Mom charged in newborn's death suffers mental struggles that may complicate court case: expert

A Winnipeg mother charged in the death of her newborn daughter has a low IQ and little understanding of consequences, a court was told during a previous sentencing hearing — making the current case against her both rare and potentially complex, a legal expert says.

Three weeks ago, police announced Jeanene Rosa Moar had been charged with manslaughter and concealing the body of a child after investigators said they discovered the infant's body in a garbage bin on a north Winnipeg back lane.

At a sentencing in 2016, a Manitoba provincial court heard Moar had significant cognitive and adaptive functioning impairment, and a full scale IQ below 70. She had a difficult upbringing that included using drugs from the age of 14, court heard.

That sentencing also heard Moar was vulnerable to victimization and had a history of being exploited — and that because of her cognitive ability, she wasn't able to think things through or understand consequences.

As a result, her lawyer in that case argued she had diminished moral culpability, a concept also known as blameworthiness.

At a separate sentencing two years later, court heard Moar also struggled with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, addictions and homelessness, CBC previously reported.

Kathy Bueti, a criminal defence lawyer in Winnipeg, says all that combined makes the current case against Moar — who is innocent until proven guilty — an unusual one.

"One of those things in and of themselves may pose problems and may or may not be a defence," said Bueti, who works at the firm representing Moar but has not been involved in the case. 

"But when you start getting all of them together and they intertwine, obviously it makes it a much more complicated matter. So that's part of the backdrop that we're working with here."

Police said earlier this month they believe the infant was born at a home in Winnipeg's Garden City neighbourhood, and alleged she was alive when concealed in a garbage bin on Boyd Avenue. No further details about the case have been released.

While one expert on mothers who kill their newborns said earlier this month she was dismayed to see Moar charged with manslaughter instead of infanticide, which carries a lesser maximum sentence, another expert in criminology says she wasn't surprised.

Kelly Gorkoff, chair of the University of Winnipeg's criminal justice department, said that's because of what she sees as the criminal justice system's "punitive kind of turn towards the harshest charge possible," a shift she says began with laws regarding mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes in Canada. 

"So I would really want to question, what is it that … the police and the Crown are really trying to achieve in laying that kind of manslaughter charge? It certainly isn't about helping the offender," Gorkoff said.

Bueti says the decision of what charges to lay typically falls to a senior Crown attorney, who makes the call based on the evidence available at the time. But as more evidence becomes available, those charges can change.