No Murder Charge for Teen Mother

A 15-year-old honors student whose newborn drowned in a high school toilet will not be charged with murder, authorities said Thursday. Vietnamese community leaders said she should not be prosecuted at all.

The Santiago High School sophomore was released from police custody Thursday, but remained hospitalized at UCI Medical Center in Orange, where she was reported in good condition Thursday night, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley said that prosecutors, while ruling out murder charges, have not decided whether to press involuntary manslaughter or child endangerment charges, or bring no charges at all.

“This has been a real agonizing case for everyone,” Conley said. As head of the juvenile unit, he must personally decide whether to prosecute, and said it is one of the toughest cases he has faced in recent years.

Unwed mothers are viewed with disfavor in the Vietnamese culture, and unwed Vietnamese-American girls who become pregnant are usually rejected by their mortified parents and often thrown out of their homes.

“If it goes to court, it’ll ruin her life for good,” said Dr. Co Dang Long Pham, a Westminster obstetrician.

The young mother had concealed her pregnancy from her parents, and the school guidance counselor and classmates who knew of her condition believed she was only a few months’ pregnant until Tuesday, when she delivered the full-term, 6-pound boy in a girls’ restroom.

Preliminary autopsy reports show the child was apparently delivered into the toilet, where he drowned. However, authorities say they found no evidence that she deliberately drowned the child.

“I feel she shouldn’t be charged,” said Mai Cong, chairman of the Vietnamese Community Social Service Center. “She should have been referred while she was pregnant for crisis intervention.”

Cong said fellow Vietnamese she has spoken with generally feel sorry for the girl and her family. Police and local newspapers have withheld the girl’s identity, and since her last name is a common one, Cong said there is still hope that she can remain anonymous.

Conley said that lesser charges might be filed if prosecutors determine that the killing, while not intentional, was the result of criminal neglect.

“It’s what a reasonable person would do in the circumstances,” Conley said. “You have to look at the fact that she’s 15. If she had been an OB-GYN (obstetrics and gynecology) nurse aged 26 and the exact same facts, you’d look at it differently.”

Conley said that prosecutors may not judge the girl by a gentler legal standard because of Vietnamese cultural factors, but will take into account her age and her reluctance to confess her pregnancy.

“We don’t blind ourselves to any set of facts and pretend they don’t exist,” Conley said. “On the other hand, there’s only one penal code.”

Dr. Pham said that even lesser charges are inappropriate, given the girl’s lack of medical attention.

“If she knows she will be due that day, and she doesn’t go to the hospital, and the baby dies, that’s child endangerment,” he said. “She doesn’t know when she’ll have the baby. She went to the restroom, she had the baby in the toilet and the baby drowns. That’s not manslaughter, either. . . .

“Her life is maybe already ruined,” Pham said. “To charge her, it’s the coup de grace. “

The baby’s father, also a Vietnamese-American high school student, has been interviewed by police but does not face charges.

Police said the girl lost a great deal of blood. Conley would not comment on whether she was in shock during or after the birth, but said that would also be a factor in his decision.

Garden Grove Police Lt. Chuck Gibbs said police were obliged to release the girl Thursday afternoon, despite fears that she might run away, because no charges have been filed against her.

Gibbs said the girl was technically released into the custody of her parents, but the county Department of Social Services has assigned a social worker to the case.

“In a case like this, DSS will take over and watch over the kid for her welfare,” Gibbs said. A department official declined to comment on what arrangements would be made.