Worcester father’s defense lined up for murder case
Lawyer served Poutre stepdad
WORCESTER - The man accused of beating his 7-year-old son into a fatal coma will be arraigned on a murder charge today, according to District Attorney Joseph D. Early’s office, and is being defended by the lawyer who represented the stepfather in the Haleigh Poutre case.
Leslie G. Schuler was arraigned last week on assault and battery charges after an assault that police say left Nathaniel Turner hospitalized on a ventilator. The boy was declared clinically dead last Tuesday and removed from the machine over the weekend.
Schuler’s arraignment on the murder charge is scheduled for 2 p.m. in Worcester’s Central District Court. The murder charge comes as Springfield lawyer Alan J. Black was named to take over Schuler’s defense, according to Worcester defense lawyer Christopher Tully, who was appointed Schuler’s lawyer for last week’s arraignment.
Black represented a neglectful stepfather in the high-profile Poutre case in 2005. In that case, Black defended Jason Strickland, the stepfather of 11-year-old Haleigh, a foster child from Westfield.
Strickland was convicted of doing nothing to stop his wife, the girl’s aunt and foster mother, from beating her into a coma. Haleigh has since regained consciousness and is being treated for brain injuries. Strickland was sentenced in December to 12 to 15 years in prison.
“Schuler asked for a court-appointed lawyer, and (Mr. Black) is on a specific list for these types of cases,’’ Tully said. Black did not return calls for comment.
Haleigh’s case drew national attention when the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that she should be taken off of life support, just as she started breathing on her own.
The state Department of Social Services had advocated removing her from life support after she was diagnosed as being in an irreversible vegetative state.
Though comparisons have been made between the Turner and Poutre cases, noted Marylou Sudders, president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty (MSPCC) to Children, the tragedies are profoundly different.
Though both children allegedly suffered abuse at the hands of known adults, Haleigh was never declared clinically dead, as Nathaniel was.
Police said Schuler took Nathaniel to the emergency room on June 21, Father’s Day. The boy was unconscious, and two days later doctors declared him clinically dead, meaning that he no longer had brain function.
He remained on a ventilator and blood pressure medication until Saturday, and his organs were harvested for transplantation.
“Haleigh was in a vegetative state and had suffered severe brain injuries,’’ Sudders said last week. “She was never declared clinically dead by a physician. Being clinically dead means there’s no brain function, and organs are shutting down.’’
After the Poutre case, the MSPCC and other child advocates pushed for tougher child welfare laws and supported a law that required two physicians to independently diagnose a child as clinically dead.
Nathaniel was evaluated by doctors from the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center’s University Campus in Worcester and Children’s Hospital in Boston. 