Doctor in abortion-murder case is freed

Published: Jan. 21, 2012 at 12:17 AM

ELKTON, Md., Jan. 21 (UPI) -- A doctor charged last month with homicide in the case of a late-term abortion in Maryland was freed on $ 300,000 bail Friday.

Dr. Nicola Riley, 46, appeared at a brief hearing before Cecil County Circuit Court Judge Keith A. Baynes hours after being extradited from Salt Lake City, the Cecil Whig reported.

Riley, who had been held in Salt Lake City since her arrest Dec. 28, is charged with one count each of first-degree and second-degree homicide in the botched August 2010 abortion involving a teenager who was 21 months pregnant. The abortion was performed at a clinic in Elkton, in northeast Maryland, and a state physicians board report said the woman suffered a ruptured uterus and other internal injuries.

Another doctor who was involved in the procedure, Steven C. Brigham, faces first-degree homicide involving the teen and four other women. He was freed on $ 500,000 bail this month.

Riley and Brigham became the first doctors charged with abortion-related homicide under a 2005 state law, providing for homicide or manslaughter charges for performing an abortion if a fetus is considered viable, meaning it could sustain life on its own outside the womb.

Stuart O. Simms, an attorney representing Riley, asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying the law wasn't intended to be used to prosecute doctors performing abortions but was written to deal with domestic violence cases in which a fetus is lost.

He called the charges against Riley "an attempt to criminalize a lawful, legal procedure."

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