(Photo:Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)

BEIJING, Jan.19 -- Massachusetts' highest court in the United States ruled Tuesday that an 11-year-old girl who allegedly was beaten with a baseball bat could be taken off life support.

    The move could lead to murder charges against her stepfather.

    State officials had asked that Haleigh Poutre's ventilator and feeding tube be withdrawn after doctors said she was in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

    Her stepfather, who is already charged with beating the girl, fought the move, but the Supreme Judicial Court ruled against him.

    No immediate date was set for the removal of life support, said Denise Monteiro, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services. Doctors have said Haleigh would die within a few days without the feeding tube.

    The child was hospitalized in September after she was allegedly kicked and beaten nearly to death.

    The girl's stepfather, Jason Strickland, asked the Supreme Judicial Court last month to block the state from taking her off life support, arguing that he was the girl's "de facto" parent.

    The adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, who was also Haleigh's aunt, was also charged in the beating and was found dead alongside her grandmother in a possible murder-suicide less than two weeks later

(Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)