foghat4545: blog 
foghat4545's blog
real lawyers please respond
Published November 17, 2009Views: 987
Can the mother of Shaniya Nicole Davis be charged as an accessory to murder? Does selling her child off like that tie her to anything that happened to her afterwards?
Filed under: Crime
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November 18, 2009 10:43 p.m.
I would think that if the child died from sexual acts and the mother sold the child for sex, she inadvertently contributed to the child's death, making her an accessory?
If the child died while in the care of the man who paid the mother for sex with her baby, I would hope she is somehow held accountable.
I'm sure it will be some time before they figure out how that poor child died.
GOLO member since March 15, 2009
November 17, 2009 10:33 p.m.
GOLO member since November 12, 2008
November 17, 2009 7:19 p.m.
GOLO member since July 7, 2007
November 17, 2009 6:43 p.m.
I do not know everything that happened with regard to this case, so I am speaking only generally here, but:
If the extent of the mother's bad conduct was to prostitute the child, then the death has to be related to the prostitution for her to be charged with murder. If the prostitution didn't directly contribute to the child being murdered or being in the situation which caused her death, then the mother would not be responsible for murder. For the sexual offenses, certainly, which are in themselves extremely serious charges, but not for the murder.
GOLO member since November 9, 2009
November 17, 2009 6:28 p.m.
GOLO member since November 12, 2009
November 17, 2009 6:24 p.m.
GOLO member since January 31, 2008
November 17, 2009 6:21 p.m.
GOLO member since November 12, 2009
November 17, 2009 6:15 p.m.
The doctrine that is being discussed here holds that all of the participants in a felony can be held equally culpable for a murder which results from it. For example, 5 men rob a bank, and one of them shoots & kills a teller in the robbery. All 5 were participating in the felony (robbery) which led to the murder, therefore all 5 can equally be charged with murder as a result.
For this to apply to the mother in this scenario (which admittedly I have not been keeping up with) to fit into that, her prostitution of the child would have to have been the scenario which led to the subsequent murder. If they can not be linked in such a way, she's culpable for the sexual offenses (which are themselves extremely serious), but not for the murder.
GOLO member since November 9, 2009
November 17, 2009 6:11 p.m.
GOLO member since July 7, 2007
November 17, 2009 6:09 p.m.
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