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“I appreciate what you guys are trying to do. One thing I’m a little nervous about is we’re trying to legislate again in the midst of fear, paranoia and understandable concerns, but I don’t want to get this wrong,” said Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia.

Campbell noted that 25 states already use the analysis he was proposing, and that the new law would require prosecutors to prove both that a suspect intended to commit a crime and took action “strongly corroborative” of that criminal purpose.

Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington and chair of the Senate judiciary committee, asked Campbell to take the lawmakers’ concerns into account and come back to the table later this week with a revised proposal.

Chloé White, policy director at the ACLU of Vermont, told senators that the organization had serious concerns about the unintended consequences of lowering the standards for attempt crimes, and the law as drafted “threatens to punish a large amount of constitutionally protected expression and expressive conduct.”

She said she worried that under the current law it would be too easy to take something written or spoken, and then find corroborating evidence of a “substantial step” even if the action taken was unrelated to the supposed crime — such as purchasing cleaning products that also happen to be poisonous, and could be used to harm someone.

If senators were intent on moving to a substantial step analysis, she suggested they set a higher bar for what constituted a substantial step.

Maxine Grad, D-Moretown and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said she was receptive to suggestions that if a new law were to lower the threshold of what constitutes an attempt, the penalties for those crimes also should be lowered.

Under existing law, penalties for attempted crimes are the same as those for actual commission of the crime.

Grad said she believed the committee could wrap up testimony on the proposed revisions in the law by the end of the week, but wasn’t sure if they would be able to vote out a new law within the governor’s time frame.

Sears said a more realistic deadline for coming up with a new law would be the end of this session.

Both chairs said they expected eventually to settle on changes to the attempt statute.

However, Matt Valerio, the state’s defender general, said he felt that was the wrong way to address the situation.

“There are many folks who are reluctant to throw away over 100 years of settled law because of one case where the way that it was pursued doesn’t fit those facts to the settled law,” Valerio said.

He suggested that a better way to address the issue, without changing a commonly used law, would be amending anti-terrorism laws to include provisions specifically for cases where people use, or intend to use, firearms to “kill lots of people.”

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Valerio said he could recall only two other examples in the past two decades where politicians rushed to change laws based on one case: new anti-terrorism laws passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and new sex statutes written in 2008 after 12-year-old Brooke Bennett was raped and murdered by her uncle, Michael Jacques.

“I think it’s something we should avoid, changing the law based on one case,” he said. Valerio is scheduled to testify before the committees later this week.

Gov. Scott released a statement on Friday calling on lawmakers to act swiftly in passing a law that would “close existing loopholes” in attempt laws that he said were revealed by the Supreme Court’s decision on the Sawyer case.

He also asked them to establish a domestic terrorism statute, “and to do so immediately and before Fair Haven High School Students return from their April vacation.”

Senators said they were ready to move on attempts, but not so sure about domestic terrorism.

Sawyer could be released as soon as Wednesday. His father said during a bail hearing on Tuesday that he planned to check his son into the Brattleboro Retreat for psychiatric treatment as soon as he is released.

Benning said that he did not like the idea of pushing lawmakers to rush legislation. “I disagree with trying to get through something that is done quickly, rather than something that is done right,” he said.

Grad said she would do whatever she could do vote out new legislation this week, but she would not sacrifice a deliberative process.

“If we are feeling rushed or like we can’t do it, then we will slow down,” she said.

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