Women’s rights and civil liberties organizations are calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to renounce the practice of enhancing the sentences of women convicted of felonies while pregnant, particularly those with drug convictions.
Jessica Pieklo, senior legal analyst for the news blog RH Reality Check, reported on the criminalization of pregnancy. Pieklo highlighted a case involving Lucy Weld of Dandridge, Tenn., who received a sentence of 151 months in prison for conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine.
Presiding Judge Thomas Varlan announced at sentencing that Weld would receive an additional six years because her crime was committed while she was pregnant.
Following Weld’s sentencing, U.S. Attorney William Killian issued a statement supporting the judge’s decision. “Through this prosecution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office sends a message that, should a child, born or unborn, be exposed to a substantial risk of harm through the manufacture of methamphetamine, we will pursue any available enhancements at sentencing.”
A coalition of organizations seeking drug reform policies, women’s rights and civil liberties said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that changes to the current sentencing structure should be made to renounce enhancement penalties.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia were represented by organizations concerned with the change of the current practice. These organizations argue that sentences that are enhanced due to pregnancy are contrary to science and evidence-based research, which shows the punishing of pregnant drug offenders harms public health, Pieklo reported.
“Opening the door to enhanced penalties for pregnant women will unquestionably make women of color — a group already subject to extraordinary disproportionality in criminal punishment and sentencing — even more vulnerable to state and federal control and punishment,” said Cherisse Scott, founder and CEO of the Tennessee-based organization SisterReach.
In April, the Tennessee Legislature passed Senate Bill 1391, an amendment to the state’s fetal homicide law. This law allows the judicial system to prosecute women for the illegal use of narcotics during pregnancy, if her child is born addicted to or harmed by the narcotic drug. The bill was an amendment to the previous law that favored the decriminalization policies concerning pregnant women and drug convictions.
Legislators passed the Safe Harbor Act in 2013, giving women that are pregnant the opportunity to seek treatment for their addiction. The incentive for joining the program was retaining custody of their children. However, the passing of SB 1391 allows state district attorneys the leverage they need to bring criminal charges against these women under the current law.
Coalition members wrote a letter to the Department of Justice, asking that it publicly acknowledge and denounce enhanced penalties for women who are pregnant during the commission of a crime.
“The action supported by the federal prosecutor in Tennessee is based on the profoundly discriminatory principle that pregnant women may be subject to separate, unequal and harsher penalties than others,” wrote Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. If charged under the law, a woman could face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
“Becoming pregnant and either continuing or terminating a pregnancy is a fundamental right for which no person should be subject to punishment directly or through enhanced penalties,” Paltrow concluded.
