Friday, March 19, 1999
Pregnant wife in prison
Husband told to stay away during birth
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MARIEMONT — Like most fathers, Sean Turner wants to see the birth of his baby. But because his wife is in a Columbus prison, state officials are refusing to allow the Mariemont man into the delivery room.
On Thursday, with his wife two days overdue, Mr. Turner was trying to find a lawyer in a last-ditch effort to see the birth.
“This is my first child, and I want to be there,” said Mr. Turner, 29. “I know that Barbie did something wrong, but this is an innocent that's involved here. ... I'm being punished and the baby's being punished, too.”
Barbara Ann Turner is in the Franklin Pre-Release Center, where Ohio's pregnant inmates are housed. She is one of about three dozen expectant mothers there. She is serving 21/2 years for prescription drug offenses in Butler and Hamilton counties.
The ex-nurse's due date was Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Hamilton County Judge Deidra Hair issued an order granting Mr. Turner permission to attend the birth at Ohio State University Hospital. After prison officials cited security concerns, Judge Hair earlier this week said it's up to them — not her — to decide whether Mr. Turner can be there.
Joe Andrews, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, would not elaborate on security concerns except to say guards would have difficulty focusing on the actions of observers during a birth.
There is no specific policy barring a father from attending while a prisoner gives birth, Mr. Andrews said
“But we can make that call, that nobody is going to go in there — and nobody is,” he said. “She is a prisoner and we determine when visits will take place.”
Mr. Turner might not even be told when the birth occurs, unless his wife or someone else gets to a phone. Prison officials don't make such notifications, because they consider a birth to be “just like any other medical procedure,” Mr. Andrews said.
Even if Mr. Turner gets news of the birth and makes the 100-mile trip to the hospital, he cannot see his wife; prison policy requires an inmate to be hospitalized seven days before a visit is allowed, Mr. Andrews said. He will be able to see the infant, but only when it is moved from Mrs. Turner's room.
Inmates who give birth typically stay in the hospital for 24-48 hours.
Although about 900 babies have been born to women imprisoned in Ohio in the past nine years, Mr. Andrews said no outsider has been allowed to attend one of the births. He wasn't sure how many people have asked, but called Mr. Turner's request “unusual.”
Mr. Turner, the chief technical officer for an Internet and telephone company in Montgomery, called the decision barring him from the birth “inhumane.”
He pointed out prisoners sometimes get special permission to attend funerals, “and I think this is more important than that,” he said, adding he would pay for an additional security guard if necessary.
Mr. Andrews said officials won't consider Mr. Turner's offer.
“It's very unfortunate that he isn't able to do the things that a normal father would be able to do, including witness a baby being born,” Mr. Andrews said. “However, (Mrs. Turner) gave up that right when she came into the prison system being an inmate, and we have to place security first in these kinds of situations.”
Ohio prison policy states after the mother is returned to prison, the baby's caregiver — who must first undergo a Children Services Board investigation — is permitted to take custody of the infant.
Mr. Turner has been approved to take custody of his baby. But the infant will have to be approved for Mrs. Turner's visiting list at the prison.
“I can't imagine what it's going to be like to have this baby, then come back here (to the prison) without her inside of me,” Mrs. Turner said in an interview at the prison last week.
Mrs. Turner said she has been trying to shake her addiction to prescription painkillers since 1993, when she was a nurse and started taking the pills for a back injury she suffered while lifting a patient.
Mrs. Turner learned she was pregnant in August when she checked into a drug rehabilitation program. She said she has been drug-free ever since.
There are few concerns about the drugs' effects on the baby, Mr. Turner said.
Mrs. Turner has been in prison since October, when she was sentenced in both Butler and Hamilton counties for repeatedly calling in prescriptions for herself. Mrs. Turner, who pleaded guilty to six counts of deception to obtain dangerous drugs, sought alternative sentencing because of her pregnancy.
But Judge Hair and Butler County Common Pleas Judge Anthony Valen said Mrs. Turner had been given many chances to reform and it was time to lock her up.
Judge Valen told Mrs. Turner he wanted her to participate in the acclaimed “Tapestry” drug-treatment program at the Marysville Reformatory for Women. But Ohio prison policy kept her from going there, said her lawyer, Catherine Adams, because all pregnant women must go to Franklin Pre-Release.
In January, Judge Hair denied Mrs. Turner's request for “judicial release,” a type of shock probation. Ms. Turner was released early on that type of probation in April 1996, after she served a month at Marysville for illegal possession of drugs.
“I know I had lots of chances, but sometimes it takes this much for a person to realize how stupid and how wrong they've been,” Mrs. Turner said.
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