2007
Dr. Anna Pou Will Not Be Charged In Katrina Deaths
From the New Orleans City Business:
NEW ORLEANS — An Orleans Parish grand jury Tuesday refused to indict Dr. Anna Pou, the cancer surgeon accused of murdering four seriously ill patients after Hurricane Katrina.
Pou and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti Jr.’s investigation concluded they killed four people with a “lethal cocktail” at Memorial Medical Center during the chaotic conditions after the August 2005 storm.
And from a WWL email update:
A grand jury has decided there is not enough evidence to pursue homicide charges against Dr. Anna Pou in the Memorial Medical Center case.
The panel today returned a no true bill.
District Attorney Eddie Jordan told WWL first news, “Justice has been served.”
Prosecutors earlier said that they were not seeking indictments against nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo.
It’s about time. This will unfortunately continue to hang over Dr. Pou’s head, but her lawsuit against Foti will help alleviate that as more information comes out that her prosecution was motivated by his desire to be re-elected.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I have been following the case for over the past year and have had the opportunity to talk with some of the principles involved in this case. The particulars I cannot talk about since I made a promise to them and must therefore keep it. What I can tell you is this: you have no idea what you are talking about. The decision of the jury had nothing at all to do with the evidence or lack thereof. It was a political decision on the part of Eddie who did not want to deal with the potential political ramifications of the case going forward. The lack of evidence was a deliberate part of the grand jury proceedings since ultimately the decision of the jurors had to be based on what was presented to them. Many important witnesses where never called and much of the information that was available was never used or followed up on including thee the case of the bottle of morphine. The fact also that certain individuals knew what the result of the grand jury was going to be nearly two weeks before the decision and time stamped posted on another blog site should raise serious and thoughtful questions about the legitimacy of the entire proceedings.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Cite, please. I’m perfectly willing to read other POV’s on this.
October 12th, 2007 at 1:29 am
My paper is going to talk about should physician-assisted suicide be allowed. This time, I am going to focus only on the legislation of physician-assisted suicide. Giving the option to die can cause people harm by not allowing them the possibility to live by default. Many people agree with the right to die, and they may just think about how painful the patients are suffering, but giving such option to help them to die can cause person harm. For example, if there is a student, one day, the teacher asked the student if he needs help. Offering aid usually means that student does not reach the required standard. If the student was doing fine in the class, the offer might deflate his confidence to the extent that he or she no longer will perform up to standard. For this reason, it would have been better to not give him or her option. So, for the very ill patients, giving the option to die will alter their perception of existence. Once the patients have choice to die or live, they will expect to justify their existence. When the patients are given option, they may feel that best decision would be to die because of the options of others. They may worry about long time illness, their family or relatives may tired about take card of them, or they may face financial trouble. All the worries may encourage them to take the option to die. In such case, it would be better if there have no option. Hence, because an institutional law to allow physician-assisted suicide cannot be sensitive enough to allow someone to live by default, it should not be offered.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:24 am
These two posts have links that might interest you, zguo:
Clinton: Do the rest of us a favor and just die already, wouldya?
Situational Ethics
Good luck on your paper!