Maine lawmakers could limit or eliminate legal protection for law enforcement
The Legislature heard opposing arguments Thursday on bills to change qualified immunity, a legal standard that protects police officers from lawsuits.
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Legislators in Maine have joined lawmakers in more than two dozen states and the U.S. Congress in considering ending or limiting qualified immunity, the legal defense often used to shield police officers from lawsuits.
Qualified immunity has no bearing on whether a prosecutor charges a police officer with a crime, but it does affect whether that officer can be sued for civil rights violations. The U.S. Supreme Court created the concept more than 50 years ago to protect government employees from frivolous litigation, but it has expanded in case law over decades. It has come under new scrutiny, especially since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, as activists push for greater accountability when police officers use excessive force.
Jails struggle to get vaccines for people in custody
With multiple outbreaks in Maine jails and vaccine supplies trickling in from the state, some jails are seeking doses from health care providers in their communities.
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Even though people held in jails or prisons are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, the Maine Department of Corrections has been slow to get doses to county jails, so much so that some have looked to other options to get shots in arms.
Corrections officers were eligible for vaccines starting in January. But while federal guidance said incarcerated people should be vaccinated at the same time as the officers, Maine didn’t begin offering vaccines to the oldest people in state prisons until last month. Just 284 of roughly 1,600 people in prisons, about 18 percent, had been vaccinated as of April 9, the most recent number provided by the state.
Police say bill to eliminate intelligence unit would make Maine less safe
But critics of the Maine Information and Analysis Center say the more than $1 million in funding would be better used for other programs.
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Law enforcement leaders from around the state raised the alarm Monday against legislation that would eliminate a controversial police intelligence agency that critics say has strayed from its original mission and compromises Mainers’ privacy.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Charlotte Warren, D-Hallowell, would end the Maine Information and Analysis Center, a division of the Maine State Police, and return more than $1 million to the general fund.
Maine considers a new strategy in battle against opioid epidemic: decriminalization
Proposed legislation could make Maine the second state to stop arresting people for possessing small amounts of drugs such as opioids, and instead steer them toward treatment.
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Courtney Allen, policy director for Maine Recovery Advocacy Project, poses for a portrait recently outside the Maine State House in Augusta.
Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
“But heroin is not something you can just stop doing,” she said.
She was not able to stop for 12 years. She did sex work. She contracted HIV. She was often homeless. And she was arrested more than two dozen times, mostly for drug possession. The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram has agreed not to name her because she works with people who use drugs and is worried about putting them at risk.
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