Woman Indicted for Fetus's Death After Being Shot Files Motion to Dismiss Charges

By Rebecca Fishbein | July 1, 2019 | 1:30pm

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Woman Indicted for Fetus's Death After Being Shot Files Motion to Dismiss Charges

Last month, an Alabama woman who lost her fetus after she was shot in the stomach was indicted on manslaughter charges, after a grand jury deemed her responsible for allegedly starting the altercation that led to the shooting. The case has launched significant uproar, particularly in light of Alabama’s new near-total abortion ban. (Charges against the man who allegedly shot her in the stomach, Ebony Jamison, were filed and then dismissed.)

According to AL.com, the attorneys representing Marshae Jones, 27, will file a motion on Monday aiming to get the charges dismissed, calling the indictment an “unprecedented, inappropriate charge that is not permitted under that the law in Alabama.” Mark White, of White Arnold & Dowd, told AL.com the indictment seemed like it had been filed by “someone who should’ve been objective [who] decided to frame the narrative for their own personal political reasons.”

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“The New York Mets in their worst season didn’t have as many errors as this indictment,” he said.

Jones was five months pregnant in December 2018, when Jamison allegedly shot her in the stomach outside a store near Birmingham. Police initially charged Jamison, then switched the blame to Jones, whom they alleged started the altercation. At the time of the shooting, Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said “that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,” arguing that “[w]hen a 5-month pregnant woman initiates a fight and attacks another person, I believe some responsibility lies with her as to any injury to her unborn child.”

Lynniece Washington, the district attorney charged with handling Jones’s case, said this week that she would “respect” the grand jury’s decision to indict Jones, but that “[a]s district attorney, I have the discretion and power to do what I please.” She also addressed some of the criticism lobbed at her office following the indictment, per AL.com:

“For those of you who called my office, and disrupted, cursed, disrespected, because I was not present—I was not in the state, shame, shame on you,” she added. “But I took an oath to serve. I am a black woman in black skin. So, don’t tell me how I don’t appreciate the sensitivity of a woman and the rights of women.”

If convicted, Jones could face 20 years in prison.