The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a Richmond woman who said the state unfairly tried to ban her from practicing midwifery after she was charged with manslaughter in the 2000 delivery of a stillborn baby.
“This is great news,” Yvonne Cryns’ attorney, James Harrison of Woodstock, said Tuesday. “The question is whether the Illinois Nurses and Advanced Practices Act regulates non-nurse midwifery. It’s our position it does not.”
Cryns has not practiced midwifery since shortly after she was indicted on manslaughter charges in the April 2000 death of Spencer Verzi, who died during a difficult breech birth at his parents’ home in Round Lake Beach.
Last year, a Lake County Circuit Court jury acquitted Cryns of involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child but failed to reach a verdict on a second manslaughter charge.
Prosecutors said they hope to retry Cryns, but her defense attorneys are appealing, saying a second trial would constitute double jeopardy.
Although the Lake County judge ordered Cryns to stop practicing midwifery until the criminal charges against her were disposed of, the Illinois attorney general sued to ban Cryns from resuming her practice without a license.
The Illinois Appellate Court upheld the state’s position in a decision issued in February, but the Illinois Supreme Court this week agreed to hear Cryns’ appeal of the appellate ruling, Harrison said.