Haleigh Poutre

THAT OBSERVATION came from a family friend of Haleigh Poutre, the 11 year old Massachusetts girl who was beaten into a coma this past September, allegedly by her adoptive parents. Gamelli’s comment is an apt description of Haleigh’s struggle to live once she entered the Massachusetts legal system.

Born in 1994 to a sixteen year old mother who wasn’t married to her biological father, Haleigh was four when she went to live with her aunt because she was being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Prior to relocating to her aunt’s, Haleigh became a ward of Massachusetts’s Department of Social Services (DSS). A few years later, Haleigh’s aunt got married to one Jason Strickland, and, a short while after that, she officially adopted Haleigh.

But DSS’ role in Haleigh’s life was far from over. After the adoption, DSS made no fewer than 15 investigations into possible abuse of Haleigh. The injuries Haleigh suffered varied in severity and nature, but many were alarming. One time Haleigh’s adoptive mother allegedly left her alone at a softball game. The result: Haleigh suffered serious head injuries when she was struck by a bat. Another time, the child allegedly burnt herself with hot water.

DSS concluded from its investigations that Haleigh had a propensity to injure herself. They left her in the care of her adoptive mother and Strickland. Then, on September 11, 2005, Haleigh entered a vegetative state, the result, police alleged, of a vicious beating at the hands of her adoptive mother and Strickland.

While the two awaited trial, the courts awarded DSS temporary custody of Haleigh. After being released on bail less than two weeks later, Haleigh’s adoptive mother was found dead in an apparent suicide. Strickland alone would face charges for the possibly fatal beating of Haleigh.

ONCE THE MATTER ENTERED the Massachusetts legal system, things took a bizarre and disturbing turn. A mere nine days after Haleigh’s beating, DSS pressed to remove Haleigh’s life support and feeding tube.

The swiftness with which DSS acted in this instance stands in stark contrast to the dawdling that characterized its efforts during Haleigh’s healthier days. What’s more, DSS’s efforts ran contrary to the prevailing medical opinion: the end result of a vegetative state is difficult to predict, especially so in the earliest days and weeks of such a condition. What’s more, children who come to this condition through a trauma, as Haleigh did, are far more likely to recover because of their still growing brains.

The DSS was present at the trial court level, expressing its view that Haleigh’s life should be terminated. Also there was a government-appointed attorney who was putatively representing Haleigh; she, too, argued for the removal of Haleigh’s life support and feeding tube. Jason Strickland, who would have argued for the extension of Haleigh’s life if for no other than reason than to avoid murder charges, was denied any role in the hearing that would determine Haleigh’s fate. Shockingly, no one other than government employees or appointees was involved in the hearings that were to decide Haleigh’s fate. All the parties with legal standing, including the judge, agreed–Haleigh’s life should end.

At the hearings, the DSS offered the testimony of two medical experts. One testified that both Haleigh’s life support and feeding tube should be removed; the other advocated leaving in the feeding tube. On October 5, a mere 24 days after the assault on Haleigh, the judge issued a written opinion stating that Haleigh’s “dignity and quality of life would be most respected by withdrawing both the ventilator and the feeding tube along with the issuance of a [DNR] order, with great sadness I so issue this day.”

Because the judge issued a ruling at the start of the proceeding that all court records be impounded due to Haleigh’s status as a minor, the public has little idea of what happened in his courtroom. How he reconciled the differing medical opinions remains a mystery.

THE NEXT DEVELOPMENT WAS AN APPEAL to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) by Strickland insisting that he had certain rights as Haleigh’s de facto father. Three attorneys from Springfield, Massachusetts–John J. Egan, John M. Thompson and Edward J. McDonough, Jr.–took Strickland’s appeal on a pro bono basis.

According to an interview with McDonough, the three attorneys took Strickland’s case solely so that Haleigh might have a voice. Because of the lower court’s decisions, ranging from excluding the public to denying Strickland any standing in the proceedings, no one had advocated for the continuance of Haleigh’s life or suggested that the court should take care to err on the side of life. While it seems oddly perverse that such an argument had to come from the attorneys of an alleged perpetrator, McDonough insists that there was no other way to get these arguments before the court. His claims are buttressed by the fact that he and his co-counsel took on the matter without compensation.

Despite the spirited efforts of Strickland’s attorneys, the SJC upheld the lower court’s rulings in their entirety. It ruled that the proceedings dominated solely by government appointees and officials were acceptable; what’s more, it endorsed the notion that having such hearings without public notice even when a child’s life is at stake is acceptable. Lacking the standing to address the lower court’s strange findings of fact regarding the conflicting medical testimony, and its ensuing declaration that Haleigh’s feeding tube should be removed, the SJC’s decisions gave the DSS total victory. The department was henceforth free to end Haleigh’s life.

FOR THOSE PHILOSOPHICALLY inclined to erring on the side of life, the actions of the Massachusetts court system and its various governmental agents seem noxious. But happily, one party who the courts and the DSS couldn’t consult seems to have refused to comply with their dictates.

While the SJC was considering her case, Haleigh Poutre began to show signs of improvement. She began to breathe on her own and no longer needed the life support equipment that the DSS had been in such a hurry to remove. According to family friend John Gamelli, Haleigh’s biological mother reported Haleigh was able to respond to simple commands like releasing objects from her hand. Because DSS, still Haleigh’s legal guardian, has declined to release any information regarding Haleigh’s substantive medical condition, the public is left to hearsay reports like Gamelli’s for information on Haleigh’s status.

The DSS currently seems to be back-pedaling furiously from its position of the past four months. The head of DSS has since held a press conference where he vowed to consult with additional medical experts. The public can only wonder why the DSS didn’t seek such consultations before it began to so vigorously pursue the termination of Haleigh’s life.

It is almost impossible to view Haleigh’s struggle without reflecting on the Terri Schiavo case of a year ago. Haleigh’s case does seem to bolster some of the arguments that Terri Schiavo’s supporters made, namely that doctors are not infallible. Perhaps most importantly, the Poutre case illustrates the benefits of erring on the side of life, and the dangers of not doing so.

Alas, what makes Haleigh’s case arguably more disturbing than that of Terri Schiavo is that there was no party arguing for life here. Even today, there remains no party to argue for life if the DSS and Haleigh’s court appointed lawyer should both decide that the time has come once again for her to “die with dignity.”

Over the past weekend, DSS spokesperson Denise Monteiro, in attempting to defend the DSS’s haste in trying to terminate Haleigh’s life, went so far as to claim to the Boston Herald that the agency never intended to actually remove Haleigh’s life support and feeding tube. If true, one wonders: Did the DSS simply want the court ordered right to end Haleigh’s life in its proverbial back pocket, available to use at a moment of its own choosing?

Dean Barnett writes about politics and other matters at soxblog.com