Brooklyn Woman Gives Birth in Shackles During Court Arraignment

Just before midnight on Friday, May 16, 2026, Samantha Randazzo delivered a baby boy on a wooden bench inside a Brooklyn courtroom. She was 33 years old, in NYPD custody, and handcuffed. No doctor or nurse was present. Her arraignment on drug possession and trespassing charges had been underway [1][2].

The birth — witnessed by officers, prosecutors, and court staff — has reignited a long-running confrontation between New York City's criminal justice agencies and the advocates who say the city repeatedly fails to protect pregnant people in custody, despite laws explicitly designed to do so.

What Happened

On Thursday evening, May 15, NYPD officers responded to Nostrand Houses, a public housing complex in Brooklyn. They said they observed Randazzo and another woman on a rooftop with a controlled substance "in plain view." Officers arrested both. According to the NYPD, "Ms. Randazzo was wearing baggy clothes, did not inform officers she was pregnant, did not indicate any disabilities, and declined medical attention" at the time of arrest [1][2].

At approximately 3:30 a.m. Friday, Randazzo told officers she was pregnant and experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Police transported her to Coney Island Hospital. The hospital evaluated and discharged her. Roughly four hours after that discharge, she went into labor at Kings County Criminal Court [2][3].

The charges she faced were criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal trespass. She also had an open warrant from 2023 for burglary and petit larceny related to, according to reports, stealing household goods and snow crabs from a fish store her family owns. That open warrant made her ineligible for a desk appearance ticket — a procedure that would have released her to appear in court later — and kept her in custody for more than 30 hours before the birth [3][5].

Her attorney, Wynton Sharpe, described the birth itself as a "joyful and sad situation." He said court officers responded quickly once labor became apparent and the presiding judge cleared the room immediately [1][4]. But five major public defender organizations — the Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services, the Bronx Defenders, and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem — offered a sharply different account, alleging that some courtroom staff "laughed and joked" as Randazzo gave birth [2][6].

"What occurred in that courtroom was not simply a failure of protocol or preparedness," the organizations said in a joint statement. "It was a profound moral failure and a devastating reflection of the cruelty embedded in our carceral system" [1].

After the delivery, the arraignment reportedly proceeded without Randazzo, a decision that drew additional criticism [5]. She was transported by EMS to Brooklyn Hospital.

New York's Anti-Shackling Law: On Paper and in Practice

New York enacted one of the nation's first anti-shackling statutes in 2009, codified as N.Y. Correction Law § 611. It prohibited restraining women who were in labor, delivering, or recovering from childbirth. In 2015, the legislature expanded it to bar all restraints on pregnant inmates and those within eight weeks postpartum [7][8]. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed additional legislation extending the ban to transportation of pregnant inmates [9].

The law's text applies to people in the custody of correctional facilities. But the Randazzo case exposes a gap: she was in NYPD custody during a court proceeding, not in a Department of Correction facility. The New York City Bar Association has supported legislation to extend restraint prohibitions to "all custodial settings," recognizing this gap [10]. Whether New York's existing statute clearly covers a pre-trial detainee handcuffed in a courtroom — rather than a sentenced prisoner in a correctional facility — remains a point of legal dispute.

Enforcement has been a persistent problem regardless. A report by the Correctional Association of New York found that 23 of 27 pregnant women surveyed had been shackled in apparent violation of the statute [8]. As NPR reported in 2022, "confusion over the laws, lack of sanctions for violations and wide loopholes are contributing to the continued shackling of pregnant women" across the country [11].

Source: Stateline/Pew Research

Data as of Dec 1, 2025CSV

Approximately 41 states now have some form of anti-shackling law on the books, up from just one in 2000 [11][12]. At the federal level, the First Step Act of 2018 bars restraints on pregnant people in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service [12]. But the proliferation of laws has not ended the practice.

The Medical Consensus

Medical and obstetric organizations have repeatedly concluded that restraining a person during labor poses serious clinical risks. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated that "physical restraints have interfered with the ability of physicians to safely practice medicine" [13].

Specific documented risks include: inability to brace during contractions, increasing fall hazard; delayed epidural administration when handcuffs prevent the patient from assuming the required position; impeded emergency cesarean section; placental abruption from falls caused by restricted movement; blood clots from prolonged immobility; and delayed hemorrhage response when officers must first remove restraints before medical staff can intervene [13][14].

In one documented case, a woman shackled during labor experienced a hip dislocation causing permanent deformity, stomach muscle tears, and an umbilical hernia [14]. Medical experts emphasize that labor requires mobility — physicians recommend that laboring patients walk and change positions to manage pain and accelerate delivery, both of which restraints prevent [13].

A Pattern of Incidents and Settlements

The Randazzo case is not the first time New York City has confronted this issue. The city has paid substantial settlements in at least two prior shackling-during-birth cases in recent years:

• 2019 ($610,000): A Bronx woman arrested in 2018 on a family court warrant was transported to Montefiore Medical Center in metal wrist cuffs and heavy ankle shackles. Officers removed the shackles only minutes before delivery after repeated protests from doctors, then re-shackled her shortly after birth. She nursed her newborn with one arm while restrained [15][16].

• 2021 ($750,000): A 22-year-old woman arrested by officers from Brooklyn's 75th Precinct two days past her due date on a misdemeanor assault charge — later dismissed and sealed — was shackled to a gurney, examined while restrained, and taken to a delivery room in handcuffs. An officer initially refused to remove restraints, citing "an unspecified policy," relenting only when nurses said she needed to push and the handcuffs were preventing an epidural [17][18].

In both cases, the settlements explicitly stated they were not admissions of wrongdoing. In the 2021 case, no officers were disciplined [19]. The NYPD amended its patrol guide as part of the 2019 settlement to address safety concerns for arrestees in late-stage pregnancy, but the 2021 incident occurred after those revisions, and the Randazzo birth occurred five years later still [15][17].

Who Had Custody — and Who Is Accountable

A central question is which agency bore responsibility at the moment Randazzo gave birth. She was arrested by the NYPD, treated and released by a hospital, and was physically present in a courtroom staffed by New York State Court Officers. At no point did the NYC Department of Correction have custody — she had not yet been arraigned and remanded.

The public defender organizations named four agencies in their demand for investigation: the NYPD, the Office of Court Administration (which oversees state court officers), the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and "court staff responsible for the conditions that led to this incident" [1][2]. The allocation of responsibility between the NYPD (which made the arrest and managed her custody during transport) and the court officer system (which manages detainees inside the courtroom) has not been publicly clarified.

The Security Argument and Its Evidence Base

Proponents of maintaining restraints on detainees, including during medical situations, cite flight risk and safety concerns. Corrections officials have historically argued that unrestrained detainees pose unpredictable risks, even in a medical context.

The empirical basis for this argument in the specific context of active labor is thin. No published study or corrections agency report documents a security incident involving an unrestrained person in active labor. Medical experts note that a person experiencing contractions and delivering a child is functionally incapacitated and incapable of posing a flight or safety threat [13][14]. The American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and American Public Health Association have all opposed the practice and rejected security-risk justifications during labor and delivery [13].

Randazzo's underlying charges — drug possession and criminal trespass — are low-level offenses. Multiple observers have questioned why more than 30 hours of custody and courtroom restraint were necessary for charges of this nature, particularly given that a desk appearance ticket would have been standard but for the open 2023 warrant [3][5].

Legal Remedies and Litigation History

Individuals subjected to shackling during pregnancy or labor can pursue claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil rights statute that allows suits against state and local officials who deprive people of constitutional rights. The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment applies to sentenced prisoners; for pre-trial detainees like Randazzo, the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause provides equivalent or broader protections, since pre-trial detainees have not been convicted of any crime [20].

New York City's litigation history in this area shows a pattern of settlements rather than trial outcomes. The $610,000 and $750,000 settlements described above suggest that the city's legal exposure is significant — but the settlements' no-fault clauses and the absence of officer discipline indicate that financial payouts have not translated into sustained institutional change [15][17][19].

At the state level, New York's anti-shackling statute provides a basis for enforcement action, though the law does not contain an explicit private right of action or penalty provision for violations — a gap advocates have repeatedly flagged [8][10].

Birth Outcomes Behind Bars

The Randazzo case also brings into focus the broader health disparities facing pregnant people in the criminal justice system. An estimated 55,000 pregnant people are admitted to U.S. jails each year, with approximately 3–4% of women entering prison while pregnant [21][22].

Source: AJPH / PMC Studies

Data as of Nov 1, 2024CSV

Research published in the American Journal of Public Health found that among 1,396 pregnant women admitted to U.S. state and federal prisons in 2016–2017, 6% of live births were preterm and 30% were cesarean deliveries [22]. A separate study found that incarcerated individuals had significantly higher rates of late prenatal care initiation (33% versus approximately 6% in the general population), and births to incarcerated individuals had higher adjusted likelihoods of prematurity, small-for-gestational-age infants, and NICU admission [23].

Source: OpenAlex

Data as of Jan 1, 2026CSV

Academic research on incarcerated pregnancy outcomes has grown substantially, with over 6,600 papers published since 2011, peaking at 673 publications in 2023 [24]. The growing literature has established that maternal-infant separation at birth — standard practice when a mother is returned to custody after delivery — disrupts attachment formation and is associated with insecure attachment, developmental delays, and long-term emotional and behavioral problems in children [25][26]. Studies of children of incarcerated mothers have documented elevated rates of academic failure, social-emotional difficulties, and subsequent criminal justice involvement [26].

Systemic Questions

The Randazzo birth raises questions that extend beyond any single incident. Why was a woman who had reported being pregnant and in withdrawal just hours earlier discharged from a hospital and sent to a courtroom without any medical escort or monitoring? Why did 30 hours of custody not produce a medical evaluation that flagged imminent labor? Which agency's protocols, if any, required her to be handcuffed to a bench while awaiting arraignment on a low-level charge?

These are not new questions. The city has settled these cases before, revised policies before, and faced the same questions before. The difference now is that it happened not in a patrol car or a hospital room, but in full view of a courtroom — the place where, in theory, the justice system's own officers are most present and most accountable.

Randazzo's baby boy was delivered alive. Both mother and child were transported to Brooklyn Hospital [1]. As of the most recent reports, no investigation findings have been made public, and no agency has accepted responsibility for the circumstances that led to the birth.