Court hears “right to die” case of battered girl

By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) – A man facing a possible murder charge
for beating his stepdaughter so badly she is in a permanent
vegetative state asked Massachussetts’ top court on Tuesday to
keep her alive in a case that highlights the divisive “right to
die” issue in America.

Jason Strickland, a 31-year-old auto mechanic, is accused
of battering 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre, whose brain was found
partly sheared when she was hospitalized on September 11. Her
body was covered with burns, cuts and bruises and her teeth
were broken.

Strickland’s wife — the child’s maternal aunt and sole
legal guardian — was found shot dead on September 22 with her
grandmother in an apparent murder-suicide a day after police
accused her of hitting Haleigh with a baseball bat.

The case is as much about who has legal rights to the girl,
who is now on life support in state custody, as it is about her
ultimate fate and whether the state can remove the breathing
machines and feeding tubes keeping her alive.

It carries echoes of the case of Terri Schiavo, the
brain-damaged Florida woman taken off life support in March
after a legal battle that galvanized the Christian right and
drew in President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress.

Strickland’s lawyers asked the Supreme Judicial Court on
Tuesday to overturn a juvenile court judge’s decision that the
man has no legal rights over the girl. The court’s seven
justices are expected to rule within 130 days.

“I would respectfully say that without intervention by this
court, this child will die,” Strickland’s attorney, Jack Egan,
told the one-day hearing.

A juvenile court decided in September that the Department
of Social Services could disconnect Haleigh’s life support.

But Strickland, who never adopted the child, wants to be
legally recognized as her de-facto father because he lived with
Haleigh for four years.

If the court grants his wish, it would allow Stickland to
decide whether to take Haleigh off life support and could also
allow him to avoid a charge of murder.

Justice John Greaney questioned the wisdom of putting the
girl’s fate in the hands of her alleged abuser.

“When you talk about de-facto parent you are talking about
someone who is substituting for the real parent who is
nurturing and taking care of the child,” he said.

“You don’t talk about it in terms, as it seems to me that
you have here, of someone who has inflicted injuries on the
child and has harmed that child…,” he said. “That would turn
the whole concept completely on its head.”

Haleigh’s birth mother, 29-year-old Allison Avrett, lost
custody of the girl when she was four years old because of
allegations of abuse, said the Department of Social Services,
whose lawyers have consulted Avrett in the case.

Avrett has said she would prefer the removal of Haleigh’s
life support system.

“This is not about a right to life. This is about the
circumstances under which this person is going to be allowed to
die,” said Virginia Peel, a social services lawyer.

Peel said Haleigh’s doctors “have consistent medical
opinion about her current condition” and all agree she will not
regain consciousness.