Connecticut Supreme Court Decides Fate of 17-Year-Old Who Refused Chemo

Update: Read about how Cassandra wrote an op-ed piece about her situation.

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld a trial court’s decision and ruled that a 17-year-old girl known as Cassandra C. would remain in state custody and continue to go through mandated chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma against her wishes.

Typically the court can take months or longer to hear a case, but time is of the essence.

Lawyers for Cassandra, Cassandra’s mother and the Department of Children and families spent more than an hour with state Supreme Court justices.

Cassandra was diagnosed with the disease in September. Doctors believe she will have about an 85 percent chance of surviving if she undergoes chemotherapy. She would almost certainly die without chemotherapy.

Cassandra C. didn’t want to go through the process and her mother supported the decision, according to court documents.

A trial court granted the Department of Children and Families temporary custody so she could go through the treatment, according to court documents.

The hearing touched on a number of legal points, including the right to bodily integrity and maturity.

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Cassandra’s mother’s attorney Michael Taylor said that it wasn’t clear at a December hearing whether a judge was talking about competency or maturity. Maturity is a broader topic than competency.

Justices ruled that Cassandra wasn’t mature under any standard and noted she ran away in the middle of treatment, something that could be more harmful than even postponing treatment.

Taylor asked the court to send the matter back down to a lower court so another hearing could be held, one that would likely include broader testimony from psychologists and adults who could speak to Cassandra’s maturity.

Taylor and Cassandra’s lawyer, Joshua Mitchtom, argued for use of the mature minor doctrine, which allows minors to make major life decisions. The law is on the books in 17 other states, but not Connecticut, according to the Hartford Courant.

Those laws are more focused on children who want to consent to treatment against their parents’ wishes. In this case, Cassandra and her mother held the same opinion.

John E. Tucker, assistant attorney general, who represented DCF noted that Cassandra wasn’t willing to start treatment in order to save her life, but was willing to start so that she could return home to her mother.

“I don’t understand the thought process here, this child isn’t making rational decisions,” he said.

He also noted that the chemotherapy would be completed before Cassandra turned 18 years old.

Tucker, speaking from another somewhat similar case, noted that intelligence doesn’t automatically equal maturity. A person with deficits of judgement and is under age wouldn’t be considered mature.

He also noted that Cassandra’s mother said her daughter could potentially be willing to do chemotherapy down the road, but that for now she didn’t feel sick and didn’t want to undergo the treatment. He said that kind of logic represented ”magical” thinking and was proof that she wasn’t mature enough to make such a drastic decision.

One of the justices noted that the state legislature has created a number of statutes that limit a person’s decision under the age of 18, such as getting a tattoo.

Speaking more to procedure, he said that Cassandra and her mother already had a chance in another hearing to present as many witnesses as they wanted that could speak to maturity.

Taylor argued that the right to bodily integrity still applies to children. He said most courts have treated the topic as a common law situation.

Michtom argued that a previous hearing only focused on medical evidence and not evidence of maturity.

“The point of the right is to refuse even the care you need,” he said.

Mitchtom said during a press conference that there could be more hearings on the way, according to Fox CT.

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