This concurrent resolution designates January 21-27, 2024 as Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists' (CRNA) Week in the State of Delaware.
This concurrent resolution hereby designates January 23, 2024 as ‘Maternal Health Awareness Day” in the State of Delaware.
Before October 1, 2020, Delaware was 1 of only 3 states that did not offer some form of adult dental coverage through Medicaid. With the enactment of Senate Substitute No. 1 for Senate Bill 92 (150th General Assembly) (Chapter 187 of Volume 82 of the Laws of Delaware) and Senate Bill No. 237 (150th General Assembly) (Chapter 290 of Volume 82 of the Laws of Delaware), Delaware began providing dental care benefits to eligible Medicaid recipients in an amount not to exceed $1,000 per year, with the potential for an additional $1,500 per year for emergency care with the approval of the Department of Health and Social Services ("Department"). This Act streamlines the Medicaid Adult Dental benefit by consolidating the emergency and non-emergency benefits into a single benefit of $2,500.
This resolution directs the Delaware Department of Human Resources to publish a report detailing hiring and promotional practices, specifying jobs requiring degrees, outlining findings from the 18-month review of state positions, and providing insights into recent changes' impact on over 350 Family Service positions. The resolution directs the department to present recommendations for extending similar changes to other state jobs. The Secretary and the Department are directed to develop a comprehensive written progress report, encompassing these aspects, to the General Assembly on or before December 31, 2024, ensuring transparency and accountability in the state's pursuit of a more inclusive workforce.
This House Resolution calls upon Delaware’s federal delegation, President Biden, and the President’s administration to work towards a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, including the release of all hostages and prisoners of war by both sides, delivery of immediate and sustained humanitarian aid to Gaza, and diplomatic action to facilitate long-term peace in the region.
This Act requires that a train or light engine used to move freight by railroad have a crew of at least 2 individuals. Violation of this statute subjects the railroad to a $500 fine for a first offense, and a $1,000 fine for a second or subsequent offense within 3 years of the first offense.
This Resolution establishes the Delaware Aquaculture Task Force.
This Act makes changes to the requirements for placement on the sex offender registry of individuals who are adjudicated delinquent of certain offenses. First, it reduces the number of offenses for which placement on the sex offender registry is mandatory and the Family Court has no discretion to relieve a person adjudicated delinquent from the requirement or to reduce the tier assigned. Mandatory registration is still required for all degrees of rape (first through fourth) and conspiracy or attempt to commit any degree of rape. This Act will also allow an individual placed on the registry to petition the Family Court to be relieved from the registration or placed on a lower tier, either at the conclusion of any required treatment or after the passage of 2 years for most offenses, or after the passage of 5 years for those offenses that still require mandatory registration. The ability to petition for a registry review hearing after the mandated review period will apply to anyone placed on the registry because of a juvenile delinquency adjudication, regardless of the date of that adjudication.
The Voluntary Assessment Center was created by legislative action in 1976 (60 Del. Laws Section 509) to allow recipients of minor traffic violations to pay the fine and costs associated with the violation without the need to appear in the Justice of the Peace Court. Section 709 (i) advises that "Payment of the prescribed fine, costs, and penalty assessment is an admission of guilt, a waiver of the right to a hearing, and a complete satisfaction of the violation." Upon payment, the Court can consider the matter closed and advise the Division of Motor Vehicles of the violation for the Division's recordance purposes. Formerly, those who were unable to pay the fine in one payment were required instead to submit to a court date (which engendered additional court costs) if only to request a payment plan - a practice that seemed patently unfair. Accordingly, in 2012, the Court established a process where the Voluntary Assessment Center could accept payment of fines incrementally. Although more equitable, this new process caused unforeseen consequences. Because the current definition of payment is the total amount due, if a person makes a partial payment but does not completely pay the balance of the fine, the Court cannot consider the matter closed. The Division is not made aware of the violation and the case remains in administrative limbo. Currently, no capiases or warrants are issued for unpaid Voluntary Assessments. Instead, the Division places a flag on an individual's license and registration. It is usually only years later when an individual goes to renew their license that they respond to the Court to complete payment. Redefining payment in the definition of this section will further streamline the Court's administrative process of maintaining the record and will report to the Division the associated data in a timely manner.
This bill precludes the so-called LGBTQ+ "panic" defense that seeks to partially or completely excuse or justify a defendant from full accountability for the commission of a crime on the grounds that the actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth of the victim is sufficient to explain, excuse, or justify the defendant's conduct, or contributes to or causes the defendant's mental state, or that the defendant’s reaction thereto constitutes a mental illness, mental defect, or mental disorder sufficient to excuse or justify the defendant's conduct (including under circumstances in which the victim made a nonviolent romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant or in which the defendant and the victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship). Sections 1 and 3 of this bill move the definitions for gender identity and sexual orientation currently in the hate crimes statute to the general definitions section of the Criminal Code to maintain standard definitions of these terms throughout the Criminal Code. Section 2 of this bill provides that in any prosecution or sentencing for an offense: (i) a defendant is not justified in using force against another based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; (ii) for the purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for the existence of extreme emotional disturbance or other asserted mitigating factor or circumstance, such explanation or excuse is not reasonable if it is based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; and (iii) a defendant does not suffer from a mental illness, mental defect, mental disorder, serious mental disorder, psychiatric disorder, or other impairment affecting or impacting the defendant’s mental state relating to any questions of intent, knowledge, capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct, disturbance of the defendant's thinking, feeling or behavior, culpability, willpower to choose whether to do or refrain from doing an act, or ability to distinguish right from wrong, based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth. This bill does not preclude a defendant from availing themself of any defense permitted by the Delaware Criminal Code or other applicable Delaware law on bases other than those specifically precluded by this bill. This House Substitute No. 2 differs from the original in that it corrects the omission of the phrase “or sentencing” in § 472(a), (b), and (c).
