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The Right Coast
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Brian Gillis Tom Smith

By Thomas A. Smith

About five years ago, my secretary, Pat Gillis, had every parent’s worst nightmare happen to her.  Her son Brian, a popular student-athlete from Poway and a freshman at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, was given a fatal dose of GHB at a fraternity party and then left for dead by his “friends” in his room.  The  investigation that followed was, from Pat’s point of view, a dark comedy of incompetence and indifference, where the reputation of the university was more the concern than prosecuting the miscreants who gave Brian the drug.  The truth came out in the civil suit Pat filed, but now the statute of limitations on manslaughter has run, and prosecution appears unlikely.  Trying to make something good come out of this tragedy and failure of the criminal justice system, Pat has received the help of Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, who is sponsoring legislation to lengthen the statute of limitations for manslaughter.  This probably won’t help Brian’s case, but it will make it harder for killers to run out the clock in cases such as this.  Pat is asking for letters of support:

The Gillis family is pleased to announce that Senator Dennis Hollingsworth has introduced Senate Bill 476 to amend the Statute of Limitations for Manslaughter from 3 years to 10 years.  Our goal is to see that SB 476 is passed by ALL Senate Committees and sent to the Governor’s desk for signature in the fall of 2007.  To do this, we need many Letters of Support,which should be mailed, faxed or emailed to Senator Hollingsworth andcommittee members before the bill is scheduled to be heard in front ofeach committee.  The first hearing for SB 476 is on Tuesday, April 17th in Sacramento, CA.   Please support SB 476in memory of Brian so others will benefit from its passage in thefuture.  Below is the contact information for all CA Senators andAssemblymen.

Senator Dennis Hollingsworth
State Capitol, Room 5064
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651- 4036 / Fax:   (916) 447- 9008

Senator.Hollingsworth@senate.ca.gov