A grand jury just ruled in favor of a woman who miscarried her child at home and was fighting a felony that authorities charged her with after the failed pregnancy.
Brittany Watts’ story has drawn national attention over the last few months after she suffered a miscarriage last September and was subsequently charged with abuse of a corpse. However, jurors declined to return that charge on Thursday, concluding there was insufficient evidence to indict Watts.
She was 22 weeks pregnant at the time of her miscarriage and visited the hospital multiple times beforehand, where she was evaluated and told the baby wasn’t viable, according to her attorney.
After she miscarried on a toilet in her home, she went to the hospital to be evaluated again. A nurse called the police, who went to her home, discovered the fetus in the toilet, and then seized the toilet as evidence.
More than 100 people awaiting the grand jury’s decision were standing on Warren’s Courthouse Square to support Watts.
“I want to thank my community — Warren. Warren, Ohio,” Watts said to the crowd. “I was born here. I was raised here. I graduated high school here, and I’m going to continue to stay here because I have to continue to fight,” she said.
Watts’ lawyer told CNN that her client was “demonized” over the miscarriage. Had she been convicted of the charge, she could have faced up to a year in prison, according to AP.
“No matter how shocking or disturbing it may sound when presented in a public forum, it is simply the devastating reality of miscarriage,” Watts’ attorney, Traci Timko, said. “While the last three months have been agonizing, we are incredibly grateful and relieved that justice was handed down by the grand jury today.”
Watts told local news outlets in December that her miscarriage left her “distraught, heartbroken,” and “empty.”
The police department ended up charging Watts after reportedly taking advice from the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office, according to a news release. A municipal judge then bound the case over to a Trumbull County grand jury even though the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office “never assessed or advised as to charging” Watts.
“We respectfully disagree with the lower court’s application of the law,” Trumbull County Prosecuting Attorney Dennis Watkins said.
