Indiana appeals court overturns woman’s feticide conviction

Last year, an Indiana court sentenced Purvi Patel to more than 20 years in prison for feticide and neglect after she threw her premature newborn into a trash bin in 2013. On Friday, the Indiana Appeals Court unanimously overturned her conviction, claiming the law did not apply to Patel because she tried to abort the child at home.

“We hold that the legislature did not intend for the feticide statute to apply to illegal abortions or to be used to prosecute women for their own abortions,” the judges said in an opinion released Friday.

At least 38 states have fetal homicide laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But generally, courts charge third parties with feticide, not mothers.

Since Patel failed to get medical attention for the child after his birth, the court still found her guilty of neglect.

“This case involves an emotional subject for many,” Indiana Attorney General Gregory F. Zoeller said in a statement Friday. “We appreciate the prompt ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals in rendering a decision addressing difficult and novel legal questions.”

Zoeller and Deputy Attorney General Ellen Meilaender defended the charges against Patel.

He plans to confer with the state about the next step to take, “if any,” according to his statement.

Indiana Right to Life and Right to Life Indy refused to comment on the issue and appear to have been tight-lipped about the case since at least 2015.

Pro-abortion groups complained the original ruling criminalized “reproductive choices” as the first feticide charge for a possible self-induced abortion. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and 22 other pro-abortion groups filed briefings of support for Patel.

Those groups and others have taken to Twitter to celebrate the ruling as a “victory” in the effort to #FreePurvi.

Patel, then a 32-year-old from Granger, Ind., managed a Moe’s Southwest Grill owned by her father and became pregnant in 2013 after sleeping with a married employee.

Once she discovered she was pregnant, she told a friend she wanted the man and the “baby outta [her] life.” Afraid her conservative Hindu parents and grandparents would find out she was pregnant, she ordered abortifacient drugs from Hong Kong.

“My family would kill me n him,” she texted, later adding “I rather not even go to a doc…just wanna get it over with.”

About 25 weeks into the pregnancy, Patel gave birth to a 1-and-a-half-pound boy. She put him in a plastic shopping bag and launched him into a trash bin behind the restaurant. She then drove to a nearby emergency room for loss of blood. There she insisted she had “just passed clots” until her examination proved otherwise, prompting a doctor and law enforcement officials to launch a search for the baby. Police eventually discovered his body and placed Patel under arrest.

In 2015, the trial court sentenced her to a six-year term for feticide and 20 years—plus 10 more if she violated probation—for neglecting the baby.

In an appeal filed in May, defense attorney Lawrence C. Marshall claimed Patel had miscarried the baby, but the state’s attorneys argue he was old enough to take a breath after birth.

During oral arguments before the appeals court, Meilaender reported the amount of blood left in the bag indicated the baby’s heart was still beating at the time Patel disposed of him.

Friday’s court ruling argues that even if the baby was alive, evidence fails to prove he could have lived after receiving medical attention. In this case, Patel’s “neglect of a dependent” charge dropped from a Class A felony to Class D—leading to a sentence of six months to two and a half years.

After spending the past three years in and out of the local jail and the Indiana Women’s Prison, Patel has already served all or most of her newly reduced sentence.