A New York court ruled that a Long Island woman who killed her six-day-old baby couldn’t be convicted—because the baby was not yet a person.
Jennifer Jorgensen had been in her third trimester of pregnancy, while driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. When she crashed her car in a head-on collision, she was given an emergency C-section.
Her daughter passed away six days later from injuries sustained in the crash.
Jorgensen was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in 2012, driving while intoxicated, and endangering the welfare of a child.
But the New York Court of Appeals reversed her conviction. They claimed that, because the injuries to Jorgensen’s baby happened while Jorgensen was still pregnant, she could not be held criminally liable. In short, her child—who had been alive for six days—was not yet considered a person under the eyes of the law.
The decision by the Court of Appeals was not unanimous. In a scathing dissent, Judge Eugen Fahey wrote, “I cannot join in a result that analyzes our statutes to determine that a six-day-old child is not a person.”
AAN Staff
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