AUGUSTA (AP) – A New Jersey woman whose two sons were killed in a 1998 highway crash involving a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy has implored the Legislature to strip police officers of immunity from some civil lawsuits.

In a tearful appeal, Michelle Norton Spicer of Raritan Township. N.J., urged lawmakers “to demonstrate to the law-enforcement community the care that must be taken” during high-speed responses and pursuits.

Norton-Spicer and her husband were returning to the family’s cabin along Sebago Lake on July 8, 1998, when a speeding police cruiser broadsided their car as it turned left on Route 302 in Raymond. Her sons, John, 18, and Matthew, 15, were killed in the accident.

“I watched both of my sons die that night,” Spicer told the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “I do not believe it was the intent of the Legislature to condone” the police conduct that took their lives when lawmakers granted immunity to police officers and others, she said.

The committee is studying a bill to scale back the immunity that police officers and some other government workers have in civil cases. The bill would make them subject to lawsuits “for the negligent operation of a motor vehicle directly involved in a collision.”

Supporters argued that the bill would give future victims their day in court, by allowing them to file suit against negligent officers who endanger the public. Opponents said the bill could have a chilling effect on law enforcement, causing officers to leave the profession or to respond to emergencies too cautiously.

The bill stems from a 2003 Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling that Deborah Hall, then a sheriff’s deputy, was immune from a wrongful-death lawsuit in connection with the crash that killed Norton-Spicer’s sons.

Hall was charged with manslaughter after the collision, but she was acquitted following a trial in 2000.

Democratic state Rep. Janet Mills, the bill’s sponsor, and lawyers on both sides of the issue said the bill would not allow the Norton family to resurrect its civil suit against Hall. Rather, they agreed, it would lift immunity for negligent police officers and other government workers involved in future collisions.

The bill came under attack from trade groups and lawyers representing Maine sheriffs, fire chiefs, police chiefs and county commissioners, as well as Hall’s lawyer. Hall did not attend the hearing, but agreed it would be “a mistake” to lift police immunity in collisions.

Without immunity, “officers may refuse to act appropriately in response to an emergency,” said Winthrop Police Chief Joseph Young, speaking for the Maine Chiefs of Police Association. Other opponents said the bill could trigger ruinous damage awards for officers and their employers, but supporters countered that state law caps such awards and insurance policies would cover them.