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An Indian-American woman from Indiana sentenced for 20 years in the country’s first feticide conviction, walked out free Sept.1, soon after her 2015 sentence was overturned by the Indiana Appeals Court.
Purvi Patel, 35, arrested in July 2013, for inducing her own abortion, and sentenced last year to two decades, was set free after she was re-sentenced to serve only 18 months for a lesser charge.
The Ordeal
Patel’s saga began when she went to hospital bleeding profusely and staff alerted police that she had experienced a premature birth and put the baby in a garbage bin outside the restaurant in a town northeast of South Bend, Indiana. Her parents own the restaurant where she worked and the pregnancy was a result of an extramarital relationship that a male employee conducted with her.
During investigations it was borne out that Patel had bought abortion drugs online and used them. Patel’s lawyers argued she was fearful of her conservative family’s disapproval over a pre-marital affair and hence tried to abort the baby. During her case, Patel held that she gave birth to a still-born fetus, while prosecutors contended the baby died within seconds of being born. Activists argued the prosecution was using arcane science to prove its case.
The case drew national attention and rallied women’s groups on all sides of the women’s rights movement. It was joined by top-notch lawyers giving pro-bono time in relentless efforts that paid off to free Patel. She was represented pro-bono in her appeal by Stanford Law professor, Larry Marshall, the co-founder and legal director of the world-renowned Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Illinois, and Indiana University law professor, Joel Schumm, among others.
Rev. Marie Siroky of the United Church of Christ, who was Patel’s clergy-of-record, and counseled her once a week, told News India Times, Patel “has always maintained her strong Hindu faith.”
Those heavily involved in mobilizing support behind Patel, were overjoyed. Sue Ellen Braunlin, co-president of Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice tweeted “OK Purvi has left the building.” She was following up on a tweet from local public radio journalist Becca Costello saying, “I just spoke briefly with the Indiana Women’s Prison where #PurviPatel has been held. She was released this morning.”
“She is a strong woman of faith, and has always been very appreciative and thankful of people who have supported her and respected her,” Siroky said. According to Siroky, “Her (Purvi Patel) family is very thankful for all the prayers and thoughts people extended. At this time they want some privacy.”
This July, the Indiana Appeals Court overturned Patel’s 2015 conviction and sentence, though it upheld a lower level conviction for “felony-neglect of a dependent.”
St Joseph Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurley ordered Patel released immediately, according to news reports.
While overturning Patel’s earlier conviction the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s feticide law which was passed in 1979 was meant to prosecute people who attacked pregnant women and was not meant to “prosecute women for their own abortions”
“Her case has taught Indiana that they should think twice about using the feticide law,” asserted Carolyn Meagher, co-president of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice, that backed Patel over the course of her trial and rallied other women’s groups behind her.
Lead Attorney
“For me what’s always been important is that Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 to 30 years for this series of events that were really so out of control and somewhat unavoidable,” Patel’s lead attorney for the appeal, Marshall told News India Times. “Getting her out was the key and its great.”
Marshall said the most significant legal aspect of the case for the feticide issue and whether Patel could be prosecuted for an illegal abortion because she got the abortion drug RU 487 over the Internet.”The courts have held that women cannot be prosecuted for their own abortion. Indiana took a different course. As it stands now, women in Indiana cannot be prosecuted for their own abortion,” Marshall noted, unless another appeal is made, which seemed highly unlikely.
The other aspect of the case was the “felony-neglect” claim, which was more an issue of fact rather than law and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the appeals court. So the appeals court maintained it would not deal with the jury’s decision that it was a ‘live’ birth. But crucially, the court ruled that the finding that Patel ’caused’ the death could not be held up under any circumstances, the appeals court said in its ruling. It reduced the Class A “felony-neglect” down to a Class D felony, which carried a much lower sentence. Patel now had to be released as she had already served more than the Class D felony sentence would require.
“We know Indiana is not a state where there is as natural a sympathy for a case like this. But this case proves that the system works. That if done right, the judges step up to the plate and apply the law,” Marshall said. He credited the 30 or so students at Stanford who gave thousands of hours to the case over and above his own 1000 pro-bono hours.
Organizations Support Patel
Numerous national groups filed an amicus brief in support of Patel, among them, Abortion Care Network, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, several university-based centers for reproductive justice such as Berkeley and New York University, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, National Institute for Reproductive Health, Physicians for Reproductive Health. An amicus brief was filed by Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations including South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Adhikaar, Apna Ghar, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Daya, Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum, Desis Rising Up and Moving, Maitri, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Sakhi for South Asian Woman, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, South Asian American Policy and Research Institute, and the South Asian Bar Association of North America.
Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions Karen Daniel, writing about Patel’s 2015 conviction, said, “Patel’s sentence is every bit as outrageous as the charges. In what universe does a woman with no criminal background, who was hiding her pregnancy due to fear of her family’s disapproval, deserve twenty years behind bars for neglect because she panicked after her baby came early? Most rapists and batterers get off with much less.”
“We are very happy for her, that she can restart her life and rejoin her family. She should be able to hold her head high and know that there’s no shame in this,” Meagher emphasized.
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