A pregnant woman in Florida who is charged with second-degree murder and is waiting for her trial says that her unborn child, which hasn’t been charged with any crime, is being held illegally and should be let out of jail.
In an emergency petition for “UNBORN CHILD” that was filed last week, attorney William Norris said that the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had not given Natalia Harrell and his client, her 8-month-old fetus, enough prenatal care.
An unborn child is a person,
Norris said.
A person has constitutional rights and one of them is the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law.
I am asserting the right of someone who is a person who has not been considered in the decision to incarcerate his mother,
the lawyer added.
The petition said that the corrections department didn’t give Harrell enough prenatal vitamins and healthy food, didn’t take her to her scheduled doctor’s appointments, and at one point left the pregnant woman in a van that was 100 degrees without air conditioning.
Norris said that Harrell had seen an OB-GYN doctor for the last time in October. He said he filed the petition after the father told him he was worried about the health of his future child.
In a statement, the corrections department denied the claims about how it treated the inmate, saying that it is “committed to making sure all inmates get professional, timely medical care and all appropriate treatment.”
Ashley Moody, the attorney general of Florida, argued Monday that the petition should be thrown out because there isn’t enough proof that Harrell has been mistreated.
Harrell, who is 24 years old, has been in the county jail without a bond since July, when she was accused of killing Gladys Yvette Borcela, another Uber passenger, during a fight after a night out in Miami.
She has said she is not guilty, and her trial is set for April.
Miss Harrell hasn’t been convicted of anything,
Norris talked about the case that could set a new standard.
She’s been accused,
he continued,
but she has a stand-your-ground immunity defense that her criminal attorney is going to assert. So her conviction is by no means certain.
