Democrats on the state legislature’s Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety (CJPS) teamed up on Monday to kill a bill from their fellow party member Sen. Joe Baldacci (D-Penobscot) that would have instituted harsher penalties for parents who negligently harm children by allowing them to be exposed to deadly fentanyl.
The committee ultimately voted to neuter the bill by creating an amendment to study the possibility of increasing penalties without actually increasing them.
“I talk about my experience with my cases and this bill and I have never once talked to someone outside of the people involved here that didn’t fully support a felony endangering,” prosecutor Chelsea Lynds told the committee in March.
“Please, just ask five people off the street, explain everything you hear today and see what your constituents say because I think you will find that there is a serious disconnect between the people in this room and the people in your communities,” she explained in LD 592‘s public hearing two months ago.
At that time, Lynds shared her experience prosecuting Zach Borg, who negligently left fentanyl on his nine-month-old baby’s teddy bear, resulting in his daughter’s overdose.
“When rescue arrived, she was turning blue and had to be intubated as she could no longer breathe for herself. Had she died, her parents who were responsible for her care as well as the fentanyl that nearly killed her, would have been facing manslaughter charges, but because she lived, her parents were facing a simple misdemeanor just as if they drove drunk or got in a bar fight,” said Lynds.
Borg was convicted of the misdemeanor charge in 2022, and due to the state’s current lenient laws regarding child endangerment, he faced less than a year in prison.
The prosecutor expressed her shock that anyone would oppose a bill so clearly designed to protect children from parents who negligently leave deadly illegal drugs within the reach of their small children.
“I thought, ‘who would disagree that endangering the welfare of a child should mirror other statutes and have a felony section for incidents resulting in serious bodily injury.’ I was stunned, and frankly confused, as I sat here and listened to the opposition to this bill. Today, I know there will be an outpouring of opposition,” said Lynds.
Lynds pointed out that Borg’s case is far from an isolated incident. According to her, Penobscot County currently has four similar pending cases, and such cases are not limited to Penobscot.
Earlier this month, a Portland couple, Samantha Faye Smith, 29, and Delone Dominique Kelley, 32, were each sentenced to multiple years in prison after their three-year-old son ingested fentanyl, resulting in an overdose and brain damage.
Baldacci’s bill would have made it a Class C felony if a parent’s reckless neglect of their parental duty of care resulted in a child’s serious bodily injury, and a Class B felony if the neglect resulted in a child’s death.
Despite the serious danger posed to children by negligent parents with fentanyl, multiple left-wing organizations opposed any increase in criminal penalties.
Groups that opposed Baldacci’s bill included the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maine, the Parents’ Counsel Division of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services, and, strangely, the Maine Child Welfare Action Network (CWAN).
The CWAN claimed that the bill would actually make children less safe because it would further stigmatize parents seeking help.
“When we publicly entertain policy proposals to further criminalize these challenging situations for families, we underscore that fear and stigma, and perpetuate a system where parents are afraid, rather than encouraged, to seek help. This makes children less safe,” said the CWAN.
“Focusing on efforts to increase punishment after the fact are not only a distraction from where our efforts need to be to prevent child abuse and neglect, but they also damage our ability to build trust with families so they feel they can reach out for help before they are in crisis and children are unsafe,” CWAN added.
The group notably did not mention the justification for increased penalties and argued that harsher punishments would do nothing to encourage parents to stop recklessly placing their children in harm’s way through fentanyl or other dangerous substances.
The ACLU objected to the increased penalties, arguing that they would not protect children, and suggesting that the harsher penalties would disproportionately impact poor women of color.
“Imposing tougher penalties will, however, open the door to the increased criminalization of poor women, especially women of color. Laws that punish a failure to protect can lead to outcomes where victims of domestic violence end up with longer prison sentences for failing to protect their children than their abusive partners,” said the ACLU.
The generally soft-on-crime organization also objected because the bill would likely affect drug abusers, who are more likely to criminally expose their children to serious injury or death.
“This bill will also disproportionately punish parents, particularly women, who struggle with substance use. Policies that threaten women with criminal prosecution and the loss of their children drive women away from health care and discourage them from seeking help and safety,” the ACLU argued.
Democrats on the CJPS committee seemingly agreed. With four members of the committee absent, they voted down an “ought to pass” motion from Reps. Donald Ardell (R-Monticello) and Chad Perkins (R-Dover-Foxcroft). The motion failed with a 5-4 vote against it, as five committee Democrats voting to send the bill to the broader legislature with an “ought not to pass” recommendation.
The committee Democrats were not done with the bill, however. After the “ought not to pass” vote prevailed, the committee’s House Chair Rep. Tavis Hasenfus (D-Readfield) decided after the fact to alter the “ought not to pass” vote to an “ought to pass as amended” recommendation.
He then proceeded to seemingly invent an amendment on the spot. The amendment would entirely change the bill. Instead of increasing criminal penalties for reckless negligence, the amended version convenes a “stakeholder group” that includes a variety of statewide agencies and advocacy groups, including many of those who testified against the bill.
The stakeholder group will then study the possibility and effects of imposing felony penalties on recklessly negligent parents.
The amendment effectively renders the bill impotent and does nothing to protect children or punish abusive parents. It does, however, allow CJPS Democrats to avoid publicly appearing to oppose a bill aimed at protecting children from drug-abusing parents.
Although the bill was sponsored by Baldacci and co-sponsored by one other Democrat, Sen. Joseph Rafferty (D-York), it appears unlikely to pass through the House or Senate in its original form, given its negative reception in committee.
