After Tilton case, lessons to be learned by the living

James Tilton: June 19, 1926 - Jan. 23, 2014

My first question for police and prosecutors is this:

If James Tilton had been 114 years old and grabbed his Meals on Wheels volunteer by the waist and licked her neck, would he have been dragged through the justice system like a 30-something sex-crazed degenerate the way the late Rochester man was?

James S. Tilton, 87, died last Thursday after a period of failing health, which possibly began soon after he was charged with his alleged September assault on a 65-year-old volunteer who had just brought him his noonday meal at his modest Second Street home in Rochester.

No injuries were reported in the “assault,” which authorities deemed was “for sexual gratification” in order to begin a sex assault prosecution of the case.

Because of the assault, Meals on Wheels discontinued meal deliveries.

Tilton developed pneumonia a short time after his September arrest. His illness recently worsened and he was admitted to a New Hampshire hospital. He was discharged from the hospital about two weeks ago and admitted to a rehabilitation center, but remained confined to a wheelchair and on oxygen until his death last Thursday.

Because of the serious nature of his alleged crime, Tilton had hired lawyer Stuart Dedopoulos of Durham, who questioned on Monday how likely it was that Tilton’s legal worries and stress may have contributed to his death.

Dedopoulos said one of Tilton’s closest family members said she was extremely upset with how he had been treated by the justice system.

Whether we are as upset as she is we now have to decide.

We think any nurse in any nursing home will tell you that what Tilton is alleged to have done happens every day in some way, shape or form. In other words, old man make passes at their nurses and attendants, some minor, some not so much.

But if they were all prosecuted the way Mr. Tilton was, the courts would be teeming with elderly sex offenders.

Now, of course we condemn sexual assault in all its forms, and police and prosecutors may have a much more egregious account of what is alleged to have happened that day than what they alluded to in court papers, but we also think it is instructive to realize how easily Mr. Tilton could have been our uncle, our father, our grandfather.

It’s called dementia, loss of inhibition, second childhood, Alzheimer's.

But should it always be called sexual assault, clog the courts, take up valuable prosecutorial time and make an end-of-life nightmare for an elderly man who was never arrested, never in a court and never on the wrong side of the law in 87 years?

So we ask again: How old do you have to be before your case is diverted to a social agency, a mental health agency, an elderly case court advocate or some other alternative program other than a full-blown Superior Court case?

Mr. Tilton told this writer a week after the arrest he had no recollection of the assault and wouldn’t know the volunteer if he saw her.

Sure, he could’ve been lying, trying to beat the rap so he could ravage another unsuspecting female.

But it’s also likely he was suffering from dementia or loss of inhibitions associated with the elderly, or possibly Alzheimer’s.

I never saw in court paperwork for this case any indication that a mental health evaluation should be mandated.

I saw no social services interface.

Just an old man getting dragged through a sordid judicial process the final four months of his life.

It’s time to take a hard look at how we treat our elderly who are accused of any violent crime, especially one in which there is no injury.

We cut judicial slack for our juveniles, for our mentally ill, for those who don’t know right from wrong.

Who’s to say he knew?

Mr. Tilton, a World War II veteran, was a responsible, hard-working American, who retired as a maintenance worker at Pease in 1984 after many years of service. His wife died in 2007.

When we spoke to him in October in the doorway of his house he talked about his legal troubles, frowned and mused that he’d never been in a courtroom in his life.

Well, Mr. Tilton, your record is still intact.

- HT