Utah justices uphold fetal murder conviction/Toddler to sue mom?

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Utah justices uphold fetal murder conviction

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04212004/utah/159239.asp

By Elizabeth Neff

The Salt Lake Tribune

 

The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand the conviction of the first

Utahn charged with murdering a fetus.

A 21-year-old construction worker at the time, Calvin Shane Myers

stabbed his pregnant girlfriend on the shores of Rockport Reservoir in

Summit County in December 1994. Irene Francis Christensen, 20, and her 16-

to 18-week-old fetus died.

Prosecutors charged Myers with two counts of capital murder in the first

Utah case of its kind.

Myers challenged the charges, arguing a fetus was not a " person " as

described by state law. A 3rd District judge ruled otherwise, and on the

advice of his attorney, Myers accepted a deal in which he pleaded guilty to

a single count of capital murder and prosecutors agreed to a sentence of

life in prison.

Ruling in a separate case last year, the high court upheld fetal

homicide charges. The justices said a " person " under the aggravated murder

statute includes an unborn child at any stage of development in utero.

In his post-conviction appeal, Myers had asked the court to consider

similar issues. He also claimed his trial attorney should have appealed the

judge's rulings instead of advising him to take the plea bargain.

The justices said they cannot consider most of the questions raised by

Myers in the appeal because they had already been raised at trial. Myers'

attorney, the high court determined, represented him well.

A witness at Myers' 1995 preliminary hearing, said he and the couple

were walking along the reservoir's icy shores admiring nature before the

slaying. Myers and Christensen embraced and kissed, the witness said, before

Myers began stabbing Christensen without warning.

 

A snowmobiler found Christensen's frozen body 16 days later. Police

linked the murder to Myers through a wallet the witness inadvertently

dropped in the parking lot of a nearby campground.

 

 

Family seeks permission for toddler to sue mom

Request made to help pay for child's care

 

http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=a88b7e87-db95

-4b15-9133-3a5b465c46b1

Kelly Cryderman

CanWest News Service

 

 

April 21, 2004

 

Doug and Lisa Rewega are fighting to get insurance money for their daughter

Brooklyn, who needs 24-hour-a-day care. Lisa Rewega was in a car accident

before Brooklyn's birth.

A Rainbow Lake family wants the Klein government to pass special legislation

to allow their daughter to sue her mother for injuries she suffered in the

womb from a car accident.

 

The family is as close as ever, but Doug Rewega wants to be able to take

legal action against his wife, Lisa, on behalf of their daughter, Brooklyn.

 

The girl, who will turn three this weekend, is blind, brain-damaged, has

severe cerebral palsy and eight to 10 seizures a day. The family believes

her condition was caused by the accident near High Level on Dec. 31, 2000,

as Lisa Rewega drove to church.

 

They hope that because she was at fault, the insurance company will pay for

the costs of Brooklyn's round-the-clock care.

 

" Our daughter, in her situation, will require very long-term care, over the

course of her life, which we're hoping will be a very long time, " Doug

Rewega said. " She's the joy of my life . . . . "

 

Alberta Justice Minister Dave Hancock said the issue is not about abortion

or fetal rights.

 

There are numerous questions raised by this case, he said.

 

" Who would ever take on motherhood if it opened them to nine months of

potential liability for any action that they took? "

 

He said that's why mothers are generally exempt from being sued for things

that happened before children are born.

 

Hancock said the difference with this case is that if anybody but the mother

had been driving, someone would be able to sue the driver on behalf of the

child. " Therefore, it's easy to see that the child perhaps should have a

cause of action in this type of case. "

 

Lawyers for Alberta's Justice Department have raised concerns the case could

have wider implications for increasing government control over pregnant

women.

 

" You'd want to look at things like the impact on families of creating a

maternal tort duty of care, the impact on the mother/child relationship, the

impact on the conduct and liberties of pregnant women, " said Nolan Steed, an

Alberta Justice official.

 

Rosanna Saccomani, the Rewegas' lawyer, said the family is unable to get a

settlement from their insurance company because of a recent Supreme Court

decision that prevents children from making claims against their mothers for

events that happened before they were born.

 

Saccomani said the Supreme Court left an opening for legislation to be

passed that would allow a child to sue a mother only in cases where the

child was injured as a fetus in a car accident, and not, for example, if the

mother was addicted to drugs or alcohol.

 

Saccomani and the Rewegas made a powerful presentation to an all-party

legislature committee Tuesday in a push to get a private member's bill

passed that is worded specifically to allow Brooklyn to sue her mother. The

bill is called the Brooklyn Hannah George Rewega Right of Civil Action Act.

It would apply only to the Rewega family.

 

The committee will decide whether the bill will go forward to the

legislature next week.

 

Saccomani said this is strictly an insurance case and if somebody else

besides Brooklyn's mother had been driving the car, the family would be able

to take legal action.

 

Saccomani said by passing the bill, the Rewegas can cut their years in court

to five years from 10. " If we lost this case, there's no women's victory

from this. It's a loss for a child and a family, " she said. " Nobody can say

there's a benefit other than to the insurance industry. "

 

But the bill faces opposition from the Justice Department which presented a

brief listing its concerns.

 

The brief says the 1999 Supreme Court case Dobson vs. Dobson concluded that

legislation allowing children to sue their mothers for prenatal injuries

might be unconstitutional, " but the courts might recognize a limited

liability as long as it was confined to the mother's automobile insurance

limits. "

 

The brief also says that since a statement of claim still exists against the

owners of the vehicle involved in the crash -- Brooklyn's grandparents --

not all avenues of appeal have been exhausted. The bill could also affect

the other insurance industry cases, the brief says.

 

There are also major policy considerations, including the Supreme Court's

concern that allowing a fetus to sue its mother would increase government

control over pregnant woman to an unacceptable degree, the brief says.

 

Gary Friedel, the MLA for Peace River who brought forward the private

member's bill, said this is " the last reasonable chance (for the family)

other than possibly 10 years of litigation. "

 

The facts of the case are so unusual, " I don't believe any precedent that it

would cause would be worrisome, " he said.

 

Saccomani received international attention when she represented Edmontonian

Randy Mock in 1988 when he tried to stop his ex-girlfriend from having an

abortion. Mock won an injunction, but the woman went ahead with an abortion

after the injunction expired.

 

Edmonton Journal

 

© The Calgary Herald 2004