Editor’s note: This article is by Todd Wellington of The Caledonian Record, in which it was first published Oct. 9, 2013.
Danville School Superintendent Martha Tucker wants the court to throw out the criminal charges pending against her.
Tucker, 58, and Danville School Principal Noah Noyes, 30, have both been accused of failing to report an allegation that a Danville High School teacher grabbed a female student’s buttocks in April.
In August both Tucker and Noyes pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges of neglect of duty by a public officer and failure to report suspected child abuse in Caledonia Superior Court. Both were released on the condition that they not communicate with each other about the case.
Police said Noyes and Tucker failed to report to the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) an allegation by a 16-year-old female Danville student that math teacher Jason Brigham grabbed her as she walked by him and made inappropriate contact with her a second time that same day in his classroom.
Brigham has not been charged with a crime.
State law requires teachers and school administrators to report allegations of child abuse to DCF within 24 hours.
But Tucker’s defense attorney Pietro J. Lynn of Burlington has now filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Tucker arguing that the mandatory reporting statute isn’t totally mandatory.
“The duty to report, however, is only triggered when a reporter has reasonable cause to believe that a child has been abused,” wrote Lynn in his motion filed Tuesday in Caledonia Superior Court. “Such reasonable cause was absent in this case. The school completed a thorough and immediate investigation into the alleged allegation.”
Lynn is asking the court to dismiss the charges against Tucker in the interests of “fundamental fairness” and “substantial justice” and also, according to Lynn, due to a lack of enough evidence to prove the case.
Lynn argues in his motion that Tucker was simply not required by state statute to report the allegation.
“The inclusion of the ‘reasonable cause to believe’ standard in the statute demonstrates the legislature’s unambiguous intent that mandated reporters be given latitude to use their discretion in evaluating the validity of an incident before making a report.”
Police have said they are conducting their own investigation into the alleged incident. But Lynn argued in his motion that the lack of charges against Brigham so far is further evidence Tucker did the right thing.
“Even more confounding is that the state has charged Ms. Tucker, but has not filed charges against Mr. Brigham,” wrote Lynn. “Moreover DCF has not even substantiated the allegation for abuse. It seems odd that the state believes there to be probable cause to support charges against Ms. Tucker for failing to report Mr. Brigham’s conduct, when there is no probable cause to support charges against Mr. Brigham.”
“It appears that DCF and the state both came to the same conclusion as Ms. Tucker – that the allegation of abuse was unfounded,” wrote Lynn.
Caledonia County Deputy State’s Attorney Ben Luna could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
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