Woman Forced to Give Birth While Shackled in New York Court, Public Defenders Say

A group of public defender organizations are lambasting a New York court for subjecting a woman to “trauma and humiliation in full public view” on Friday, after she was reportedly forced to give birth while handcuffed to the courtroom bench. 

Samantha Randazzo, 33, was initially arrested for drug possession on Thursday, and taken to the hospital before being discharged and immediately brought to a criminal court for her arraignment. She was nine months pregnant. According to a joint statement published on Saturday by the Legal Aid Society (LAS), Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS), New York County Defender Services, The Bronx Defenders, and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, Randazzo was waiting to appear before the judge when she went into labor, and gave birth while restrained. (The LAS and BDS were present in the courtroom.)

The coalition of public defenders are apparently calling for an “immediate and transparent investigation into the actions of all agencies and personnel involved,” as well as a “full review of medical staffing, emergency response protocols, and the treatment of pregnant people in custody throughout the arraignment system.” Since 2009, New York law has prohibited pregnant people from being shackled during labor and delivery—though in the years since, various testimonies have suggested this policy has repeatedly been violated.

According to the defenders’ statement, various staff members of the court also joked about the incident as it was happening, and Randazzo was denied any meaningful privacy. “This situation shows multiple failures throughout the system,” Mike Wessler, communications director at the Prison Policy Initiative, also told Jezebel. “Nobody should be forced to give birth in the middle of a courtroom like this.”

On Fri night, Brooklyn court staff forced a woman to give birth inside the courtroom. Per public defenders, she gave birth in handcuffs, unable to reposition herself, unable to pick up her infant. The men who’d shackled her looked on. The judge lauded the birth of a ‘beautiful baby’ on the record.

— NYC for Abortion Rights (@nycforabortion.bsky.social) May 18, 2026 at 1:01 AM

Court officials, including Randazzo’s attorney, have been disputing most of this. Speaking to the New York Times, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration said that while her wrists were restrained behind her back, she was not shackled and that she’d not been handcuffed to the bench. Her attorney also said that court officers reacted quickly to help her. This all obscures the primary fact that a person in labor shouldn’t be expected to give birth in a courtroom in the first place, just because they have a court date.

As Jezebel reported in October, ever since Roe was overturned, hundreds of pregnant women have faced charges for offenses associated with “pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth”—and of 412 cases, 399 involve accusations of substance abuse during pregnancy. Pregnancy Justice has been tracking these numbers.

“Dehumanizing and traumatizing Ms. Randazzo in the name of keeping her arraignment on track was more important than providing her with labor and delivery care,” Thompson further explains. “Even with our state’s constitutional protections for reproductive justice, New York City apparently isn’t all that different from other places when it comes to the treatment of pregnant people in the criminal legal system—and that should outrage every New Yorker.”