An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Maine
Maine Legislature, Session 132, LD 1825
Committee: Judiciary
Amends: 4 MRSA §1804, 15 MRSA §714, 15 MRSA §714-A, 30-A MRSA §1566, 34-A MRSA §3015

Legislative Document
No. 1825
S.P. 712
In Senate, April 29, 2025
An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Maine 
Commission on Public Defense Services Regarding the 
Confidentiality of Attorney-Client Communications in Jails and 
Correctional Facilities
Reported by Senator CARNEY of Cumberland for the Joint Standing Committee on 
Judiciary pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 4, section 1804, subsection 3, paragraph 
H.
Reference to the Committee on Judiciary suggested and ordered printed pursuant to Joint 
Rule 218.
DAREK M. GRANT
Secretary of the Senate
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  4 MRSA §1804, sub-§3, ¶P, as enacted by PL 2023, c. 394, Pt. A, §3, is 
amended to read:
P.  Develop and maintain a registry of names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and 
other contact information for attorneys who provide legal public defense services to 
persons who are incarcerated.  The commission shall on a weekly basis provide these 
names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other contact information to all 
sheriffs' offices and to the Department of Corrections. On the Monday following 
transmission of the information, the sheriffs' offices and the Department of Corrections 
have constructive notice that communications to and from these attorneys by residents 
of jails and correctional facilities are subject to the attorney-client privilege and may 
not be intercepted. The attorneys' names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and 
other contact information are confidential.
Sec. 2.  15 MRSA §714, as amended by PL 2023, c. 558, §13 and corrected by RR 
2023, c. 2, Pt. A, §23, is repealed.
Sec. 3.  15 MRSA §714-A is enacted to read:
§714-A.  Attorney-client communications of jail and correctional facility residents
1.  Interception prohibited.  Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, an 
oral communication or wire communication may not be intercepted if: 
A. The sender or the recipient of the communication is, at the time the communication 
is made, a resident in either a jail or an adult or juvenile correctional facility 
administered by the Department of Corrections; 
B. The other party to the communication is an attorney or an employee of the law office 
of an attorney and the jail or correctional facility has actual or constructive notice at 
the time the communication is made of the attorney's name; and
C. If the communication involves the use of a telephone number, the jail, correctional 
facility or 3rd-party contractor of the jail or correctional facility has actual or 
constructive notice at the time the communication is made of the attorney's telephone 
number and the communication is made directly to or from that telephone number. 
2.  Fee prohibited.  Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, if a 
communication may not be intercepted pursuant to subsection 1, a jail, correctional facility 
or 3rd-party contractor of the jail or correctional facility may not charge the sender or 
recipient of the communication a fee for the communication. 
3.  Constructive notice.  For purposes of this section, the inclusion of an attorney's 
name or telephone number on a list transmitted to a sheriff's office and to the Department 
of Corrections by the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services pursuant to Title 4, 
section 1804, subsection 3, paragraph P constitutes constructive notice of the attorney's 
name or telephone number beginning on the Monday following the transmission of the 
attorney's name or telephone number to: 
A. Each correctional facility administered by the Department of Corrections and any 
jail in the same county as a sheriff's office to which the list was transmitted; and 
B. Any 3rd party with which a facility or jail described in paragraph A contracts to 
provide communication services for residents. 
4.  Procedure.  Upon receipt of a list transmitted by the Maine Commission on Public 
Defense Services pursuant to Title 4, section 1804, subsection 3, paragraph P, each sheriff's 
office and the Department of Corrections shall send an electronic communication to each 
attorney on the list at the e-mail address included in the list.  At a minimum, the 
communication must: 
A.  Confirm that the attorney's name, telephone number and other contact information 
was included on the list transmitted by the Maine Commission on Public Defense 
Services; 
B. If the sender is a sheriff's office, for each jail within the same county as the sheriff's 
office: 
(1) Certify that telephone communications between the listed telephone number 
for the attorney and the jail will not be intercepted and no fee will be charged for 
the telephone call; and 
(2) Provide the name, e-mail address and telephone number of the person at the jail 
who is responsible for ensuring that the telephone calls are not intercepted and no 
fee is charged as provided in subparagraph (1); and 
C. If the sender is the Department of Corrections, for each correctional facility: 
(1) Certify that telephone communications between the listed telephone number 
for the attorney and the correctional facility will not be intercepted and no fee will 
be charged for the telephone call; and 
(2) Provide the name, e-mail address and telephone number of the person at the 
correctional facility who is responsible for ensuring that the telephone calls are not 
intercepted and no fee is charged as provided in subparagraph (1). 
Failure of the Department of Corrections or a sheriff's office to send the communication 
required by this subsection may not be considered notice to an attorney that the attorney's 
name and telephone number were not included on the list transmitted by the Maine 
Commission on Public Defense Services pursuant to Title 4, section 1804, subsection 3, 
paragraph P or that oral communications or wire communications between that attorney 
and residents of a jail or a correctional facility may be intercepted or subject to a fee.
5.  Monetary penalties.  In addition to any other relief that may be available under 
subsection 6 or any other law, the following penalties apply to violations of this section. 
A. A jail, correctional facility or 3rd-party contractor providing communication 
services to a jail or correctional facility that, upon receiving constructive notice of an 
attorney's name and telephone number as provided in subsection 3, fails to designate 
the attorney's name and telephone number as ineligible for interception commits a civil 
violation for which a fine of $5,000 must be adjudged, regardless of whether any oral 
communication or wire communication is intercepted in violation of subsection 1. 
B. A jail, correctional facility or 3rd-party contractor providing communication 
services to a jail or correctional facility that intercepts a communication in violation of 
subsection 1 commits a civil violation for which a fine of $5,000 must be adjudged. 
C. A jail, correctional facility or 3rd-party contractor providing communication 
services to a jail or correctional facility that charges a fee for a telephone call in 
violation of subsection 2 commits a civil violation for which a fine of $500 must be 
adjudged. 
D. If a sheriff's office or the Department of Corrections violates subsection 4, the sheriff 
or the Commissioner of Corrections commits a civil violation for which a fine of $250 
must be adjudged. 
6.  Additional consequences of unlawful interception.  If an oral communication or 
wire communication is intercepted in violation of subsection 1: 
A. The contents of the intercepted communication and the fact and circumstances of 
the intercepted communication are not admissible in a criminal proceeding, including 
a proceeding under chapter 305-A; 
B. A person who viewed or listened to the intercepted communication and did not 
immediately discontinue viewing or listening to the intercepted communication as soon 
as the person had sufficient information to determine that the sender or the recipient of 
the communication was, at the time the communication was made, a resident in a jail 
or correctional facility and the other party was an attorney, is disqualified from 
participating in an investigation of the resident and from appearing as a witness in a 
criminal proceeding in which the resident is a defendant, including a proceeding under 
chapter 305‑A; and 
C. A person who viewed or listened to the intercepted communication and saw or heard 
information that may be relevant to a pending or anticipated charge against the resident 
or a defense the resident may assert, or may lead to the discovery of that evidence, is 
disqualified from participating in the investigation of the resident and from appearing 
as a witness in the pending or anticipated criminal proceeding in which the resident is 
a defendant, including a subsequent proceeding under chapter 305‑A on the pending or 
anticipated charge. 
7.  Application of other law or rule.  This section does not limit the applicability of 
any other provision of law or of the Maine Rules of Evidence regarding the admissibility 
or inadmissibility in evidence of attorney-client communications.
Sec. 4.  30-A MRSA §1566, sub-§3 is enacted to read:
3.  Calls protected by attorney-client privilege.  Neither a jail nor a service provider 
may charge a fee for a telephone call by or to a resident that is protected by the attorney-
client privilege.
Sec. 5.  34-A MRSA §3015, sub-§2, ¶B, as enacted by PL 2021, c. 615, Pt. A, §1, 
is amended to read:
B.  The department shall provide a resident with a reasonable opportunity to make 
telephone calls protected by the attorney-client privilege.  The department shall provide 
to a resident who has less than $10 in the resident's facility account a free telephone 
call allowance for 30 minutes of telephone calls per week may not charge the resident 
or the resident's attorney a fee for calls protected by the attorney-client privilege under 
this paragraph.
SUMMARY
This bill is reported out by the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary to implement 
recommendations of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services.  The committee 
has not taken a position on the substance of this bill.  By reporting this bill out, the 
committee is not suggesting and does not intend to suggest that it agrees or disagrees with 
any aspect of this bill; instead, the committee is reporting the bill out for the sole purpose 
of having a bill printed that can be referred to the committee for an appropriate public 
hearing and subsequent processing in the normal course.  The committee is taking this 
action to ensure clarity and transparency in the legislative review of the proposals contained 
in the bill. 
Current law requires the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services to send a list 
of names and contact information for attorneys who provide legal services to persons who 
are incarcerated to all sheriff's offices and to the Department of Corrections on a weekly 
basis and provides that each jail or correctional facility has constructive notice of the 
attorneys' names, telephone numbers and other contact information on the list on the 
Monday following transmission of the information.  Current law further provides that if an 
oral or wire communication between an incarcerated person and one of the attorneys on the 
list is intercepted, the contents and existence of the communication are not admissible in a 
criminal proceeding, including a post-conviction review proceeding, and a person who 
viewed or listened to the intercepted communication is prohibited from participating in 
certain criminal investigations involving the defendant and appearing as a witness in certain 
criminal proceedings against the defendant.   The bill amends these provisions of law in 
the following ways.
1. It clarifies that the commission is required to send the names and contact information 
only of attorneys who provide public defense services to persons who are incarcerated.
2. It prohibits a jail, correctional facility or 3rd-party contractor providing 
communication services to a jail or correctional facility from intercepting oral or wire 
communications between these attorneys or employees of the attorneys' law offices or from 
charging a fee for such communications.  It also provides that unlawful interception of such 
communications is a civil violation for which a penalty of $5,000 must be imposed and 
unlawful charging of a fee for such communications is a civil violation for which a penalty 
of $500 must be imposed.
3. It requires each jail or correctional facility to send an electronic communication to 
each attorney whose name and contact information is included on the commission's list 
certifying that communications between the listed telephone number for the attorney and 
the jail or correctional facility will not be intercepted and that no fee will be charged for 
those communications and providing the name and contact information of the person at the 
jail or correctional facility responsible for implementing these requirements.  It further 
provides that failure to send such an electronic communication is a civil violation for which 
a penalty of $250 must be imposed.