Photo: Miami-Dade Police Department
Lawyers for a 24-year-old Florida woman are trying a unique strategy to get her out of prison while she awaits trial. William M. Norris filed a habeas corpus petition asking for Natalia Harrell to be released from jail because she is eight months pregnant.
Harrell is awaiting trial for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Gladys Yvette Borcela. Harrell was riding in an Uber with several other people, including Borcela, when they got into an argument. During the argument, Harrell allegedly shot and killed Borcela.
She was arrested and ordered held without bond until her trial.
While the habeas corpus petition asking for her immediate release mostly accuses officials of the Miami-Dade Corrections Department of neglect for not providing proper medical care for Harrell and her unborn child, it also notes that her unborn child "has not been charged with a criminal offense."
"An unborn child is a person," Norris told WTVJ. "A person has constitutional rights, and one of them is the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law."
The filing paints a bleak picture of Harrell being forced to give birth while in prison.
"Absent immediate release of UNBORN CHILD from the Respondents, UNBORN CHILD will be likely brought into this world on the concrete floor of the prison cell, without the aid of qualified medical physicians and paramedics, and in the presence of violent criminals," the petition says.
Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Director James Reyes has denied the claims and is fighting to keep Harrell in custody.
"Petitioner neither claims that the mother's arrest was illegal, challenges the trial court's finding of probable cause nor does Petitioner assert that there has been a wrongful denial of bail," the state wrote in its response. "[Her] claim solely relates to the alleged inadequacy of medical and prenatal care. As the claim has no legal bearing on the lawfulness of Petitioner's detention, habeas corpus is not a proper vehicle for Petitioner's claim."
While Harrell's lawyers continue to seek her release, they are also trying to get the murder charges dropped because her actions were considered self-defense under Florida's Stand Your Ground law.\