Marshae Jones, a 27-year-old woman from Alabama, was charged with manslaughter by a grand jury after she was shot in the stomach. Her fetus died after she was shot by another woman during a fight.
Now, initially, the woman who actually shot Jones, Ebony Jemison, was charged with manslaughter. But according to police, Jones started the fight about the baby’s father. And, according to prosecutors, Jemison acted in self-defense. When a Jefferson County grand jury got this information, they declined to indict her. Then, in a disturbing twist of logic, prosecutors turned on Jones, who was held on a $50,000 bond.
Thankfully, the status of this tragic situation is changing as of today. Prosecutors have officially dropped their case against Jones. Saying that, “there are no winners,” the Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney dismissed the manslaughter charge on Wednesday afternoon.
This is a big shift. When Jones was arrested, Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Danny Reid asserted to reporters that it was, basically, all Jones’ fault anyway. Reid said that “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby,” and went on to suggest that the fetus was the only victim. “She had no choice in being brought unnecessarily into a fight where she was relying on her mother for protection." Disturbing, to say the least.
In a statement on Wedneday, lawyers for Jones said the following:
“The District Attorney’s decision will help Marshae continue to heal from this
tragic event and work to rebuild her life in a positive and productive way. With the dismissal of charges, the community of support that surrounded Marshae can now channel its immense passion and energy toward ensuring that what happened to Marshae won’t ever happen again.”
This case received national attention, and it’s easy to see why. It feels like criminalizing pregnancy and holding pregnant people to unfair standards and expectations. Carliss Chatman, an assistant law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, told TIME magazine as much, saying, “What if you trip down the stairs and fall down? Where is the line if you hold mothers accountable for things like this?”
Alabama seemed ripe for this sort of case to happen. Between the state’s extreme abortion ban, which was signed into law in May, and a constitutional amendment that requires lawmakers to “recognize and protect the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children,” it feels like conservatives were waiting for situations like this to crop up, in order to punish pregnant people and make an example out of them. At least, in this case, that’s being turned around.