Judge delays financial award Wrongful death suit seeks damages

BANGOR – A Penobscot County Superior Court justice stayed, for now, his award of nearly $500,000 to the mother of a slain Kenduskeag woman, giving the woman’s killer one more month to submit arguments on any damages.

In documents dated Dec. 19, Justice Andrew M. Mead stayed the award of $479,233 plus interest he issued two days earlier against Franklin A. Higgins, the man convicted of killing Katherine Poor in 1999. Poor’s mother, Alice Poor, filed a wrongful death suit and last May Mead found in favor of Poor, granting her summary judgment in the case.

Only damages were left to be determined. Mead heard arguments from Alice Poor on Nov. 21, in a hearing attended by Higgins, who’s serving a 45-year sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren. With his legs shackled, Higgins provided no testimony nor did he cross-examine Poor at the November hearing. At the conclusion of the hearing, Mead delayed a decision, pending written arguments that were due within 30 days.

In granting Higgins’ stay last week, Mead acknowledged that based on earlier filings, the court had assumed that Higgins had “abandoned any intention to file post hearing materials on the damage issue …”

But in a handwritten letter to the court, Higgins wrote that he had been placed on administrative segregation with “no access to his needed legal materials or to the prison law library.”

Maine State Prison Warden Jeff Merrill, who was contacted Monday, would not specifically address any inmate’s condition without a waiver. But in general terms, he said inmates are placed in administrative segregation for their own protection or the protection of other inmates or the prison. He said during a segregation, prison officials investigate whatever prompted the precaution to determine whether any disciplinary action is needed.

Merrill also said that in administrative segregation, inmates have a more limited access to the law library as the materials have to be brought to the inmate.

In granting Higgins’ motion in part, Mead wrote that the administrative segregation perhaps “occasioned his lack of submission to date.” The judge then extended the deadline for post-hearing submissions until Jan. 22.

Paul Chaiken, the attorney representing Poor, acknowledged that the decision means a delay in the award and the closure for the family. Family members have said a judgment is another way to hold Higgins accountable for what he did. Any money will go to the Katherine Poor Memorial Scholarship Fund set up through Peoples Heritage Bank for graduates of the Bangor Adult Education program who are going on to higher education.