Posted on 08/26/2007 11:12:24 AM PDT by wagglebee
(CNN) -- A New Orleans grand jury that declined to indict a doctor on charges that she murdered patients in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina never heard testimony from five medical experts brought in by the state to analyze the deaths.
All five concluded that as many as nine patients were victims of homicide.
In detailed, written statements, the five specialists -- whose expertise includes forensic medicine, medical ethics and palliative care -- determined that patients at Memorial Medical Center had been deliberately killed with overdoses of drugs after Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005.
The grand jury had been asked to consider second-degree murder charges against a doctor and two nurses in four deaths. But in July, the grand jury decided that no one should be indicted.
A grand jury is charged with determining whether there is sufficient evidence to indict a defendant and pursue a trial. The grand jury's proceedings are held in secret, and grand jurors and officers of the court are typically prohibited from divulging what goes on in grand jury sessions.
In a decision that puzzled the five experts hired by the state, New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan never called them to testify before the grand jury. What remains unclear, because of grand jury secrecy laws, is whether the grand jury even saw the experts' written reports.
"They weren't interested in presenting those facts to the grand jury," said Dr. Cyril Wecht, the former coroner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and a past president of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists.
"The hard scientific facts are those from five leading experts, [the patients died] from massive lethal doses of morphine and Versed. As far as I know the toxicological findings were not presented to the grand jury and certainly not with quantitative analysis."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“None of your points give any credence to your theory.”
And yours do? How so?
Nothing new here. Doctors intentioally kill people all the time. They are called ABORTIONISTS.
Why EXACTLY were two nurses (Cheri Landry and Lori Budo) prepared to testify if they had done nothing wrong?
Apple and oranges. It is sad but not surprising that abortionists actually do what they offer to and get paid to do, but it is shocking if other doctors and nurses kill patients.
How do you know they didn’t?
“Being in deplorable conditions and working long and hard hours doesn’t give you the right to kill a patient.”
Not being there doesn’t give you the right to assume someone else did.
What are the facts? Do you have enough of them to KNOW?
We know Pou gave injections. I know that on the basis of the one fact (8mg of morphine) we were given, that the injection could NOT have killed, but it also could have killed, one person. That based on some folks having died from smaller doses, and others surviving just fine on larger doses.
What other conditions did this person have that might also have killed her? She was 90 years old, and could have just died because she was old. Or just because she was sick.
My mom died in the middle of a sentence, and for no apparent reason, aside from the fact that she had cancer, terminal and inoperable. Oh, yeah. She was taking morphine, too. IIRC, she was getting 4mg IV every ten minutes or so. Did that for over 3 months, with a demand-limited pain pump. She was allowed to push a button whenever she wanted more pain relief, but the pump would only dispense when enough time had passed for her to be safe, base on her observed tolerance for the pain and the drug. (this isn’t a fact, btw, just my possibly fallible recollection. Don’t depend on it.)
What were Cheryl and Lori prepared to testify to, if you know? Were these the nurses that hospital administration told to draw up the vials of lethal injections and ask around for a doctor willing to administer them, but they refused because they did not believe in euthanasia (their wording, IIRC)?
You also assume. Why wouldn’t they testify if they felt that the doctor did nothing wrong? Or simply to tell what they observed, right or wrong? Knowing what happened, they would, I would think, be duty-bound to testify to the facts. Once the grand jury had the facts, then they would be duty bound to act on them. Looks to me like they think they did, or wouldn't they have had the doctor charged?
They were two of the nurses who gave the injections at Pou’s orders, they were granted immunity.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1854272/posts
They didn't feel this at all.
FRiend, how about answering the rest of the multipart question?
We don’t know that they were ever called to testify.
Let me rephrase, his medical examiner credentials and credibility are above reproach. All those other things have nothing to do with his skill and abilities as an ME and forensic pathologist.
I’m not sure.
Well, that’s one sure way to not get an indictment — call no witnesses.
The history of New Orleans is ripe with evidence that justice can be escaped for a price.
You don't know that anyone "murdered" anyone. In fact, the Grand Jury determined that no one "murdered" anyone. The doctor said that she was treating pain and anxiety. The response from Dr. Pou's lawyers states that the record shows that at least one other, maybe 2 other doctors wrote orders for these patients.
The expert pathologist reports that no one could accurately measure the amounts of morphine in the patients' bodies after several days after death.
The lawyer, Nelson, is upset that his mother got 8 milligrams of morphine, when "her doctor" had ordered 2 milligrams. That's not a large dose at all. (I was imagining 10 to 20 milligrams, with accusations that even more had been given, not *8*!) Over what period of time? For chronic pain patients, we normally write this "as needed," and "may repeat each one hour." Nelson does not know how much morphine his mother may have needed after several days of heat. Was she intubated? Was she struggling to breathe? And, after staying with the patients all those days, who was Mrs. Nelson's true doctor?
Art Caplan is a Ph.D. in Science History, one of the "progressive bioethicists" who calls prolife doctors names, and went on TV to advocate for the killing of Terri Schiavo. His agenda is to legalize assisted suicide. His statement is that no one gave consent or asked to be killed by the doctors and nurses.
Finally, I've served on a Federal District Grand Jury. We often were read testimony or summaries of testimony.
I'm still holding out for what I believe is the most obvious explanation--accident due to horrific conditions and generalized panic.
That's your problem right there. This is the same DA who, when he took office, fired all the white Assistant DA's and hired black ones.
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