Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Wendy A. Bach
Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Wendy A. Bach
William & Mary Law Review
In 2013, state legislators sitting at the heart of America’s opiate epidemic created the crime of fetal assault. Although they offered a fairly standard series of criminologic rationales to justify the legislation, they also posited that the creation of this crime was a precondition to secure treatment (or care) resources for women addicted to opiates. This extraordinary supposition—that criminalizing conduct creates a road to care—is an outgrowth of three interlinked socio-legal trends: the building of the carceral state, the criminalization of poverty, and the rapid growth, since the late 1980s, of a new generation of problem-solving courts. Framed in this …
Mothers Versus Babies: Constitutional And Policy Problems With Prosecutions For Prenatal Maternal Substance Abuse, Meghan Horn
Mothers Versus Babies: Constitutional And Policy Problems With Prosecutions For Prenatal Maternal Substance Abuse, Meghan Horn
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
This note examines the constitutional and policy implications of criminal prosecutions for prenatal maternal substance abuse under statutes criminalizing drug delivery, child abuse, and manslaughter. Although only one of these convictions has been upheld in the thirty years since a prosecutor first brought such charges, prosecutors continue to propose new and increasingly inventive theories of prosecution. Not only do these cases present procedural due process, substantive due process, and equal protection problems, they also cannot be supported by public policy. The prosecutions are opposed by healthcare workers, pit the interests of mothers and unborn children against each other, and actually …
Protecting The Fetus: The Criminalization Of Prenatal Drug Use, Kellam T. Parks
Protecting The Fetus: The Criminalization Of Prenatal Drug Use, Kellam T. Parks
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
No abstract provided.