Woman accused of murder in meth stillbirth case sent to treatment center

Nearly three months after a Kings County Superior Court judge held a woman must stand trial on murder charges stemming from the stillbirth of her baby, who had methamphetamine in his system, defendant Chelsea Becker will be released to a drug-treatment center while her attorneys argue a pregnant women can’t be prosecuted for killing her fetus.

Over the objection of a probation officer and comments from the prosecutor that Becker has a poor record of rehabilitation, Judge Robert S. Burns on Tuesday granted Becker’s motion to be released to a residential treatment program ahead of her trial, which begins next month.

She has pleaded not guilty to murder charges and has been detained in Kings County Jail in Hanford on $2 million bail since November 2019, records show. Her attorneys said they will move to dismiss the case at her next hearing.

“After 16 months in jail, we are gratified that Ms. Becker will no longer be imprisoned because she experienced a stillborn baby and based on a misapplication of the law,” said Becker’s attorney, Daniel N. Arshack of Arshack, Hajek & Lehrman in New York.

The case, which has drawn national attention, has illuminated the debate on the meaning of a decades-old amendment to the state’s homicide law that permits the prosecution of a third party who attacks a pregnant woman resulting in pregnancy loss.

Prosecutors say the law allows pregnant women to face murder charges if their own deliberate and reckless actions cause their fetus to die.

But Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Becker’s attorneys argue the 1970 amendment was “intended to protect women from harm, not to be used to prosecute for murder a woman who has just lost a pregnancy.”

Becker, 26, was nearly nine months pregnant when she delivered a stillborn baby she named Zachariah Campos in 2019. Records show she had admitted to law enforcement she had used methamphetamine during her pregnancy and in the days before giving birth. A coroner’s report said the cause of death was acute methamphetamine toxicity.

Philip Esbenshade, executive assistant district attorney for Kings County, said Becker will be returned to custody if she fails to comply with the court-imposed treatment program. He offered no additional comments about the case but said he hopes Becker is successful in treatment.

“Despite Ms. Becker’s lengthy and continual history of using illegal narcotics and failed attempts at recovery, we maintain hope in her recovery and her ability to stop choosing drugs over her children,” Esbenshade said.

Becker will appear remotely at a pretrial conference on April 9.