Charles Foti’s medical experts

Some comments by the experts in response to the grand jury decision are reported in the Louisiana papers today. I don’t know of any strict ethical restrictions against doing so, but when I paid as a consultant to deliver a report, I deliver the report to the person who paid me and shut up.

Some are disturbed by the district attorney not calling them as witnesses before the grand jury. I am not sure why he didn’t. Maybe the district attoney was trying to get a no true bill from the grand jury. New Orleans has a 5% conviction rate for deaths that are definite murders (bullet holes) and he perhaps thought it neither reasonable nor politically viable to spend his resouces on a questionalble prosecution, in which “beyond a reasonable doubt” would likely never be achievable regardless of anyones opinion about what probably happened.

From what is reported, it seems most likely that he didn’t think it would help his case. One of the experts has had a lot of trouble that calls his integrity into question. The paper reports that the consultants cited the lact of documentation. The grand jury, being residents of Orleans Parish, would not only have scoffed at that notion, but likely would have responded with anger, as “documentation requirements” were one of the principle obstructions to succoring the people of that region after the disaster and left people to perish. The only people who did any good after the hurricaine were people who ignored ordinary “documentation” rules. It wouldn’t have helped the states case to present that–only angered the grand jury.

Nurses normally spend 90% of their hospital time documenting. No one had time for that crap. If I were in a situation like that, and some nurse were wasting precious disappearing flashlight batteries doing their usual documenting I would thrown their worthless butt out a window to take their chances with the rioters and the gators.