Sen. Margaret Rose Henry

This bill increases the 1-time fee from $35 to $50 for Delaware’s environmental license plates in order to increase revenue to improve the capacity of the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays and The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary to fulfill their responsibilities to the protection and restoration of Delaware’s estuaries.

United States Supreme Court case law and scientific research has changed how we think about juvenile delinquency. We know now that an adolescent’s brain is not fully developed until his/her mid-twenties which makes juveniles especially prone to making poor choices. In the landmark case of Miller v. Alabama, wherein the United States Supreme Court prohibited mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, the Court wrote: “Children are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes.” This proposed legislation would repeal and remove all minimum-mandatory sentencing schemes for juveniles adjudicated delinquent in Family Court because children are different than adults. Family Court judges and commissioners would still be able to impose a commitment to a DSCYF secure placement, but would now have the ability to exercise their judicial discretion to fashion an appropriate sentence for an individual juvenile.

This bill permits judges to utilize their discretion in determining whether a juvenile charged with possession of a firearm during commission of a felony should be transferred back to Family Court or remain in Superior Court. Prior to 2017, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony was only one of five criminal charges where judges had no discretion in determining whether a juvenile should be treated as a juvenile or an adult because the statute required a juvenile charged with these offenses to be prosecuted as an adult. House Bill 9, which was enacted last year, provided judges the discretion to determine how a juvenile should be treated for four other offenses. This is a continuation of that effort. The bill simply changes the language from ‘shall’ to ‘may’ to allow judges to weigh the possibility that a juvenile may be better served in Delaware’s Family Court system through the amenability process already enumerated in Title 10 § 1010 and § 1011. This bill also raises the age from 15 to 16.

This Act revises and improves the New Castle County Board of Assessment Review ("Board") by making revisions that are the result of practical lessons learned over the years of the Board's operation. The specific changes are as follows: 1. Increases the total number of Board members from 7 to 9 members, to increase the total pool of experienced subject matter experts on the Board and improve the already high quality of decisions made by the Board. 2. Revises the residency requirement for Board membership to encompass all of New Castle County instead of specific council districts, thereby increasing the pool of talented applicants who can be considered for selection to the Board. With this change, appointments can be made based upon the applicant’s competency and expertise without being limited by where the applicant resides in the County. 3. Decreases the term of appointments for Board members appointed or reappointed after enactment of this Act from 6 years to 4 years to encourage greater participation on the Board. The current 6 year term discourages potential applicants. 4. Removes the requirement regarding the length of terms for the original Board members because it is no longer necessary. The Board was established in 1953. 5. Changes references to the Department of Finance to accurately reflect the current organization and responsibilities of New Castle County departments. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill would allow for a student to participate in the Inspire Scholarship Program for eight continuous semesters instead of the current six. This would allow a student to use Inspire Scholarships for each of the semesters during a traditional college program.

Delaware’s existing Criminal Code was adopted in 1973 and was based on the Model Penal Code. Since that time, the Criminal Code has quadrupled in size and expanded to other parts of the Code without consideration to the general effects of the change on the Criminal Code’s overall structure, its terminology, or its application, creating numerous inconsistencies, redundancies, ambiguities and contradictions. In 2014, the General Assembly established the Criminal Justice Improvement Committee to review opportunities for efficiencies in the Delaware Criminal Code, including identifying: “disproportionate, redundant, outdated, duplicative, or inefficient statutes” and “crimes that should or should not constitute potential jail time”. The Criminal Justice Improvement Committee Working Group was created to accomplished the Criminal Justice Improvement Committee’s stated goals and has worked diligently for the last three years, in concert with other criminal justice stakeholders, to restore the criminal code to a clear, readable, and proportional code. The recommendations found in their Final Report are the basis for this Act and its companion bill. This Act is one of two bills that seek to bring back clarity and consistency to the Criminal Code. This Act repeals and replaces Title 11, Part I, Chapters 1 through 15 of the Delaware Criminal Code and replaces it with an improved code that is easy to understand, consolidates offenses and introduces rational and proportional sentencing structures. This Act, and its companion bill, will take effect 20 months from the date it is signed, to allow for a smooth integration of the improved code into existing structures, give public and private criminal justice stakeholders an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the improved code, and provide an opportunity to develop for the first time model jury instructions and sentencing guidelines. A Commentary, which explains how the current criminal code relates to the improved code, will be publicly available during this transition period. The 20 months will also give time to introduce technical corrections bills that will make changes to the Code necessitated by the improved code (e.g., update cross references to Title 11, Part I, found in other Titles), as well as incorporate legislative decisions passed by the 148th and 149th General Assembly that were not captured by the improved code.

This Act substitutes gender neutral phrases for the ones currently contained in the State Song of Delaware. The proposed changes come at the request of Donn Devine, a retired Brigadier General in the Delaware National Guard and co-author of the State Song of Delaware, who believes that this new phrasing will make the song more relevant to future generations of Delawareans.

Delaware’s existing Criminal Code was adopted in 1973 and was based on the Model Penal Code. Since that time, the Criminal Code has quadrupled in size and expanded to other parts of the Code without consideration to the general effects of the change on the Criminal Code’s overall structure, its terminology, or its application, creating numerous inconsistencies, redundancies, ambiguities and contradictions. This Act is one of two bills that seek to bring back clarity and consistency to the Criminal Code.

Recognizing the beneficial value of being in nature and fishing, this bill expands the list of fishing license exceptions to include residents of long term care facilities who are accompanied by the facility's controlling person.

The Act amends Section 916 of Title 11 of the Code so that the statutory penalties for the crime of home improvement fraud increase as the amount of the loss to the victim increases, using the same scale applicable to Theft under Section 841 of Title 11 and New Home Construction Fraud under Section 917 of Title 11. Like Theft under Section 841 of Title 11, the amendment also provides for an increase in the level of the offense for amounts under $50,000 where the victim is 62 years of age or older or an "adult who is impaired" or a "person with a disability" as defined in the Code. The Act also amends the definition of "home improvement contract" to provide that a victim's payment can be in any form, not just money, and to clarify that a "home improvement contract" includes all agreements for labor, services and materials to be furnished and performed under the home improvement contract.