Appellate court reverses murder conviction

RULING: Judges say a mom whose breast milk killed her baby didn't deserve
the charge.

11:42 PM PDT on Wednesday, September 21, 2005

By JOHN WELSH / The Riverside, CA Press-Enterprise

RIVERSIDE - A state Court of Appeal on Wednesday reversed a murder
conviction against a Mead Valley woman whose 3-month-old son died after
ingesting methamphetamine-laced breast milk. The court instructed the trial
court to reverse a second-degree murder conviction against Amy Leanne Prien
because felony child endangerment is not an inherently dangerous felony. In
other words, putting a child at risk is not necessarily an act that results
in death.

Authorities accused Prien of breast feeding her son, Jacob, after using
methamphetamines and argued that's why Jacob died in January 2002. A
Riverside jury convicted her in 2003.

Although the court reversed the murder conviction and three other lesser
child endangerment charges, it upheld Prien's conviction on a felony child
endangerment charge.
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But the district attorney's office over-reached to "try to make a murder
case where one does not exist," said Prien's appellate attorney, Tracy
Dressner.

"This is not saying you get to walk away free," Dressner said, referring to
the 10-year sentence Prien is still serving on the felony child
endangerment conviction that was upheld.

Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask said his office will review
the court's decision and decide whether to appeal it to the state Supreme
Court, or retry Prien on the murder charge.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal did not bar the trial court from
allowing Prien to face retrial on the murder charge based on a so-called
implied malice theory, one of the positions a prosecutor raised during the
case.

The theory hinges on whether Prien, a methamphetamine dealer and user, knew
that she could kill Jacob by breast-feeding the child.

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Online at:
<http://www.pe.com/localnews/riverside/stories/PE_News_Local_H_tainted22.18793ea7.html>http://www.pe.com/localnews/riverside/stories/PE_News_Local_H_tainted22.18793ea7.html


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