House OKs 35-year term for murder

AUGUSTA – Legislators in the House ignored an ought-not-to-pass committee report Thursday and overwhelmingly approved a bill raising the mandatory minimum number of years a convicted murderer must serve in prison.

Currently, murderers sentenced to life imprisonment can be considered for release after 25 years. A bill that would have required convicted murderers to serve mandatory life sentences with no hope for release unless the crime featured certain mitigating circumstances was rejected by the Criminal Justice Committee in an 8-5 vote.

The Maine Senate voted to support the committee’s recommendation. But emotional speeches in the House may have influenced a number of legislators who ultimately voted 70-36 in favor of the minority report, which raises the threshold for release considerations from 25 to 35 years. The bill is now in conflict with the Senate, which will vote later this week to either stand by its original position or adopt the version of the bill passed Thursday by the House.

Rep. Lois Snowe-Mello, R-Poland, told her seatmates that Maine residents must be protected from wanton, sociopathic criminals who kill without remorse or consideration for the havoc they create. Plea bargaining and “good-time” rewards, she said, bring sentences down well below the current 25-year minimum.

“I believe this is an outrage,” she said. “You may hear from other committee members that there are very few criminals who serve less than 25 years. I put it to you this way: How would you feel as a relative of a loved one who was murdered? I’m sure you would feel safer and much less anxious knowing that person is locked away for life.”

Rep. Edward Povich, D-Ellsworth and House chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, said Maine law made provisions 25 years ago designating five classifications of crimes for sentencing purposes and eliminated parole in the process.

“It’s the judge that sets the sentence after the verdict is announced based on all the information received at trial,” Povich said. “The [amended] bill is unnecessary and will not accomplish the results to impose any stiffer [sentences]. The presumption is that we’re not sentencing people enough.”

Povich added that adoption of the bill could actually produce lesser sentences because the difficulty of proving guilt could produce more plea bargaining in cases where the minimum mandatory sentences are high. Defendants, he said, would reason that if they’re going to face long terms of imprisonment, they might as well “plea down” to a lesser offense.

Legislators seemed to respond more directly to Reps. Mary Black Andrews, R-York, and Paul J. Lessard, D-Topsham. Andrews’ husband, a former state trooper, was killed in South Berwick in 1961 during a bank holdup. Lessard, a former state trooper, worked with him. He couldn’t believe that his friend’s killer only served 81/2 years.

“He’s walking the streets now,” he said. “I’m appalled that this system works that way, but that’s our system of law and we all abide by it.”

Andrews told her seatmates that prosecutors and police promised her that her husband’s killer would receive a life sentence.

“My family does not feel that justice was served,” she said. “This man had killed before. My husband was not the first. I truly feel that if you do the crime, you do the time.”

Later, Povich said the sentencing provision Lessard and Andrews referred to reflected guidelines that existed prior to the revision of the Maine Criminal Code.

“Lessard got up and he talked about something that really wasn’t relevant to 2001,” he said. “It was an emotional debate that didn’t deal with the current reality.”