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Committee tables work session on proposed strangulation and suffocation amendments after debate over scope and mens rea
Summary
Defense and advocacy groups clashed over proposed LD 1572 language that would separately identify strangulation and suffocation; concerns centered on whether the draft removes a bodily-injury requirement and whether that would create an overly broad class B felony. The committee tabled the bill for further drafting and stakeholder talks.
The Judiciary Committee paused action on LD 1572, a bill addressing prosecution standards for nonfatal strangulation and suffocation in domestic-violence cases, after a lengthy work session. Defense counsel Logan Perkins (district defender) warned the draft language could allow prosecutors to bring class B felony charges without proving bodily injury, producing an overly broad offense and substantial new costs for courts and defenders.
"A person could commit aggravated assault by strangulation without causing bodily injury," Perkins testified, and he cautioned that creating a high-level felony without a bodily-injury requirement could sweep in conduct that courts do not today treat as aggravated assault. Perkins also urged the committee to consider prosecutorial discretion and the likely increase in litigation and expert-witness demands.
Advocates from the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, represented by Andrea Mancuso, said strangulation is already treated by courts as an aggravating mechanism and argued suffocation should be treated equivalently for clarity and data collection. Mancuso told the committee that impeding breathing or circulation "qualifies as physical impairment" under the statutory bodily-injury definition and urged the committee to separate strangulation and suffocation into distinct subsections to aid tracking and jury instructions.
Committee members debated several drafting options: (1) move strangulation into its own subsection while retaining the statutory understanding that strangulation is an aggravated mechanism; (2) add a separate suffocation subsection that repeats bodily-injury language; or (3) revise mens rea language and evidentiary rules. Defense counsel and other members repeatedly emphasized the importance of preserving the bodily-injury element or the manifesting-extreme-indifference standard to avoid capturing low-level conduct.
After discussion, a motion to table the work session was made and seconded; the motion carried unanimously among members present. The chair asked the sponsor and interested parties to confer and prepare revised language for a future meeting.
