Lawyers call stillborn baby verdict unfair

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Lawyers for the first woman in South Carolina convicted of killing her unborn child by drug abuse want a judge to overturn her conviction because they say she did not get a fair trial.

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Lawyers at a hearing Tuesday in Horry County said prosecutors did not prove that cocaine use caused Regina McKnight's baby to be stillborn.

"Ms. McKnight is one of more than 500 women in South Carolina who experience stillbirths each year, and in many of those cases, medicine just can't determine the cause," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rauch Wise said. "There was no competent evidence that connected her cocaine problem to the stillbirth."

Ms. McKnight, 27, gave birth to a stillborn child at Conway Hospital in 1999. She was convicted of homicide by child abuse and is serving a 12-year prison sentence at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood.

Local attorneys, the ACLU and national medical groups have tried to free her. The state Supreme Court upheld her conviction and sentence last year, ruling that the punishment was not too harsh because she should have known taking cocaine could harm her baby. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal.

The General Assembly passed a law in 1992 making it a felony to cause the death of a child younger than 11 through child abuse or neglect "under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life."

--From the Thursday, July 29, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle