Post by WaTcHeR on Apr 21, 2006 8:57:17 GMT -5
04/21/2006 - The family of Doris Hays is dealing with yet another disappointment.
In a ruling issued Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s finding that Rock Island and Henry counties sheriff’s officials cannot be held liable for failing to provide police protection in the woman’s death.
The decision comes four years after the 68-year-old’s car careened off the road and into a ditch along U.S. 150 near Coal Valley, Ill. A witness reported the accident to the village clerk in nearby Orion, Ill., who passed the information along to the Henry County Sheriff’s Department dispatch center.
The information then was forwarded to the Moline-East Moline dispatching center, which passed the report on to Rock Island County dispatchers. No one responded to the accident scene, which straddles the border of the two counties.
Three days later, after Hays’ sister, Mary DeSmet, had reported her missing, a deputy drove to the scene, looked into the ravine and saw Hays’ car. Rock Island County Coroner Sharon Anderson said that mud on Hays’ shoes indicated she was, at some point, walking around outside the car and could have been saved if someone had responded.
DeSmet took the case surrounding her sister’s death all the way to the state’s highest court, saying she wanted to spare other families from police negligence.
The Supreme Court did not agree that police were negligent, though, saying that state law protects them from liability in such cases.
In his 23-page opinion, Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier cited Illinois law, which states, “Neither a local public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service or, if police protection service is provided, for failure to provide adequate police protection or service.”
The ruling further states that Illinois law requires only for police services to be available to the general public, without obligation to a specific citizen.
“The dispatch services simply proved inadequate in this instance insofar as they failed to deliver personalized police services to the scene in a timely manner,” according to the ruling.
“This court may not legislate, rewrite or extend legislation,” Karmeier wrote. “If a statute, as enacted, seems to operate in certain cases unjustly or inappropriately, the appeal must be to the General Assembly, and not to this court.”
DeSmet said she had been praying “for months” that the injustice of her sister’s death would end at the Supreme Court in Springfield.
“I just want the police to answer for what they didn’t do,” she said. “They ignored my sister to death.
“Why does anyone need immunity if they haven’t done anything wrong?”
One of the seven Supreme Court justices, Mary Ann G. McMorrow, offered a dissenting opinion in the case. She disagreed with the finding that, because the state’s Tort Immunity Act does not specifically address certain exemptions, the Legislature intended it to provide police with blanket immunity.
“My conviction remains unwavering that deliberate acts of governmental misconduct are not protected under the Tort Immunity Act by provisions which remain silent,” she wrote. “It is my view that blanket immunity should not be afforded to acts performed by local governmental entities or governmental officials in bad faith, especially where the provision of life-and-death police protection services are at issue.”
In a ruling issued Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s finding that Rock Island and Henry counties sheriff’s officials cannot be held liable for failing to provide police protection in the woman’s death.
The decision comes four years after the 68-year-old’s car careened off the road and into a ditch along U.S. 150 near Coal Valley, Ill. A witness reported the accident to the village clerk in nearby Orion, Ill., who passed the information along to the Henry County Sheriff’s Department dispatch center.
The information then was forwarded to the Moline-East Moline dispatching center, which passed the report on to Rock Island County dispatchers. No one responded to the accident scene, which straddles the border of the two counties.
Three days later, after Hays’ sister, Mary DeSmet, had reported her missing, a deputy drove to the scene, looked into the ravine and saw Hays’ car. Rock Island County Coroner Sharon Anderson said that mud on Hays’ shoes indicated she was, at some point, walking around outside the car and could have been saved if someone had responded.
DeSmet took the case surrounding her sister’s death all the way to the state’s highest court, saying she wanted to spare other families from police negligence.
The Supreme Court did not agree that police were negligent, though, saying that state law protects them from liability in such cases.
In his 23-page opinion, Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier cited Illinois law, which states, “Neither a local public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service or, if police protection service is provided, for failure to provide adequate police protection or service.”
The ruling further states that Illinois law requires only for police services to be available to the general public, without obligation to a specific citizen.
“The dispatch services simply proved inadequate in this instance insofar as they failed to deliver personalized police services to the scene in a timely manner,” according to the ruling.
“This court may not legislate, rewrite or extend legislation,” Karmeier wrote. “If a statute, as enacted, seems to operate in certain cases unjustly or inappropriately, the appeal must be to the General Assembly, and not to this court.”
DeSmet said she had been praying “for months” that the injustice of her sister’s death would end at the Supreme Court in Springfield.
“I just want the police to answer for what they didn’t do,” she said. “They ignored my sister to death.
“Why does anyone need immunity if they haven’t done anything wrong?”
One of the seven Supreme Court justices, Mary Ann G. McMorrow, offered a dissenting opinion in the case. She disagreed with the finding that, because the state’s Tort Immunity Act does not specifically address certain exemptions, the Legislature intended it to provide police with blanket immunity.
“My conviction remains unwavering that deliberate acts of governmental misconduct are not protected under the Tort Immunity Act by provisions which remain silent,” she wrote. “It is my view that blanket immunity should not be afforded to acts performed by local governmental entities or governmental officials in bad faith, especially where the provision of life-and-death police protection services are at issue.”