Grieving Parents to Murderers: Louisiana’s Unreasonable Criminal Law Worsens Tragedy
Recovering from the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. these parents didn’t know their child was ill. After he died from malnutrition, Louisiana charged the parents with second degree murder.
We go to The Marshall Project for this week's long read by CARY ASPINWALL, LEA SKENE and ILICA MAHAJAN, read the whole article “Her Baby Died After Hurricane Katrina. Was It a Crime?” We include key excerpts below to convince you it’s worth your time.
When Little Immanuel Died of His Genetic Disease, His Parents Were Charged With Second Degree Murder
The night before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Tiffany Woods and Emmanuel Scott fled the city, driving 320 miles northwest with their four small children.
The youngest was two months old: Little Emmanuel. A New Orleans hospital discharged the premature infant about three weeks before Katrina struck. He had tested positive at birth for a genetic abnormality, but crucial follow-up testing hadn’t happened before the hurricane hit.
The family stayed in a shelter here, feeding the baby formula they bought with government vouchers.
Baby Emmanuel was extremely sleepy and had trouble feeding, according to both hospital records and his young parents. In October, they ran out of formula vouchers, so they bought organic cow’s milk for the baby instead, they later told police, hoping he might tolerate it better.
Within weeks, Emmanuel died of malnutrition, according to an autopsy.
Prosecutors decided his death was murder in the second degree — which doesn’t require proof that anyone intended to harm him.
A judge found the baby’s parents guilty, and in 2008 sentenced them to spend the rest of their lives in prison, with no hope of parole. Scott was 18 years old when Emmanuel died; Woods
was 25.
Underscored
Like all newborns in the U.S., Emmanuel had blood drawn so doctors could screen for genetic abnormalities and diseases, including MCAD deficiency, which makes the body unable to break down certain fats (the abbreviation stands for Medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency). Babies with this condition face an increased risk of sudden death due to low blood sugar, and need very frequent feedings.
Emmanuel’s MCAD screen came back positive. But blood testing isn’t foolproof, so babies with positive results almost always need follow-up testing at a biomedical genetic lab. In the meantime, Tulane Medical Center fed Emmanuel special baby formula on a round-the-clock schedule, according to medical records, trying to help him grow bigger and healthier.
Before the hospital sent the baby home after 41 days in intensive care, staff taught Woods what to do for her premature infant. But his discharge papers said nothing about very frequent feeding, and Woods says hospital staff never mentioned that. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
Days later, Woods took the baby to a pediatrician for a follow-up appointment and vaccines. His visit to the Tulane genetics lab was scheduled for Aug. 29 — the day after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued an evacuation order as Katrina menaced the city.
The family never made it back to Tulane.
Bottom line
Louisiana sentences people to life without parole at one of the highest rates in the nation, data shows. Nearly 4,200 men and women are serving lifetime sentences in the state, for crimes that range from homicide and rape to rarer cases of repeat purse snatchings and child neglect, an investigation by The Marshall Project and The Times-Picayune | The Advocate found.
Second-degree murder charges, like the ones Woods and Scott were found guilty of, are a big driver of life-without-parole sentences. The state has long had the highest homicide rate in the nation. But Louisiana law contains an unusually sweeping definition of second-degree murder that includes even some accidental deaths, legal experts say. And despite the wide variations in circumstances that can produce a second-degree murder conviction — from a premeditated ambush to a getaway car accident — the sentence is the same: mandatory life without parole. Judges have almost no discretion.
More than half of the people serving life in Louisiana were convicted of second-degree murder, our investigation found, including over three-quarters of the 124 women serving life (parole is forbidden for almost all life sentences in the state).
Yet data suggests Louisiana may not be applying the punishment equally. More than 70% of people serving life without parole are Black, according to our analysis of state data, while about 66% of those imprisoned in Louisiana are Black. Black people make up a third of Louisiana’s population.
Read the whole article here.
Resources: State policy changes. News. Bureau of Prisons updates. State court changes. Prison holistic self care and protection. Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook.
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