The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced SB26-120 — a missing persons training and university reporting bill — unanimously after emotional testimony from families of Megan Trussell and Kaylee Russell, while SB26-075, a sweeping human trafficking sentencing and bond bill, was laid over for action only after sharp disputes over mandatory minimums, the breadth of a bond source-of-funds provision, and whether enhanced sentences would punish survivors.
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Senator Carson asked whether sponsors would consider extending the six-hour institutional search window to 24 hours before the bill reached the Senate floor. Senator Marchman replied he was not open to extending to 24 hours, stating there is no data suggesting that is the right approach and that the first 24 hours represent the greatest chance of harm — noting that a 24-hour wait period was exactly what Megan Trussell's family was told. Dr. Deandra Maul (CU Boulder) testified in an amend position, stating that most students respond within a 24-hour window and that a six-hour timeframe would be challenging given student behavioral patterns, including students on eight-plus-hour hikes without phone coverage.
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“We were sitting in her dorm room researching phone records, calling her friends. CUPD took a statement at that point, but offered nothing more. We went to the CUPD office on our own because we didn't know what else to do. To their credit, they did bring us into a conference room so we could start to gather information. However, we knew from that first moment that something was terribly wrong. She hadn't used her phone in three days, yet nobody”
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Sign in to subscribeGood afternoon. Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order today as Wednesday, March 4th. Ms. Jensen, please start us off with a roll call. Senators Carson? Present. Dougherty. Excused for now. We'll check out the zoom and make sure Senator Doherty can participate that way. Henriksen. Here. Wallace. Present. Zamora Wilson. Present. Robert? Here. Mr. Chair. Here. All right, Quorum is present. For the record, Senator Doherty did mention she had to present a bill in education. We expect that she'll join us here shortly. But we'll jump into our agenda, beginning with Senate Bill 120. We'll take up Senate Bill 75 after that. Thank you, sponsors, for being ready to go. Senator Wallace, Senator Marchman, whoever would like to start off with opening comments on SB120? Senator Marchman. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I want to start by telling you why I'm running this bill. I'm a parent. And like every parent who sends a child to call college in Colorado, I believe that when something goes wrong, when my child goes missing, someone at that institution will have a plan. I'm here today because I learned the hard way that for too many Colorado…
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