The parents of a 13-year-old who was declared brain-dead and issued a death certificate last December are claiming their daughter still shows signs of life, and they’re looking to courts to reverse the determination of brain death.

Jahi McMath’s was declared brain-dead after suffering bleeding and cardiac arrest following a tonsillectomy performed at the University of California, San Francisco’s Benioff Children’s Hospital. At the time, the family filed a suit to keep her on the ventilator. Three separate tests confirmed that she showed zero cerebral activity.

Since then, the family has kept her on life support—first in Oakland, and later at a private medical center in New Jersey. McMath was in the 8th grade at the time of her surgery, and has since then received an honorary diploma from her school’s 8th grade graduation.

Last Thursday, the case resurfaced when the family’s lawyer showed video clips of McMath responding to outside stimuli. In the videos, McMath responds to her mother’s commands with hand movements and foot twitches. The images support the family’s belief that the girl is still alive.

Brain death is defined as the “loss of function of the entire cerebrum and brain stem,” from which “recovery does not occur.” This is different from a coma and a persistent vegetative state. According to Laurence McCullough, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, brain death is just a descriptive term for how death itself was determined. 

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Attorney Chris Dolan said doctors from the International Brain Research Foundation also found signs of brain functions in their tests. Philip DeFina, chief executive and chief scientific officer of the non-profit, says McMath exhibits a “consistency” in her responses to commands. There is also evidence of electrical activity and blood flow to the brain.

Arthur Caplan, the head of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, says other experts must verify this data before it can be fully trusted.

In January, McCullough said that he believed life support should have been discontinued immediately, and that the thinking behind keeping McMath on the support was “disordered” and “crazy.”

“You can’t really feed a corpse,” said Caplan, the Baylor professor.

Sam Singer, the former spokesperson for Benioff Children’s Hospital and current publicist for the “No on 46” campaign, says that the family’s attorney is merely bringing the case back up in the media in support for Prop. 46. This is a ballot measure that would increase the limit on verdicts from medical malpractice lawsuits. The “Yes on Prop. 46, Your Neighbors for Patient Safety, a Coalition of Consumer Attorney’s and Patient Safety Advocates” campaign has already received $25,000 from the McMath's attorney. Singer calls this “the cruelest publicity stunt of all time.”

 “This is no ruse…this is the truth,” said Dolan, the family’s attorney.

 The Oct. 9 hearing will be the family’s second time in court. This past winter, they sought an order to prevent the Benioff Children’s hospital from taking McMath off life support, and were allowed to remove McMath from the hospital.

This time, the petition is for Judge Evelio Grillo to determine that McMath is “not brain-dead.” This is the same judge who declared her dead last December.

The UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital’s lawyers say that the evidence still supports the case that McMath is legally dead.

Reach staff writer Jenny Di here.