Ogden Standard Examiner News
Davis prosecutors under fire
State Bar investigating alleged misconduct during Weitzel trial
Sat, July 14, 2001 00:00:00
By NESREEN KHASHAN
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah State Bar is investigating Davis County
prosecutors for their alleged misconduct during the trial of
Farmington physician Robert Weitzel.
Weitzel, accused by prosecutors of manslaughter and negligent
homicide in connection with the deaths of five of his patients,
filed the complaints in April, according to Utah State Bar documents
obtained by the Standard-Examiner. Weitzel accuses Davis County
attorney Melvin Wilson and three assistant prosecutors of violating
Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure and Rules of Professional Conduct
by withholding expert witness testimony that would have strengthened
his defense. The expert, Dr. Perry Fine, a University of Utah
physician specializing in pain management and end-of-life care, had
said that Weitzel's handling of his patients did not constitute
first-degree murder.
Billy Walker, senior counsel for the Bar's Office of Professional
Conduct, would not comment on the proceedings. Investigations by the
OPC are confidential unless the Ethics and Discipline Committee, a
screening assembly appointed by the state Supreme Court, determines
there is sufficient evidence to proceed with formal charges, which
have not been filed in this case.
Any individual in the state may lodge a complaint against any
attorney practicing in Utah. To protect the accused, those
complaints remain confidential unless the Bar files charges,
according to Rules of Lawyer Discipline and Disability.
Wilson would also not discuss the proceedings. The Davis County
attorney is prohibited from discussing the matter unless the Bar
files charges through a civil complaint in the Utah District Court.
"As I perceive the rules of professional conduct for attorneys, it
would be unethical for me to comment on the merits of the complaints
which have been filed against myself and the other attorneys,"
Wilson said.
Weitzel was convicted last summer of two counts of manslaughter and
three counts of negligent homicide in connection with the deaths of
five of his patients. That conviction was overturned in January when
2nd District Judge Thomas L. Kay ruled prosecutors in the case
failed to disclose Fine's opinions to the defense.
"The state's failure to disclose the opinions of Dr. Fine,
therefore, contravened manifest constitutional, legal and ethical
duties imposed upon prosecutors," Kay wrote in his January ruling.
In defense of their decision to not call Fine as an expert witness,
prosecutors maintained "that because any evidence offered by Dr.
Fine would be opinion rather than fact based, such evidence would
not have been exculpatory," according to court documents.
Prosecutors last month abandoned their attempt to retry the
Farmington psychiatrist on felony murder charges, and instead
elected to charge Weitzel on lesser counts of two second-degree
felony counts of manslaughter and three counts of misdemeanor
negligent homicide.
In a ruling issued last month by the Ethics and Discipline
Committee, Wilson was denied a request to suspend the investigation
pending the conclusion of Weitzel's second criminal prosecution,
arguing that the OPC's examination would create a conflict with the
retrial.
"While the parties to the criminal proceeding are the same parties
that would be central to an investigation of (Rules of Professional
Conduct) violations . . . There is no ". . . substantial similarity'
between the allegations in Weitzel's complaint and the matters
pending in the criminal case," said the committee's ruling written
by its vice chairman, Salt Lake City attorney R. Clark Arnold.
Prosecutors claim Weitzel weakened five patients with psychotropic
drugs, then killed them with morphine overdoses. Weitzel has
maintained that he was providing "comfort care" to patients who were
already terminally ill when they were admitted to his psychiatric
unit at Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton.
The patients were Ennis Alldredge, 85; Ellen Anderson, 91; Mary
Crane, 72; Judith Larsen, 93; and Lydia Smith, 90. All had exhibited
loud and combative behavior stemming from senile dementia and were
sent to Weitzel for short-term treatment.
The other Davis County attorneys named in Weitzel's complaints were
assistant prosecutors Steven Major, Charlene Barlow and Elizabeth
Bowman.
Wilson received a public reprimand from the OPC in 1985, according
to Bar documents.
Wilson was a private attorney that year, and the reprimand occurred
in a divorce case that had the appearance of creating a conflict of
interest. An OPC public reprimand does not restrict the way an
attorney may practice.
None of the other prosecutors named in Weitzel's complaint have ever
been formally charged by the Utah State Bar.
Copyright ©2001, Ogden Publishing Corporation
<<Back to Home Page
<<Back to Legal History