Bittersweet Success

I just heard that yesterday, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the homicide conviction of Regina McKnight. This was one of the cases that I worked on when I was at the Drug Policy Alliance and it was the one that has stuck with me as one of the saddest travesties that forces you to keep fighting.

Ms. McKnight suffered a still-birth and when the tox screen showed cocaine in the system of the fetus, South Carolina charged Ms. McKnight with murder. She was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison without parole. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld her conviction, saying, in part, that because Len Bias died from using cocaine once, everyone knew it could be fatal. So a pregnant woman who took cocaine should have known that it could kill the fetus -- despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence showing that cocaine causes stillbirth. In fact, the most current evidence indicated that cocaine's affect on a fetus was about the same as lack of nutrition or poor pre-natal care, and less harmful that smoking cigarettes. See, W. Chavkin, Cocaine and Pregnancy - Time to Look at the Evidence 285 JAMA 1626 (2001).

Ms. McKnight is still in prison. The State gets to keep here there while they decide to appeal the decision or retry her again. She has served 8 years so far. So while I am so relieved and happy that the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned her conviction -- finally -- I am still so angry at how long she was been there and at the crimes of wrongfully imprisoning people that the States perpetrate with impunity.

Please read the article about the case: http://www.charlotte.com/205/story/620738.html. Ms. McKnight's case played a critical role in how I perceive the justice system and partly why I finally got off my ass and went to law school.