| Jury
Finds Weitzel Not Guilty |
Saturday, November 23, 2002 |
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THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE FARMINGTON -- Psychiatrist Robert Weitzel was found innocent Friday of causing the deaths of five elderly demented patients with morphine, marking the end of a case that received national attention from physicians and end-of-life care groups. "This case explained this community's view on palliative care, and whether end-of-life care can be given without fear," said Weitzel's defense attorney, Walter Bugden Jr., following the three-week trial in 2nd District Court. Weitzel claimed end-of-life care has been vindicated, and said he was "sorry" for the unnecessary suffering his patients' families had been put through because of his prosecution. Bugden said the patients' families, and the three nurses who testified against Weitzel, never understood the idea of giving morphine to allow the terminally ill patients to die pain-free and with dignity. "The jury had no problem understanding the concept," Bugden added. Indeed, the panel of five men and three women deliberated less than two hours before acquitting Weitzel, 46, of two counts of second-degree felony manslaughter and three misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide. Several jurors smiled at Weitzel following the verdict, and one man waved goodbye as he left Judge Rodney Page's courtroom. Carolyn Buhman, the daughter of 90-year-old patient Lydia Smith, said Weitzel "got away with murder." And the verdict, she said, "leaves the door open for other bad doctors, that they don't have to be careful." Buhman believes the jury was "confused by the conflicting testimony of medical experts. They didn't know what to do, so they had to go with reasonable doubt." Davis County Attorney Melvin Wilson said the prosecution was hurt by not being able to try Weitzel on first-degree murder charges and the theory that the patients were euthanized. Weitzel was tried two years ago on murder charges for the same five deaths, but was convicted of lesser manslaughter and negligent homicide. Weitzel later was granted a second trial in the case, but prosecutors were barred by double jeopardy protections from reinstating the murder counts. During his closing argument Friday, Wilson expressed frustration that the defense was trying to turn the trial into "a forum for end-of-life care." He said the trial was really about five patients who had died before their time because of Weitzel's criminally poor care. "It's about an attitude of arrogance, deliberate indifference and a betrayal of trust," Wilson argued. The patients died in December 1995 and January 1996 -- several years before guidelines for the care and pain management of demented elderly patients were written. In fact, Weitzel's geriatric/psychiatric wing at the Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton -- devoted to trying to calm loud and combative patients with dementia -- was the first of its kind in Utah. Wilson claimed Weitzel had demonstrated a pattern of overmedicating, under-evaluating and failing to adequately supervise his patients. But a defense expert said Weitzel was "ahead of his time." The experts disagreed about drug dosages, whether the patients were dying and what level of medical care was expected from Weitzel. For every prosecution expert who condemned Weitzel's decisions, the defense presented someone to praise him. But Bugden insisted he had won the battle of experts, telling jurors his witnesses were more credible and better qualified. Wilson countered there was one fact no one could dispute, and that could not be chalked up to mere bad luck: "All five patients died in 16 days on a 10-bed unit." Bugden argued the patients were at death's door when they were admitted, and said it was unrealistic to expect any miracles. Prosecutors showed jurors photographs of the patients taken well before their deaths, in which they appear smiling and robust. But Bugden proffered pictures of three patients taken the day they were admitted to Weitzel's unit, in which they appear sick and wasted. Bugden emphasized that each patient had a living will or other medical directives in place to insure that no heroic life-saving measures were taken if they became gravely ill. Weitzel had respected those wishes, said Bugden, who cited a Utah law that entitles doctors to immunity from civil and criminal prosecution if they follow such advance directives. Bugden claimed prosecutors went wrong when they rejected the opinion of University of Utah end-of-life-care specialist Perry Fine. Months before Weitzel's first trial, Fine told prosecutors that Weitzel's care of the patients was not criminal. But prosecutors "just didn't want to hear the truth," Bugden said. Prosecutors dropped Fine from their witness list, but never informed the defense of his existence. Fine resurfaced after Weitzel was convicted at his first trial and sentenced to 1 to 15 years in prison. The trial judge Thomas Kay ruled Fine's testimony could have changed the outcome and ordered a new trial. |