Georgia Woman Agrees to Sterilization To Avoid Murder Trial for Killing Infant Daughter

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 12 Feb 2005 - 5:00 PDT

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A 34-year-old Atlanta woman who plead guilty to killing her five-week-old daughter and the.... Fulton County District Attorney's Office on Tuesday agreed to a plea bargain that would allow the woman to avoid a murder trial and possible prison sentence if she is surgically sterilized, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, whose office proposed the plea deal, said he agreed to reduce the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter because Carisa Ashe -- who has seven other children -- was suffering from postpartum depression when she killed the infant in December 1998 and has no prior history of abuse or criminal activity. After Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes questioned Ashe to ensure her agreement to be sterilized was voluntary, he ordered her to serve five years on probation and undergo a tubal ligation within three months. Jack Martin, legislative committee chair of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said tubal ligation is a "creative" alternative to prison but such alternatives should be "rare and cautiously done," the Journal-Constitution reports. "We're always concerned when an unusual condition is the price to stay out of jail because of the fear it isn't truly voluntary," he said. However, Ashe's attorney Jan Hankins said, "It was her choice to go forward" (Warren, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/10). "We just looked at the circumstances and said there's got to be an end to this," Howard said, adding, "She's still at an age where she could continue to have children. We thought this might be the right thing to do" (Haines, AP/Yahoo! News, 2/9). In 2004, a Louisiana woman who was charged with murdering her infant agreed to a reduced plea involving tubal ligation. Prosecutors believe this is the first criminal case in Georgia in which a woman has agreed to undergo sterilization to avoid prison (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/10).

"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/repro The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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