LaMarche suit cleared to proceed

BANGOR – Former gubernatorial candidate Patricia LaMarche will be allowed to continue a lawsuit in federal court that pits her against a former Brewer police officer who arrested her after a traffic stop in March 1999.

U.S. District Judge George Z. Singal on Monday denied defendant Daniel Costain’s motion to throw the lawsuit out of court. LaMarche has claimed her constitutional and civil rights were violated, among other issues in a lawsuit initially filed in Portland but subsequently moved to Bangor.

LaMarche is seeking unspecified punitive damages and court costs.

In his decision, Singal denied Costain’s motion to throw the lawsuit out of court. The judge questioned whether Costain exercised reasonable judgment in stopping LaMarche at the end of the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge at about 1:30 a.m. March 10, 1999.

Costain said LaMarche didn’t come to a complete stop at a blinking red light. He claimed in court papers to have monitored the site regularly because numerous people went through the intersection without stopping after the traffic light sequence was switched to a blinking mode in the late evening hours.

LaMarche maintains she came to a complete stop at the light. She refused to give a breath sample.

After conducting field sobriety tests, Costain arrested LaMarche for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants. On May 20, 1999, a Maine District Court judge dismissed the OUI charge. LaMarche’s license was returned to her June 3, 1999. On July 19, 1999, LaMarche pleaded no contest to the charge of failure to stop at a red light.

“Because a traffic stop constitutes a seizure of a vehicle and its occupants, the Fourth Amendment requires that the stop be supported by a reasonable and articulable suspicion of a traffic violation,” Singal wrote.

“The parties dispute whether [LaMarche] did in fact come to a complete stop at the red light” and that “represents a trial-worthy issue,” Singal wrote.

Because Costain claimed LaMarche committed a traffic violation, state statutes “put [Costain] on notice of [LaMarche’s] right to be free from detention absent reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing,” Singal wrote.