After an earlier mistrial, a second panel of jurors huddled
in
McKnight, a 24-year-old mother of three, was charged with killing her unborn baby.
Prosecutor Bert von Herrmann said the accused woman “smoked cocaine as much and as often as she could” during her pregnancy. He argued that her heavy use of crack cocaine caused an inflammation of the placenta that killed her fetus.
In week 35 of her pregnancy, McKnight’s baby was stillborn. The prosecutor blamed the child’s death on the mother’s “extreme indifference to life.”
The jury agreed. After only 15 minutes of deliberating, they found McKnight guilty of homicide. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Nothing I write here is meant to second-guess the decision of that jury. They sat face to face with Regina McKnight in a court of law. They heard both the pro and con of the case against her. I didn’t.
But living several states away and knowing nothing about this case except what the news media reported, I say with certainty that the verdict in McKnight’s trial raises more questions than it answers.
Based on this precedent, what other misbehaviors by pregnant mothers may be considered homicidal? Smoking too much? Not wearing a seat belt? Excessive calorie consumption by the obese? Where do we stop?
To be convicted of murder, does a woman have to know that her unwise actions may endanger her unborn baby? In cases like this, is ignorance a defense?
If this mother deserves prison because her baby was killed by her “indifference,” then what is the legal liability of mothers who ask doctors to kill their unborn babies on purpose?
How do we defend our schizophrenic legal system that imprisons one mother for carelessly killing her fetus but offers constitutional protection to another who ends the life of her unborn child by choice?
What difference does it make if the drug that kills a fetus is administered by its mother or by a doctor?
According to our confused laws, Regina McKnight made only one mistake. She chose the wrong drug to get rid of her kid.