
Woman who was shot while pregnant is charged in fetus's death - MyHypatia
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/pregnant-woman-shot-marshae-jones.html
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badger_bravo
"The police have said she was culpable because she started the fight that led
to the shooting and failed to remove herself from harm’s way."

The headline is shocking, but I can certainly imagine situations like this in
which a negligent parent is responsible for putting their child/fetus at risk.
Is there a precedent for a manslaughter charge for something like this?

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lostmsu
The headline is clickbait, because it omits the only important detail.

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MyHypatia
I think the headline is accurate. The fact that the pregnant woman may have
started the argument or threatened the person who shot her are certainly
important details to how this situation arose. The fact is that the pregnant
woman was shot, and was arrested for endangering her fetus. This has a
chilling effect on other pregnant women. Sometimes people argue and have
heated disagreements. The idea that as a pregnant person you can now be
arrested specifically because it endangers the unborn is frightening.

~~~
hirundo
> The idea that as a pregnant person you can now be arrested specifically
> because it endangers the unborn is frightening.

As of 2015 three states criminalize substance abuse particularly during
pregnancy: Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee.

[https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/maternity-drug-
poli...](https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/maternity-drug-policies-by-
state)

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TimTheTinker
How does this make any sense? If they’re going to press charges for the
shooting of an unborn baby (which isn’t new - the charge is manslaughter), the
person who pulled the trigger ought to be the one charged.

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ripply
The person who pulled the trigger was deamed to have acted in self defense and
is not being charged. Getting a manslaughter charge when acting in self
defense is what shouldn't make sense.

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TimTheTinker
> Getting a manslaughter charge when acting in self defense is what shouldn't
> make sense.

The instant someone pulls a gun trigger, they assume legal responsibility for
the path of the bullet, and everything it does along that path.

If I fire a shot in justified self-defense but miss and kill someone else, I
can (and should) be charged with manslaughter. That makes good legal sense, as
far as I can tell.

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senectus1
in some states that is just not true.

In some states if you rob a bank and cop shoots at you but misses and hits and
kills a bystander, then YOU the robber who did NOT shoot anyone will be
charged with manslaughter.

that is sort of what is happening here.

~~~
TimTheTinker
Wow, that strikes me as really unjust and backward.

So if a policeman is willfully negligent and doesn’t keep up his target
practice, his own lack of skill could result in someone _else_ being charged
with manslaughter. I disagree: If anyone is charged, it should be him—though I
do recognize the court would rightly not hold him responsible if a reasonably
competent person couldn’t have been expected to do better.

If it worked that way, perhaps people would think twice more often before
discharging a firearm - and fewer people would be harmed.

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DoreenMichele
I can't access this article. I've read another one about the case (Washington
Post) and it doesn't really get into the cause of the fight.

But it sounds to me like the root cause is probably misogyny and what a lot of
people would decry as "the evils of patriarchy."

As best I can infer, some guy got a woman pregnant that he wasn't married to.
Before the baby is even born, he's keeping company with some other woman,
probably de facto abandoning the pregnant woman and their child in the
process. The two women fought. The fetus died.

He's not likely to ever be charged with anything. We are just going to argue
about which woman he was screwing should be hung high.

~~~
hirundo
Particularly given that your scenario includes no allegation of rape, it seems
that you're draining these women of moral agency and responsibility for their
actions. Such infantalization of women is hard to distinguish from misogyny.

~~~
DoreenMichele
The woman being charged is Black. How much agency do you think a poor Black
woman living in a backwards Southern state should be expected to have in a
world that increasingly wants to criminalize abortion, among other things?

Blacks and women: it's your fault your lives don't work. We don't want to talk
about systemic issues, like how we think all men are entitled to sex and are
not to be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. If your life
gets ruined because he knocked you up and promptly bailed, well, bitch, it's
your fault for spreading your legs, clearly.

Next!

~~~
masonic

      a poor Black woman
    

The article says _nothing_ about her economic status aside from stating that
she successfully posted a $50,000 bond and was released. Assuming that she is
poor because she is black is racist.

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microcolonel
To summarize (as I had considerable trouble wading through the _huge, vague
articles on this proceeding_ ), hopefully accurately:

The logic is that she committed manslaughter by dragging the infant-to-be into
a violent confrontation that she started, and which she escalated to the point
that force was justified in defense against her (that part seems to be
considered established). Like if you involved yourself in a high speed chase
with an infant in the car, and that infant died in the proceedings, you would
likely be guilty of manslaughter (in Alabama and some other places).

~~~
xiphias2
Shooting a pregnant woman out of defence can be justified only in the U.S. In
any other country in the world you have to be extra careful with weapons.

~~~
microcolonel
So when a pregnant woman puts somebody in mortal danger, it is somehow the
victim's fault for meeting deadly force with deadly force? I don't think that
would fly even here in Canada.

The law may differ on duty to retreat and other matters (though in this case
the victim retreated after retaliating), but at the end of the day, there is a
circumstance where use of deadly force is justified against a person, whether
that person is a pregnant woman or not. You're not meant to simply roll over
and die when attacked by a pregnant woman so as not to offend the
sensibilities of some random HN commenter.

~~~
xiphias2
According to the article it was ,,a dispute with another woman over the father
of the child''. Of course if it's mortal danger, things are different, but I
think it's generally very hard for a pregnant woman to kill another woman
without a gun. The death statistics of U.S. compared to other countries don't
support the theory that guns are used only in mortal danger.

~~~
microcolonel
> _...but I think it 's generally very hard for a pregnant woman to kill
> another woman without a gun_

You are extremely wrong in that thought. One wrong bump on the head, and you
are a goner. Don't get in a fight, don't start a fight, and don't stay in a
fight you won't finish. Two average-build women fighting is perilous for the
participants just like two average-build men fighting.

In the heat of an argument, one or the other is going to get the upper hand,
and maybe today they don't choose a good time to stop pounding their
opponent's head into the pavement. If you aren't willing to defend yourself,
you can only hope that your opponent will show mercy when the time comes; I
don't think it is really appropriate to ask the victim of an escalating
battery to wait and see if they'll be killed once the situation is completely
out of their control.

More details will probably become available, but there are circumstances that
can be established, under which the charge discussed makes sense, and under
which the person who fired the firearm is not guilty of an offence; such as if
the pregnant woman is committing assault in the first or second degree.

> _The death statistics of U.S. compared to other countries don 't support the
> theory that guns are used only in mortal danger._

What kind of non-sequitur is that? Nobody is making that claim or any
statement that could depend on it.

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futureastronaut
If I follow your logic, lethal force is justified in any physical conflict
because of the risk of "one wrong bump to the head."

~~~
microcolonel
Depends on the degree of escalation and a tremendous number of other factors,
but yes: my understanding is that in Alabama, you do not necessarily need to
wait until somebody is obviously trying to kill you to respond with deadly
force.

On a personal note, I agree with this. It is unjust to ask people to wait
until they're dead to defend themselves, when another person has initiated
force that could rapidly become deadly.

It is not uncommon that one pushes another over in anger, and that other is
killed. That's not manslaughter, that's _murder_.

P.S: Be careful mixing up _lethal_ with _deadly_ , or either of those with
_fatal_. There are subtle but important differences.

~~~
mcphage
> It is not uncommon that one pushes another over in anger, and that other is
> killed.

What, like a cliff? No, I don't think "getting pushed over" is a statistically
significant cause of death.

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hsnewman
Dupe from yesterday [https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/06/woman-charged-
for-...](https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/06/woman-charged-for-
miscarrying-after-being-shot-while-shooter-goes-free.html)

