State may allow lawsuit by cabdriver’s daughter House, Senate OK measure, but funding needed

AUGUSTA – The daughter of a slain taxi driver is closer to her goal of suing the state for mistakenly releasing the suspect from prison.

Donna Leen, 60, was found bludgeoned to death in her cab off state Route 43 in Corinth on Oct. 14, 2001, – two days after Carl Wayne Heath mistakenly was set free.

The Maine House and Senate have approved a measure that would allow Michelle Booker to bring a wrongful death suit against the state. The proposal still needs funding approval.

The bill would allow Booker to sue the Department of Corrections for up to $400,000 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages on behalf of her mother.

Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, citizens ordinarily are barred from suing the state, although the Legislature has the power to make exceptions.

“If we’re culpable and we’re wrong, we should admit that,” said Rep. John L. Tuttle Jr., D-Sanford, co-chairman of the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you have to make an example of a situation. It’s the only way things are going to change.”

Tuttle is optimistic that the bill will be adopted because the cost of defending the suit ought not be exceptionally high, he said.

Heath, a violent prisoner with a severe mental illness, was released from state custody Oct. 12, 2001, even though he still faced burglary charges in Cumberland County, authorities said.

Heath was serving time for offenses he committed in Oxford County at a state facility because the county jail could not handle his bad behavior, officials said.

The state transferred him to Penobscot County, where he was released after a judge gave him credit for time served on a theft charge.

Authorities said Heath later broke into a construction trailer in Bangor and called for a cab.

Leen told her dispatcher she was heading to another part of Bangor and was not heard from again.

Heath was arrested during a traffic stop in New Jersey six days later. He now is charged with Leen’s murder.

Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson said at the time that corrections officials were looking for a reason to keep Heath, given his history and behavior as an inmate.

But a database search indicated there were no warrants for Heath. Not included in the database, however, are the writs used to bring an inmate before a court in another jurisdiction.

That is when the mix-up occurred. A prison employee believed Heath’s pending case in Cumberland County had been continued.

With no warrants or apparent writs, the state prison handed Heath over to Penobscot County. Heath should have been taken back into state custody and transported by the Corrections Department to Cumberland County.

Booker is attempting to sue to force the state to fix the problem, said Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion, president of the Maine Sheriff’s Association and the lone law enforcement official to testify in favor of the bill.

“I think this young woman, on behalf of her mother, will raise that issue and compel us to develop a system to address this,” Dion said.

“Her goal is that whatever doesn’t work should be fixed. That’s the least her mother deserves … so the system doesn’t fail another family.”