Posted on 07/21/2023 11:04:55 AM PDT by RandFan
A British man who killed his seriously ill wife at their home in Cyprus has been cleared of her murder.
David Hunter, 76, was instead convicted of manslaughter after suffocating 74-year-old Janice Hunter at the property near Paphos in December 2021.
The retired miner from Ashington, Northumberland, maintained her death was assisted suicide and his wife, who had blood cancer, had begged him to end her misery.
He will be sentenced on 27 July.
Hunter's lawyer argued the death was assisted suicide because Mrs Hunter was suffering and she asked him to do it. His trial heard he had attempted to take his own life after she died.
As the three judges handed down their verdict at the district court in Paphos, Hunter hugged his legal team and told the BBC he was "happy and elated".
His lawyer Michael Polak, from Justice Abroad, said the verdict meant there was a "very good chance" his client would receive a suspended sentence and be able to return to the UK to live with his daughter.
"This wasn't a pre-planned act," Mr Polak said. "He acted on the spur of the moment because she was in so much pain."
Mr Polak said the judges accepted Hunter had a "loving" and "dream" relationship with his wife of more than 50 years and "on that morning she asked him to end her life".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
It sounds horrible no matter what. I don’t know what I would do.
This is a walk in my shoes kind of thing. If I was going to die, I wouldn’t cop out and have my wife kill me. I’d boot up 25x the normal heroin dose and chase the dragon to Valhalla…
While there is life, there is hope........................
The new defense: “I was just giving her assistance in dying.”
No dice. This cannot be allowed to stand. She’s not here to serve as a witness in this case!
Even if she has signed a document asking him to kill her, the murder would still be illegal.
It’s also wrong for a doctor to kill someone who requests it, even if there’s a law that “allows” it.
Hospice workers do it on request quite often.
We all know what we SHOULD do, none of us knows what we WOULD do. Cancer is such a painful disease and pain exhausts the soul. I won’t judge this man, that’s only for God to do.
It’s a tough call when you personally see a loved one suffer tremendously in their utter misery day after day after day and strict laws that differ state to state about sedating them....
When I had a horrible gall bladder attack in my early 40’s,
I was begging my wife to shoot me. But we were in a ski chalet and there was no gun there. It was unbearable pain. I drank lot of scotch hoping it would numb the pain. But just got drunk with pain. Our chalet did not have a phone. This episode was in early 1980’s before we had cell phones. Only good thing about my 3 gall bladder attacks was the paid suddenly disappeared and there was no lingering pain. They removed my gall bladder in 1990. Had no issues at all since that surgery.
Wrong according to whose standards? We don’t ask permission to come into this world, why should anyone have to ask permission to leave it.
A cancer Dr. told me that there is no reason for any terminal cancer patient to suffer in this day and age.
Distant Family member died two days ago from the most aggressive and always fatal thyroid cancer there is. They sedated her so she did not have pain. Less than 6 weeks she was gone to be with the Lord.
Agreed. Instead of asking if assisted suicide is legally or morally right in cases of extreme pain, the question to ask is why was socialized UK medicine not easing her pain.
Change the laws on sedating those with terminal illness. Too many now will not sedate no matter how misrable patients are.
My wife was diagnosed stage-4 cancer in March 2018. I read somewhere life expectancy is 6 months to 5 years after diagnosis. Cancer is sneaky an unrelenting. She had no symptoms until her left ribs felt painful. Tests showed cancer in both lungs, ribs and brain. Only good luck is she never had any bad unbearable pain and has already exceeded the 5 year milestone. But cancer is relentless and she keeps getting weaker by the week.
Went through incredible difficulty trying to get my sister sedated as PA has strict laws regarding this. She suffered immeasurably because they would not sedate her until her body began shutting down the last 24 hours.
I would advise anyone to check what a hospitals or care facilities policey is on sedation BEFORE you admit them.
I hope and pray you never have that certainty of yours tested.
However, I firmly believe that this exception should be allowed in the courts, and that the Judges and the jurors in the community have the opportunity to weigh the merits of the claim. Hopefully, most of the time, they will see through the charlatans and the scammers, and also (as seems to be the case here) recognize the truly merciful acts of a 50-year devoted spouse.
There is no perfect answer, there is no law or rule that cannot be abused and manipulated, and there is no more important subject than life-vs-death. I feel like the law and the result here are both proper and correct.
“She suffered from PMS and obesity. The past two weeks she had a terrible cold that was causing her tremendous discomfort. It got so bad that she didn’t even have the energy to do the dishes or cook dinner. I couldn’t watch her go through that anymore.”
You are free to kill yourself at any time.
What you can not do is be a coward and push the job off onto someone else. You have no right to do that.
A guy I used to work with once said, “My wife was having a lot of trouble breathing last night. I finally released the pillow off her face.”
No.
There is no way of knowing that this is not actually murder.
Once being suffocated she had no way of indicating she changed her mind.
“Assisted suicide” laws are covers for murderers.
They are incentives to suicide.
And if they involve others they destroy others.
Unless you are completely paralyzed you are able to look yourself without “help” in any number of ways. You DO NOT need assistance and should not be allowed to have it.
Interesting he did not choose a kinder way to kill her. An overdose, care in monoxide, shooting her in the head. No. He had to smother her.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.