Mass. state court rules battered girl can die

BOSTON (Reuters) – An 11-year-old girl beaten so badly she
is in a permanent vegetative state can be taken off life
support, Massachusetts’ top court has ruled in a case that adds
fuel to America’s divisive “right to die” debate.

State officials will soon decide when to disconnect the
breathing machines and feeding tubes keeping Haleigh Poutre
alive after Tuesday’s Supreme Judicial Court decision, which
could lead to murder charges against her stepfather.

Her stepfather, Jason Strickland, is accused of battering
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, a 31-year-old auto mechanic, had fought to keep
Poutre on life support — a move that would have allowed him to
avoid a charge of murder.

Court documents showed on Wednesday that the state’s
highest court sided with a juvenile court which decided in
September that the Department of Social Services could
disconnect Haleigh’s life support.

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 was as much about who has legal rights to the
girl, who is now in state custody, as it is about her ultimate
fate and whether the state can remove the ventilator and
feeding tube 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 had asked the Supreme Judicial Court
to overturn the juvenile court judge’s decision that the man
has no legal rights over the girl. Strickland, who never
adopted the child, wanted to be legally recognized as her
de-facto father because he lived with Haleigh for four years.

If the court had granted his wish, it would have allowed
Stickland to decide whether to take Haleigh off life support.

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.

The court heard that Haleigh’s doctors “have consistent
medical opinion about her current condition” and all had agreed
she will not regain consciousness.