Woman who allegedly smoked crack and had stillborn baby to be tried for murder

[BrainGlutton]

No, seriously.

Rennie Gibbs’s daughter, Samiya, was a month premature when she simultaneously entered the world and left it, never taking a breath. To experts who later examined the medical record, the stillborn infant’s most likely cause of death was also the most obvious: the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

But within days of Samiya’s delivery in November 2006, Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s de facto medical examiner at the time, came to a different conclusion. Autopsy tests had turned up traces of a cocaine byproduct in Samiya’s blood, and Hayne declared her death a homicide, caused by “cocaine toxicity.”

In early 2007, a Lowndes County grand jury indicted Gibbs, a 16-year-old black teen, for “depraved heart murder” — defined under Mississippi law as an act “eminently dangerous to others…regardless of human life.” By smoking crack during her pregnancy, the indictment said, Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of her baby. The maximum sentence: life in prison.

Seven years and much legal wrangling later, Gibbs could finally go on trial this spring — part of a wave of “fetal harm” cases across the country in recent years that pit the rights of the mother against what lawmakers, health care workers, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and others view as the rights of the unborn child.

<snip>

Prosecutors argue that the state has a responsibility to protect children from the dangerous actions of their parents. Saying Gibbs should not be tried for murder is like saying that “every drug addict who robs or steals to obtain money for drugs should not be held accountable for their actions because of their addiction,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in a brief to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

But some civil libertarians and women’s rights advocates worry that if Gibbs is convicted, the precedent could inspire more prosecutions of Mississippi women and girls for everything from miscarriage to abortion — and that African Americans, who suffer twice as many stillbirths as whites, would be affected the most.

This is completely insane.

[carnivorousplant]

@BrainGlutton

This is completely insane.

Agreed.

[Askthepizzaguy]

So basically, if any woman has a miscarriage, she should immediately be checked for drugs, alcohol, and anything else that might have contributed to the miscarriage, so that she might be put on trial for murder.

I’m glad we’re here to make tragedies even more traumatic. Thanks moral crusaders. You’re such awesome people.

[Maeglin]

It’s a shame that the state’s commitment does not seem to extend to living children.

[Sitnam]

If you think a fetus is a human with all the rights of any child , this is no different than prosecuting a mother for child endangerment for smoking crack while in the same room as the kid.

Not that I agree with that premise, but I don’t find it insane.

[Fear_Itself]

@Askthepizzaguy

So basically, if any woman has a miscarriage, she should immediately be checked for drugs, alcohol, and anything else that might have contributed to the miscarriage, so that she might be put on trial for murder.

But only if she is black, surely.

[Maeglin]

@Sitnam

If you think a fetus is a human with all the rights of any child , this is no different than prosecuting a mother for child endangerment for smoking crack while in the same room as the kid.

Not that I agree with that premise, but I don’t find it insane.

Here is the statute for the state of Mississippi:

(b) (i) A parent, legal guardian or caretaker who endangers a child’s person or health by knowingly causing or permitting the child to be present where any person is selling, manufacturing or possessing immediate precursors or chemical substances with intent to manufacture, sell or possess a controlled substance as prohibited under Section 41-29-139 or 4129-313, is guilty of child endangerment and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten (10) years or to payment of a fine of not more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($ 10,000.00), or both.

Seems clear enough, at least to a layman. What seems less clear is the cause of death in this case.

[Bill_Door]

@Askthepizzaguy

So basically, if any woman has a miscarriage, she should immediately be checked for drugs, alcohol, and anything else that might have contributed to the miscarriage, so that she might be put on trial for murder.

I’m glad we’re here to make tragedies even more traumatic. Thanks moral crusaders. You’re such awesome people.

Anything else covers a lot of ground. You should have seen my daughter when she was pregnant. No blue cheese, no sushi, no deli meat, no swordfish or white tuna, no caffeine, blah blah blah, the list went on and on. Given this case, where might a prosecutor draw the line?

[thelurkinghorror]

1. No causality. Stillbirths happen all the time.

2. Haven’t crack babies been (somewhat) debunked? Like the original research didn’t properly account for the fact that crackheads tend to not eat healthy, have a good home environment, etc.

3. While it could be possible, the onus is on the state to demonstrate harm, and I don’t think they can.

@Maeglin

It’s a shame that the state’s commitment does not seem to extend to living children.

They have the right to be obese.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bill_Door

Anything else covers a lot of ground. You should have seen my daughter when she was pregnant. No blue cheese, no sushi, no deli meat, no swordfish or white tuna, no caffeine, blah blah blah, the list went on and on. Given this case, where might a prosecutor draw the line?

If she yields to her coffee addiction and miscarries, into the slammer! It’s just like the case in the OP, isn’t it, just a different drug?

[Askthepizzaguy]

@Bill_Door

Anything else covers a lot of ground. You should have seen my daughter when she was pregnant. No blue cheese, no sushi, no deli meat, no swordfish or white tuna, no caffeine, blah blah blah, the list went on and on. Given this case, where might a prosecutor draw the line?

That’s the idea. Given which state this is, and where they’re going with this murder trial, I doubt any miscarried child will cause anything less than a negligent manslaughter charge in the future.

Yet another reason not to live in any state which is governed by a people more interested in what your genitals do than what you do to the people who own the genitals.

[Wesley_Clark]

It happened to a black teenage mother in the south (mississippi). Why does none of that surprise me.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@Wesley_Clark

It happened to a black teenage mother in the south (mississippi). Why does none of that surprise me.

Just a quick aside, this post could be rather easily interpreted to mean the opposite of what you probably meant. I’m assuming you mean it’s typical of a southern state to come up with ways to attack minorities or teenage mothers, but it could be read another way.

[thelurkinghorror]

And here’s Hayne. Sounds like a quality doctor.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@thelurkinghorror

And here’s Hayne. Sounds like a quality doctor.

He claims to do an average of 4 autopsies a day.

Nice! I bet that’s very thorough work he’s doing.

Until 2008, Hayne performed about 80 to 90 percent of criminal autopsies in Mississippi,[4][5] and has testified to performing more than 1,500 autopsies per year.[1]

[Wesley_Clark]

@Askthepizzaguy

Just a quick aside, this post could be rather easily interpreted to mean the opposite of what you probably meant. I’m assuming you mean it’s typical of a southern state to come up with ways to attack minorities or teenage mothers, but it could be read another way.

Yeah, thats what I meant. Like how ‘stand your ground’ as a defense doesn’t apply so much when black people are the ones defending themselves.

[Loach]

@thelurkinghorror

2. Haven’t crack babies been (somewhat) debunked? Like the original research didn’t properly account for the fact that crackheads tend to not eat healthy, have a good home environment, etc.

Yes and no. What was debunked was the idea that babies who have been exposed to and addicted to cocaine before birth will grow up to be little more than rabid zombies and a drain on society when they grow up. But that doesn’t mean that smoking crack does not pose a significant risk to the infant and serious health risk for newborns.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@Wesley_Clark

Yeah, thats what I meant. Like how ‘stand your ground’ as a defense doesn’t apply so much when black people are the ones defending themselves.

Nice example.

I just wanted to clarify it before someone mischaracterized it. That happened to me recently and it’s loads of fun.

[Claverhouse]

‘Depraved Heart’ sounds like a Country album; or if not Country, Nashville.

[curlcoat]

Every time these types of things come up, I am so forever grateful that I am unable to get pregnant.