I thought I was finished writing about Judy's trial and the circumstances that led to it, but Jon wrote some excellent comments in response to a discussion at allnurses.com, and they're worth repeating here. (Following the link will take you to the page where Jon's comments are; from there you can see the whole thread if you'd like.)
To the EMT who would get children out of the parents' custody because they don't agree with his advice: That is completely horrible, and unacceptable for any case but perhaps some sort of huge abuse problem. Perhaps you haven't seen what sort of issues there are once the state steps in to take care of the children. Way worse than 99% of the parents that are out there.
The EMT's comment is worth quoting here. Let those who take our basic liberties for granted observe both his attitude and the fact that he said it's "very easy" to have a baby declared in need of protective custody, at least for long enough to strong-arm the parents into obedience.
Actually we can force the mother to go to the hospital, it's kind of a trick but unless there is a religious reason for the baby not to go, we say that the parent's action[s] are placing the child at risk of injury and have the police put the baby in protective custody (very easy to do) and transport the baby, but they're attached so mom has to go.
Back to Jon. Some people suggested that 911 should have been called earlier, that having EMTs there sooner would have made a difference in the outcome.
We do have a phone. In my mind, once a baby is partially out of the mother, there isn't much that an EMT is going to be able to do, so not worth calling. (Now that I've seen what experience the EMTs have with babies (out of the 6 EMTs and physician that showed up, one had seen a baby delivered before, the rest testified that they had never seen a baby that small—10 pounds—or young before. They had no experience with umbilical cords, and depended on the midwife to properly handle that. They had no experience with infant CPR, and one testified that our midwife was doing things incorrectly, but upon further research into infant CPR (I never had infant CPR certification myself, just adult and child) [I] saw that Judy was doing exactly the right thing, and the EMT was referring to child CPR, which doesn't apply to a 10 minute old baby.
As for legality of things, I refer you to the Diane Goslin case last year, where it was clearly stated that PA law does not treat midwifery as the practice of medicine. So, the only thing left was to charge our midwife with the practice of midwifery without a certificate, which for some strange reason, PA requires a certificate, but doesn't have any means of getting a certificate. Many midwives practice openly in this state, sign birth certificate, do the blood tests, apply for social security cards, etc. and the state accepts them. As far as I can tell, it is legal in PA to be a non-nurse midwife. Hopefully this case will urge the legislators to fix the law where they have created a law that is not possible to live by, and the hundred or so non-nurse midwives currently in the state should have some way of following that law.
"The Daleys have used both a certified nurse and unlicensed midwives. Mr. Daley said he is more comfortable with the latter because they are less 'medical' and don't overcompensate for risks in fear of legal liability."
Hopefully that statement came out right—it was given over the phone to one of the newspapers—he didn't write everything I said, and you can probably twist those words to mean things that I didn't mean. I think it is crazy that some doctors think that there "aren't any risks in childbirth if you are in a hospital," and I think that is precisely the reason that there are so many lawsuits—they set themselves up to be perfect, and say that every other case was negligent, etc. In our case, 78 other babies died that year in the county, in hospitals, and none of those deaths resulted in the county pressing charges. I don't know whether the parents pressed civil charges in any of those deaths—they didn't make the news if they did.
One point that someone brought up is that even with a judge who (given his closing remarks) was quite against midwifery, and the actions of this particular midwife, but still could not find her guilty of anything [deserving a penalty of] more than $100 (though presumably he tried as hard as he could) shows that there really isn't a problem with midwifery in Pennsylvania.
As for other facts of the case, you might be interested in our version of the story, most of which did not get published elsewhere, even if it did get mentioned in the various hearings. I was fairly unprepared for the prosecution to not be interested in facts and the truth, but rather just winning the case. I expected the county to want to find out what happened, and have that judged, rather than twisting my words, (even trying to get me to not be able to testify), and coming to our house to yell at us unless we agreed to change our story. Very bizarre.
Link to Isaac's story (You can click on the "page" links at the bottom of the page if you want to start at the beginning; otherwise, you'll be reading in reverse chronological order.)
Lastly, [to] those people who said that our midwife should have left a laboring mother, or call 911 "to cover her behind", seems kind of strange to me. I wouldn't expect any health care provider to stop providing care, unless it was a danger to themselves (i.e. fallen power line, avalanche, etc). Judy (presumably) knew that she didn't have to worry about being sued by us, and so was able to make medical decisions and not legal decisions. Too many medical professionals are making legal decisions rather than medical decisions. I don't blame them, since Americans like to sue people, and I don't know what the answer is, other than never using those professionals, and seeking out people (like the doctors and midwives that we do use) who agree, at least partially, with that statement.
It comes down to an issue of responsibility. I think it is crazy that the government thinks that they should prosecute someone who was acting on the wishes of their client. I think it makes far more sense for the government to prosecute us—and if we had older children I would have been concerned for their safety, since the government can easily take away our kids any time they feel like it, and like the EMT commenting above, lots of people seem to think that is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with issues.
I was told early on that the state would not come after us, because then it would look bad, and they would definitely lose the case. The media coverage was particularly poor early on, and contained numerous factual errors, and so even our neighbors assumed that we were pressing charges. Pretty much everyone I have talked to has been very surprised to hear that our government is pressing charges on our behalf, without our consent. One humorous point in the trial was when the judge corrected the prosecution when she said that Judy wasn't a certified midwife—that one of "her" witnesses had testified that she was. Apparently, the prosecution is allowed to argue against the defense witnesses, but not her own. Thus, she had to reluctantly accept what my wife said, but then changed her mind about calling me, since that would result in me being "her" witness, and she knew that wouldn't work, given that only three people witnesses what happened that day, and all three are against the prosecution.
I think if the medical examiner hadn't hated midwives so much, we would have had a much fairer trial, and this would have been over a long time ago. He believes that all midwives, (CNMs or otherwise) have no place in childbirth, except maybe in a jungle in Brazil, and should be prosecuted on that basis alone (that we were in Pittsburgh).
I found it humorous that one of the prosecution's detectives recommended to the district attorney that the charges be dropped, that they weren't going to be able to win. He had the luxury of coming into the case later on, so wouldn't lose "face" by dropping the charges. The original detective and prosecutioner would have to admit they had wasted tens of thousands of dollars if they dropped the charges so late.
Hopefully, people in Pittsburgh and Allegheny county will realize what a waste this was, and can figure out how to stop the county from pursuing frivolous charges against people who don't want to be "protected" by the state.
From a subsequent post by Jon:
Oh, I forgot to say, (in response to [someone's comment about the Amish) that I don't know if you think we are Amish (we aren't, though I do see some positives in the lifestyle they lead).
And the media often asks us if we made decisions about a midwife based on religious beliefs (I gather that makes for a more sensational story in the media). I sort of find that question odd. We don't go to a church that believes in home births or anti-doctors or something like that—though there are some who see the legal/medical quandary we (the United States) have gotten ourselves into, and so agree on some level.
But, as best as I can tell, all decisions a person makes are based on their religious or philosophical beliefs. A person's world view has to affect how they see the world and what decisions they make. So, every decision I make (where to work, live and even whether to post on this forum) are all "religious" decisions.
[The] reason I am posting here is so that folks get the true story—when I testified in the trial, I affirmed to tell the whole truth, but the prosecution made it impossible for me to do so, and so the judge and the media did not hear what actually happened. And I suspect the defense attorney knew that things were going to be dropped, and so didn't find it worthwhile to correct certain points.
Here Jon provided a link to his comment here, on The Trial, Part II, for examples of how it was impossible to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" at the trial. [Jon has my complete sympathy. I don't know how I would manage in such a situation; I get frustrated merely trying to answer surveys that claim to want my opinion but accept only multiple-choice answers that often don't come close to the truth.] I've excerpted his comment here.
Hence the vital importance of a free press. Kudos to Jon for making the effort to tell the truth on allnurses.com, and to that forum for publishing his remarks.The questioning was pretty rough. The prosecution made up a number of stories, saying, "Isn't it true that you..." or "Do you remember testifying previously..." and the ends of the sentences were really random stuff. In retrospect, I think the prosecution's goal was to try to get us irritated, which she succeeded with me, and didn't with Judi [not Judy, who was on trial, but a different midwife, who testified for the defense]. I don't know if her stories were also intended to try to convince the judge that they actually happened even though I said they didn't.
Maybe prosecutors need to take an oath of telling the whole truth as well as the witnesses.
I can't remember most of what was asked of me now; I do remember one question of Judi: Do you use pitocin? No. What if I told you that I had talked to some people who said that you did use pitocin? Uhh... I've never used it. Okay, my next question is....
I am not sure if that was supposed to try to make Judi nervous that Lisa [the prosecutor] had actually talked to someone. It seems like a silly thing to bluff on.
Lisa said that when I called her after being told I would be arrested if I didn't talk to her that I said Lee [the defense attorney] was my lawyer, and when she said he wasn't, I insisted that he was. I wish I recorded more of my phone conversations, because that is a complete fabrication. I said that I had talked to Lee, and he had said she couldn't serve me a subpoena to show up at her office. She asked if I had legal counsel, and I said that I had the one friend that we talked to sometimes, but no, we didn't have anyone officially representing us.
I am not sure how she could have possibly heard that as "Lee is my lawyer."She also asked whether Judy had told me that Isaac could die during a breech birth, and whether she had told me that my wife could die of hemorrhaging, and if I actually cared about my children or not. I guess in writing you miss out on the facial expressions and tone of voice. It was quite entertaining.
She also accused me of not answering her questions, but then when I tried to answer them, by asking clarifying questions, she would say, "YES or NO, Mr. Daley."
One line of questioning went like this:
Q. Do you remember Judy telling you that everything would be okay?
A. No.
Q. Do you remember testifying at the open inquest?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember saying at that point that Judy said everything would be okay?
A. No.Q. Here is your testimony, read from here to here.
Q. Now do you remember testifying that Judy said everything would be okay?
A. No.
Q. WHAT?!?!?! So, you are now testifying today that what you testified previously was incorrect?
A. No.
Q. It says right here: "She said that Lucille said that everything would be okay." Now do you remember?
A. No.
Q. WHATHAHATATA??!?!?!?!
A. I said that Lucille said that, not Judy.
Quite frustrating,Similar line of questioning regarding whether Judy had done any vaginal exams. Again, back and forth, until she accused me of lying, and changing my testimony. (My current testimony is that I don't remember if she did or not.) What Lisa quoted me as saying 5.5 years ago is: "There was a, probably, I think, when she got there, she did a vaginal exam to see in terms of dilation, whatever. I wasn't particularly interested in that part of it, so I wasn't paying attention." And she somehow took that to mean that I was sure then, and had changed my mind now.
While questioning me about whether I thought we should have transported or not, I said that I didn't think it was a good idea to transport a mom with a baby half hanging out of her. (It seems medical folks are split about 50-50 on that decision—some people say you can always transport, other people say you shouldn't.) Lisa's follow-up question was: And what medical institution did you get your medical degree at?
I guess her idea is that you can't have any opinions about your own medical care.
