3-20-08
Twenty-four-year-old Logan Lage was originally charged with murder and 16 other related charges in connection with a November 6, 2007 head on collision. His vehicle rammed a
car driven by 26-year-old Shea Lehnen. Shea was 8 1/2
months pregnant at the time, and was taken to St. Mary’s
Hospital in Denver, where doctors performed a cesarean  section. Her daughter was born alive but died hours later of
asphyxia. Mesa County coroner Rob Kurtzman ruled the baby’s death a homicide, saying the collision had damaged the mother’s placenta, thus limiting blood flow to the fetus.

In a court ruling handed down by Mesa County District Court  Judge Richard Gurley, the accident was not chargeable as  murder under State Law. Defense attorney Will McNulty said
that the state could not show probable cause because the baby, named Lileigh Lehnen, under state law was neither a “person” nor a “child” at the time of the accident. State statute reads that in prosecuting a homicide, a “person” means a human being “who had been born and was alive at the time of the homicidal act.” Judge Gurley agreed with the defense and ruled in their favor.