The brutality of legal argumentation
I found this much. Unfortunately, it doesn't include Judge Rodenberg's decision, Calvin Johnson's argument on behalf of the parents, or the Brown County Attorney's two cents.
I'll keep looking, but at the present, sleep is a necessity. Anyone so inclined is welcome to beat me to the punch on this.
• • •
I should at least note my doubts about the good faith of Ebert's argument. He argues that the family faced "an unfair choice of two bad scenarios". Curiously, he describes holistic therapy as "believed to [be] effective by professionals in the medical field", while he is apparently unable to say the same of more conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. He also instructs the court to act as an appellate court in order to invoke a limited standard of review.
The Guardian ad Litem's argument is a remarkable document in itself. Rather than proposing the application of a different standard of consideration, the GAL simply quotes the law as it pertains to the court's considerations, reminds of the state's statutes regarding intervention, and asserts three counts justifying that intervention (where only one of fifteen standards must be met). And they're harsh charges: that Danial is without necessary care for his physical or mental health because the parents are unwilling to provide that care, that he is medically neglected (with which the court agreed), and that his "behavior, condition, or environment is such as to be injurious or dangerous to the child".
Where Ebert assailed the medical doctors' assessment of the conventional treatments for Stage IIB Hodgkin's Lymphoma, the GAL points out that even the Hauser's witnesses agreed with this.
The GAL also points out that "providing [Daniel] with vitamins, herbs, ionized water, and other dietary supplements" as treatment "fails as a matter of law", and even quotes that law.
Furthermore, the section considering the Hausers' religious assertions would be nearly entertaining were the stakes not so grim. It amounts to a dissection of the Hauser's rhetoric without ever questioning the validity of their beliefs. And the GAL cites precedent under Minnesota law in which parental religious objections have been deemed insufficient to forego treatment for a minor with a life-threatening but curable illness, and even quotes the United States Supreme Court: "The right to practice religion freely does not include the liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death".
And here's one more quote to knock your socks off: "The Fourteenth Amendment's protection allowing parents to choose how to raise their children does not, as matter of law or logic, extend to a parent's right to let their child die in the name of 'parental autonomy'."
Did I say dissection? I meant
evisceration. Point after point, the GAL drives home the problems with the Hausers' arguments; by comparison, either Daniel's attorney knew damn well they weren't gong to win, or else he needs to be hauled off on a malpractice claim. Where the GAL's argument, even written in fairly simple language, is heavy and consistent, Ebert's final argument was, by comparison, deathly anemic.
And one other thing, because at some point, the GAL's thrashing of attorney Ebert becomes somewhat tedious: Daniel is not simply "functionally illiterate". He is wholly and entirely illiterate: "He was not able to read the affidavit he supposedly affirmed, and his teacher stated he could not recognize the sight word 'the'."
That's right. The kid apparently can't read the word "the". The second half of page 16, and the first half of page 17 (pp. 18-19 of facsimile package) read like a nightmare.
This case is disastrous. The GAL threw
everything at the court, and if we look hard enough, I'm sure we'll find the broken remains of a kitchen sink. The later pages dealing specifically with Daniel's religious outlook are the kind of thing that leaves one holding their head in their hands and murmuring, "This isn't happening. This
isn't happening."
Oh, hey. I found the kitchen sink. It's on page 20, section III, C.
The disparity between the final arguments is very nearly shocking.
