MISTRIAL IN BREAST-MILK DRUG CASE

A Riverside County Jury Deadlocks In Murder Trial Of A Perris Woman.
Toxicology Tests Revealed Meth In Amy Prien's Infant Son.

A Riverside County judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury
deadlocked on murder charges against Amy Leanne Prien, who was
accused of killing her infant son by feeding him
methamphetamine-tainted breast milk.

The trial was the second for the Perris woman, whose 2003
second-degree murder conviction was overturned last fall by a state
appellate court because the trial judge gave the jury inaccurate instructions.

Prien, 34, was originally sentenced to life in prison, with
eligibility for parole after 15 years. The 4th District Court of
Appeal upheld her earlier conviction of felony child endangerment,
but the 10-year sentence she received for that crime may be
reconsidered by the trial judge.

Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Allison J. Nelson said she was
disappointed by the jury's findings, but that the case had sent a
strong signal to methamphetamine users that meth-related crimes would
not be tolerated.

"Ms. Prien is still convicted of felony child endangerment in the
death of Jacob Smith, and so we know she's doing a 10-year term on
that," Nelson said.

Prien's 3-month-old son "did have a right to life and, if she
couldn't control her drug addiction, then she needed to put him in a
safe place where he wasn't exposed to methamphetamine."

Nelson said it would be up to Dist. Atty. Grover C. Trask II to
decide whether to retry Prien.

Prien's co-counsel, Stephen Yagman, said Jacob's death was caused by
pneumonia — not methamphetamine — and that prosecutors never had any
credible evidence against his client.

"The district attorney, who said he wanted to make an example out of
Amy, instead made an example out of Grover Trask for being a
frivolous prosector," Yagman said.

During the trial, which was held in Superior Court Judge Patrick F.
Magers' courtroom in Corona, Nelson tried to convince the jury that
Prien knew her drug use could kill her son, who Nelson said died of
"acute methamphetamine intoxication."

Toxicology tests showed methamphetamine in Jacob's blood, liver and stomach.

But the autopsy did not determine how the boy ingested the drug.

Prien used the drug for more than a decade, and friends testified
they had used methamphetamine with her throughout her pregnancy and
while she cared for Jacob. But Prien told jurors during the second
trial that she did not use drugs while she was pregnant.

Yagman contended that prosecutors did not have evidence to prove that
breast milk killed Jacob. He noted that Prien's breast milk was not
tested at the time of his death.

Yagman also said the coroner's office lost a critical piece of
evidence: a baby bottle. The prosecutor alleged that Jacob may have
ingested the drug from a baby-bottle liner, since liners were being
used to package and sell drugs in Prien's home. Yagman said that
bottle could have proved his client did nothing wrong.

Prien said she stopped breastfeeding in November, more than two
months before she found Jacob dead in her bed on Jan. 19, 2002. But
Donald Fox, Prien's roommate, testified that he watched her
breastfeed Jacob several days before the child's death.

Defense attorneys said that Fox might have caused the child's death
because he sometimes delivered the drug to his clients in baby-bottle
liners. They also noted that Fox testified during the first trial
that he saw Prien breastfeed Jacob a month before he died — not two days.