When a Judge Is Forced to Play God

In a better world, no judge would have to pass judgment on a person who can’t talk, feel, move or breathe on his own. No judge would have to decide whether a 14-month-old child, whose most constant companion has been a ventilator, should live or die.

But this is the world we’ve got, and because it is, Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard E. Behn has an unpleasant duty ahead of him. The judge has said he’ll decide next week whether to take baby Christopher off the life-support that has kept him alive for the last 10 1/2 months.

To say baby Christopher won’t have a say in the matter is to state the obvious. But why not his parents, you ask.

Are you referring to the father now in County Jail facing charges for allegedly shaking the boy so violently that he irreparably damaged his brain?

Or his mother, who before the final act apparently had fretted about the father’s rough treatment of the boy but hadn’t alerted authorities?

In a perverse twist on a parenting dispute, the two have differing thoughts on its outcome: the mother wants the boy taken off life-support; the father wants the boy to be kept alive in the hope a medical miracle can someday improve his condition.

I don’t see any Solomonic option for the judge. The boy will live or die, according to his dictate.

Three doctors testified last week that the boy won’t recover from his condition and recommended he be removed from life-support.

From the comfortable distance of those of us who don’t have to decide it, the judge’s course seems clear. He should remove the boy from life-support and spare him -- and society -- whatever personal or financial cost would come from living on a machine.

I wouldn’t want to do it.

Who wants on their conscience that they were the ones to end a 14-month-old child’s life?

It’s not like Behn would have the comfort, say, of a doctor who knew he or she had done everything to save the child.

No, Behn enters at the end game.

You could argue that the safe choice would be to let Christopher live, even if artificially.

It would take the burden off the judge about ending an innocent child’s life and lets other people -- those in charge of long-term care -- to worry about expenses or the boy’s “quality of life.”

That’s what Behn could do, and while I’m guessing most of us instinctively know it would be the wrong decision, I wouldn’t be leading any effort to criticize him. If a judge is asked to play God in a case and opts for life, who among us should blame him?

I don’t know Judge Behn or his personal beliefs. I don’t know if he’s guided in this case by anything other than how he defines the boy’s welfare. Or how he defines life. It’s also unclear whether a judge pulling the plug on a brain-injured infant would affect the severity of the legal charges facing the father, which now is felony child abuse. If the boy dies on his own, authorities could pursue murder charges.

I’m not trying to fudge things. If I were the judge, I’d remove the boy from life-support. That isn’t the same as wanting to do it.

Harold LaFlamme, whose law firm is representing the boy, says, “It’s one of those things where you want to do the right thing for the boy. It’s a real hard thing to sort out, obviously, under these circumstances. If it was your own child, what would I do, that’s been the posture we’ve taken.”

Beyond that, LaFlamme won’t say what he thinks the judge should do.

I don’t blame him.

As for the judge, my sympathies. I’ll bet no one in law school ever told him there’d be days like this.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons at (714) 966-7821 or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626 or at dana.

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