California Supreme Court overturns Shasta County first degree murder conviction

REDDING, Calif. — Last week, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously in a case surrounding the death of a Shasta County infant.

In 2017, Heather Rose Brown was convicted of first-degree murder in Shasta County Court for the death of her five-day-old daughter, as the infant had been poisoned with morphine and methamphetamine through the mother’s breast milk. The case reached the third district court of appeals in 2019, and they upheld the Shasta County court’s ruling. The state Supreme Court’s seven justices, however, all concurred on an opinion that ruled death by poisoning is not inherently first-degree murder. Back in Shasta County, the District Attorney’s office shared a statement on this ruling, saying:

The Shasta County District Attorney’s office is disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the defendant’s first degree murder conviction. The Supreme Court has chosen to input a new element to this crime when Penal Code section 189 specifically provides otherwise. We stand by our original decision to try the defendant under the first degree murder theory of poisoning. The defendant’s conduct was deplorable. She continued to breastfeed her newborn infant despite taking and using heroin and methamphetamine even after she knew the victim was going through withdraws.

At this point the Shasta County District Attorney’s continues to evaluate the decision and we have not made any decisions on whether we will seek to retry the defendant for first degree murder or seek to have her conviction turned into a second degree murder conviction.

You can read the full opinion of the California Supreme Court here.