Free Republic

Guilt or innocence. Damages, and if so, how much. And, in capital cases, even life or death. Juries across America are called on to make the most difficult of decisions. And soon, one in California likely will be tasked with deciding whether Jahi McMath, for whom a death certificate was issued several years ago, is alive. After all, she responds to questions by moving her hands and feet, and she answers her mother with a squeeze of her hand. The London Daily Mail reported a hearing is scheduled in court in California March 18, and a trial is expected to...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday. Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something...

New Year's Day should be a time of fresh beginnings and forward motion. But for the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, the holiday season has been suspended in a cloud of unfathomable pain and suffering: A routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. A beautiful child declared "brain dead." Lawyers, TV cameras, tears. The McMaths are fighting for life. On Monday, they won a court order that prevents Children's Hospital of Oakland from pulling the plug on Jahi until Jan. 7. Her relatives have been attacked as "publicity hounds" for doing everything possible to raise awareness about the young girl's tragic case. They've...

<p>A 13-year-old Northern California girl will be taken off life support Tuesday after she was declared brain dead following complications from surgery to remove her tonsils.</p> <p>KTVU-TV reported Monday that the head of the pediatrics department at Children's Hospital Oakland had told the family of Jahi McMath that the girl would be pulled from life support because she had been declared dead under California law.</p>