A woman in South Carolina has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of homicide by child abuse.
Stephanie Greene’s six-week-old daughter Alexis Catherine Greene died in November 2010. The autopsy found that she had enough morphine in her body to kill an adult.
The prosecution argued that the drug was passed onto the child through breast-feeding and that the former nurse (she reportedly lost her license in 2004) concealed her pregnancy so that she could keep getting her prescriptions.
Mrs Greene’s lawyer, Rauch Wise, argued that his client was only trying to ease the debilitating pain she had after fracturing her skull and pelvis in a car crash back in 1998. He also said that she relied on her own judgement instead of the advice of doctors and is overwhelmed with grief.
After the sentence Wise, who said there is little scientific evidence that enough morphine can gather in breast milk to kill an infant, revealed that they are planning to appeal the judge’s decision and said: “The court can’t punish her any more than she already has been by losing a child.”
Mrs Greene’s husband, Randall, was at the court when she was sentenced. The couple have a seven-year-old son together. She also has two children from a previous marriage.
Twenty years is the minimum Mrs Greene could have received. According to reports, she will have to serve 16 years before she is eligible for parole.
