Biskind trial full of grim details

For 12 days, jurors in the case of a doctor accused of manslaughter have had a crash course in the intimate details of a late-stage abortion gone bad.

They have heard graphic descriptions of how it was done, seen autopsy pictures of the dead woman's torn uterus and bloody buttocks. And they have listened to emotional testimony about the last three harrowing hours of her life in the recovery room of the now-closed A-Z Women's Center in Phoenix.

But what they will not hear may be just as powerful: evidence of the doctor's stained medical record, which includes the death of another patient, other botched abortions and the loss of his medical licenses in Arizona and Ohio. Superior Court Judge Michael Wilkinson banned that evidence, saying it would sway the jury in the current case.

Jurors also aren't likely to hear that the doctor, John Biskind, and his clinic administrator, Carol Stuart-Schadoff, refused to answer questions in a civil lawsuit filed against them and others by the family of the victim, LouAnne Herron, 33.

Biskind, 75, and Stuart-Schadoff, 63, are accused of manslaughter in Herron's April 17, 1998, death.

The prosecution, which is expected to rest its case today, contends that the mother of two bled to death after Biskind punched a 2-inch-long hole in her uterus with a surgical instrument during the abortion of her fetus, estimated to be between 23 and 26 weeks old.

The jurors have heard a parade of prosecution witnesses: medical assistants who testified that Herron was begging for help before she died; emergency crews who said they were called too late; and other doctors who testified that Biskind ignored the blood pooling under her body and other undeniable signs that she was dying.

The defense will begin its case this week. Jurors don't know whether they will hear from Biskind, the tall, dapper doctor who rocks gently in a high- backed office chair at the defense table, or from Stuart-Schadoff, the tiny counselor-turned-clinic administrator. Lawrence Kazan, Biskind's attorney, said late last week that he hadn't decided whether his client would take the stand. Cameron Morgan, Stuart-Schadoff's attorney, is mum about trial strategy.

Biskind's remarks, if he should testify, would be crucial to untangling the snarl of conflicting testimony.

Prosecutors say he left the clinic the day Herron died, even though medical assistants had told him she had been bleeding heavily and was not responding to efforts to rouse her. But Kazan says Biskind was told by medical assistants that her bleeding had stopped and she was ready to be discharged when he left about 4:05 p.m. Herron was found dead 21 minutes later by paramedics.

In court, Morgan has said Stuart-Schadoff was not responsible for Herron's care. But prosecutors say that, as clinic administrator, she failed to schedule a recovery room nurse the day Herron died, leaving her care to inexperienced medical assistants who were in over their heads. They also say that Stuart-Schadoff delayed calling 911 for several minutes. When paramedics arrived at 4:26 p.m. - three hours after Herron was taken to the recovery room - she was dead.

As difficult as it has been for the Herron family to view autopsy pictures and relive their daughter's death, it has also been trying for Jay Schadoff, Carol's husband.

A tall man with a fringe of gleaming white hair, Schadoff sits in the front row behind his wife, propping himself up in a corner to relieve the stress of the unforgiving wooden benches on his painful back.

Stuart-Schadoff also worries about the stress of the trial on her husband's heart condition.

"No question," Jay Schadoff said one day last week. "It's been rough."