District Attorney says local police didn’t consult his office before making arrest
Jabari Gibbs
The Currents GA
A Coastal Georgia district attorney and a Superior Court judge said Monday they were doubtful that enough evidence exists to move forward with a malice murder charge against a 31-year-old Camden County mother arrested earlier this month for an alleged illegal abortion, paving the way for a possible reduction or dismissal of charges.
Kingsland police charged Alexia Moore with malice murder as well as possession of a controlled substance and dangerous drug, according to police records, based on an investigator’s interrogation of Moore in her hospital exam room, where on Dec. 30 she was admitted in extreme pain and her infant was delivered and died.
At a scheduled bond hearing, both DA Keith Higgins and Moore’s defense lawyer Kelly Turner pushed back on any charge linked to Georgia’s restrictive law called the LIFE Act, which makes abortion illegal after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, generally around six weeks of pregnancy.
Murder charge questions
Any malice murder charge against Moore is problematic “on a factual and merit basis,” Higgins told the judge, who concurred with Turner that Georgia case law prevents criminalizing a mother who induces an abortion herself, or miscarries.
Higgins said the Kingsland Police Department brought the charges without his office’s support. While he said he was not looking to present the murder charge to a grand jury, he was also not ready to drop the murder charge.
Superior Court Judge Stephen Blackerby, meanwhile, expressed his own doubts, and set Moore’s bond for murder at a symbolic $1. “I have concerns that the state would ever be able to secure a conviction of malice murder,” said Blackerby, who was appointed to the bench in the Brunswick Judicial Circuit by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Moore, who attended the hearing virtually, could be seen crying through the lengthy proceeding. Moore’s family told The Current GA that the U.S. Army veteran, who was arrested March 6, was out of jail by late Monday afternoon after paying $2,001 in bail, the total for all three pending charges.
The family said they are interpreting the judge’s decision as favorable to Moore.
“Have you ever heard of someone having a murder charge with $1 bail?” said Rosalyn Jones, Moore’s biological mother who was at the hearing in Woodbine. “From looking at the evidence, I’m not the judge or the jury. All I can see is God has given her favor, that’s all I know.”
Previously, it was unclear whether Moore had been charged with murder or attempted murder, with police records showing one and jail records showing the other.
Georgia law, abortions and privacy
The legal debate crystallized Monday between the 1998 Georgia Court of Appeals ruling that cleared mothers in Georgia for ending their own pregnancies and the 2019 LIFE Act that criminalizes medical or hospital staff for aborting a fetus older than six weeks is likely to be scrutinized throughout this election year.
Under Kemp’s tenure, the Republican-led legislature passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. Now, as the governor is term-limited, many Democrats hopeful to win the office are running on a platform to overturn this abortion restriction. Republican gubernatorial candidates, meanwhile, are bickering over their anti-abortion credentials.
Also likely to be scrutinized are the privacy issues at the root of Moore’s case. A security guard at Southeast Georgia Health Center in St. Marys called police after medical staff said that Moore had ingested abortion medication and the infant was older than six weeks, according to police records, which also cited Moore’s previous abortion history.
Moore’s infant was delivered on Dec. 30 at the emergency room and lived for approximately one hour, after Moore’s friend called 911 and sought medical care for the 31-year-old who was suffering from extreme pain, according to police records.
Police arrived at the St. Marys emergency room and interviewed Moore while she was recovering. Arrest records quoted her as saying that she intended to kill her baby with abortion pills and that she had taken an Oxycodone pill for the pain triggered by the abortion medication.
According to police records, the gestational age of her infant was 22-24 weeks, a timeframe that medical experts have told The Current makes it difficult for a fetus to survive outside of a mother’s uterus.
Turner, the defense lawyer, argued that the state had no basis for any of the three charges against Moore. Moore had legally procured misoprostol, the abortion medication, she said. Turner also cited Moore’s blood tests and hospital records that showed no trace of Oxycodone in Moore’s system.
Citing the infant’s hospital record, the lawyer said the cause of death was cardiac arrest. The Camden County coroner previously told The Current that he left the cause of death blank on the death certificate.
The Georgia Public Defender Council, which appointed Turner to represent Moore, said that it welcomed Judge Blackerby’s ruling.
“Today’s decision is a reminder that justice is not served by accusation alone. Our system works best when courts carefully weigh the facts, uphold constitutional protections, and safeguard the rights of every person who comes before them. Public defense exists to make those protections real,” Don Plummer, the press officer at the council, wrote in a statement.
The Current (thecurrentga.org) is an independent, in-depth and investigative journalism website for Coastal Georgia.