Indiana Court of Appeals to hear Purvi Patel’s appeal to reverse her 2015 neglect & feticide convictions

INDIANAPOLIS (Diya TV) — Purvi Patel, an Indian American woman who last year was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison in connection with the ending of her own pregnancy, will appeal her case and sentence to the state’s highest court.

Patel’s attorneys sought Monday to overturn the conviction of feticide and neglect of a dependent. The state’s interpretation of its feticide law has drawn national interest of the case, and Monday’s hearing focused heavily on the evidence used to secure the conviction, including whether or not the prosecution had sufficiently proven Patel knew her child had been born alive.

On the night in question, Patel sought medical attention at St. Joseph Hospital after delivering her child at home, according to court documents. When doctors questioned her about her condition, Patel told them she had delivered a stillborn child in her home and discarded the body into a dumpster.

However, prosecutors further alleged that Patel had ordered abortifacients online, and that her child had been born alive.

On Monday, attorney Lawrence Marshall shared the outline of the appeal.

“The evidence in this case was not there whatsoever,” Marshall said. “Not a single expert ever said — in any sort of declarative way — that yes, this infant would have survived had Ms. Patel done differently.”

Opponents of Patel’s conviction have argued that the charge of feticide was never created for the use of criminal prosecution against pregnant women, but instead was meant to serve as an instrument to target providers of illegal abortions. Patel became the first Indiana woman to be convicted of feticide in a case like this in state history.

Marshal berated the state for its use of the feticide statute, and said Indiana’s laws do not criminalize this type of abortion and should have never played a role in his client’s case. Additionally, he scrutinized the state’s case on the charge of neglect, which he said was not proven during Patel’s trial. The state never asked its expert witness whether Patel’s child would have made any noise or shown any visible signs of life that would signal to Patel that the baby was not stillborn, he said.

Prosecutors also never presented any evidence that the child, who was born several weeks premature, would have benefited from medical care received at the hospital, Marshall said.

The three-judge panel questioned Marshall about the importance of the child’s survival as a factor in the case.

Judge Nancy Vaidik said: “Someone is about ready to die of cancer, and someone shoots them. That person is guilty of murder. I mean, we don’t say, ‘Oh, they only had another five hours to live.’ And that’s what I’m struggling with.”

The state maintained evidence provided at Patel’s 2015 criminal trial was enough to support her convictions. Her actions fell within the scope of Indiana’s feticide law, Deputy Attorney General Ellen Meilaender said.

“It’s the defendant’s failure to seek medical treatment, to provide that care for the baby, that led to all of the things that resulted in the baby’s death,” Meilaender said. “The jury could reasonably infer that somebody who was holding a live baby in her hands would be aware that it was alive.”

The judges pressed Meilaender on multiple occasions about what specific evidence had proven Patel was aware of the child’s condition, an issue of the utmost importance to the appeal, the judges said.

Vaidik weighed in again, saying: “This is what the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt: that she knew that this baby was breathing and alive.”

When the panel will deliver its ruling remains unclear, but legal experts and advocates of women’s rights nationwide are keeping a close eye on the case.

“It’s hard to tell which way the case is going to go,” said Lisa Sangoi, an attorney with the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “But what we do know is that the people of Indiana, and the Indiana state legislature, have not permitted the punishment … of women for having or attempting abortions under the feticide law. So we are certainly hopeful this court will take the lower court to task.”