After years of House-Senate divisions, negotiators came to an agreement in principle on changes to a 2019 bail reform law that critics contend made it too easy for repeat offenders to be returned out on the street. Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, right and standing, proposed a compromise critical to reaching a deal that the full Legislature will vote on June 13.
After years of House-Senate divisions, negotiators came to an agreement in principle on changes to a 2019 bail reform law that critics contend made it too easy for repeat offenders to be returned out on the street. Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, right and standing, proposed a compromise critical to reaching a deal that the full Legislature will vote on June 13.
CONCORD — After five years of sometimes bitter division, House and Senate negotiators on Wednesday endorsed a bail reform bill that would require those arrested for violent crimes to see a judge or a newly-created magistrate prior to their release.
Legislative negotiators will meet Thursday afternoon to read the final document, but both House and Senate leaders declared there was an agreement in principle over changes to a 2019 bail reform law that Gov. Chris Sununu and many lawmakers said made it too easy for repeat offenders to get back out on the street.
After an impasse a year ago, House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, promised that his panel would spend several months of work to find bipartisan and bicameral consensus on this issue.
The House merged four bills into one it passed last April. Senate Majority Leader Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, called that work product an “excellent” foundation for the Senate to fine tune in its version of the bill (HB 318).
“I appreciate the Senate’s patience because it took us five years but we are here,” Roy said. “We got it right and that’s all that matters.”
The final compromise Wednesday came over the number of new court magistrates who, once hired, will be charged with holding bail hearings on nights and weekends when judges aren’t working.
The House wanted 10 magistrates, while the Senate countered with three.
Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, proposed and the negotiators agreed to start with three, but let Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald ask the Legislative Fiscal Committee to approve two more if the workload requires it from next Jan. 1 until the next state budget is finalized in June 2025.
“I think that’s a reasonable approach,” Bradley said.
The magistrates will only be called upon to conduct hearings when offenders are arrested for any of the 11 serious felonies covered in the bill.
The new judicial officers would help the court system meet the stated goal in the package that those arrested for serious crimes must get a bail hearing within 24 hours.
“The bail commissioners should be able to handle all the other cases,” Carson said.
Another key agreement was over the legal standard for when a judge can decide that an accused is a flight risk or is too dangerous to be let out pending trial.
At the request of law enforcement, the Senate plan lowered the current standard from “clear and convincing evidence” to “a preponderance” of the evidence.
This final agreement would use this lower standard when someone was a flight risk, but leave in place the higher standard that police and prosecutors must argue to a judge that the offenders were too dangerous to be let out pending trial.
Senators also agreed to two other changes, one that police would use a “reasonable effort” to contact a victim of violent crime prior to an offender’s release and to keep in place for all other offenses that bail cannot be set so high that it’s too expensive for an indigent defendant to afford.
Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais and Police Chief Allen Aldenberg have led a lobbying effort by elected leaders and law enforcement across the state to press lawmakers to reach an agreement.
The package will face an up or down vote in both the House and Senate when they meet June 13.
