Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright believes that defense attorneys for two LifeStar EMS workers are trying to deny the family of Earl Moore, Jr. “whole justice.”
The State Journal-Register reports that Wright’s comments come in a motion filed in the ongoing criminal case against paramedics Peter Cadigan and Peggy Finley. Wright filed criminal charges against Finley and Cadigan on Jan. 9. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Moore’s family and estate, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Sangamon County court with Finley, Cadigan and LifeStar Ambulance Services, Inc. as defendants on Jan. 19.
Wright said in the motion that W. Scott Hanken, the attorney for Finley, and Cadigan’s attorneys, Edward Unsell and Justin Kuehn, have ignored the principle that “parallel criminal, civil and administrative proceedings are not mutually exclusive, and each involves distinct burdens of proof, rights, remedies and procedures.”
Hanken called the of filing first-degree murder charges “a stretch” and that the state was trying to turn “an alleged medical malpractice into a crime.”
There is a motion hearing on the civil suit on Tuesday. Circuit Judge Robin Schmidt is set to rule on the motion in the criminal case on March 20th.