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Child Safety: Homicide by Child Abuse: South Carolina Upholds Conviction under “Crack Mom” Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Marcella Smith
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Extract

In State v. McKnight, the Supreme Court of South Carolina decided 3-2 to affirm McKnight’s conviction for homicide by child abuse based on the finding that her cocaine use during pregnancy caused her daughter to be stillborn. Under South Carolina law, a person is guilty of homicide by child abuse if he or she “causes the death of a child under the age of eleven while committing child abuse or neglect, and the death occurs under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.” During the trial, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy testified that (1) the only way for the infant to have cocaine byproducts present in her system was ifthe mother had ingested cocaine, and (2) the cause of death was intrauterine fetal demise. Another pathologist testified that there was a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death was intrauterine cocaine exposure.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Fall 2003 , pp. 457 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2003

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References

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