Nevada woman sent to prison and labeled ‘baby killer’ after a miscarriage wins $1.6M award

Nevada woman sent to prison and labeled ‘baby killer’ after a miscarriage wins $1.6M award Patience Rousseau was convicted under an arcane 1911 statute ‘that was on the books before women were even allowed to vote in Nevada,’ her attorney said - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Already a member? Log in A woman who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter after she miscarried has won a $1.6 million settlement from a Nevada county more than eight years later. Patience Rousseau, aged 26 at the time, miscarried in April 2018 and was stunned when officers with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office turned up at her doorstep in the rural city of Winnemucca a month later to question her. One of the officers who spearheaded the charge against Rousseau, now 34, reportedly harbored personal animosity towards her and allegedly took the ashes of the miscarried fetus home with her, according to The Washington Post. When the deputy, who has since left the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, moved to Texas, she allegedly took the remains with her. The deputy was ordered to return the remains as part of the settlement, the Nevada Independent reports. “I went through so much and so did my children, who are still facing these issues,” Rousseau told the outlet. “It's not fair.” Rousseau’s attorneys reportedly wrote to Humboldt County in March, accusing officials of breaking state law, violating the mom’s constitutional rights and for the emotional distress she suffered as a result. The $1.6 million settlement was finalized in August and Rousseau recently received the money. The Independent has contacted the Humboldt County district attorney’s office for comment. Rousseau was charged and later convicted under a unique 1911 Nevada law “that was on the books before women were even allowed to vote in Nevada,” Paola Armeni, a civil rights attorney representing Rousseau, told the outlet. After spending two years in jail, Rousseau was released on July 8, 2021, after her attorney successfully managed to get the conviction vacated. Her ordeal has raised serious ethical questions over the county’s handling of the case and its struggle to distinguish a miscarriage from an abortion. Already a mom to two young sons, Rousseau discovered she was pregnant in February 2018, the Nevada Independent reports. She was unsure of how far along she was but knew she did not want to keep the baby and scheduled an abortion at a clinic in Reno, more than a two-hour drive from Winnemucca. But Rousseau’s car broke down, and she had no way to get to the clinic. According to the newspaper, Rousseau looked online for advice on how to end an unwanted pregnancy naturally and resorted to lifting heavy objects and taking large quantities of cinnamon. Medical experts later testified in Rousseau’s case that there is no evidence cinnamon has any effect on the outcome of a pregnancy. Rousseau miscarried in April 2018 and delivered a stillborn baby boy, who she named Abel. She initially tried to give him CPR, according to the Post. Rousseau buried his remains in her backyard. “I'm so sorry Abel,” Rousseau allegedly posted on Facebook. “I'm sorry I'm a horrible person." Police searched Rousseau’s home on May 26 after being tipped off by a neighbor. They dug up Abel’s remains from the backyard as the officers tried to work out how they could charge the mom. Under the 1911 statute, if a woman uses “any drug, medicine or substance, or any instrument or other means” to have an abortion after 24 weeks, and ends the pregnancy, she can be charged with manslaughter. Rousseau was arrested and charged three days later. Detectives realized that pointing to Rousseau’s consumption of cinnamon to terminate the pregnancy would likely fail to stand up in court. They turned to her alleged drug use while pregnant after traces of marijuana and methamphetamine were found in Abel’s remains, according to a toxicology report. During the case, the medical examiner and other medical experts reportedly testified that while meth may increase the risk of pregnancy loss, there was no evidence that meth or marijuana caused Rousseau’s miscarriage, according to the Post. While the mom admitted she regularly smoked marijuana and occasionally used meth, she denied telling police that she did so to end the pregnancy, records reviewed by the newspaper found. Rousseau’s public defender encouraged her to plead guilty to manslaughter, and she went to jail in 2019. At the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas, inmates “saw her as the woman who had killed her baby.” Laura FitzSimmons, a prominent reproductive rights attorney, heard about Rousseau’s case and reached out to the mom, telling her that she believed she had been wrongly imprisoned. The lawyer argued that the prosecution could not prove that the mom’s drug use caused the miscarriage, and Rousseau could not have known she passed the threshold for legal abortion because she was unsure of how far along she was. With FitzSimmons’ help, Rousseau’s conviction was thrown out in 2021 based on ineffective assistance of counsel. Judge Charles McGee described Rousseau’s case as a “total miscarriage of justice” in his decision. “Patience has been portrayed as an antichrist, but this Judge thinks she is, instead, just a mother caught hopelessly in the web of poverty with a lack of any support system,” McGee wrote, according to the Post. Rousseau has since moved to South Dakota in search of a fresh start. She told the Nevada Independent that she is now sober, but is struggling with depression and loneliness. Her children have behavioral issues from the time the mom spent in prison, she said. The mom added that she planned to use the settlement money to finance her house, open a new business and buy her mom a car. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments [Image text:] Melarkey st CIY OF VINNEMUCCA