The South Carolina Supreme Court has overturned the homicide conviction of Regina McKnight, who was convicted in 2001 after her stillborn baby was found to have cocaine in its system. The court ruled her attorneys should have rebutted some of the medical evidence presented at her trial related to the cause of her baby's death.

A jury deliberated less than 15 minutes before returning a guilty verdict against McKnight, who was 24 years old at the time. McKnight, a crack addict, had two other children and was two-months pregnant at the time of her trial. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison. She is still in prison.

McKnight was found guilty in her second trial. Her first trial ended in a mistrial after it was discovered that two jurors looked up medical information on the Internet.

In the state court's ruling, justices said that a medical witness who testified in the first trial should have been called during the second. McKnight's attorneys did not call that witness or any other medical witness to rebutt the prosecution during her second trial, the court said.

Her attorneys did not even introduce the baby's autopsy report into evidence.

Prosecutors have not yet decided if they will retry McKnight. It would be her third trial.

Background Information:

Crack Mom Found Guilty
May 18, 2001
In a case that could have far-reaching implications, a South Carolina woman was found guilty of homicide this week for killing her unborn child by smoking crack cocaine while pregnant.

Court Lets Stand 'Crack Mom' Conviction
Jan. 6, 2003
The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand the homicide conviction of a South Carolina woman who was found guilty of killing her unborn child by continuing to smoke crack cocaine while she was pregnant. By refusing to consider the case, the high court let stand a South Carolina Supreme Court ruling that the punishment was not too harsh because she should have known using cocaine would harm her child.

'Crack Mom' Trial Unfair, ACLU Argues
July 28, 2004
Regina McKnight is seeking a new trial because her attorney did not challenge the medical link between cocaine use and stillbirths and did not rule out other possible explanations for the child's death.

^{Source: The State. " SC High Court Overturns Conviction in Stillborn Cocaine Case" 12 May 2008.}