Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Most of them women arrested on charges of harming their fetuses in Alabama and across the nation used drugs during pregnancy, the report found. Many of those cases begin with positive drug tests at hospitals or doctors’ offices. Women in Alabama can face felony charges of chemical endangerment even when babies are born healthy. The charge can carry between one to 10 years in prison, with even higher sentences in cases where babies are suffer an injury at birth, are stillborn or die shortly after birth. States that have adopted harsh criminal penalties for drug use during pregnancy have gone against most major medical organizations. They recommend providing health care, prenatal care and substance use treatment instead of incarceration, Rivera said. “I think it’s common sense that if the consequence of going to the doctor and seeking help is that you’re going to be arrested, then people are just not going to go,” Rivera said."
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“We’ve just seen countless women go into jails and prisons for really long term, often in really horrific conditions that put their own health at risk,” said Emma Roth, a senior staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice. “So, the notion that Alabama is not harshly punishing women, which I think is a common talking point of those who are in favor of the chemical endangerment scheme, is simply not true.”
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STORY: "As arrests of pregnant women rise, Alabama leads the way, report says,"by Reporter Amy Yurkanin, published by AL.com. on September 19, 2023. (Amy Yurkanin is a senior reporter at Al.com focused on health care, criminal justice and other systems that affect the health and wellbeing of Alabama residents. Previous stories have focused on the incarceration of women for drug use during pregnancy and the role of hospital drug testing in those criminal cases. She has also investigated gaps in the mental health care system and the rise of substance use and overdose deaths in Alabama.)
PHOTO CAPTION: "On Tuesday, September 19, attorneys for Pregnancy Justice released a new report tracking the number of arrests of women for allegedly harming their fetuses.
GISTS: "The number of arrests of women for allegedly harming their fetuses has increased sharply since 2006, and almost half those cases happened in Alabama, according to a new report by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice.
The report followed up on prior research that found 413 criminal cases against pregnant women from 1973 to 2005. The study released today found more than four times that number, 1,396 cases, from 2006 until last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Alabama accounted for 649 of those cases, followed by South Carolina with 180, Tennessee with 131 and Oklahoma with 113. Authorities most often use chemical endangerment charges in Alabama, where the state supreme court ruled that a law meant to protect children from meth labs could also apply to fetuses in the womb.
“This is the most robust accounting of the criminalization of pregnant people, but it’s by no means comprehensive,” said Lourdes Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice. “We actually think it’s an undercount, but it’s the most comprehensive baseline that we have.”
Two factors have driven the increase in criminal cases against pregnant women, Rivera said.
A growing number of states have adopted fetal personhood statutes or legal decisions, which give fetuses the same rights as children who have been born.
The opioid crisis also spread across the nation, affecting many communities spared during the crack epidemic that spawned the first wave of pregnancy arrests.
Those factors have also shifted the demographics of the women arrested. Nearly 80 percent of the cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice involved white women, while 18.2 percent were Black, according to the report.
“The greatest impact has been on pregnant people who are poor, who can’t afford a lawyer and are living in five Southern states, Alabama being one of them,” Rivera said.
The cases aren’t evenly spread across Alabama but tend to be concentrated in the northern part of the state and the Wiregrass region. Etowah County had the highest number of cases for any county in the country, Rivera said.
Most of them women arrested on charges of harming their fetuses in Alabama and across the nation used drugs during pregnancy, the report found. Many of those cases begin with positive drug tests at hospitals or doctors’ offices.
Women in Alabama can face felony charges of chemical endangerment even when babies are born healthy. The charge can carry between one to 10 years in prison, with even higher sentences in cases where babies are suffer an injury at birth, are stillborn or die shortly after birth.
States that have adopted harsh criminal penalties for drug use during pregnancy have gone against most major medical organizations. They recommend providing health care, prenatal care and substance use treatment instead of incarceration, Rivera said.
“I think it’s common sense that if the consequence of going to the doctor and seeking help is that you’re going to be arrested, then people are just not going to go,” Rivera said.
Many prosecutors in Alabama said they have used charges of chemical endangerment to get women into treatment programs through drug court or pre-trial intervention. Both programs offer treatment and regular drug tests, as well as the opportunity to have charges dismissed at completion.
“We’ve just seen countless women go into jails and prisons for really long term, often in really horrific conditions that put their own health at risk,” said Emma Roth, a senior staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice. “So, the notion that Alabama is not harshly punishing women, which I think is a common talking point of those who are in favor of the chemical endangerment scheme, is simply not true.”
Rivera said she expects to see the number of cases continue to rise after the reversal of Roe. Several states with personhood statutes might start moving to enforce them more frequently in cases involving pregnant women, she said.
“There are 15 states that have pretty broad fetal personhood laws that are not fully realized,” Rivera said. “And Roe was a stopgap. It was imperfect, but it was a stopgap to that. So, I think we’re going to continue to see this trend rise.""
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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