Some Might Say Doctor’s Only Crime Was His Compassion

If not resolution, at least insight came last week to the tortured Dr. Eugene Turner affair in Port Angeles, Wash. In the Clallam County Superior Court, the prosecuting attorney from neighboring Snohomish County--appointed special prosecutor for this case--rose to say the obvious: that Gene Turner’s “wrongful action” wasn’t “the result of any evil and/or malicious motivation.” A “trier of fact,” he believed, wouldn’t find Turner “guilty of any criminal act.”

Left unsaid was just why this matter ever landed in the criminal justice system.

It’s been a full year now since Turner, 63--for three decades a much-beloved Port Angeles pediatrician--pinched 3-day-old Conor McInnerney’s nose, covered his mouth and stopped his faint gasping breath. That moment arrived after four hours of resuscitation efforts failed to restore respiration and heartbeat to a newborn who’d been rushed through a snowstorm to Olympic Memorial Hospital’s emergency room. Conor, who’d ceased breathing at home while breast-feeding, had been without pulse for 40 minutes before the ER staff used drugs to get his heart beating.

They never could get him breathing on his own. Turner labored over Conor for nearly an hour before telling his parents the situation was dismal. The McInnerneys agreed to cease advanced life support measures. Thirty minutes after Turner pronounced Conor dead and went home, a nurse heard shallow sporadic sighs from the baby. These were most certainly the agonal respirations common to the dying process, but still Turner rushed back to the hospital. He worked on Conor for another hour before saying: “I can’t make the parents go through this again. . . . I can’t have this go on anymore.”

In the months since that night, Port Angeles--struggling over what to make of Turner’s conduct--fractured into opposing camps. Outrage that “this doctor smothered the life out of a baby” collided with claims that Turner “knew there was absolutely no chance for that baby.” Yet there was perplexity too: Don’t treat this as a criminal act--that’s what Turner’s many supporters cried loudest. Don’t make gray issues into black-and-white ones. Don’t shred a good person over something so incalculable.

That, as it happens, is just what Clallam County prosecuting attorney David Bruneau chose to do. Bruneau didn’t hesitate to ask the criminal justice system to judge Turner--”If not the law, then who?”--even though Conor’s death offered a consummate portrait of ambiguity. Nor did Bruneau hesitate to involve himself in this decision--even though Turner’s wife, Norma, had managed the campaign of his opponent during the previous election. After nine months of interviewing doctors and mulling options, Bruneau in September filed second-degree murder charges against Turner.

The prosecutor’s decision likely cost him the job he’d held for 16 years: In November, after a campaign in which the Turner case was a pivotal issue, Bruneau’s opponent trounced him, winning 61% of the vote.

Here’s where everything changed course. The newly elected prosecutor, Chris Shea--supported in his campaign by the Turners--wanted someone else to review the murder case. So did Turner’s lawyers. Since just about everyone in Clallam County knew Turner, the matter ended up before Judge Michael Rickert of Skagit County, who sent the file to Snohomish County prosecutor Jim Krider, who on Dec. 10 handed it to his deputy, Jim Townsend.

In this fashion, what to make of Turner’s conduct once more became an object of anguish and debate. This time, however, it involved a small team of lawyers who could at least claim geographic distance from the dispute.

Doctors’ Views of Boy’s Death Vary

Townsend knew little about the case, only what he’d watched on TV. After reading through the thick file, he began talking to doctors--lots of doctors. He found, not surprisingly, a divergence of opinion, even among highly qualified experts.

One doctor declared that Turner “caused the death of Conor.” Another doctor called Turner’s conduct “shocking.” A third thought Turner’s efforts “nothing short of an heroic resuscitation.” A fourth believed “Turner’s actions did not cause Conor’s death.”

The gist of the comments from those who supported Turner: Conor wasn’t technically brain dead when he reached the hospital ER, but was already doomed. Turner clearly considered him functionally brain dead, an entirely reasonable medical conclusion. If anything, Turner labored too long over a hopeless case. The agonal gasps were exceedingly common, signaling nothing but lower brain stem function.

Consider the context, these doctors urged: A small remote community hospital, an isolating snowstorm, a revered yet medically limited family pediatrician, a family who has already bid goodbye to their dead son.

“At the time Dr. Turner occluded Conor’s nose and mouth,” said Dr. Kenneth Feldman, a Seattle pediatrician and child trauma expert, “he was certainly already a dead infant. . . . This reasonably is a matter of judgment being overruled by compassionate intent . . . not one of criminality.”

Through much of January, Townsend and half a dozen other lawyers in the Snohomish County prosecutor’s office listened and pondered. They asked themselves whether they had a case they could win before a jury. They asked themselves also whether this matter really belonged in the criminal justice system. They tried--but sometimes failed--to eliminate emotion from the equation.

For them, it came down to just how big a mistake Turner had made. Was it an unreasonable error to diagnose brain death when there was minimal lower brain stem activity? If it wasn’t, how do you charge second-degree murder? How, finally, do you charge anything?

You can’t, the prosecutors decided.

Turner’s action was wrongful, yet he hadn’t intended to kill Conor--and didn’t think he was killing Conor. There’d been no “gross deviation from a reasonable standard of care,” which was needed for even a second-degree manslaughter conviction. There was no chance of winning before a jury. It therefore made no sense to further tear apart Port Angeles.

Krider made the final call on Saturday, Jan. 30: They would file a motion to dismiss the charges against Turner.

The doctor’s many supporters, having heard rumors of what might be up, packed the Clallam County courthouse the next Monday morning. First came Townsend’s motion: “The interest of justice would be served by the defendant’s conduct being further examined in a medical ethics context and not by further action of the criminal justice system.” Then came a burst of cheers and applause from the spectators, and tears from Turner. Finally came Rickert’s ruling: He would grant the prosecutor’s motion to dismiss because, “I believe what the attorneys here have said is the appropriate resolution.”

Outside the courtroom, well-wishers filed past Turner, hugging him, shaking his hand and offering everything from best wishes to flowers and candy. Two days later, Olympic Memorial Hospital invited him to resume practicing there--a privilege he’d voluntarily relinquished. That night, he heard his favorite hymns sung at a packed thanksgiving service held in his honor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

His travails aren’t over, however. Turner still faces charges of unprofessional conduct at a May hearing before the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission, which could limit, suspend or revoke his license. He also faces a possible civil negligence suit from Conor McInnerney’s parents, who, according to their attorney, “believe that justice requires that they file a civil action in order to make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen again.”

Such a recurrence, of course, is not likely. The next time Turner stands over a dying infant, listening to its final tortured gasps, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll do anything but turn his back--and walk out of the room.