Originally published at: Grand jury in Ohio declines to indict woman charged over miscarriage - Boing Boing
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Great news!
Still sucks though that she had to go through all that.
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Ohio legislature probably gonna pass a law banning juries now…
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Hurray for the Grand Jury actually serving its purpose for once, but boo for the prosecutor making it necessary in the first place.
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Finally, some justice in this horrible post-Dobbs mess.
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Does that game exist? It needs to exist!
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Well now they’ll just have to charge all the grand jurors with being an accessory.
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Great news.
Unfuck those asshats who took it this far.
Don’t give the fasscholes any ideas.
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That’s great news. Also interesting because grand juries typically just do whatever the prosecuting attorney presenting the case wants. If that attorney wants an indictment, they usually get it. Grand juries are often just a formality. And when they don’t return an indictment, it usually means the prosecutor realized they had a weak case, or politics forced them to file charges they didn’t really want to. So this is probably one of those two things.
Ok, I decided to read the linked article. The answer is there:
Assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri argued to have the case move forward, which was agreed to by Warren Municipal Court Judge Terry Ivanchak.
Ivanchak referred the case to a grand jury, arguing there was “probable cause” of a crime. He has since retired. The case would have been tried by Judge Andrew Logan.
The local police and the city attorney of Warren, responsible for initiating charges against Watts, have not responded to requests for comment.
Dennis Watkins, the Trumbull County prosecutor who advised the grand jury ahead of its decision, said his office believed Watts “did not violate the Ohio Criminal Statue of Abuse of a Corpse as alleged in the complaint.”
So an aggressive assistant prosecutor pushed for this, the city attorney backed him up, but then the counter (county…I can’t type) prosecutor basically told the grand jury that there was no case here.
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This woman showed up seeking medical care at a hospital, and someone notified the police (???) who then searched her home to find the remains of a miscarriage, and then she was charged with a crime.
The abc news article says she " returned to the hospital, where she told authorities she thought she had taken the fetal remains out of the toilet and placed them in a black bucket. "
The police were at the hospital to see this woman? For having a miscarriage at her home? This is revolting. The police don’t regularly hang around the ER cruising for women with pregnancy complications, so someone in the ED notified the police of her presence and her reason for being there. I don’t know the laws in Ohio, but I can only find that they have mandatory reporting for Child Abuse/Neglect, and not that they have mandatory reporting laws for miscarriages. This sounds like someone very much violated her privacy rights in calling the police over her presenations to the ED.
I am so appalled I shall go outside and scream.
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“So an aggressive assistant prosecutor pushed for this, the city attorney backed him up, but then the counter prosecutor basically told the grand jury that there was no case here.”
With the evil result that a traumatized woman was further traumatized by the malicious prosecution of a crime that did not happen and does not exist. The real abuse here was perpetrated by the so-called justice system. Disgraceful.
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“I’d buy that for a dollar!” (edited for a better response)
This is one response to bad laws.
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