An Indiana woman whose feticide conviction for a self-induced abortion was overturned should be released from prison immediately, a judge said Wednesday, after she was resentenced to less time than she already has served behind bars.
In a brief ruling, St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Elizabeth C. Hurley also said a sentence of 18 months for Purvi Patel was appropriate for a felony charge of neglect of a dependent and that Patel does not have to be placed on parole. Indiana Department of Corrections spokesman Isaac Randolph said late Wednesday that officials were reviewing the situation and that Patel’s release from prison in the “immediate future is possible.”
Wednesday’s ruling comes less than two months after the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned Patel’s 2015 conviction — and 20 year prison sentence — on a charge of killing her premature infant by taking abortion-inducing drugs, saying that the state’s law was not intended to be used “to prosecute women for their own abortions.”
The state’s attorney general decided not to appeal the ruling and let pass the deadline by which he had to ask the Indiana Supreme Court to take up the case.