NASHVILLE – Some state prosecutors pursued criminal charges against women for taking illegal drugs during their pregnancies because they were unaware that a state law changed last year that prevented such charges.
The Tennessean reports that some women ended up in jail and others had charges dismissed against them after prosecutors realized they no longer had the authority to charge women with assault or reckless endangerment against their unborn children.
April Moyer, of Smyrna, was jailed in February and charged by prosecutors before they realized that the law had changed. She was one of two cases in Rutherford County in which Assistant District Attorney Laurel Hemenway dismissed charges.
Moyer admits to a longtime cocaine addiction. She said she was been clean for five months and she is trying to meet the demands of the state child service agency and a judge, which will determine whether she can regain custody of the infant girl taken from her at the hospital.
“It baffles me. It makes me angry. It makes me embarrassed, going into jail for all of that, for something you can’t even be charged with anymore,” Moyer said.