National Roundup

Ohio
Reproductive rights group urges prosecutor to drop criminal charge against woman who miscarried
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The physicians’ group behind Ohio’s newly passed reproductive rights amendment is urging a prosecutor to drop criminal charges against a woman who miscarried in the restroom at her home.

Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, a nonpartisan coalition of 4,000 doctors and others, argues in a letter to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins that the abuse-of-corpse charge against Brittany Watts, 33, conflicts “with the spirit and letter” of Issue 1.

The measure, which was approved in November with 57% of the vote, guarantees an individual’s “right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” It made Ohio the seventh-straight state to vote to protect reproductive rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that long legalized abortion nationally.

Watts’ case has touched off a national firestorm over the treatment of pregnant women, particularly those like Watts who are Black, in post-Roe America. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump elevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter, and supporters have donated more than $135,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense, medical bills and trauma counseling.

Watts miscarried at home Sept. 22, days after a doctor told her that her fetus had a heartbeat but was nonviable. She twice visited Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren and twice left before receiving care. Her attorney said she was left waiting for lengthy periods and felt anxious and judged.

A nurse called police when Watts returned that Friday, no longer pregnant and bleeding. “She says her baby’s in her backyard in a bucket,” the woman told a dispatcher. Police arrived at her home, where they found the toilet clogged and the 22-week-old fetus wedged in the pipes.

A city prosecutor told a municipal judge that Watts was wrong when she tried unsuccessfully to plunge the toilet, scooped the overflow into a bucket, set it outside by the trash and callously “went on (with) her day.”

Her attorney, Traci Timko, argued Watts is being “demonized for something that goes on every day.”

An autopsy found “no recent injuries” to the fetus, which had died in utero.

The statute under which Watts is charged prohibits treating “a human corpse” in a way that would “outrage” reasonable family or community sensibilities. A violation is a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Dr. Lauren Beene, executive director of the physicians’ group, wrote Watkins: “It was wrong for the nurse who was caring for Ms. Watts and hospital administrators to call the police, wrong for the police to invade Ms. Watts’ home while she was fighting for her life in the hospital, wrong for Warren assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri to move that she be bound over to the Trumbull County grand jury, and wrong for Judge (Terry) Ivanchak to grant his motion. Prosecutor Watkins has the opportunity to be the first law enforcement official to do the right thing since this incident began.”

She called it “an opportunity he should seize immediately.”

Beene said Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights fears the case will deter other women from seeking miscarriage care. The organization also shared its letter, dated Dec. 15, with the Warren mayor, law director and city council members, in hopes of building support for dropping charges against Watts.

Pennsylvania
Former death row inmate freed after prosecutors drop charges
YORK, Pa. (AP) — A man formerly on death row has been released from prison following dismissal of murder charges in a double slaying a quarter-century ago that he blamed on his brother, who died in prison while appealing his own death sentence in the case.

Noel Montalvo, who turned 59 Tuesday, was freed Monday night after York County prosecutors dismissed charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and burglary shortly before a retrial was to begin. He pleaded guilty to an evidence tampering charge for which the judge sentenced him to a year of probation.

Noel Montalvo was greeted by friends and supporters as he walked out of York County Prison a free man for the first time since 2002. He said he was looking forward to going back home and seeing his family, children and grandchildren, the York Dispatch reported.

Marshall Dayan, who chairs the board of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and who worked on a federal case for Montalvo for many years, said Montalvo “steadfastly maintained his innocence.” He said in a statement that the original conviction “evidences the arbitrariness, if not the discrimination, inherent in our criminal legal system, and in particular in our capital criminal legal system.”

Noel Montalvo and his older brother, Milton Montalvo, were convicted of murder in the April 1998 killings of Milton’s ex-girlfriend, 44-year-old Miriam Asencio, and 37-year-old Manual Ramirez Santana. A judge ordered a new trial for Noel Montalvo in 2019, citing a missing word in jury instructions during his 2003 trial.

District Attorney David Sunday Jr. said in a statement Tuesday that the case against Milton Montalvo included DNA evidence, but the case against Noel Montalvo lacked such evidence and primarily relied on witness testimony that was “extensively and thoroughly attacked” during trial and “continued to diminish over time.”

Although reliable witness testimony supported the tampering charges, “no reliable evidence existed at this point to actually tie Noel Montalvo to participating in the homicides with his brother,” Sunday said. An “exhaustive” review of evidence and new DNA tests turned up no evidence of his DNA at the crime scene, he said.

“Given the lack of any forensic evidence tying Noel Montalvo to the murders and the lack of reliable witnesses concerning the homicide charges, a plea to tampering was the only fair, just, and ethical result for this case,” Sunday said.

A judge in 2017 threw out the death penalty against Milton Montalvo and ordered a new sentencing hearing but denied a defense bid for a new trial. Prosecutors said he died in prison while awaiting the new sentencing hearing in which they were still seeking the death penalty, and Sunday noted that “further forensic testing greatly strengthened the basis for Milton Montalvo’s murder convictions.”

“The person who did commit the murders has been … my oldest brother, Milton Noel Montalvo,” Noel Montalvo told a judge during a hearing in December 2021, the York Dispatch reported.

Sunday offered condolences to the families of the victims for the loss he blamed on “Milton Montalvo’s utter depraved cruelty.” He said officials “must never forget the toll that our criminal justice system can take on victims of crime, and we need to make sure that we utilize every resource possible to ensure that the truth is revealed, and justice is pursued.”