LAWYERS ARGUE DRUG USER CONVICTED IN STILLBIRTH DIDN'T RECEIVE FAIR TRIAL

Lawyers for Regina McKnight, the first woman ever convicted of killing her
unborn child by drug abuse, went before a judge Tuesday in Horry County to
argue she did not receive a fair trial when she was convicted in 2001.

McKnight, 27, gave birth to a stillborn child at Conway Hospital in
1999. She was convicted of homicide by child abuse for using cocaine
during her pregnancy. Since then, local attorneys, the American Civil
Liberties Union and national medical groups have tried to free her.
McKnight is serving a 12-year sentence.

McKnight's conviction hinged on the jury's belief that her cocaine use
caused the stillbirth. Her lawyers contend the state did not prove
that.

ACLU attorney Rauch Wise said Tuesday that McKnight did not receive a
fair trial because her initial lawyers failed to call a medical expert
to refute the state's link between her cocaine use and the stillbirth.
Wise said her public defenders were simply too overworked to handle
the complicated case sufficiently.

"Ms. McKnight is one of more than 500 women in South Carolina who
experience stillbirths each year, and in many of those cases, medicine
just can't determine the cause," said Wise of Greenwood. "There was no
competent evidence that connected her cocaine problem to the
stillbirth."

Charleston forensic pathologist Dr. Kim Collins, a professor at the
Medical University of South Carolina, testified Tuesday that many
possible reasons for the stillbirth could not be ruled out, and the
state did not prove the cause of death.

The stillborn child tested positive for metabolites of cocaine, but
not the actual drug, Wise said.

Death by cocaine is a "diagnosis by exclusion," he said. "The
mechanism by which cocaine kills is not known. Many children are born
with cocaine in their system, just like many people use cocaine, and
don't die. Clearly, everything was not excluded."

McKnight, originally from Conway, has two young children who live with
relatives, Wise said. Her stepfather attended Tuesday's hearing. She
will return to Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood today.

Circuit Judge Hicks Harwell could confirm or reverse the conviction,
depending on whether he finds she was imprisoned based on a legal or
factual error.

He ordered lawyers for both sides to turn in post-trial briefs within
three weeks. The judge will likely rule in 40 to 45 days, said Mark
Plowden, a spokesman for state Attorney General Henry McMaster. He
declined to discuss the ongoing case.

Whatever the outcome, Harwell's decision is expected to be appealed to
the South Carolina Supreme Court.

The state Supreme Court upheld her conviction and sentence last year,
ruling that the punishment was not too harsh because McKnight should
have known taking cocaine could harm her baby.

The General Assembly passed a law in 1992 making it a felony to cause
the death of a child younger than 11 through child abuse of neglect
"under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human
life." The South Carolina court said that language applied to a fetus.
It has held that a viable fetus is legally a person.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused last fall to hear McKnight's appeal.

Her lawyers then filed a petition of habeas corpus, which resulted in
Tuesday's post-conviction release hearing.