I am the father of Joshua Cilley, who was 27 years old when he died on Jan. 31, 2005, after he suffered a treatable gunshot wound to his abdomen. It has been my hope that the Maine Legislature would have passed a law I proposed to require anyone who had observed that another person has suffered a gunshot or knife wound to promptly seek emergency assistance. What I observed during the legislative process has shaken my confidence in our legislative system in Augusta.
All of the legislators who heard my testimony agreed there was a moral obligation to report that another person had been shot or stabbed. There was no opposition voiced to the bill at the public hearing. Despite the lack of opposition and the agreement on what morality requires, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee voted “ought not to pass.” To a 53-year-old heavy-equipment operator from Princeton, this is just plain wrong.
I want to thank Rep. Everett MacLeod, Sen. Kevin Raye and those committee members who voted in favor of the bill. Rep. MacLeod and Sen. Raye both took time out of their busy schedules to testify in support of the bill. They epitomize the ideal of true public servants and I am forever grateful for their support.
I am very frustrated over the process that the Criminal Justice Committee undertook to consider this important piece of legislation. There appears to be a different standard for lobbyists from the one for a mere resident who presents an issue involving an unnecessary death of a family member. I patiently waited through a number of hearings and work sessions on economic crimes, including the notion there should be a crime for possession of spray paint cans that could be used to paint graffiti and a bad-check proposal. However, when it came my turn, the committee did not allow either my lawyer or me to address matters that might save lives, although the committee allowed lobbyists to address it during work session on other issues.
It became apparent at various points during the work session that the committee was confused among the concepts of a civil duty to report that could give rise to a private claim in court, a civil violation that might be enforced by the state such as the marijuana law and the creation of a new crime for failure to report. Remarkably, certain members of the committee thought it applied to car accidents and fistfights, but the language of the bill was confined to gunshots, stab wounds and obvious bleeding. It appears that these members had not even read the bill and several had not attended the public hearing where my lawyer and I spoke.
The committee also appeared confused over the proposed retroactivity of the bill in civil cases. The committee was concerned that there might be a flood of litigation, which, if they thought this concern through, suggests a serious need for the legislation if there have been many deaths caused by the failure of someone to pick up a phone. In actuality, we were limiting the bill only to those instances where there was a court case pending, such as our own. My attorney raised his hand several times to address these issues but was not recognized by the chair. We were also willing to abandon the request to create a new crime, in favor of a civil right of action only, but were not given the one minute necessary to make clarification. As a result, the committee voted down a bill under some serious misunderstandings of how the proposed law would operate.
I could understand if the committee had not supported the bill after it had fully understood what was being proposed. However, to vote it ought not to pass when it clearly did not understand the bill is an affront to the legislative process and to Maine residents such as my wife and me, who have taken the time, expense and energy to ask our representatives to give us our day in court after the needless death of our son.
We sincerely hope that when LD 1258 comes to a vote that all of the representatives will read and understand the simplicity of this law and vote “ought to pass.”
Steven Cilley is a heavy-equipment operator from Princeton.