California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals denied an appeal for a Santa Maria teen found guilty of killing her newborn son in January 2016.
The court upheld the second-degree murder conviction against the teen, identified only as M.S., who was found guilty and sentenced to confinement in a group home. The court handed down its written opinion on the appeal March 11.
According to police, the teen—who was 15 at the time of the murder—killed her newborn son by using a knife to cut his throat in the bathroom of a Santa Maria apartment shortly after he was born. The child’s body was discovered in a plastic bag hidden behind shoes in the bathroom cupboard.
The teen initially gave multiple stories to police, including claiming that the child was stillborn. After she was confronted with the results of a medical examiner’s investigation, she reportedly admitted to police that she killed the child.
In January 2017, M.S. was found guilty after lengthy hearings in Santa Maria Juvenile Court, made a ward of the court, and sentenced to spend an indefinite period of time confined to the Casa Pacifica, a highly restricted group home, rather than being placed in a juvenile prison.
In their appeal argument, an attorney for the girl asked the court to reverse the ruling against her, and allow a juvenile court to consider placing her in a mental health diversion program for criminal offenders created by recently enacted legislation in June 2018. During hearings in her case, the teen’s defense presented evidence that she suffered from a dissociative disorder called pervasive pregnancy denial and post-traumatic stress disorder at the time she committed the crime.
The appeal also claimed that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence of actual malice in commission of the murder, and that police violated M.S.’s Miranda rights while investigating the death of her son.
The appeals court rejected all of those arguments, noting that M.S. specifically did not qualify for the new mental health diversion program because it does not apply to juveniles, and even if it did, it excludes the crime of murder.
“Among other conclusions, we decide that sufficient evidence exists that M.S. committed second-degree murder,” the opinion read.
M.S. currently remains in custody in Casa Pacifica.
This article appears in Apr 4-11, 2019.