Defense Rests in Trial of Driver in Death of Jehovah’s Witness

A Superior Court judge in Pomona told jurors that they should expect to begin deliberating prickly issues of medicine, religion and the law Monday in the death of a Jehovah’s Witness who refused blood transfusions after being hit by a drunk driver and died.

The defense in the murder case rested its case abruptly Thursday as Judge Reginald Yates refused to allow testimony from a statistician who calculated that defendant Keith Cook’s chances of driving drunk and hitting a Jehovah’s Witness at 1 in 52 million.

“It’s completely irrelevant. It’s completely misleading. And it’s completely prejudicial,” the judge said.

After a week of trial, the central issue remains: Who bears responsibility for the death of Jadine Russell, a devout Jehovah’s Witness and 55-year-old mother of five?

Is it Cook, who was on probation for a previous drunk driving conviction when he again drove drunk and hit a stopped car that pinned Russell against a fence, fractured her ribs and ruptured her spleen?

Or does Russell bear some responsibility for her own death after refusing blood transfusions that might have saved her because her religion forbids the “consumption” of blood?

Because of his prior drunk driving conviction, Cook is charged with second-degree murder in Russell’s death.

His trial has received national attention because of the defense’s unique attempt to use his victim’s religious aversion to transfusion to acquit Cook of the murder charge. His lawyers hope the 32-year-old auto mechanic will be convicted, at most, of felony drunk driving and causing an accident with injuries.

The difference: A four-year prison sentence rather than 15 years to life behind bars.

Dr. James Keany, an emergency room physician at Mission Hospital, testified Thursday that Russell’s injuries were survivable. He added that he would have been surprised if someone in her condition died after receiving blood transfusions. “Typically, they don’t die,” he said.

“They die from the results of the injury, exsanguination,” he said under questioning by co-defense attorney Laura Johnson.

“In layman’s terms?” she asked.

“They bleed to death.”

To treat the injury, “you give them blood?” Johnson asked.

“It would be considered below the standard of care not to give them blood,” he said.

Keany described what he called “the golden hour”--the key first hour in trauma cases that can increase the chances of recovery. Russell, he said, received the best care available anywhere. Still, he acknowledged under cross-examination, Russell did not reach the operating room until 90 minutes after the March 7 crash.

Keany and an accident reconstruction expert were the only two defense witnesses to testify. Lead defense attorney Charles Unger said he decided to streamline his case because much of the evidence he had hoped to elicit already had come from the prosecution’s witnesses.

A medical expert for the prosecution, Dr. Jordan Goodstein, testified earlier that Russell stood a 70% to 80% chance of surviving her injuries--an estimate Keany did not dispute but called conservative. Trauma surgeon Dr. Ross Bremner also testified as a prosecution witness that Russell probably would have survived if she had received a transfusion.

None of the medical experts would state with certainty that the transfusion would have saved Russell, however.

“I would never give a 100% guarantee,” Keany said. “No doctor would.”

Goodstein, testifying for the prosecution, took matters a step further. He said earlier this week that it was ridiculous to conclude that Russell’s refusal to be transfused solely caused her death.

What little law can be found on the books seems to support that position.

There are no previous cases in California addressing criminal responsibility for the death of a person who refuses a medical treatment for religious reasons. But a case involving a similar set of circumstances surfaced recently in Louisiana, said Laurie Levenson, an associate dean at Loyola Law School.

In October, a Louisiana appeals court upheld the vehicular manslaughter conviction of Rodney Wayne Baker, a drunk driver involved in a fatal accident with a Jehovah’s Witness who refused a blood transfusion.

The victim, Velma Cubie, suffered injuries that included fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, and fractures of her pelvis and both legs. She died two days later.

The appellate court found that “regardless of whether a blood transfusion could have saved Cubie’s life, the car accident was a proximate cause of her death.”

In the Pomona case, prosecutor Larry Larson and defense attorney Unger will deliver their closing arguments to the jury Monday, after which jurors will be instructed on the law and sent to the jury room to begin deliberations.