Opinion

Mary Annette Pember: Indian mother suffered through trauma

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Dana Deegan, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, is serving a 10-year sentence at FCI Waseca in Minnesota. She is due to be released in March 2017, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Image from BOP

Independent journalist Mary Annette Pember looks at how multiple traumas affected the life of Dana Deegan, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of North Dakota who was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her infant son:

While recently reporting about the correlation between the high rates of histories of sexual abuse and incarceration, especially for Native girls, I learned about Dana Deegan, a young Native mother who is currently serving a 10 year sentence for killing her infant son. According to court documents Deegan abandoned her child shortly after giving birth in secret at home. After several days without food or water, the child died. She later disposed of his body in a suitcase, placing it in a ditch near her rural home on the Fort Berthold reservation.
When questioned she stated she had no idea why she abandoned the boy.
Sarah Deer, long time legal scholar and advocate best known for her work focusing attention on legal inequities regarding Native women victims of domestic and sexual abuse, wrote the brief for Deegan’s clemency hearing.
In addition to the claim that Deegan’s sentence length reflected racial disparities in the legal system, Deer noted that Deegan’s actions were directly connected to her deep emotional trauma, which in turn fed into her mental illness.
Before she was removed from her parent’s home, her father sexually abused Deegan for years. She was also abused in her foster home where she bore her first child at age 15. Shannon Hale, the son of her foster parents, fathered the child and her subsequent 3 children. Hale continued her sexual and physical abuse throughout their relationship.
Deer quotes Deegan in the clemency petition about her son’s death, “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t handle it. I had everything on my shoulders. I couldn’t even help myself. I had nobody to help me. I had no job, no nothing. I had all my babies to care for, a welfare mom. I had the feeling of being worthless. What could I do? I was overwhelmed and depressed. I didn’t want to live through any of it anymore. I didn’t want to be there anymore, as a spouse, as a mother, as a daughter.”
The petition was denied; Deegan remains in jail.

Get the Story:
Mary Annette Pember: Mandela, I’m Not: The Taxing Life of a Mother Coping With Trauma (Indian Country Today 8/13)

Human Rights Project for Girls Report:
Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story (July 2015)

North Dakota Law Review Article:
Addressing Sentencing Disparities for Tribal Citizens in the Dakotas: A Tribal Sovereignty Approach (Volume 89, Number 1 2013)

8th Circuit Decision:
US v. Deegan (May 25, 2010)