Texas lady sues prosecutors who accused her of murder after having abortion on her own

A woman in Texas is taking legal action against prosecutors and Starr County for over US$1 million. She was arrested and wrongly accused of murder for having an abortion in 2022.

Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested and accused of murder in Starr County, Texas in 2022 for using abortion medicine to end her pregnancy 19 weeks in. She was 26 years old at the time and spent two nights in jail. Her name, photo, and private medical information were shown on national news. The charges were dropped a few days after.

Wade, the court case that made abortion legal in the United States. The US Supreme Court overturned Wade’s decision at a time when abortions after six weeks were not allowed in Texas. Pregnant people cannot be charged with a crime for getting an abortion according to state law, both now and at the time of Gonzalez’s 2022 arrest.

“Gonzalez is taking legal action against the prosecutors. She says they lied and didn’t respect her rights when they had her arrested and charged. This drastically changed her life. ”

Last week, someone made a complaint against Gocha Allen Ramirez, the district attorney of Starr County, and Alexandria Lynn Barrera, the assistant district attorney, and the county.

“We are sure that the Starr County District Attorney knew that Texas law says a woman who gets an abortion cannot be charged with murder. But they still decided to unfairly charge Gonzalez. ” Gonzalez’s lawyers, Cecilia Garza and Veronica S. Martinez said to CNN in a message. MsAn action that clearly breaks the rules. Gonzalez’s rights cannot be seen as just a small error.

Ramirez is facing trouble with his job because of the lawsuit.

A Texas State Bar investigation found that Ramirez did something wrong in his work and was fined $1,250. His license is suspended for one year, starting Monday.

Lawyers in Ramirez’s office tried to bring charges of criminal homicide against someone for actions that are not considered criminal under the Texas Penal Code. Ramirez did not stop the prosecution of a charge even though it was clear that there was not enough evidence to support it, according to a report from the state bar’s investigative panel that Ramirez acknowledged and signed.

The panel found that Ramirez said he didn’t know about the case before it was prosecuted. But investigators found out that he was actually asked about it by a prosecutor in his office, and he said it was okay to go ahead with it.

Barrera became a lawyer in Texas five years ago and has not been publicly disciplined for her part in prosecuting Herrera, according to state bar records.

The complaint says that Gonzalez had an abortion in January 2022 by taking a pill called misoprostol. This pill can be used alone or with another pill called mifepristone to have an abortion.

After the hospital checked Gonzalez, the staff told the Starr County District Attorney’s Office about the abortion, which is against the privacy laws. CNN has asked the hospital for a comment, even though they are not being sued.

The complaint says Ramirez and Barrera lied to the grand jury and didn’t care about the plaintiff’s rights, which led to a harmful legal case against her.

Some time after Gonzalez was accused, Ramirez said she would not continue the case because she believed Gonzalez didn’t do anything wrong.

“When we looked at this case, it was obvious that the Starr County Sheriff’s Department did the job of looking into the incident that the hospital reported to them. ” He wrote in a news release on April 10, 2022 that it would have been a failure of their duty to ignore the incident.

However, the complaint claims that neither the Starr County Sheriff’s Office nor the Rio Grande City Police Department looked into the case. Instead, the district attorney’s office started and carried out its own investigation using information from hospital staff.

After Gonzalez was forced into the public spotlight against his will, the attention on him increased even more when the charges were dropped, according to the complaint.

Supporters of women and their rights to make decisions about their bodies say this is an obvious try to limit women’s access to healthcare.

Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the executive director of Women’s March, said that the Starr County District Attorney and Assistant District Attorney did not have the right to charge someone with murder because it was a personal decision about abortion. She said that most Americans support access to abortion pills.

Months after Gonzalez was arrested, Texas made a law that almost completely stops abortion, with unclear rules for when it’s allowed for medical emergencies. State law says that patients who get an abortion cannot be charged with a crime, but doctors who do the procedure can be prosecuted.

“In Texas, we are seeing extreme abortion laws that punish and control women who really need to have an abortion. It’s unfair and radical. ” Carmona explained