All of 4 months old, Dinah Whited has spent half her life on a hospital ventilator.
Now a troubling irony looms as doctors talk of removing the little girl from life support. The final decision rests largely with her father, who police say is responsible for the abuse that put her there. Should she die, the child cruelty charges against Walton County resident Justin Lee Whited could escalate to murder.
Consequently, he has a “huge” conflict of interest, said Melinda Quinn, who’s been raising concerns about this to the fellow members of the child welfare advisory board in Walton County. “The child is in the control of the person who put her in the hospital. That can’t be.”
Dinah was only seven weeks old when Monroe police arrested her father and charged him with aggravated battery and child cruelty. He had told police that he woke up April 23 to find the child crying and called 911 after she began gasping, according to a police report and court papers obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Dinah was life-flighted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston where doctors found the child had bleeding on the brain and two broken collar bones. All but three of her ribs had been broken. While the bleeding on the brain was new, some injuries had been there for some time and were healing, according to a transcript of prosecutor’s statements obtained by the AJC.
“The doctors (said) this child had been abused pretty much every day of her life,” said prosecutor Cliff Howard during a June 8 bond hearing for the girl’s mother, Jamie Cason Whited.
The 24-year-old mother is charged with child cruelty. While Justin Lee Whited inflicted the abuse, his wife was charged with negligently failing to protect the child, authorities said.
Both parents have said they did not abuse the girl, Howard said. He noted that if Dinah is removed from the ventilator, she breathes once every three minutes.
“The doctors have recommended removing life sustaining measures at this point,” Howard said.
For two months, Dinah has remained in a kind of limbo at Egleston, even as a series of legal, ethical and medical questions swirl around her. Turns out, these are difficult issues with no easy answers and little legal precedent.
Should the state take custody of the little girl?
Should relatives take on the burden?
What is the role of the hospital?
Each of these scenarios entails assuming a huge responsibility over the child’s life, and challenges the law’s strong preference to leave such life-and-death decisions in the hands of a child’s parents, say legal experts.
Peering behind the scenes is difficult in this case due to the state’s confidentiality laws regarding medical records and the files of children who have been abused. The hospital declined to comment. Several attorneys representing the parents and various relatives also could not be reached for comment.
Quinn, for one, has questioned why DFCS has not taken custody of Dinah, since the agency does that for many children abused at the hands of their caregivers.
In a statement e-mailed to the AJC, DFCS declined to discuss the case specifically but said even when a child enters their custody, “parents retain the right to make life or death decisions when their child is in foster care.”
“Neither the Division’s authority as a child protection agency, nor the principles of social work, support taking custody of a child solely for the purpose of removing life support,” the agency said.
Tom Rawlings, an attorney and former head of the state Office of the Child Advocate, agreed with that legal interpretation.
Any further DFCS action would require a full termination of the father’s parental rights, he said. That is typically a difficult legal process that could last months.
In a case like this, the final decision may well land in the hands of a judge, said Alex Booth, an Atlanta attorney who specializes in medical malpractice.
“The statutes do not remove the court’s ability to step in and look after the best interests of the child,” he said.
There have been situations in which a hospital itself asks a court for guidance on removing life support from a child. Sometimes that is done through a state appointed legal advocate for the child, called a guardian ad litem, said Peggy Walker, a Douglas County juvenile court judge.
A court decision can provide some legal insurance, should the decision lead to a lawsuit.
“Nobody wants to be in that position, making those decisions,” Walker said. “The fallback is the legal system, where everybody gets their say and a judge makes a decision.”
Dinah’s mother, Jamie Cason Whited, and the girl’s maternal grandparents, have consented to the doctors removing the child from life support, according to Howard’s remarks in the transcript to the June 8 bond hearing.
Both the mother and father have drug problems, Howard added. Jamie Cason Whited was on probation at the time for possession of methamphetamine.
Dinah’s life expectancy is a year to two years, he said.
Jamie Cason Whited was represented at the bond hearing by Charles Barrow, who said that Dinah had been seen by numerous people during the two months of her life before going to the hospital, including a pediatrician who said the child was fine a week before the incident.
The parents of Jamie Cason Whited have filed a court petition with hopes of seeking custody of Dinah, as well as her older brother, he said. The boy is in the care of DFCS.
The judge denied bond to Jamie Cason Whited. Both she and Justin Lee Whited remain in jail.
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