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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (76563)	10/6/2003 11:51:21 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Change of topic. I hadn't been aware of this case until now. Its, uh, interesting is too mild a word. Scary? Terrifying in its implications? If I were a woman of childbearing age, I would strongly think of moving out of South Carolina right now. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider the case of a woman sentenced to 12 years in prison for murder after drugs were found in the system of her stillborn daughter. Regina McKnight was convicted under South Carolina's homicide by child abuse law for the 1999 death. Her lawyers say she is the first woman convicted of homicide for suffering a stillbirth. The case would have brought the court into a legal and constitutional debate over fetal rights. The court's answer would have had implications for the related fight over legalized abortion. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence earlier this year, ruling that the punishment was not too harsh because McKnight should have known taking cocaine could harm her baby. Monday's action by the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) means that ruling stands, and McKnight will remain in prison. The high court did not comment in turning aside her appeal. McKnight's lawyers say she is borderline mentally retarded and lived with her mother until her mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1998. McKnight quickly became homeless, addicted to drugs and pregnant. McKnight's lawyers say there is no proof her cocaine use caused the child's death. The lower court ruling opens women to prosecution for any number of actions taken while pregnant, her lawyers said. "Pregnant women in South Carolina are left without any reliable basis for deeming whether, in the event of stillbirth, they could be punished, with life imprisonment, for homicide," McKnight's lawyers wrote. Smoking, medications, certain kinds of jobs and stress can all contribute to stillbirths, organizations supporting McKnight wrote in a friend of the court filing. More than two dozen medical and public health organizations backed McKnight's Supreme Court appeal. "The criminal investigation and possible prosecution of women like Ms. McKnight sends a perilous message to pregnant addicts not to seek prenatal care or drug treatment," to withhold information from doctors or to abort their fetuses, the American Public Health Association (news - web sites) and other groups told the court. South Carolina legislators passed a law in 1992 making it a felony to cause the death of a child younger than 11 through child abuse or neglect "under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life." The South Carolina court said that language applied to a fetus. The same court had previously held that a viable fetus is legally a person. "This is not a case involving a tragic stillbirth that occurred through no fault of the mother," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster argued in court papers. "On the contrary, the evidence established a direct link between McKnight's ingestion of crack cocaine, which she had no legally protected right to do, and her child's in utero death." Once a woman chooses to carry a pregnancy to term, "the state has a compelling interest in protecting the child's life," and McKnight should have been well aware of the legal risks of drug use that could harm her child, McMaster wrote. "While the fact that other states have failed to take such steps to protect viable fetuses may make South Carolina's decision to do so novel, it does not make it unconstitutional or mandate that this court intervene," McMaster wrote. McKnight's child was delivered within a few weeks of full term and could have survived outside the womb, the state said. McKnight acknowledged that she had known she was pregnant and that she had used crack cocaine during her pregnancy, the state said. McKnight's lawyers said she had no intention of harming the child. She planned to carry her baby to term, had chosen a name, Mercedes, and asked nurses for mementoes such as copies of the child's footprints, her lawyers said. McKnight already had three children, who were cared for by relatives. Hospital staff took a urine sample from McKnight and tested the dead child's blood. Both were positive for cocaine. McKnight was arrested several months after the child's delivery and convicted in 2001. She challenged the sentence as cruel and unusual punishment, and compared her term to less severe punishments given to women who killed or neglected a child after birth. The case is McKnight v. South Carolina, 02-1741. story.news.yahoo.com