An Alabama woman who may have been raped by guards has giv­en birth after being impreg­nat­ed in the Coosa County jail while await­ing tri­al on cap­i­tal mur­der charges. LaToni Daniel (pic­tured), an hon­or­ably dis­charged Army National Guard vet­er­an who has been in pre­tri­al cus­tody with­out bail for more than sev­en­teen months, had been pre­scribed seda­tives in the prison for a sup­posed seizure dis­or­der, and the med­ica­tion pro­longed her sleep. She first learned she was preg­nant in December 2018 after hav­ing been trans­ferred to a new jail, and she gave birth to a baby boy in late May. Daniel’s lawyers said she had no mem­o­ry of hav­ing sex while in jail.

Daniel was pre­scribed seda­tives for the first time after she was arrest­ed. However, accord­ing to Daniel’s broth­er, Terrell Ransaw, she ​“nev­er had any seizures before she went to jail.” Mickey McDermott, a lawyer who is rep­re­sent­ing Daniel in a poten­tial civ­il suit, said Daniel ​“has no mem­o­ry of hav­ing sex at all, so what we’re assum­ing based on the infor­ma­tion we have is that with some of the med­ica­tion, she was knocked out and some­one raped her. … She’s report­ed she’s a rape vic­tim and no one is inves­ti­gat­ing.” Under Alabama law, it is ille­gal for jail employ­ees to have sex with pris­on­ers, even if it is con­sen­su­al. The father of the child is unknown.

Daniel was trans­ferred from Coosa County jail to Talladega County jail in December and Coosa County Sheriff Terry Wilson told Talladega offi­cials to give Daniel a preg­nan­cy test. Talladega County Chief Deputy Joshua Tubbs told The Appeal that Daniel had been moved as a result of ​“an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion.” In March, Daniel request­ed bail so she could give birth and recov­er out­side of the jail while await­ing tri­al, but a bail deter­mi­na­tion was not made before she gave birth. Daniel had been indict­ed on cap­i­tal mur­der charges in April 2018, and Alabama law requires judges to pre­sume cap­i­tal defen­dants guilty for the pur­pos­es of set­ting bail. In cap­i­tal cas­es, the min­i­mum bail is $50,000. She says she was in a car when her boyfriend and co-defen­dant, Ladaniel Tuck, robbed and shot an elder­ly white man, 87-year-old Thomas Virgil Chandler. It is undis­put­ed that Daniel – who court records describe as an alleged get­away dri­ver – did not kill any­one, and she main­tains that she did not know Tuck intend­ed to kill Chandler. Alabama allows death sen­tences for accom­plices in mur­der cas­es that also involve rob­bery, kid­nap­ping, rape, or bur­glary. Jon Taylor, Daniel’s defense lawyer in the crim­i­nal case, told The Appeal he found it ​“some­what sur­pris­ing that it came out of the grand jury as cap­i­tal mur­der and even more sur­pris­ing they’re going after the death penal­ty. There’s noth­ing in my mind that [says] she should qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty. … I believe it was unknow­ing con­duct and I believe she was act­ing under duress.”

The charges against Daniel are even more out of the ordi­nary because of the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty in Alabama. Alabama imposed three death sen­tences in 2018, down from a peak of 25 in 1998. Coosa County pros­e­cu­tors have sought only one death sen­tence in the last five years, and the defen­dant in that case was not sen­tenced to death. Alabama has exe­cut­ed 18 African-American pris­on­ers for killing white vic­tims and only one white pris­on­er for killing an African-American vic­tim. Both Daniel and Tuck are African American.

(Lauren Gill, AN ALABAMA WOMAN GOT PREGNANT WHILE IN JAIL. SHE HAS NO MEMORY OF HAVING SEX., The Appeal, May 31, 2019; Alabama Media Group, Family of Army vet wants to know how she got preg­nant in jail for mur­der, PopularMilitary​.com, May 16, 2019; Michael Harriot, Alabama Woman Incarcerated for 17 Months Doesn’t Know How She Ended Up Pregnant, The Root, May 14, 2019; Ashley Remkus, Family of preg­nant Alabama jail inmate: ​‘We just want a fair inves­ti­ga­tion’, Birmingham News/al.com, May 14, 2019.) See Women.

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