A bill for an ordinance amending the sentencing structure for violations of the Denver Revised Municipal Code, modifying the general penalty, and creating a tiered penalty system for different levels of class 1 and class 2 violations. Amends various sections of the Denver Revised Municipal Code to reform the City’s sentencing structure by modifying the general penalties and creating a tiered penalty system for violations of the municipal code. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 5-3-17.
Please refrain from profane and obscene speech. Direct your comments again to council as a whole and refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilwoman Sussman, will you please put Council Bill 513 as amended on the floor? I move that council bill 513 as amended be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved in second at the public hearing for council bill 513 is open. May we have the staff report? Chad Sublette from the city attorney's office. Welcome, Chad. Thank you. This. Can you hear me all right? Yeah. Okay. First, I want to thank you, Mr. President, the body, for taking this important piece of legislation out. The last time that we looked at sentencing, comprehensive sentencing reform within the city and county was in 1993. And over the last 24 years, we've seen a significant change, not just in the types of crimes we see in our municipal courts, but how we best react to those crimes and how we deal with those. The legislation before you the great thing about it is this has truly been a working document for the last three months that we developed a concept working with our stakeholders, but have continued to develop this and develop this as this move forward. It accomplishes three significant things. The first is comprehensive criminal justice reform. We're bringing proportionality to sentencing right now for the majority of crimes that are committed. The maximum sentence is 365 days. So looking at the different types of violations and crimes that we have and bringing some proportionality that. The other thing we're doing is continuing to hold violent offenders accountable. That as we've seen in the in the public hearings that we've had and the discussions we have, that we have some significantly violent offenders that we deal with a municipal court. So continue to have the tool to deal with those offenders was important. And then also addressing collateral concerns for our immigrant and for our immigrant population that as we as we've all learned there are, can be significant consequences for violations of our municipal ordinance. So also trying to address that. First, I want to talk briefly about the proportionality piece. So what we've proposed creates three different layers of sentencing. The first is are is our general penalty provision, which would move from 365 days to 300 days. And that general penalty would encompass the vast majority of our of our ordinance violations. As you can imagine, we have thousands and thousands of potential ordinance violations. So having the general penalty moving to 300 will address a significant portion of those. We have what we call class two offenses or these are kind of our quality of life crimes that unfortunately impact some of our most vulnerable population here in Denver. And moving the maximum sentence for those crimes from 365 days all the way down to 65. I just want to be clear, when we talk about these numbers, sometimes we'll hear 365 and think everybody's getting sentenced to 365 days. But just to be clear, these are maximum possible penalties. And so moving that maximum to 60 days. These would affect offenses like sitting or lying in the public right away, urinating or defecating in public or park after hours. There are additional ones, but those are just some examples of those quality of life crimes. And then we create a kind of a Class one offense. And these are violent crimes, which a third of subsequent domestic violence, sex crimes, crimes with serious bodily injury. These would be in that class one offense with the maximum possible penalty standard 365 days. Here, I think it's important to understand we're not creating any new crimes. These are sentencing enhancers. So it's not like an officer will be able to go out and write a ticket for serious bodily harm. It will come to us, as it always has been, as an assault. Our prosecutors will look at it, and if they determine that it meets the necessary elements, then they would ask for that enhancement up to 360 365 days from 300 days. Another very important piece under that class one offense is creating the enhancer for a hate or a bias based crime. This is really filling a regulatory gap that we have right now. Right now we have a state hate crime or bias based crime bill or statute, but it is limited to a very small number of crimes. So, for example, we see hate crimes that might be defacement of public property. And this would allow us to prosecute or to enhance the the defacement to a level one offense. Hate crime. And as we talked about these issues and I'm sure you will hear later on the reason that hate crimes are in that bucket of class one offenses is because the impact it has on our community as a whole that within a crime of hate is carried out. It impacts our entire community. It it victimizes our entire community. So that's why the decisions but hate crimes in that in that type one or that class one offense was made in terms of the collateral impact on immigration population are immigrants in our community as we've all learned and continued to learn. Immigration law can be complicated at times. But one of the things that we know is that if it is a crime of moral turpitude, somebody is convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and faces a potential sentence, not that they serve that sentence, but the potential sentence of 365 days. They can, if they're here legally as a legal permanent resident, as on a work visa or on a student visa, they could be eligible for deportation. So that's a crime of moral turpitude. It's any crime with a potential potential sentence of 365 days. So if you're in the park after hours, you're arrested, you're convicted of that, have a potential sentence of 365 days. That could be viewed as a crime of moral turpitude and you could be subject to deportation. The second kind of area that we see that is that if you have been here and you're applying for permanent status of some of some sort and you have one of these convictions of moral turpitude, it can eliminate your defense to removal or your ability to become a resident. So the biggest area we see impacting is those those people that are here legally removing that that deportation threat. Another part of the bill is on hate crimes, as we will collect data on that and report back to you. And additionally, we are committed to working with our stakeholders to look at what additional data is going to be important when we look at type one offenders and or type two infractions. What about that? Do we want do we want to be able to track and report back to you? And I also think it's just important to recognize that this was a piece of legislation not just brought by the city attorney's office, but supported by a presiding judge, by a presiding judge and all 17 judges. So I want to thank you for taking this legislation up tonight. Thank you, sir. We have six speakers this evening. I'm going to ask that you come to the front bench and we're a start with I'm going to call all the speakers and you guys can come up. Dora Lee Larsen. Amber Dower. Rosa Via. Julie Bench Wicker, Scott Levin and Ginny Santos. Doralee Larson, you are first. You have 3 minutes. Thank you, counsel, for this opportunity. I feel so honored and privileged to have been working in Denver specifically on the issue of domestic violence prevention for over 30 some years. I started when I was 15 and that never gets old, right? This is specifically talking about a sentence enhancer. And to put it in context, I am only supposed to give my name and address and all that stuff. Yes, I'm sorry. Sorry. Doralee Larson, I'm a Denver resident and I live at 2275 Fairfax Street, 80207. So I'll start over again. I'm the executive director of the Denver Metro Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. And we monitor we manage another project called the Denver Metro of Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, which, by the way, is soon to become the Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. When Governor Hickenlooper is available to actually sign the bill, it's already passed both houses. So we're proud of that. In that context, I can tell you that in 2015, Denver had one domestic violence related fatality, which I think is something that we could be very, very proud of. Unfortunately, in 2016, we had 14 domestic violence related fatalities. Now, I really hate to be such a buzzkill, but I think the good news is that we're able to work with partners like the Denver City Attorney's Office in the Denver DA's office, but the city attorney's office specifically to change that. So, again, looking at a sentence enhancer, I truly believe that more than a few of these perpetrators regarding the fatalities in 2016 likely had city ordinance violations in their history. And it's a little it's more than a little absurd to think that the same offenders who abuse their partners may be sentenced to the same consequences of someone who urinates in public or has a dog off leash. Some of these incidents involve strangulation. Now, that's not to be confused with choking. Choking is an internal act. Strangulation is an external act, but that's a very, very serious behavior to actually know about. Now, we are probably the most researched professionals in Denver on the issue of lethality. We know lethality assessment, and there's no such thing as a minor domestic violence incident. With that said, the Denver city attorney's office has a remarkable record of taking these crimes very seriously. And so I implore you to support the restructuring of these the this municipal code violations and having proportionately sentence in sentence enhancing for anyone who doesn't think that domestic violence affects them. You could be dead wrong. And again, I don't mean to be such a buzzkill, but that's just the reality of the situation. So thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, Ms.. Larson. All right, Amber Dower, you have 3 minutes. Thank you for this opportunity. Again, my name is Amber Dower. I'm a program director and victim advocate at the Domestic Violence Initiative here in Denver, Colorado. I live up in Evergreen, a970 Soda Creek Drive. Doralee is one of my personal heroes in the domestic violence world. She is one of the most knowledgeable women. So I'm going to speak specifically to the advocacy portion of the minimum sentence of 30 days for the third domestic violence offense. And the importance. Of that issue is that that gives us time as advocates to strategically plan a way for our clients to leave their abusive relationship. To find housing, to find a job, to move their. Health care providers, whether it's in a different part of the state or out of state. And that will allow them to leave safely and ideally permanently. Whereas right now, if domestic. Violence occurs and the perpetrator is immediately released, we don't have that time to plan for them to enroll and address confidentiality to get somewhere where they're safe and covered. And that increases their danger for lethality greatly. So thank you very much. I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I appreciate the time. Thank you. Mr.. Rosa Veal. My name is Roosevelt Hill Garcia, and I'm here to support. This. Issue in you know, I work a lot with a lot of victims that sometimes. They don't want to come front. Just because they know the perpetrator. Is going to get out right away. So to me, they need to stay there and. Pay the consequences for consequential acts. Thank you. Thank you. Julie Bench Wicker. Sorry if I mispronounced that. Great. Mr. President. Council. Good evening. Thanks for listening. My name is Julie Barnes Schweikert. I live at 1146 Timber Vail Trail Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and I work at Disability Law, Colorado. I am the Medicare Medicaid Ombudsman for the State of Colorado. And as I said, my program is housed at Disability Law, Colorado. In my ombudsman capacity, I provide assistance and advocacy to individuals who have both Medicare and Medicaid, most commonly referred to as duals. Approximately 70% of my jewels are elderly and the remaining 30% have significant disabilities. Most, if not all, of these individuals meet the definition of at risk adult. Prior to being hired as the Medicare and Medicaid ombudsmen, I worked for nearly 20 years at a community center board or CCP, providing case management services to adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I spent seven of those years overseeing a team of investigators. Our charge was to investigate allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation of our customers with A.D.D.. Unfortunately, we were always busy. According to the 2012 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, nearly half of people with IBD who are victims of sexual abuse will experience ten or more abusive incidents . Violent victimization for persons with disability is more than twice the rate of persons without disabilities. Serious violent victimization for persons with disabilities was more than three times the rate of persons without. Only 3% of sexual violence. I'm sorry. Sexual abuse cases involving people with A.D.D. were ever reported. So why are our folks with A.D.D. victimized at these alarming rates? Well, many of these individuals are completely dependent upon their caregivers for food, medication and personal care. One of our severe abuse survivors reported that the ongoing boost allowed the ongoing abuse to continue because her perpetrator told her that she'd end up in a nursing home if she told. People with A.D.D. are also often, often, often isolated and segregated. Many have communication challenges, making it even more difficult to report their socialize, to accept being touched by anyone, especially someone named staff, because they are often viewed as asexual and many are not provided with basic sex education. And as such, they are unable to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate contact. Some are unable to conceive the fact that someone they know may harm them. Sadly, however, caregivers are more often than not to be the perpetrators of these abuse of this abuse. Research suggests that nearly 99% of abusers are known and trusted by the victims who have it. By my estimation, I oversaw several hundred investigations of abuse and neglect of at risk adults in my seven years. Ms.. Bunch. Your time is up. I'm sorry. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. All right. Scott Levin. Thank you, Mr. President. Council members. My name is Scott Levin. I am the director of the Anti-Defamation League at 1120 Lincoln Street in Denver, Colorado. I come here today to ask you to pass this piece of legislation and especially the bias motivated section of it. As I explained to the committee hearing, the ADL feels particularly interested in these hate crimes type statutes. We were the progenitor about 30 years ago with the draft model, the model hate crimes acts that are now adopted across the country in so many places. And we're so pleased to see it here in Denver. As Mr. Sublette said, bias motivated crimes or as they're colloquially known as hate crimes, are message crimes. Their crimes where it's not just targeting a victim, but it's targeting an entire community that's just like that victim, telling that victim that they're not welcome. And people that look like them, that act like them or have the same identity as they do, are not welcome. So by passing legislation like this, it's sending a great counter message which is saying, we care about our communities and we want to make sure that everybody feels welcome and this is a particularly precious time to be able to do this. From the information that we've been tracking in my conversations and the conversations that my office has had with the Denver Police Department. There was a 30% increase in hate crimes just over the past year. There was a 62.5% increase over the past two years. We also measure anti-Semitic incidents that have been going on in Colorado as a whole, including in Denver. We had 150% more hate incidents against Jewish people in this past year. And this crosses in Denver, quite unfortunately. Last year, you might remember in April, during the time of Passover, a very important holiday to the Jewish people in Virginia, Vail. In that neighborhood, there were two or three blocks where three dozen cars were vandalized. There was houses where things were painted on garages, and there was painting all over the street that included swastikas and statements of things like kill Jews and many other racist comments that were put forth. So by passing legislation like this. I commend you for what you're doing. I commend the city attorney's office for bringing this forward and really appreciate your voting yes to send that message that people are welcome in the city and county of Denver no matter what their identity might be. Thank you. Thank you. Ms.. 11. Lastly, we have Jennie Santos. When has nudges. Good evening. My name is Jenny Santos. I'm a legal victim advocate at Servicios de la Raza, where our area code is able to offer. However, I'm a Globeville resident from eight or to one six. The reason I'm here today, I'm asking you to look at this bill and to support the resentencing of the bill . As a legal victim advocate, I multiple times. All the clients that I see often are actually all the clients that I see are victims. However, we're asking you to do two reforms so there could be some habitual domestic violence account offenders so that they could receive the maximum sentence of 365 days. And also for individuals or at risk adults that are homeless or mentally ill, they shouldn't be punished, but instead provided rehabilitation support services such as housing. And the reform will change all but seven so that people that don't be so that people will not become deportable. And. Be allowed to be better protected so that our immigrant population isn't arrested for lower level crimes. With that, thank you very much for your time and have a good evening. Gracias. Thank you, Mr. Santos. And thank you for all the speakers for finding parking and going through security and sitting in these hard chairs. This concludes our speakers. Questions for Members of Council. Councilman Espinosa, I have a question for the city attorney. Which one? Just kidding. I'm trying to find it in, in, in 17, five, 13. Can you point to me the the it was mentioned the 30 day minimum by one of the speakers. Now, if I may counsel the in a previous version of that bill, there was a 30 day but but kind of a mandatory minimum. But in conversations with our stakeholders and different people, that was removed. So I think that's what she was speaking about. Yeah, but. She was implying that it's still there. Yeah, it's it's not there. Okay. And then specific on the language of back to the habitual domestic offender, which is, you know, page three line to in line, page four, line three, sorry. Where there's that sort of. Not a definition of habitual domestic offender, but all the rules pursuant to the so the bullets, the sort of A, B and C under those are all inclusive, right to the sort of section two. They're not sort of one of those. You know, sometimes it's worded that one of these conditions needs to be met. It has to be all those. Conditions, the way I read that or. No. Right. And where I would point you to is maybe that last sentence, the sentences that were separately brought and tried and arising out of separate criminal episodes. So it could be any one of those. It doesn't have to be all three of those. Okay. Okay. And that you're comfortable that that that is clear. Yes. And then lastly, on that same paragraph, paragraph mean section two. Convicted of two or more prior offenses that include an act of domestic violence. So prior offenses can be any misdemeanor included in Class one. We just step back. We don't have misdemeanors. We have in our municipal code. But it can be it could be a damage to property. It can be threats, it can be assault. There's a number of ways in which a crime can be committed that would then have a domestic violence tag to make it a act of domestic violence. And then so back to. How does how does the appeals process work with regard to this? If somebody were convicted and then they were appealing that. They could appeal. There's ways you can appeal a sentence. You can you could claim that the sentence was not that the sentence was not unanimous, that the jury verdict was wrong, that the sentence was unlawful. So you can appeal a sentence just just like you can an underlying conviction. So if they're in the appeals process. Well, they never mind. That doesn't make any sense. Okay. Thanks. I just suddenly the I that threw me off the 30 day. So I went back and read it and all sudden things weren't sort of computing. Okay. They had. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. County. Thank you, Councilman Espinoza. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Chad, if you could stay there for a minute. So a couple of a couple of questions. I believe in committee. You explained that the 300 day group, generally, if it's a 300 day sentence, it generally amounts to 180 days served. Did I hear that correctly? Yes, Councilman. You get good time credit when you are serving your time, which amounts to essentially 18 for every 30 days. So on the 300 day sentence, you would typically serve 180 days. Okay. Thank you for that. And would you also through for the, um, since it mattered to me in committee, I thought maybe you could explain basically to our viewers why first and second, domestic violence charges were not thrown into the end enhancer category. Yes, Councilman, as we were looking at researching this bill and talking with our community partners and talking with our internal advocates, what we generally like to do in a first or second domestic violence that doesn't involve strangulation or serious bodily injury, serious bodily harm is to make sure that we can do treatment for the offender. We can do if there's treatment that's needed for the victim, whether it's anger management or specifically domestic violence. Because our ultimate goal in the city attorney's office is to not see you again. So if there's a way that we can put those supports in place and support the family to move through this, that's what we'd like to do. But, you know, at some point, once you've done it, you've gone through it once and you've gone through it twice. That's why we chose the third or subsequent language. And do I understand that with even a first time domestic violence, there can be conditions that would move it into the more serious category? Yeah. If if there was an act of strangulation, if there was serious bodily injury, if there was a concussion cuts, loss of consciousness, things like that, it could move that into the category. And obviously, if it is, you know, life threatening or apparently is permanent disfigurement, things like that, we could have filed that into the district attorney's office and we see that every once. In a while. Okay. And finally, Mr. President, I was interested during the earlier hour speaker's presentation about the 30 day minimum providing time safety period. I'm just interested as to why you decided that that didn't fit. And ultimately, when we were when we were looking at it, you know, we see a wide range of offenses and, um, and being able to give our judges the discretion to move from zero to whatever the maximum is, I think was important. And before we wanted before we wanted to move into anything like mandatory minimums, being able to bring you the data, to be able to say this is why we need this, and to make sure that it was neutral. As And when we talked about racial disparities and things in the criminal justice system to make sure those were being addressed before we would bring you a mandatory minimum. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Ortega. I have a question for you as well. I'm trying to figure out where the issue of bullying follows, because in a lot of cases, threats come with bullying. Right. And I know this is more prevalent among youth, which would more than likely be served in the youth offender system. But sometimes this happens in the workplace. So where where would that fall? And that's a great question. And doesn't just happen in the workplace. We see the same dynamic you might think of in bullying with kids in an intimate relationships or relationships with spouses or your partners. And so, you know, trying to address that when we look at kind of the domestic violence continuum, trying to address that. But in terms of bullying, what we would really look at in the city attorney's office is what is the underlying act? Are the are these threats? Is it harassment by telephone to see if there's a criminal component to to it? Because that is the end they were. Where we're restricted to is criminal conduct. So if it were to involve the youth that ends up in the youth offender system, do they get caught up in the same cycle? In terms of. The the the ultimate impact that it has on. You know the the outcome. So. You know, a youth is is treated differently in the youth system. But I'm not clear if the underlying. Not just the categories, but the sentencing. Descriptions that are in the bill would would apply. And and I guess I have to answer that in two different ways. One, having been a juvenile prosecutor at one point in my life, all of those factors are taken into consideration when you're looking at, you know, sentencing or treatment or or probation, that, you know, if there's a history of bullying, if there's a history of that type of behavior, then that's going to be be argued at sentencing. The district attorney. Does the vast majority of our prosecution of do you have what you would generally consider juvenile offenders? We do have juvenile court that doesn't have incarceration as part of an outcome. We have probation. And then if you violate probation, you could be tackling a locked facility for 48 hours. But most of those cases where we would see serious bullying cases would we would try to push those to the district attorney's office. Thank you. Thanks. Hey. Thank you. Councilman Ortega. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. The goals of this ordinance are very easy to support because it makes little sense that any violation of city ordinances or regulation, whether it's urinating in public or where a physical assault would carry the same maximum sentence. That seems to make little sense. But as the folks who are at committee might recall, I had some problem thinking through our literal authority to adopt variable maximum fines and maybe I could call Chad forgive. Forgive me for not calling on you, but I had an extensive correspondence with David Broadwell on this and I think I think I'm there and understanding it, but I just wanted to bring that out for anybody who might have watched that on TV or or any of my colleagues who cited the committee in the prior to 1982, the city charter appeared to give us the our predecessors, the ability, the legal authority to set different maximums for different violations. But in 1982, in September, there was a charter amendment proposed by the Council and worked through with the county court judges at the time that required us that limited our authority to only to set. Uniform, maximum fines and and jail time. And I have and Chad, I did read your email and I saw your opinion on that. And I and thereafter corresponded with David. And so I had trouble seeing our actual authority to adopt a different set of maximums for this as much as I want to do that. And so, David, over the late last week, we finally you sent me the ordinance, the enabling ordinance or the implementing ordinance from December 1982, in which the council, the same council that put this on the ballot, also said that that unless there are only if there are no definite fines spelled out in the D in the Denver revised municipal code, would this uniform maximum apply? But I still didn't see the authority in the charter to do this, let alone ignoring the fact that the Council had gone ahead and done something like that. In 1988, there was another charter change that amended that, but it kept uniform maximum. We had to have a uniform maximum for each and every violation, but it allowed us to set different varying minimum fines for violations. So that further cemented my understanding. But David, you you said that there is this principle where courts look on how the legislative body over time administers and carries out that authority. Maybe you could explain that so that I have a comfort level that I can vote yes on this. You're on. And Mr. Sublette and I have discussed it as well, but I'll go ahead and respond since you have asked me to. I'll be happy to do that. But we've had an interesting academic discussion offline that I'll share the short version with the rest of council. Councilman Flynn is quite correct. There's a reference to uniform maximum jail and fines in the charter added in 1982. But from the very moment the word uniform was introduced, council was adopting implementing legislation that on its face contemplated. There could be variation. So. So ever since 1982, your predecessors didn't didn't read that word uniform in the charter to mean that a dog at large has to have the same potential maximum penalty as an assault or a significant disorderly conduct. There have been variations through the years. One of the things I talked about with Councilman Flynn as about ten years ago now, council adopted administrative citations as an alternative to criminal, and that has very specific maximums when you get cited with an administrative citation. It's tiered 150 on the first offense, a higher amount on the second offense and so forth. So I think councils, your and your predecessors in the past have in various ways construed the charter to allow them to create different penalties for different offenses. This, frankly, is a somewhat more kind of ambitious take. I'll I'll admit in terms of how sweeping this is changing most offenses to 300 instead of 365 keeping some circumstances spelled out where it can be more. With a few examples where it can be less. But there are other examples of this through the years. And the principle that Councilman Flynn talked about is one that we lawyers invoke all the time, which is that if the charter has been interpreted flexibly in the way I just described for a really long period of time, courts are going to tend to defer to that. And blessed, if in the, I should say, highly unlikely event in my opinion, that this enactment tonight were to be challenged on the theory that now everything has to have the same ceiling in terms of jail and fines. We are in the city attorney's office. Just don't believe that would be the interpretation at this point in time. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Flynn, looks like we are done with questions. This closes council bill 513 now. Comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Canete. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the city attorney's office and administration for their work on this bill. As folks who may have been following the conversation know, we didn't have quite as much unanimity in the community. There was definitely some testimony and concerns that were raised along the way. So I feel before I vote, I just needed to talk through a couple of those things for the record. You know, I think from the community's perspective, this conversation started with a fairly fundamental value, which is that consequences for immigration are under federal law and they should flow from that, and that the city's approach to criminal justice really needs to be self-contained, that it's not appropriate to use criminal justice to kind of superimpose immigration penalties intentionally, unintentionally. The idea is that this deeply held belief that we want all of our residents to use the criminal justice system. We want victims to call and report perpetrators, even if they're are people, they know who they may not want to be deported, even if they want them to stop the harm that they're doing, and so that they'll show up at court and fulfill their responsibilities. If they do commit a crime or commit an act, and they need to be held accountable, and that to the extent that we keep these systems separate, our community is safer because there is more trust and there is more faith in the integrity of that city's system, and that it's not our job to be seeking out ways to impose criminal penalties or I'm sorry, to impose immigration penalties on folks who may have, you know, fulfilled their sentences. And I think, you know, the case that I think of that most illustrates this is the Lima Marin case where the governor just took someone who if we were talking about his crime while it was being tried or while it was happening, we would have made a lot of judgments about whether this was a person who should or shouldn't stay in the country. He served his time and he lived out rehabilitate rehabilitation in our community. He had a family. He was an upstanding member of the community. And then, you know, he ended up back in in prison and came under the attention of immigration. And so I think it's a really good example of why we don't want to leap to immigration consequences without giving the criminal justice system and the rehabilitation it provides a chance and then allowing folks to use the defenses that they may or may not have in the federal system to, you know, whether it's to to to to try to extend, you know, a stay of deportation or whatever types of motions they may have available in immigration. And so I share that connection because I think that for some members of our community, the fact that we carved off even a few offenses in this bill and said, nope, we're still intentionally thinking about the fact that there should be some other consequences. We know they're going to happen is, I think, deeply concerning because I think for for that group of community members, the integrity of this is about keeping the two systems separate. And when we saved even a few offenses at that 365 day maximum, I think that it underlies the entire question are we or are we not in the business of using our municipal code to, you know, layer on immigration consequences? So so I sit with that discomfort tonight. And I think that, you know, this is probably not a conversation that's over for us as a city as we look at other areas the community is concerned about. So but I also think that along the way, this bill became about more than solving just that challenge. So there was already a conversation about hate crimes that had begun. We then had the question about decriminalizing the lowest level offenses. And so as each of those has come up, I've tried to do my due diligence. And so really briefly, I just want to share where I think our work continues. So I think it's important for us to monitor this closely and on the low level offenses we were really it was encouraging to learn that only 16 arrests , I believe, happened last year under that entire class of low level offenses that are being brought down to a lower minimum, that may still be too many. But one of the things we know is that most of the jail days in that category are probably happening more for failure to appear, more for probation violations for other things . And so I think it's really important for us to revisit this conversation as a council to remember that we said we wanted to do that, right, so that we look at the data to understand what are the real drivers of jail nights for those folks in those offenses. It's probably not at the moment they're committing the act. It's probably happening later. And the city attorney's office and the jail have promised us that data. I think it's really important we look at it. So so for me, that's something we need to be committed to following up on. And then in the hate crimes piece, I think, you know, I appreciate the speaker from the Anti-Defamation League. The one thing we want to just be really careful is this is not about ideas and it's not about speech. It's about. It's about threatening, dangerous actions that are harmful to people. And so I think that we have a narrowly drafted ordinance, and we want to look to make sure that we're using these enhancers only in the most, you know, provable of cases. And so, you know, I appreciate the city attorney's office being willing to bring us that data. So so I just want to acknowledge that even though some of those speakers I think we're here earlier and they left the chambers, they didn't make it as long as the rest of you. There were some concerns about this bill. I, you know, intend to keep following through on them. But given the balance of the massive number of offenses that we are reclassifying with this, the fact that we are taking some low level offenses way down, I will be supporting the bill tonight and I appreciate all the dialog that it has taken to kind of figure out that this is the right next step, if not the final step. So thank you. Thank you. Councilman, can each. Councilman Espinosa. More on the discussion. I just wanted to say. I did I didn't I don't take our the charter language to mean singular I mean a singular maximum across the board but more but but uniformity in how they're defined. So I'm quite comfortable in voting to move this forward I mean to adopt this. And I just wanted to thank the city attorney for taking this on and moving so in such a timely manner to deliver something that we were requesting on this front. So thank you very much for the work that you guys had done and handling the outreach that you did. All right. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Councilman Lopez. Mm hmm. Excuse me, Mr. President. I do a lot of the things that were said. Could easily say I support that and. The flight that I do want it. I think the administration I think the city attorney's office for bringing this forward. This is something that it's definitely fine tuning. It's something that we identified as is is creating a win win. At the center of all this, it's it's public safety. And you want to make sure that in order to have public safety, in order to achieve public safety, a lot of people say, well, we want the city to feel safe and you don't want that city to feel safe. We want the city to be safe. And that's the main pillar on which everything rests in a great city. And that depends on trust. You want folks to be able to come forward and report crime, especially victims, especially people who think who who feel that they're in there in a threatening environment. And I think that's that's the key, right? You want that relationship to exist. You don't want people to be afraid to call the police. And unfortunately, people do. And they are. And I think when it comes to, you know, when it comes to the immigration policy and the broken immigration system and the environment that we in, that is becoming even more prevalent in cities like Houston are already reporting that the drop in crime, especially from areas where you have a lot of immigrants who were living in this in the city, and we would hate for that to happen because, you know, things like domestic violence, things like a lot of these crimes, they discriminate against. No one just happens in every community, wealthy or not, black, Latino, Asian or not, it happens. And we want people to be able to report that. So I do really appreciate the clarification there. Their needs. I mean, we do need to further clarify what our roles are under the Constitution and what they aren't. And I think that that's something that that definitely we're looking at and something that we're definitely monitoring. Decriminalization. I'm glad that we're on this path. I'm glad that we're looking at decriminalization. There are a lot of there are a lot of low level offenses out there that do not require a jail sentence, that don't require jail time. And, you know and you know, you have your repeat offenders and but you also have folks that just I mean, there are just some things that are out there that it just makes no sense. You send them back and you send them in the jail. You could be making it worse. And so that those are those are the things that I'm glad that we're looking at able to do that nowadays. You know, I had the privilege to visit New York City and speak of New York City and the city council and work with some of our folks out there to look at the New York City justice reform, criminal justice reform bill. And it was pretty remarkable of some of the things that they were there were working on and looking at decriminalization, but also how that impacts our jail beds as well, too. That's a crisis that we have in our city and looking at and how we able to achieve multiple goals in the same in the same realm. And that's something that I look forward to look forward to be part of in those discussions. But I really this is a great first step, a great move forward. And I got to tell you, the the bill to finally or finally the bill to look at hate crimes. I mean, that's serious. And unfortunately, now it's becoming more prevalent. And it has it's been around for a long time. These kind of crimes have been around. There's a lot of harassment in all parts of our city. And I think that's something that we it's a good, low hanging fruit that we were able to get and something that really just reflects on the values of our city. So my hat's off to the city attorney's office and the folks that are working on this. And I forgot the city attorney. She was here and she oh, there she goes. Oh, this is that wasn't my joke. That was his joke. But I, I wanted to thank you and thank you for your leadership on this. And, Crystal, you've been at the table as well, too. And Crystal's. Clone, basically. So. Thank you. Mr. President, I do support this moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Councilman Lopez almost called you, Mr. President. In school for ten years. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah. You know, while this topic came at least into my vision, and I know at least several of us as a result of the immigration discussion, this revision of our sentencing makes so much sense, even outside of away from that that particular lens. Long overdue and an excellent job. As usually happens, there are going to be people reading about this and watching and considering this that are going to say we didn't go far enough and there's going to be people who say that we went too far. I'm at a position where after a great deal of consideration and a lot of discussion, I'm very comfortable with this bill. While I share a councilman, CNOOC's concerns that we look at the data as it comes in and be sure that we're honed as as sharp as we want to be. I think this is just an excellent starting point. And I also want to add my my thanks to city attorney Bronson and her entire team for a great dialog. You know, I sat here on another issue a few weeks ago and said that I felt that the city and council had had not done its best, had not worked well together on an issue. In this case, I think it's the opposite. I think the dialog was open and broad ranging and I think we got a good result out of it. So I will look forward to supporting this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. I will close this out and just say probably one of the most fascinating, intriguing, interesting discussions is just the discussion we had over the 364 through 65 on immigration reform. If you want to watch that, you'll learn everything you want to know about immigration law and to to to know that our it feels good to know that we have talent within our city, in our on our legal team to be able to, you know, after going through that exercise to say, hey, we got it right. And so hats off to you, Chris Brunson and all of the team there, Crystal as well. And you guys just did it, Chad, you you guys did a great job. And so thank you for that. And I feel like this is a great step in the right direction. And Kristen, you made a promise to me that this is our last step, that every city in our country right now is working on criminal justice reform. And, you know, it's it's one thing that both conservatives and liberals agree on that we shouldn't have people in our jails that are just sitting there. And so I hope that we really start getting serious about jail reduction. And we've had a conversation on this council. You know, we don't want to see more jail beds added because they disproportionately affect certain parts of the city, which is not right. And so this does the right thing in the right direction. I'm really excited. And with that, Madam Secretary, roll call. Lopez. I knew Ortega. Sussman A black eye. Clark. Hi. Espinosa. Hi. Flynn. Hi, Gilmore. I Cashman. Can eat. Mr. President. I please close the votes and please hold voting US results. 12 Wise 12 Eyes Council Bill 513 as amended has passed. Congratulations on to the mayor to sign this bill. Congratulations to the mayor as well, who is very supportive of this bill.