BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Judges with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sharply questioned the attorney of a woman who sued after her infant daughter was given a spinal tap against her wishes.

    The three-judge panel was in Boise on Tuesday morning to hear an appeal from former Boise residents Eric and Corissa Mueller, who said their rights were violated when their daughter, Taige, was taken from their custody and given a spinal tap and antibiotics because doctors feared she might have a potentially deadly brain infection. Corissa Mueller believed the child likely had a cold — the whole family had been sick a few days earlier — and she objected to the spinal tap because she was worried that Taige could suffer from one of the rare complications of the procedure.

    During the Tuesday hearing, Senior Judge Stephen Trott peppered the Mueller’s attorney with questions about whether it was fair to second-guess the decisions made by the doctor, a police detective and other officials a decade ago.

    “It’s really easy for us, especially in a courtroom years later, to talk about these things. But when you look at this in an emergency room at one in the morning, and you have a detective confronted by a doctor and an upset woman,” things get more complicated, Trott told attorney Michael Rosman.

    The case began in 2002, when Taige, who was just 5 weeks old, began running a slight fever. Her parents called their naturopathic physician for advice, and the physician advised them that the baby probably just had a cold but because it was after hours and the physicians’ office was closed, they could take the infant to the local emergency room for evaluation to be safe.

    Eric Mueller stayed home with their other children, while Corissa Mueller brought Taige to St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise.

    During the trial in 2007, Corissa Mueller testified that she knew the emergency room doctor might suggest a procedure called a spinal tap — a procedure in which a physician inserts a needle into the spine to draw out cerebrospinal fluid for testing. Spinal taps are done to check for a treatable but serious infection called meningitis, which can rapidly turn deadly in babies.

    Mueller had done some research, though, and believed the chance that her baby had meningitis was extremely slight. She also knew that spinal taps could have complications — although rare — that included severe headaches and even paralysis.

    Taige’s fever climbed on the way to the hospital, and was just under 101 degrees when they arrived at St. Luke’s.

    When emergency room Dr. Richard MacDonald asked to perform a battery of tests and treatments, Mueller approved some and refused others. She gave an OK to blood and urine tests and intravenous fluids. She refused the spinal tap and a preventative dose of full-spectrum antibiotics.

    But MacDonald believed Taige’s risk of potentially deadly meningitis was around 5 percent — high enough that he feared that delaying antibotics and a diagnostic spinal tap would put her life at risk. He called a pediatrician for a second opinion, and that doctor reached the same conclusion.

    Police were called, and Detective Dale Rogers decided that Taige was in imminent danger and should be placed in temporary state custody. Mueller testified that for a time, police barred her from calling another doctor or her husband, threatening her with handcuffs and jail. She said they also refused to let her be in the room with her baby while the spinal tap was performed.

    When all the tests were done, the diagnosis was what the mom had suspected: Little Taige had a virus, possibly the same cold the rest of the family had come down with.

    Taige wasn’t harmed by the spinal tap, nor did the test find any indication of a potentially fatal infection.

    Two years after that nerve-wracking night, the Muellers sued in federal court. Initial rulings by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill seemed favorable: The judge said that when a child is faced with a potentially risky medical procedure, it’s the parents, not the state, who get to make the call.

    But the jury trial in 2007 had a different outcome. The jurors found that the Mueller’s rights weren’t violated, and that the doctor and others weren’t liable for interfering with the mother’s custodial relationship with her daughter.

    The Muellers appealed the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court, asking the appellate judges to send the case back to a new trial or find that the lower court judge had enough evidence that he could have ruled in the Mueller’s favor even before the trial began.

    During oral arguments, Rosman told the appellate panel that the expert witness used by the defense during the trial didn’t demonstrate any accepted methodology when he backed up MacDonald’s opinion that the child was at risk of meningitis.

    But Judge Trott questioned why Rosman thought the doctor’s years of emergency room work and professional instinct wouldn’t be evidence enough for anyone. He also pointed out that everyone involved was concerned about the child, or else Mueller wouldn’t have taken her to the hospital in the first place.

    “The homeopathic physician was concerned that this might be a bacterial infection,” Trott noted. “The mother was concerned about the same thing, Eric Mueller was concerned about the same thing, Dr. Womack (the pediatrician) was concerned about the same thing, Detective Rogers was concerned about the same thing.”

    Rosman also said the trial was prejudiced because jurors weren’t told that they should presume the parents were acting reasonably when they refused medical care, as established in other legal cases.

    Judge Wallace said the case was “very difficult” and that the panel would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling as soon as possible.