Abortion Attitudes Influence “Buried Baby” Murder Trial
Jurors were required to reveal abortion beliefs
The undisputed facts: At age 18, Brooke Skylar Richardson secretly gave birth two days after her high school prom. She buried the infant in her backyard in Carlisle, Ohio. Two months later, she finally told a doctor about it; the doctor alerted police, and Richardson led officers to the burial site.
The controversy: Whether that baby was stillborn — or was born alive, and Richardson killed it.
Even before testimony was presented in this difficult case — involving skeletal remains that betrayed no specific cause of death — prospective jurors were required to answer some highly personal questions, including five that focused on abortion attitudes. (I obtained copies of the questionnaire while assigned to write an article an about the beginning of the trial for The Associated Press.)
During his 36 years practicing law, including dozens of murder cases, legal analyst Mark Krumbein has never seen a jury questionnaire that asked about abortion beliefs.
The Richardson jury’s questionnaire consisted of 21 questions. Most were standard fare: Whether prospective jurors knew anyone connected to the case; how much they knew about the case through news media, social media or discussions; whether they had positive or negative attitudes about lawyers, prosecutors and the legal system. A couple questions were a little unusual: about religious and political affiliations. But when I told Krumbein about the five questions centering on abortion, he said, “Wow. That’s very personal.”
The abortion-related questions that jurors were required to answer, in writing, under oath:
1. How often, if ever, abortion should be allowed. (5 options ranging from “on demand” to “opposed in all cases”)
2. How often, if ever, abortion should be legal. (5 options, ranging from “always, up until the time of birth,” to “should always be illegal.”)
3. “If your view is not accurately reflected in the previous two questions, please elaborate.”
4. “Have you ever held a different view on abortion?”
5. “If yes, what caused you to change your view?”
Even a person’s closest friends might not know how he or she feels about abortion because people are often reluctant to divulge feelings about divisive, hot-button issues, Krumbein said.
“The more personal something is, the less likely that someone will wear their heart on their sleeve,” he said. “So you actually have to try to ask questions where the prospective juror will let their guard down — and hopefully give you the true answer.”
It was important to ask these unusual questions in Richardson’s case because the way jurors feel about abortion could have a big impact on how they perceive the evidence against Richardson, whether they consciously realize it or not, Krumbein said.
The jurors’ responses were released to attorneys in the case and likely will be made public after the trial is over, the jurors were warned. But the jurors’ names and other identifying information probably will be redacted (blacked-out).
“The abortion-related questions could be a predictor of how the case would be decided,” Krumbein said.
Especially because Richardson apparently considered getting an abortion.
When Richardson’s doctor informed her in April 2017 that she was about 32 weeks pregnant, she said having a baby would disrupt her plans to go to college. She also told police that she Googled “how to get rid of a baby” after learning she was pregnant, but she denied acting upon any of the information she obtained. Richardson said she gave birth unexpectedly in the middle of the night, just 11 days after her doctor estimated she had 10 weeks before delivery. The baby came out while she was on the toilet, and wasn’t breathing, she told police, but additional questioning led to criminal charges against her.
Richardson, now 20, could spend the rest of her life in prison if convicted of aggravated murder. The mandatory sentence: 20-to-life.
Jurors who are more anti-abortion might have an unfavorable view of a young woman who is less-than-thrilled to have a baby, Krumbein said, whereas those with more lenient attitudes about abortion might be more sympathetic to a teenager facing an unplanned pregnancy.
“Everyone is told by the judge that they must set aside their personal feelings and decide based on the evidence…Sympathy is not supposed to be a factor in this case,” Krumbein said.
“But let’s face it: If you’re the defense, you want someone who is understanding of the plight of a pregnant teenager who is dismayed when she learns she is pregnant, and she’s afraid to tell anyone her secret,” he said. “If you’re the prosecution, you want the jurors to think that’s a terrible way to behave — and that a teenager who does that is more likely to kill her baby.”
While addressing prospective jurors, Richardson’s lawyer hit the issue head-on, quoted here:
Krumbein notes that some people might reason: If abortion isn’t considered murder, why would this young lady be charged with murder?
“There might be some sympathy from someone who thinks late-term abortions are alright. But there’s no precedent under law, once a child is born alive, that the child’s life can be taken. That’s clearly a murder,” Krumbein said.
Proving that Richardson’s baby was born alive is undoubtedly the prosecution’s biggest challenge in this case, Krumbein said; they have to prove the baby was alive, then was purposely killed, “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Adding to the complexity of this case: It just so happens that Richardson’s case, which has been pending for two years, is going to trial at a time when the national debate over abortion seems to have intensified, Krumbein said.
Earlier this year, Ohio lawmakers passed a “Heartbeat Bill,” which would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. But a federal court has blocked the law from being enforced. A new report from the Pew Research Center says 61 percent of Americans support legal abortions in “all or most cases.”
The larger context could potentially inflame passions in a case that, by its nature, is already extremely emotional, Krumbein said.
Setting aside emotions is a tall order for jurors in any murder case. “But in this case, there’s almost nothing like this…where there is an innocent life, there is bound to be a lot of emotion — and that’s a real danger for the prosecution and for the defense.”
Krumbein, who has been attending the trial since it began on Tuesday, Sept. 3, in Warren County Common Pleas Court, described emotional reactions he observed when photographs of the baby’s bones were displayed in court: “I saw at least three jurors who were sort of choking back tears; Skylar was trembling, and her eyebrows were knitted together. Her dad was wiping away tears.”
The concern is that the emotional component can be so strong that “a judge’s order cannot get it out of their consciousness.”
“When there’s a case that involves so many emotional issues, can a person get a fair trial? And that’s important for everybody. Because anybody in our society could be falsely or truly accused of a crime — and we want everyone to get a fair shot in our system,” Krumbein said.
Regardless of what happens in the Richardson case, “some people will be satisfied with the outcome and others will be terribly upset about it,” he said. “Unless there’s a hung jury, we’re going to find out.”
The trial resumes Monday, Sept. 9, with more witnesses for the prosecution.
