Infant Death Case: Mother Innocent of Prenatal Crime

In a widely watched case, a Municipal Court judge ruled Thursday that Pamela Rae Stewart, who was jailed on a charge of contributing to her infant son’s death by ignoring a doctor’s orders to abstain from using drugs or engaging in other high-risk behavior during pregnancy, did not commit a crime.

Judge E. Mac Amos Jr. ruled in a pretrial motion that the San Diego County district attorney’s office erred in evoking a child-support law to prosecute Stewart for allegedly failing to provide proper medical care for her unborn son.

Amos, who spent 30 minutes explaining his ruling, said he nevertheless believes that the Legislature “could, under certain narrowly defined circumstances, restrict the actions of pregnant women” in an effort to protect the health of fetuses.

Stewart, a slight, blonde woman who is the married mother of two children, was not present at Thursday’s hearing and could not be reached for comment. But her attorneys applauded the ruling.

“This decision is a real victory for Pamela Rae Stewart,” said Lynn M. Paltrow of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “It also removes a major threat to all the women of California and a threat to California’s future generations.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Phillips, one of two prosecutors handling the case, said he did not know whether the ruling will be appealed.

“I believe the judge was in error,” he said.

Stewart, 28, was arrested last October in connection with the death of her son 10 months earlier. The boy, Thomas Travis Monson, was born with severe disabilities on Nov. 23, 1985, and died Jan. 1.

Prosecutors alleged that Stewart, who had an unusual medical condition known as placenta previa, contributed to her son’s death by ignoring the advice of her doctor to refrain from using street drugs, to avoid sexual intercourse and to immediately seek medical attention if she began bleeding.

El Cajon police began investigating Stewart after the physician who delivered Thomas notified the county’s child protective service division that the infant was born with traces of amphetamines in his bloodstream.

Because of its possible implications for women and impact on their obligations to fetuses, the Stewart case has attracted nationwide interest from legal scholars and numerous women’s and obstetricians’ groups. Nine such groups joined in the filing of a friendly brief on behalf of Stewart, urging that the charge be dismissed.