More craziness in Indiana - Woman convicted under feticide law, faces 20 years in jail

[removeduser_487563287433]

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/3/8336863/...n-for-feticide

Before we begin, we need to all understand what feticide is. It's not a law that has anything to do with abortion: feticide laws are in place in the majority of US states and determine that a fetus is a legal entity in cases of violence against pregnant women or road accidents that allow the prosecution convict individuals for both the assault or dangerous driving, for example, but causing the woman to miscarry. So far, so reasonable.

However, Indiana has just used the law to prosecute a woman who suffered a miscarriage. It's the first time a feticide law has been used to prosecute a pregnant woman in American legal history.

This is deeply troubling. This is something far more insidious than the anti-abortion movement, which at least clearly states what is and isn't illegal with intentional abortions, but makes unintentional miscarriages a crime, something that is outrageous.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...eticide-charge

Indiana has previously (unsuccessfully) tried to convict two pregnant women under this before - one attempted suicide and the other fell down the stairs. The question here is what the is wrong with prosecutors in Indiana?

[Stavroforos]

After reading the Guardian link you provided, I don't know if it sounds as crazy as it was initially made out to be.

"The court documents allege that she initially denied that she had given birth but later told medical staff that she had delivered a baby at home but believed that it was dead. She said she put the dead body in a bag and placed it in a dumpster behind a local store.The body of a premature baby was found shortly afterwards in a dumpster at that location.
Police homicide detectives subsequently interrogated Patel and carried out searches under warrant of her home and mobile phone. They allege that they found text messages between the defendant and a friend in which Patel discussed her pregnancy and admitted obtaining drugs from Hong Kong that she took in an attempt to abort the baby."


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[removeduser_487563287433]

Yeah I know - but that's still not grounds for using an infanticide law - this is literally unprecedented. And that's before we get to the fact that the intention is far from clear in this case - and that's most worrying - where there's doubt Indiana has chosen to pursue an agenda above the course of justice.

[gaunty14]

This is appalling, what the hell is happening in Indiana (its always had a stereotype of being "countryfied" but this is taking it to the extreme)

[hellheaven1987]

This is appalling, what the hell is happening in Indiana (its always had a stereotype of being "countryfied" but this is taking it to the extreme)

Na, typical US rural regions.

[Copperknickers II]

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/3/8336863/...n-for-feticide

Before we begin, we need to all understand what feticide is. It's not a law that has anything to do with abortion: feticide laws are in place in the majority of US states and determine that a fetus is a legal entity in cases of violence against pregnant women or road accidents that allow the prosecution convict individuals for both the assault or dangerous driving, for example, but causing the woman to miscarry. So far, so reasonable.

However, Indiana has just used the law to prosecute a woman who suffered a miscarriage. It's the first time a feticide law has been used to prosecute a pregnant woman in American legal history.

This is deeply troubling. This is something far more insidious than the anti-abortion movement, which at least clearly states what is and isn't illegal with intentional abortions, but makes unintentional miscarriages a crime, something that is outrageous.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...eticide-charge

Indiana has previously (unsuccessfully) tried to convict two pregnant women under this before - one attempted suicide and the other fell down the stairs. The question here is what the is wrong with prosecutors in Indiana?

For Christ's sake, please actually read the sources you are quoting. She was not sentenced for having a miscarriage, she was sentenced for killing her child after the cutoff date for abortion (she was 6 months pregnant ffs, that's a viable premature baby).

The issue is whether she actually did it: there's no real evidence that she used abortion-inducing drugs as was claimed so I'm sure it will be overturned after the appeal and it is shameful that the case got this far with so little evidence. But frankly, if it's a crime to harm a foetus, especially after the cutoff date for abortion, it shouldn't matter whether its an outside party or the pregnant woman herself who does it. In the unlikely event the prosecution's claim turns out to be true, she would have betrayed at a fundamental level the duty of care to her unborn child.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Using a law that is totally unintended for the purpose. Why not use proper procedure? Probably because they'd never secure a conviction.

[sumskilz]

Using a law that is totally unintended for the purpose.

The law normally applies to people who inadvertently commit feticide while committing another crime, but this woman allegedly did so deliberately. I don't see what the problem is, if she's guilty. She was also charged with felony child neglect. The real issue I think is that the toxicologist didn't find any evidence, and that's a long sentence based on text messages. There is also the issue that the pathologist for the prosecution testified that the baby was born alive. Evidently she could have been sentenced to as much as 70 years.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-1...as-miscarriage
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/ma...ning.html?_r=0

[removeduser_487563287433]

A misused law, a conviction based on no evidence, and a situation where a state prosecution has gone to unprecedented lengths to punish a woman for a miscarriage? I see a few issues.

[Copperknickers II]

A misused law, a conviction based on no evidence, and a situation where a state prosecution has gone to unprecedented lengths to punish a woman for a miscarriage? I see a few issues.

Using a law that is totally unintended for the purpose. Why not use proper procedure? Probably because they'd never secure a conviction.

The proper procedure for procuring a conviction in a case of feticide is pretty much the one that they followed (albeit followed in a horrendously unprofessional, biased and incompetent way).

The laws in Indiana relating to feticide are as follows:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-41-1-25 defines serious bodily injury as bodily injury that causes the loss of a fetus.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-42-1-3 defines voluntary manslaughter as a person who knowingly or intentionally kills a fetus that has attained viability while acting under sudden heat and provides penalties.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-42-1-4 defines involuntary manslaughter to include a person who kills a fetus that has attained viability while committing or attempting to commit specified felonies that pose a risk of serious bodily injury, specified misdemeanors that pose a risk of serious bodily injury or battery. The law was amended in 2010 by Ind. Acts, P.L. 7 (SB 71) to include a violation of Ind. Code Ann. 9-30-5-1 et seq., which define operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The law refers to Ind. Code Ann. § 16-18-2-365, which defines viability as the ability of a fetus to live outside the mother's womb.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-42-1-6 specifies that a person who knowingly or intentionally terminates a human pregnancy with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus commits feticide; the law does not apply to an abortion. The law was amended in 2009 to change feticide from a Class C to a Class B felony. (2009 Ind. Acts, P.L. 40, SB 236)

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-42-2-1.5 defines aggravated battery as a person who knowingly or intentionally inflicts injury on a person that causes the loss of a fetus.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-50-2-9(b)(16) allows the state to seek either a death sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for murder by alleging the victim of the murder was pregnant and the murder resulted in the intentional killing of a fetus that has attained viability.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-50-2-16 (2009) allows the state to seek an additional fixed term of imprisonment if a person, while committing or attempting to commit murder, caused the termination of a pregnancy. Prosecution of the murder or attempted murder and the enhancement of the penalty for that crime does not require proof that the person committing or attempting to commit the murder had knowledge or should have had knowledge that the victim was pregnant or that the defendant intended to cause the termination of a pregnancy. The additional consecutive term of imprisonment may be between six and 20 years. (2009 Ind. Acts, P.L. 40, SB 236)

Terminating a foetus after the cutoff for legal abortion can be interpreted as feticide, as well as voluntary manslaughter. I highlighted the relevant legal codes, and as you can see, although many of the codes relating to feticide involve outside parties, there's plenty of scope for prosecution when the perpetrator of the feticide is the mother.

America is a common law system, which means judges decide on the law by interpretation in cases like this without suitable precedent, so it really doesn't matter what the original intention of the law was. In fact that's one of the greatest advantages of a common law system: it allows the law to adapt and cover all possibilities rather than being restricted to the intention of the person who devises a given written law, which obviously cannot foresee all possible ramifications and eventualities, present or future.

So when a judge looks at that set of laws, he is free to interpret it how he chooses, the original intention doesn't come into it. And perhaps he thought that if you have 7 different laws all designed to punish people who kill fetuses, perhaps the logical conclusion is that killing a fetus is a bad thing, and if you are treating the fetus as a legal entity with the capacity to be wronged independently of the mother, restricting punishment to outside parties whilst excluding the mother of culpability in its death makes absolutely zero sense.

[sumskilz]

A misused law, a conviction based on no evidence, and a situation where a state prosecution has gone to unprecedented lengths to punish a woman for a miscarriage? I see a few issues.

As Copperknockers pointed out, it's not really misused according to the American system. It's also not true that there was no evidence. The evidence seems light to me, but if she is guilty, then I don't see what the problem is. I think the jury had more to go on than we do though. For example, why did she lie at the hospital saying that she hadn't ever been pregnant? Anyway, only six years of her sentence is from the feticide charge, to be served concurrent with the other, basically making that law a non-issue. There is also the evidence that the baby may have been alive when she put it in the trash since its lungs had filled with air according to testimony given at the trial. Though the prosecution and defense's expert witnesses disagreed on the issue.

[Butan]

Might be that technically, there is a problem in the act of accusation, but except for that, I see no problem trying to punish her for killing her own baby deliberately. She got caught, basta.