A Texas woman who was arrested on murder charges in 2022 for taking medication to end her pregnancy had her charges dropped after public outcry, her attorneys say in a new court filing.
Lizelle Gonzalez filed a civil complaint against the Starr County sheriff and prosecutors last year, arguing her Constitutional rights were violated when she was wrongfully arrested and charged with murder for having a medicated abortion. She was arrested on April 7, 2022, and was released on April 9, 2022, after a $500,000 bond was posted. The charges were dropped on April 11, 2022.
Texas law “clearly prohibits the criminal prosecution of pregnant women for conduct that ends their pregnancies,” according to the ACLU of Texas, which helped Gonzalez bring her complaint. Texas law instead targets physicians and people who help women seek or obtain abortions.
The defendants tried to have Gonzalez’s case dismissed last July, but a judge sided with Gonzalez and allowed discovery to move forward.
Now, evidence has revealed “a coordinated effort between the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office to violate Ms. Gonzalez’s rights and exposes misconduct by government officials who think the law they are entrusted to enforce does not apply to them,” the ACLU of Texas said in an August 12 statement.
Gonzalez’s legal team argued in an August 12 filing that Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez dropped the charges against her after public outcry over her arrest. This included several emails from the public “alerting them that the murder charge was unlawful” before the charges were dropped, the filing says.
Hours before Gonzalez was released from custody, Ramirez texted Starr County Sheriff Rene Fuentes saying they had “stirred up a hornets nest,” according to the filing. Ramirez also “made contemporaneous statements to friends and family, personally admitting he had wrongly charged Ms. Gonzalez with murder and worrying that he could lose his job because of it,” the lawsuit says.
One of these texts includes a message from Ramirez to his son, telling him, “I f***** up.”
“I may pay the consequences with my career but once I realized this injustice, I had to make it right,” Ramirez wrote in the message, which he sent one day before he dropped the charges against Gonzalez.
The filing also states Ramirez spoke with Gonzalez in his office after the indictment was dismissed. During that meeting, he “‘apologized a lot,’ admitting his wrongdoing to Plaintiff herself and becoming very ‘emotional,’” the filing states.
Gonzalez’s attorney Cecilia Garza argues Starr County officials “abused their power and intentionally violated Ms. Gonzalez’s fundamental rights.”
“Lizelle Gonzalez’s highly personal decision regarding her pregnancy was not, and never has been, a criminal matter — yet the Starr County district attorney, his assistant district attorneys, the Starr County Sheriff’s Office ignored the clear language of the Texas homicide statute and long standing law to wrongly charge her with murder,” Garza said in a statement.
In an August 19 filing, Ramirez’s attorneys argued he “immediately moved to dismiss the indictment and apologized when he realized Plaintiff could not be prosecuted under the Texas Penal Code because of the murder exception for mothers cause the death of their unborn children.”
“Defendant Ramirez respectfully request that the Court find he is entitled to absolute immunity for the claims alleged in Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint and dismiss them with prejudice,” the filling reads.
Gonzalez first sued Fuentes, Ramirez and Starr County Assistant District Attorney Alexandria Barrera last year. The original complaint says that Gonzalez went to the hospital in January 2022 after taking medication to induce an abortion, CBS News reports.
Shortly after she was discharged, she was taken to the hospital again by EMS after complaining of abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. Doctors then performed a cesarean section to deliver her stillborn fetus after an exam detected no fetal cardiac activity, according to the complaint reviewed by CBS News.
A nurse then reported the procedure to police over concerns it could be illegal due to a change in the law, the complaint alleges, per CBS News.
After Gonzalez’s arrest and indictment, the Texas bar investigated the district attorney for “knowingly pursuing an unlawful indictment,” the ACLU says. He was punished with a fine and a one-year fully probated suspension.
Texas is one of several U.S. states that has enacted laws banning or heavily restricting abortion since 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade, which guaranteed abortion access nationwide. Texas is one of 12 states that has banned abortion in nearly all circumstances, according to The New York Times’ abortion law tracker.
The Independent has contacted the Starr County Sheriff’s Department, the Starr County District Attorney’s office and the defendants’ attorney for comment.
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