Sheri Fink - Five Days at Memorial

70 the expert consultants submitted their reports : At the conclusion of the criminal case the following year, Attorney General Foti’s office released a lightly redacted version of these reports at a press conference and to a small number of reporters, including the author. Memorial employees filed suit as “Jane and John Does” and successfully stopped further release, but the reports were subsequently posted on the CNN website: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/08/27/memorial.medical.center.pdf. Dr. Anna Pou’s response was also posted: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/08/26/pou.statement.pdf. It accused the attorney general of releasing the documents “in an effort to justify his prior arrest of Dr. Pou before the upcoming election in October 2007.”

71 documented spending : Records submitted to the attorney fee review board, Louisiana State Legislature by Richard Simmons and obtained by author through public records request.

72 remain forever hidden : 2006-KK-2408, writ application denied, in re: “A Matter Under Investigation” (Parish of Orleans).

73 For months : Copy of letter from Horace Baltz to Frank Minyard, November 17, 2006.

74 True valor : Copy of letter from Horace Baltz to Richard Deichmann, October 28, 2006.

75 two widely publicized killings : See, for example, Erin Moriarty, “Storm of Murder,” CBS, 48 Hours , October 13, 2007 (updated August 14, 2008); http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-3348928.html.

76 extreme dysfunction : See, for example, Brown, Ethan, “New Orleans Murder Rate for Year Will Set Record: Prosecutions Are so Lax in Post-Flood City That Criminals Speak of ‘Misdemeanour Murder,’ Ethan Brown Reports,” The Guardian , November 6, 2007; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/06/usa; Webster, Richard A., “Getting Tough,” City Business , July 2, 2007, which contrasts the problems with the success of the new violent offenders unit; McCarthy, Brendan, “Draft Is Rare Portal into NOPD,” Times-Picayune , November 17, 2007; http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/11/draft_is_rare_portal_into_nopd.html; Court Watch NOLA quarterly reports from 2007 ( www.courtwatchnola.org).

77 highest murder rate : Using FBI 2006 Uniform Crime Report data of 162 cases of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in New Orleans, and estimating a 2006 population average of 223,000.

78 On a foggy day […] take other people’s lives : Brenda and Tabatha O’Bryant, interviews with the author (2007 and 2013).

79 he could not influence the script : Interview with Richard Simmons (May 2, 2007) and letter to the author, “Re: Fact Check Reply,” August 14, 2009.

80 “It’s abhorrent” : Jeter, Lynne, “Anna Pou Case Takes Unexpected Turns: Louisiana Medical Community Rallies to Support New Orleans Physician Accused of Killing Four Patients Post-Katrina,” Louisiana Medical News (March 2007).

81 The doctor on the show : Turk, Craig, Janet Leahy, and David E. Kelley, “Angel of Death,” Boston Legal , season 3, episode 11, January 9, 2007; transcript retrieved from boston-legal.org/script/bl03x11.pdf, version updated February 4, 2007.

82 “Their acts were those of heroism” : “American College of Surgeons Calls for Fair Investigation in New Orleans Case,” USNewswire , January 11, 2007. Interview with Dr. Eugene Myers (November 29, 2007), who said, “They copied my letter.”

83 “very, very extenuating circumstances” : “Accusations of Mercy Killing in New Orleans,” CNN, Newsnight with Aaron Brown , October 12, 2005; http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/12/asb.02.html.

84 “not consistent with the ethical standards” : Caplan, Arthur L., PhD. “Report for New Orleans, Coroner’s Office, Dr. Frank Minyard, State of Louisiana,” January 26, 2007.

85 and passive euthanasia : The “passive” category is sometimes split further into direct (having the intention of causing death) and indirect forms.

86 “for he was sore afraid,” : The Bible, 1 Chronicles 10:4, King James Version.

87 “Stand over me and kill me!” : The Bible, 2 Samuel 1:9, New International Version.

88 “I knew that after he had fallen” : The Bible, 2 Samuel 1:10, New International Version.

89 “I will not give a lethal drug” : See, for example, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, “Greek Medicine”; http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html; and, for a discussion of modern controversy surrounding the Oath, Peter Tyson’s “The Hippocratic Oath Today,” PBS, NOVA , March 27, 2001; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html.

90 “For the first time in our tradition” : Levine, Maurice. Psychiatry & Ethics (New York: George Braziller, 1972), p. 325.

91 “My duty is to preserve life” : Cited by Herold, J. Christopher. Bonaparte in Egypt (Tuscon, AZ: Fireship Press, 2009; previous ed.: New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 332. See also: Harris, James C., “Art and Images in Psychiatry: Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken at Jaffa,” Archives of General Psychiatry , vol. 63, issue 5 (May 2006).

92 The Turks found several alive : Herold. Bonaparte in Egypt , pp. 331, 338.

93 case of physician involvement : The Robert Semrau case from Canada concerns a (non-medical) soldier charged with homicide on the battlefield for an alleged mercy killing of a Taliban fighter. See, for example, Friscolanti, Michael, “A Soldier’s Choice,” Maclean’s , 123, 19 (May 24, 2010): 20–25; and Carlson, Kathryn Blaze, “‘An Act of So-Called Mercy’: Semrau Case Hinges on ‘Soldier’s Pact,’” National Post , July 7, 2010.

94 “a soft quiet death” : Harris, John. Lexicon Technicum : Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , vol. 1, 4th ed. (London, 1725). The earliest reference mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary, in the first listed sense of “a gentle and easy death,” is Hall, Bishop Joseph. Balme of Gilead : Or, Comforts for the Distressed (London, 1646): “But let me prescribe, and commend to thee, my sonne, this true spirituall meanes of thine happy Euthanasia.”

95 “To surrender to superior forces” : See “Permissive Euthanasia” in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal , CX, 1 (January 3, 1884): 19–20 (available on Google Books). This fascinating editorial shows that long before the age of high-tech medicine, late nineteenth-century doctors grappled with some of the same dilemmas twenty-first-century doctors do, including whether to keep fighting to save someone who is dying. The writer wonders if euthanasia will one day become “a recognized branch of medical science” (playfully predicting this may happen by the fortieth century). An example is given of a patient with metastatic cancer: “For weeks the physician has combatted death […] all for what? To exhaust the strength and perhaps imperil the lives of the remainder of the household; to keep in their home a body which is repulsive to every sense and a mind which is no longer that of their friend, but which is overclouded if not maniacal; or, if the sufferer retains consciousness, to meet her bitter reproaches for prolonging her misery. Shall not a man under such circumstances give up the fight, take off the spur of the stimulant, and let exhausted nature sink to rest?” The writer of the editorial sees symbolism in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1850), a creepy tale about a dead man kept alive through entrancement as he rots away. See also Emanuel, Ezekiel J., “The History of Euthanasia Debates in the United States and Britain,” Annals of Internal Medicine , 121 (1994): 793–802.