SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) – Purvi Patel, the Indiana woman was convicted of neglect and feticide last year, will be released from prison after the state’s attorney general this week decided against appealing the overturning of her conviction.
A deadline for the attorney general’s office to ask the Indiana Supreme Court to take up the state Court of Appeals ruling that reversed Patel’s feticide conviction passed Monday without such a request. Patel’s attorneys also did not ask the court to weigh in on the July ruling.
Patel appealed her 2015 feticide and child neglect convictions that resulted in a 20-year prison sentence. In its ruling, Indiana’s appeals court vacated both of those convictions. But it found that Patel, 35, should be resentenced on a lower-level child neglect charge that carries a maximum three-year sentence. It is hoped that with the help of the best appeal attorney the state has to offer, she may be able to walk free, but that is yet to be seen.
Patel’s attorney, Larry Marshall, said the reasoning laid out in the appeals court’s unanimous ruling “was really unassailable, so I’m very pleased the state didn’t drag things out just for the sake of dragging things out.”
“I hope now that we’ll get to a point where Purvi will be able to put this nightmare behind her and hopefully get on with her life,” Marshall, a Stanford University law professor, said Tuesday.
Attorney General Greg Zoeller said in a statement the state decided not to seek a rehearing before the appeals court or ask Indiana’s high court to consider the case “after carefully reviewing” the ruling and consulting with local prosecutors.
They “concluded that further appeal would not be productive and that resolving the case now will serve the interests of justice,” he added.
Marshall expects the appeals court ruling to be certified within the next 10 days. After that, the St. Joseph County trial court judge will set a resentencing hearing.
Should that judge sentence Patel to the maximum, three years, Marshall said she would in reality face an 18-month term because of credit for good behavior. Under that term, she would be released in late September because she has already served 17 months.
“We’re hoping for a speedy resentencing and for Purvi’s speedy release,” Marshall said.
