HERE'S THE FINAL SEGMENT
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Strident Claims, Countercharges
Despite all the strident claims and
countercharges, the matter of
Conor's death remains now, as it has always, a
consummate portrait
of ambiguity--and one not easily resolvable by the
law. In 1980, the
Washington state Supreme Court defined death as the
''irreversible
cessation of breathing and circulation or
irreversible cessation of all
brain function.'' At the same time, though, the court
said it was up to
the attending physician to decide when this has
happened. It was up
to the physician, who the judges knew relied on
specific, established
brain-death criteria.
Except, that is, when it comes to newborns: That
no such criteria
exist for infants under 7 days of age leaves those
concerned with the
Turner case gazing through prisms of their own
choice. What to
make of Turner's conduct finally becomes not an
absolute legal
question but a personal struggle both for the
doctor's supporters
and detractors.
Bruneau, the product of Catholic private schools
and the
Marines, doesn't hesitate to ask the criminal legal
system to judge
Turner: ''We have no choice. If not the law, then
who? Do you
leave it to the elites? Personally, I don't like
God-playing. When
someone starts making decisions about another
person's life, that's
the worst sort of overblown arrogance.''
Yet when it comes actually to putting a name to
Turner's
actions--murder with premeditation? Murder with
intent to kill?
Criminally negligent homicide? Reckless
homicide?--Bruneau has
hesitated for six months to file a criminal
complaint. He wonders
whether it was reasonable for Turner to consider Conor
brain-dead. He wonders about willfulness, and malice,
and
gradients of culpability. He wonders also about how
others view the
matter.
Nowhere are doctors allowed unilaterally to
pinch off breath by
covering a patient's mouth and nose; neither the
physician's motive
nor the patient's condition are considered relevant
in a courtroom.
Such factors do matter in people's hearts and minds,
though.
Bruneau has had trouble lining up medical experts to
testify against
Turner. Bruneau will have similar trouble lining up
12 jurors willing
to convict the doctor.
''I'm damned if I prosecute and damned if I
don't,'' Bruneau
says. ''There is no way to win here. There will be
people unhappy if
Dr. Turner goes on trial and people unhappy if he
doesn't.''
In their way, Turner's supporters also grapple
with a sense of
perplexity. They at times defend the doctor's
conduct: ''Dr. Turner
knew there was absolutely no chance for that baby. .
. . They say
we can't play God, but we play God every time we save
someone
who otherwise would die.'' Yet many, when questioned,
are also
willing to acknowledge that the doctor may have made
a bad
mistake, may even have broken the law.
We don't think this matter should be ignored,
they say over and
over. We just don't think it should be treated as a
criminal act. Let
the state medical commission handle this. Don't make
gray issues
into black-and-white ones. Don't shred a good person
over
something so incalculable.
In the end, Turner's supporters aren't really
passing judgment at
all on what happened in Olympic Memorial's emergency
room one
snowy January night. They are defending the man, not
his conduct.
Some of them aren't even certain what that conduct
involves.
''I wasn't there,'' the pharmacist Cammack said.
''I don't know
what happened.''
''I never asked the doctor what he did,'' said
Susan Smith.
''That's his business.''
''If you know Gene, you know it doesn't
matter,'' said Patti
Filion.
Yet it does matter. In some ways, Port Angeles
has been cut
adrift from its moorings by the enigma of Turner's
conduct. Says
assistant pastor Smithson: ''It's hard for people
here, for me, to hold
both in our minds--Gene and what's happened. If Gene
did wrong,
he must face it. Still, Gene is one of the most
humble, easygoing,
saintly persons. The idea that a good person did
wrong is so
difficult. But did he do wrong? People are struggling
with their
feelings. They don't know how to feel.''
So the citizens of Port Angeles instead trade
reports of recent
Gene Turner sightings, as if they might yield an answer.
On the way to his lawyer's office one day,
Turner spent two
hours picking up litter on his clinic's portion of the
Adopt-A-Highway program. Another day, he called Jessica
Schreiber to offer his customary home garden
''walk-through'' as a
symphony fund-raiser. In early April, he and Norma
took two
disadvantaged 14-year-old boys to Maui as part of
their unofficial
''foster grandparent'' program. One Friday he spent
the night at a
Lutheran middle school sleep-in, then was found by
Pastor
Smithson at 7:30 the next morning, vacuuming the
church carpet.
These sightings, however telling, finally
provide answers no more
sure than those available in the worlds of law and
medicine. On the
day Jessica Schreiber brought her children to Turner
for routine
exams, she could see only that the man looked tired.
Events had
taken their toll; Gene had lost his exuberance.
''We don't know what happened,'' Schreiber said
one evening
soon after that visit. ''I wish Gene could talk. I
wish he could
explain.''
Copyright Los Angeles Times
---------------------------------
For those of you who read all the way to the end, I hope you found the
story as mesmerizing as I did.
Michael Sachs