FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 9, 2022.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Mary McNamara of Swanson & McNamara LLP, Mary@smllp.law; Pregnancy Justice, media@advocatesforpregnantwomen.org; and ACLU of Northern California, press@aclunc.org
After four years in prison, Adora Perez's murder charge for experiencing a stillbirth has been dropped.
Pregnancy Justice Staff Attorney Samantha Lee testified in support of a California bill that will ensure that no one in the State of California will be prosecuted for ending a pregnancy or experiencing pregnancy loss. In her testimony, Ms. Lee shared a statement from Pregnancy Justice's client, Chelsea Becker, who was charged with murder for experiencing a stillbirth in Kings County, California.
On March 18, 2022, a judge in Kings County, California reversed Adora Perez's guilty plea and vacated her 11-year sentence, sending the case back to the trial court for new proceedings. In 2018, Adora Perez, poorly advised by her court-appointed counsel, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter of her fetus, a crime that doesn't exist in California.
Adora Perez was charged with murder in 2018 after she delivered a stillborn baby at Adventist Hospital in Hanford, California. District Attorney Keith Fagundes claimed, without scientific basis, that the stillbirth was caused by methamphetamine use. Penal Code Section 187 punishes the “unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.
