Can You Be Charged for Using Drugs While Pregnant?

Can You Be Charged for Using Drugs While Pregnant? Tahlequah attorney, Ryan Cannonie, explains what the new State v. Green ruling means to criminal cases in Oklahoma. This case came out of Garfield County, the Court of Criminal Appeals. Now guess I should stop and say, if you're not familiar with Oklahoma's court system, we have an Oklahoma Supreme Court that handles civil matters, an Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals handles criminal matters. So we really have two highest courts in Oklahoma. Now the Court of Criminal Appeals had this decision. They heard this case and put out this ruling on the 10th of September. Don't know when you're watching this. And it deals with the child neglect statute. Now under Title 21 Section 843.5 in Oklahoma's statutes, child neglect is very, very broad. And the reason for that is because the child neglect statute lists the definition of child neglect as the same as under the deprived statutes. So if you're looking at being criminally charged with child neglect, it has to meet the same elements, the same components of if you are going to be charged or alleged allegations on it in a child deprived case, a DHS type case. So it's because the DHS cases can cover so much, so many different situations, the definition is extremely broad. When it comes to controlled dangerous substances and drugs, it's anything. It's use of drugs, possession, exposure to anything around children. Also, there's a catch, any exposure to illegal activities is also child neglect. So the court looked at a situation and there were several cases going on. Rogers County had one. Some other counties had a few of these cases where they were arguing that before the woman gave birth, before the child was born, that if she committed any of these acts, that she should be able to be charged criminally with child neglect. Now, why is this important? Well, this is a big change in our law. Before, if a mother use controlled dangerous substances while pregnant, she'd be looking at a deprived case, meaning that she would have to work a plan. She would have to try to get her parental rights back. Not get them back, we get custody back and try to do everything she could to keep from losing her parental rights. And now, she could be looking at a felony offense. And child neglect is not just a felony, it's an 85% felony. Now it's not listed under the violent crime statute under Title 57, but it is an 85% crime. Now that means if, let's say, you were found guilty of this and sentenced to 10 years. Well, that means you would have to serve eight and a half of those years before you even qualify for parole. That means that any sentence you got, 85% of it has to be served before you can qualify to be paroled. So this raises the stakes on child neglect.. Need An Attorney? Give us a call at (918) 458-2677 or submit a legal question at https://www.tahlequahattorney.com/ Want The Transcript? https://www.tahlequahattorney.com/tahlequah-lawyer-blog/2020/09/can-you-be-charged-for-using-drugs-while-pregnant/ Join The Group! Have an Oklahoma legal question? There's a Facebook Group for that. Join me and the discussion by clicking the link and hitting "Join:" https://www.facebook.com/groups/oklahoma.legal.questions/