Brittany Watts, 34, miscarried at nearly 22 weeks.
A grand jury decided Thursday not to indict an Ohio woman on allegations that she mishandled the remains of a fetus after miscarrying her pregnancy at home.
The case had alarmed reproductive rights groups and legal experts who said there is no clear guidance on how to handle an at-home miscarriage and that police and local prosecutors overreached by charging the woman, who is Black, with “abuse of a corpse.”
Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, was arrested last October and pleaded not guilty to the charge. If convicted, she would have faced up to a year in prison. Because the grand jury decided not to indict, the case has been dropped.
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A subsequent autopsy showed that the baby had died before being born due to a spontaneous miscarriage and that no illicit drugs were present. Watts was arrested two weeks later on accusations of “abusing a corpse.”
If you ever get called up for the jury and get one of these cases… Remember that (in the US at least) there is a concept called “jury nullification” that you should not mention at the courthouse but can absolutely act upon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
For others bc I had to look it up. Good tip. I will be more enthusiastic about being called for jury duty in future.