Okay, thank you very much.
Mr. Topp, we as members of the committee don't draft the legislation. We inherit what comes to us in the House and then we review it. I'm going to hope that this provision that seems to be cutting out the law students and the paralegals is an oversight, so we'll be recommending that to people in the justice community.
I was interested in your comments about preliminary hearings. We travelled to many parts of the country talking to people in the sex trade and police officers about what happens during preliminary hearings from their perspective. When they are about to charge a person who's been in a criminal gang trafficking people, they have to come to not one, not two, but sometimes three hearings. It revictimizes the person every time, and by the fourth time that person isn't showing up. It's simply not going to take that case to trial. Way too many cases simply don't go to trial because of the overburden of preliminary hearings. Then you get into Jordan issues.
I think in your experience maybe they worked well, but what we're hearing on the other side is that it simply doesn't work for a lot of people. Would you have any comments on that kind of heaviness of the preliminary hearings?