Tracie Alfieri was the first person charged with homicide under Ohio's new fetal-homicide law. Alfieri, 23, was accused of causing the car accident that injured a pregnant Cincinnati woman and killed her six-month-old fetus. Under Ohio's current fetal-homicide law, which was passed in the fall of 1996, it is a crime to kill a viable fetus, and a person can be charged with homicide for terminating a pregnancy at any stage. (This law does not apply to abortions). Alfieri was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault. If convicted under the fetal-homicide law, Alfieri faced five years in prison.
An Instance of "Road Rage"?
Police reports said that on Nov. 27, 1996, Tracie Alfieri caused a crash on Interstate 71 by recklessly cutting in front of Rene Andrews's car and suddenly slamming on her brakes. Andrews, 29 and six-months pregnant, swerved to avoid Alfieri's car but could not avoid a collision with a tractor-trailer. Andrews plowed into the back of the tractor-trailer. Although, Andrews was ejected from her car, she suffered some injuries and lost her unborn baby.
Some witnesses said the accident resulted from a "road rage" between Andrews and Alfieri. These witnesses claimed that bad feelings began to simmer between the women when Andrews was trailing a slow-moving truck and tried to switch lanes. Apparently, Andrews abruptly cut into Alfieri's lane, upsetting Alfieri. This sparked a game of "chicken" between the two women, with Alfieri allegedly pulling up next to Andrews and making obscene gestures.
The Alleged Victim was Reckless
Tracie Alfieri's defense claimed that Alfieri should not be charged with vehicular homicide because she could not have known that Andrews was pregnant at the time of the accident. According to the defense, this lack of knowledge deprived Alfieri of her constitutional right to understand the potential charges she faced for reckless driving. Timothy Schneider, Alfieri's lawyer, based his pretrial motion to dismiss the case on this argument. The judge overruled the defense's motion to dismiss but said the trial would focus only on the factual issues, specifically whether or not Alfieri drove recklessly. (However, the debate over the constitutionality of the fetal-homicide law could be focus of an appeal in Ohio Supreme Court.) Alfieri also denied that she drove recklessly, that she braked in the normal course of traffic. The defense claimed that the alleged victim, Andrews, must have caused the accident by driving too closely behind Alfieri's car.
The Trial and the Verdict
The trial of Tracie Alfieri took place in Hamilton County in Cincinnati before Judge Patrick T. Dinklelacker between April 28, 1997 and May 2, 1997. The jury found Alfieri guilty of both the aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault charges. Alfieri was sentenced to a one-and-a-half-year prison term on May 21.
