29-01-2025
Dismissed: Homeless woman cited for street camping while in labor cleared of charge
This story has been updated with information from a motion to dismiss and a comment from a prosecutor in the Jefferson County Attorney's Office.
A Louisville judge has dismissed charges against the woman Louisville Metro Police cited for unlawful street camping while in labor.
The incident, first reported by Kentucky Public Radio in December, garnered national attention and public uproar.
In body camera footage, the woman told Lt. Caleb Stewart her water had broken. Stewart called in an ambulance for her but also proceeded to charge her with unlawful camping for having a mattress beneath an overpass.
'Am I being detained?' she asked at one point while trying to walk away.
'Yes, you're being detained,' Stewart said. 'You're being detained because you're unlawfully camping.'
Jefferson District Court Judge Karen Faulkner dismissed the woman's case during a large docket of unlawful street camping citations in court on Wednesday.
Susan Ely with Jefferson County District Court said there are plans to have a specialized docket for unlawful street camping citations once a month, with some exceptions. There will also be service providers available, she said. Providers were present at the docket on Wednesday.
Kentucky legislators passed a law making unlawful street camping offenses a Class B misdemeanor during the 2024 General Assembly. Since the law took effect in July, police have issued more than 40 citations in Louisville and its suburbs, with most issued in the city's downtown area.
Public defenders representing the pregnant woman called the street camping law "unconstitutional" in their motion to dismiss the charges.
"The explicit criminalization of not just sleeping outdoors, but also the mere intent to sleep or 'camp,' which is defined broadly enough to encompass sitting on a mattress, encourages exactly this sort of cruel and arbitrary enforcement," the motion reads. "It is an unconstitutional exercise of the state's police power."
The attorneys requested the court declare the street camping law unconstitutional. However, when the charge was dismissed, it also stopped the woman's challenge of the law.
Erin White, the criminal division director for the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, agreed to the motion to dismiss without objection.
"We take each case individually, we evaluate the evidence, and we believe the just decision was to dismiss this case," she said.
When the pregnant woman's story first came out in December, the Louisville Metro Police Department said it supported its officers using their discretion.
"We support our officers in using discretion and the information available to them at the time in making decisions," an LMPD spokesperson wrote in a statement to the media. "We also understand everyone may not agree with those decisions, but we are committed to being transparent in communicating and explaining processes and policy to the community."
Later, Chief of Police Paul Humphrey told WAVE-TV that an "error" was made in issuing the woman a citation.
"Lieutenant Stewart's reasoning was he felt like she was using a medical condition to get out of enforcement action, shows after the fact that she wasn't," he said. "That's an error that was made based on sound reasoning. It just happened to be wrong."
Reporter Marina Johnson contributed. Reach reporter Eleanor McCrary at EMcCrary@ or at @ellie_mccrary on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Street camping charge against pregnant Kentucky woman dismissed
