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FULL TITLE: Jahi McMath, the teen declared brain dead by doctors in 2013, has died undergoing surgery in New Jersey after a five-year bitter legal fight by her mother who insisted medics were wrong and she was still alive A girl at the center of the medical and religious debate over brain death has died after surgery in New Jersey, her mother said Thursday. Nailah Winkfield said doctors declared her daughter Jahi McMath dead on June 22 from excessive bleeding and liver failure after an operation to treat an intestinal issue. McMath was declared dead in December 2013 when she...

Guilt or innocence. Damages, and if so, how much. And, in capital cases, even life or death. Juries across America are called on to make the most difficult of decisions. And soon, one in California likely will be tasked with deciding whether Jahi McMath, for whom a death certificate was issued several years ago, is alive. After all, she responds to questions by moving her hands and feet, and she answers her mother with a squeeze of her hand. The London Daily Mail reported a hearing is scheduled in court in California March 18, and a trial is expected to...

According to the State of California, JahiMcMath has been dead since December 9, 2013, when she went into cardiac arrest after catastrophic side effects from throat surgery. Oakland Children’s Hospital doctors insisted she was brain dead, that is, she had experienced total brain failure. Under California law, brain death is dead. When the doctors stated their intention to remove the life support from Jahi, her mother sued. A brouhaha ensued. A judge appointed an independent physician from Stanford to examine the girl, and he too found she was dead. The judge declared her dead and the state of California issued...

The mother of Jahi McMath, who three months ago was declared medically brain dead, said Thursday that her child has shown signs of life. McMath has shown a marketed spike in energy — moving in bed, turning her neck and bending at the waist while she continues to recover at an undisclosed facility, mom Nailah Winkfield said Thursday.

<p>Three weeks after Jahi McMath was taken out of Children's Hospital Oakland, a video claiming to show the girl's feet and toes responding to sensation has turned up on the Internet.</p> <p>The video, posted on the "Keep Jahi McMath on life support" Facebook page on Sunday, showed a person's hand rubbing ice gently across the feet of a girl said to be Jahi, the Oakland teen who developed complications after tonsil, nose and throat surgery for sleep apnea and was declared brain-dead.</p>

The lawyer for the family of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old who has been declared brain dead, said Wednesday that doctors successfully inserted a gastric tube and tracheotomy tube into the teenager at an as yet undisclosed facility. Jahi was transferred from Oakland Children’s Hospital January 5 after a protracted legal battle between the family and the hospital which declared Jahi brain dead December 12 and sought to remove her from a ventilator. The arraignment to move Jahi was reached during a hearing Friday before Alameda Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo under which Jahi’s mother, Nailah Winkfield, could remove her daughter...

A 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after suffering complications from sleep apnea surgery has been given the feeding and breathing tubes that her family had been trying to obtain for weeks. Christopher Dolan, the attorney for the girl's family, said doctors inserted the gastric tube and tracheostomy tube Wednesday at the undisclosed facility where Jahi McMath was taken Jan. 5. The procedure was a success, Dolan said, and Jahi is getting the treatment that her family believes she should have gotten 28 days ago, when doctors at Children's Hospital Oakland first declared her brain dead.

After a protracted legal battle, Children’s Hospital Oakland reached an agreement with Jahi Mcmath’s family to allow a medical team to enter the hospital to perform the procedures necessary to move her to a medical facility that will continue her care and treatment. Her mother and family say she is alive following a tonsillectomy gone awry that has left her in an incapacitated state since early December. The family in the case says the hospital has been starving Jahi for three weeks. The San Francisco Chronicle has more details: The agreement, described in the courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered that a 13-year-old Northern California girl declared brain dead after suffering complications following a tonsillectomy be taken off life support. But Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo gave Jahi McMath's family until 5 p.m. Dec. 30 to file an appeal. She will stay on life support until then. Grillo issued the order after a Stanford doctor testified that Jahi is brain dead. Dr. Paul Graham Fisher's evaluation was the second to reach that conclusion. Children's Hospital of Oakland, where Jahi is hospitalized, has asked that the girl be taken off...

<p>The agreement, described in the Oakland courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo, is the latest development in an unusual battle between the hospital and the girl's family, who has rejected declarations that Jahi is dead as a result of brain death.</p>

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday. Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something...

New Year's Day should be a time of fresh beginnings and forward motion. But for the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, the holiday season has been suspended in a cloud of unfathomable pain and suffering: A routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. A beautiful child declared "brain dead." Lawyers, TV cameras, tears. The McMaths are fighting for life. On Monday, they won a court order that prevents Children's Hospital of Oakland from pulling the plug on Jahi until Jan. 7. Her relatives have been attacked as "publicity hounds" for doing everything possible to raise awareness about the young girl's tragic case. They've...

The judge who is adjudicating the case of the family of the teenage girl in California who is the subject of a national debate over whether a hospital has the right to yank life support has granted an extension. A county judge extended the order for the hospital to keep Jahi McMath on life support until 5 p.m. on January 7. Her mother and family say she is alive. Jahi’s family has a door-to-door ambulance flight contracted to take her to a New York facility that will care for her. “The family has located a licensed facility in the state...

Children’s Hospital Oakland has a very good reputation where I live in the Bay Area. But its public communication around the tragedy of Jahi McMath’s ”brain death” has been astoundingly insensitive, bordering on arrogant. The hospital’s statements quoted in today’s San Francisco Chronicle continues the maladroit insensitivity. The hospital states it will remove the ventilator the moment that can be done legally. From the story: Children’s Hospital Oakland officials confirmed Sunday they will turn off the machines sustaining Jahi McMath’s body as soon as a legal injunction expires at 5 p.m. Monday unless otherwise ordered by a court. “Barring any...