After her first trial ended in a mistrial, a Wapato woman may go back before a jury on a charge that her infant son died of a fentanyl overdose through her neglect.
Samantha Marine Tainewasher, 38, was charged in U.S. District Court with involuntary manslaughter because her son got into opioids that someone left out in the trailer where she was living.
Her second trial is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 7, but her attorney is trying to get the case dismissed, arguing that it was an accidental death rather than a criminal act.
"She needs closure on this," said Rick Smith.
Tainewasher was indicted on the manslaughter charge in federal court in July 2021, more than a year after her son, Steven Anthony Rane Jr., died. Tainewasher was charged in federal court because she is a Native American and her son died within the boundaries of the Yakama Nation's reservation.
In court documents, prosecutors alleged that Tainewasher allowed her 1-year-old son to be around fentanyl pills, which he ingested and died.
She woke up March 29 and found her son was unresponsive and called for help.
Her first trial began Aug. 29, but on Sept. 1 Judge Stanley A. Bastian declared a mistrial after the man accused of bringing the fentanyl to the camper trailer Tainewasher was living in invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself.
At the hearing, prosecutors refused to grant the man immunity, which would have barred prosecutors from using his testimony to try him on related charges, which led Bastian to end the trial after finding that the man was a critical witness in the case.
"He was the last person to see the child alive, which was a significant moment," Smith said.
While a video of the inside of the trailer before the boy's death showed what looked like drugs on a mirror and that Tainewasher saw the man had a bag of fentanyl pills earlier, Smith said there was no evidence that she knew the drugs were there at the time of her son's death or that he had access to them.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for Eastern Washington, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing investigation.
Unlike a drug homicide, in which someone intentionally provides drugs to a person who subsequently dies of an overdose, Smith said this case was different in that Tainewasher did not bring the drugs into the trailer and was asleep at the time her son took them.
He said the prosecutor's argument could be used to charge a parent whose child died from an accidental poisoning or other household mishap.
"There are so many things that are legal that a child could consume or use or be exposed to that could possibly cause serious injuries or death," Smith said. "You allowed your child to be around rat poison under the sink. A guy has a gun, it falls out on the floor while he's asleep and a child either pulls the trigger on the gun, or the guy picks up the gun and it accidentally discharges and death results.
"Would you say the mother is criminally negligent?"
A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2 in the case.
