Commentary
on Ogden Standard Examiner Article: "Weitzel's Patients' Photos on
Web"
During the first trial of Dr. Robert Weitzel, the state lawyers gave the
defense, as part of legal “discovery”, what they claimed was a complete set
of the patient medical records. Five
sets were delivered, one for each patient.
The state represented that these were the entire medical chart.
As part of the hospital admission process, an identification Polaroid photograph
was taken of each patient, and this was placed in the chart along with a
Photographic Consent Form. For each
of the three charts where this photograph still exists, the state made up and
inserted a page that stated that the Photographic Consent Form (and thus the
photograph) was “missing”. In
the other two charts
(where the photographs seem long gone) the form was handed over, per the Rules
of Procedure.
Because the state had thus misled the defense, they
were able to enter into evidence old photographs of the patients, some taken
literally years before admission, that seriously misrepresented their physical
condition when they were admitted to the hospital.
In preparing for a second trial, after the first was ruled null and void due to
prosecutorial misconduct
(failing to reveal exculpatory and impeaching evidence: Perry Fine, MD), the new
lawyers for Dr. Weitzel subpoenaed the medical charts directly from the
hospital. It was then found that
these records had contained the admission photographs all along in each and every
case where the state had represented them as “missing”.
These photographs were part of the medical charts that the state lawyers
had putatively admitted into evidence, in a case they initiated and continued, and belonged
in evidence at the first trial.
In a story printed in the June 21, 2002 Ogden Standard
Examiner, state lawyer Major claims that the photographs were: “…included in
the medical records obtained by his office and that Weitzel's attorneys in his
first trial were aware of them.” This is not true. The
previous attorneys were not aware of them at all; if they had known of these
photographs they certainly would have had them admitted to refute the state’s
contention that the patients were “physically healthy”.
They were not aware of them because the state lawyers hid them.
The same lawyer is quoted: “…he and Peter
Stirba, Dr. Weitzel's attorney during the first trial, went through the records
along with a member of the hospital staff. The hospital employee signed an
affidavit stating that everything the court had was also in the original files
of the patients.”
Of course this statement does not speak to whether the
court had the entire chart, just that everything the court had was from the
chart.
Additionally, Davis County Attorney Wilson has complained that he finds the
exposure of the photographs to be “offensive”.
It seems rather more offensive for a public official to illegally and
unethically hide evidence. Finally,
the state lawyers entered the “complete” charts into the public record at
trial; this is undisputed. For them
to now complain that the photographs are finally being unearthed and seen is
disingenuous, to say the least.
Dr. Weitzel, a psychiatrist, is fully aware of the confidential nature of most
medical charts, and regrets that the state lawyers chose to make these
particular charts public in
a trial that they were warned was completely without merit.
They are published on the Internet only in the interest of truth, fairness,
and justice.