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DA drops manslaughter charge against Marshae Jones
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ala. —An Alabama district attorney has decided to drop the charges against a woman who was indicted for manslaughter after she lost her fetus when she was shot during a fight.
Marshae Jones was arrested June 26 after a grand jury concluded she intentionally caused the death of her fetus by initiating a fight with another woman.
Jones was five-months pregnant when she was shot in the stomach in a December altercation.
Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney Lynneice O. Washington announced the decision at a news conference Wednesday.
Jones' attorneys filed a motion Monday asking that the charges be dismissed. They called the charges "completely unreasonable and unjust."
Advocates for women's rights expressed outrage over the arrest, calling it another attempt to charge women for crimes related to their pregnancies.
Jones’s family is grateful for the outcome but not commenting at this time, the law firm said. Jeff Robinson, a deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, agreed with Washington’s decision, writing Wednesday that Jones should not have been charged to begin with.
“The DA’s decision represents precisely what we want to see in these critical moments: a prosecutor who is not afraid to use prosecutorial discretion and power to refuse to prosecute when the law and justice demands that charges should be dropped,” Robinson said in a statement.
