Tennessee Case Revives Debate On Sterilization As Condition Of Plea Bargains
Source: International Business Times
Tennessee Case Revives Debate On Sterilization As Condition Of Plea Bargains
By Marcy Kreiter @marcykreiter m.kreiter@ibtimes.com on March 28 2015 6:11 PM EDT
The district attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, recently ordered prosecutors to stop making sterilization part of a plea bargain. "The bottom line is the government can't be ordering a forced sterilization," Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk told the Associated Press in a story published Saturday. Funk said a better alternative is to order people to stay away from children.
The most recent example of a court-ordered sterilization requirement in Tennessee came in the case of Jasmine Randers, 36, who suffers from depression and paranoia. The Nashville Tennessean reported Randers' 4-day-old daughter died during a bus trip to Nashville from West Memphis, Arkansas, where she gave birth at Crittenden Regional Hospital. At the time, Randers was on the lam from a treatment center in Minnesota, one of 20 hospitalizations for her mental illness, the Tennessean reported earlier this month.
Though no cause of death was established, Randers was charged with aggravated child neglect. She had boarded the bus without any bottles of formula because they were too heavy to carry, the Tennessean said.
Assistant Public Defender Mary Kathryn Harcombe told the Tennessean that Assistant District Attorney Brian Holmgren would not even discuss a plea deal unless Randers agreed to have her tubes tied. Harcombe went over his head to Funk.
Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/tennessee-case-revives-debate-sterilization-condition-plea-bargains-1862700
= new reply since forum marked as read
