California Supreme Court rules a poisoning murder is not always premeditated in Shasta County case
Unanimous decision
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In a ruling issued last week, the California Supreme Court held notwithstanding existing penal codes saying so, poisoning murders are not always first-degree.
The ruling involved the 2017 first-degree murder conviction of Heather Rose Brown whose five-day-old daughter died of poisoning. The child was poisoned by morphine and methamphetamine in the mother’s milk in November 2014.
Brown and the father of the child were arrested in May 2015. Brown received 25 years to life sentence in 2019.
Under California Penal Code § 189, all poisoning and several others actions are considered premeditated and thus first-degree. The Supreme Court decision overrules a 2019 ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal which upheld the Shasta County Superior Court conviction and sentencing.
The events of the baby’s death occurred after the mother gave birth, assisted by a midwife at a Shasta County hotel. The mother and father decided against a hospital birth and did not seek medical assistance after the child fell ill, fearing the mother’s drug addiction would be discovered and the baby would be taken into protective custody.
In addition to the murder conviction, Brown, who is now 30, was convicted of child abuse and drug possession. The father, Daylon Michael Reed, pled guilty to various offenses and was sentenced to 18 years.
The opinion from Justice Joshua P. Groban said, “We now clarify that to prove first-degree murder by means of poison, the prosecution must show the defendant deliberately gave the victim poison with the intent to kill the victim or inflict injury likely to cause death.”
Brown’s other convictions for child abuse and narcotics possession stand, but the opinion did not reverse the murder conviction. However, the opinion noted, “The parties debate whether there is a legal basis for the trial court to accept a reduction of the first-degree murder conviction to second-degree murder if the prosecution decides not to retry the first-degree murder charge….We express no view on this question.”
The case was People v. Brown, 2023 S257631.
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