Prosecutor Zach Weight, right, speaks with public defender Sandra Lee during a break at the Chittenden County Community Accountability Court in Burlington on Friday, November 21, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger MONTPELIER — Lawmakers are grappling with whether to continue a program desig ned to prevent defendants awaiting trial from committing more offenses.  Two years ago, Vermont lawmakers noticed competing issues. State prisons were filling up with more detainees who were held ahead of trial. At the same time, when courts didn’t hold people in jail, they often committed more crimes.  Lawmakers and experts reasoned that defendants who continued to commit crimes ahead of trial often grappled with mental health issues, substance use and housing instability. So lawmakers decided those people might be better off — and more likely to follow the law — if they were placed under closer supervision while their legal case was pending.  In 2024, lawmakers launched their experimental pretrial supervision program, which has so far rolled out in three counties. Now, Gov. Phil Scott wants legislators to spend $200,000 to take the program statewide.  But the pretrial program has seen scant use. And it’s recently been coupled with another justice system experiment that has the same goal but takes a different approach: a pilot court initiative in Burlington that expedites trials for repeat offenders.  With officials touting the court’s success — and pointing to the pretrial program’s low numbers — lawmakers must decide if they’ll continue to invest in both programs or choose just one.  “Which way should we go?” asked Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Williston, during a Thursday meeting in the House Judiciary Committee.  The pretrial supervision program started as a pilot in rural Essex and Orleans counties with a road map to eventually take the program statewide. Its expansion was contingent on available funds.  But few people have actually used the program since it was launched, and only one person in the state is in the program now, according to David D’Amora, who evaluates the program for the Council of State Governments.  When the program was first piloted in Newport, fewer than 10 people took part, D’Amora told lawmakers last month. And since the supervision program was moved to Chittenden County this fall, only six people have been referred into it, he said.  The low enrollment has left lawmakers wondering: Is it worth another investment?  Meanwhile, as the Burlington pilot court sunsets this month, officials have praised its success — and considered replicating its model in other counties. Scott has asked lawmakers to spend half a million dollars this year to expand the court.  READ MORE In the Burlington pilot court, defendants saw their cases fast-tracked through the legal process if they faced charges in five or more legal cases. While focused on moving cases quickly, the court also embedded social workers in the courtroom and connected defendants with social services.  Some key players in the justice system think the pilot court model fixes the issue better than the pretrial program, making the latter initiative unnecessary. But others think the pretrial program could still be useful, and believe it would see increased enrollment if it was expanded statewide.  For a defendant to end up in the pretrial program, they have to be referred by an attorney or judge — and they have to meet certain criteria.  Someone is only eligible for the pretrial program if they have at least five pending court cases against them. They must also pose a safety risk or be unlikely to appear in court. A defendant could also be eligible if they were charged with violating a condition of their release from jail.  To actually get into the program, the defendant has to be referred into it by a defense attorney, prosecutor or judge. Then, an employee with the Vermont Department of Corrections has to approve them for the program based on their needs and risk of committing more crimes.  If someone is admitted into the program, a supervision officer with the corrections department monitors them while they’re released from jail. Under lower supervision, a defendant is only monitored through a program on their phone. But a defendant under closer oversight might have to call their supervision officer every week and meet with them in person every month.  When launching the program, lawmakers hoped that placing people under closer supervision would help them show up for their court dates.  The pretrial program and the accountability court set out to do the same thing, but the pretrial program was barely used, said Vermont Superior Court Judge Thomas Zonay in a February committee meeting.  The goal of the pretrial program was to connect people with services and get them to show up to court, Zonay said. “The pilot docket showed that there’s a different way to do that,” he said.  And the pilot court accomplished its goal in larger numbers, Zonay pointed out. The docket cleared 702 of the 972 cases assigned to the court as of Feb. 6. The pre-trial program didn’t get much use when it was offered in Chittenden County because people who were eligible for it had their cases resolved quickly, said Zach Weight, the pilot court’s prosecutor, in an interview.  In any other court, defendants might wait months between each time they have to appear in court, Weight said. But in the pilot court, the court had the resources to schedule court appearances only a few days apart.  Unlike in most courts, the pilot program hired social workers to sit in the courtroom every day and connect defendants with resources for housing or recovery when they came in for their first court date, Weight said.  Because defendants were accessing social services and coming to court frequently, the supervision program wasn’t getting much use, according to Weight..  “We didn’t need it,” he said.  Weight said the supervision program could be useful, though, in other counties where it might take months to resolve someone’s legal case. “I think it would be helpful when we know cases are going to take awhile, but defendants are struggling to follow their conditions of release,” he said. “I view it as a way to assure public safety and supervision, short of putting them in prison.”  No matter where the pretrial program is rolled out, Defender General Matt Valerio said he thinks the pretrial program will always be barely used because of how cases practically play out in the justice system.  A defense attorney would only agree to put their client on pretrial supervision if their client’s only alternative is to be held in jail, Valerio said in an interview. Otherwise, the defense would advocate for their client to be in the least restrictive setting, likely on conditions of release, he said.  Valerio, similar to Zonay, said he thinks the pilot court and the pretrial program set out to do the same thing. And the pilot court was successful, resolving the problems the pretrial program sought to address.  “It is an overlap,” Valerio said.  Read the story on VTDigger here: This justice system experiment has seen little use in Vermont. Will lawmakers expand it?. ...read more read less