Deals In Katrina Euthanasia Case?

Sources Tell Paper Two Accused Nurses Will Testify Before Grand Jury, Won't Be Charged

(CBS/AP)  Two nurses accused of taking part in killing patients at a hospital after Hurricane Katrina will testify before a grand jury, indicating prosecutors could be focusing on a doctor also accused in the case, a source close to the investigation said.

Nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, and Dr. Anna Pou were arrested last summer but have not been charged in connection with the deaths of four patients at Memorial Medical Center after Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005.

"I want everybody to know that I am not a murderer, that we are not murderers," Pou said on CBS News' 60 Minutes last September.

The Times-Picayune, citing documents filed with the Louisiana Supreme Court, reports New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan has promised to drop the murder charges against the two nurses, instead hoping to compel their testimony.

The source, who asked not to be identified because the case is still under investigation, said Tuesday the two will testify under legal guidelines that preclude their testimony from being used against them, in return for waiving their Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.

CNN quotes sources close to the investigation as saying the two could testify in the next two weeks.

It was unclear whether their agreeing to testify indicated the nurses had been granted immunity by prosecutors. A spokesman for the district attorney's office would not comment on the case, citing grand jury secrecy rules.

However, the Louisiana Supreme Court on June 1 denied a writ seeking to allow the women to testify with their lawyers present, indicating they were no longer targets of the inquiry. That ruling is sealed until July 25. Under grand jury rules, lawyers are allowed to accompany witnesses only if they are considered targets of an investigation.

After hours messages seeking comment from the nurses' attorneys were not immediately returned.

Pou, Budo and Landry were arrested last summer, but have not been formally charged and are free on bond. The four patients were among 34 who died at Memorial Hospital after Katrina hit in 2005, but the only ones that Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's office found to be homicides.

"We wouldn't have taken this action until we were positive ... of what we said in the allegations, and in the affidavit to the judge," Foti told 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer last year.

Power was knocked out at the hospital, surrounding streets were flooded and temperatures rose to 110 degrees Fahrenheit on the floor where critically ill patients were housed.

"I don't know if there's any way for me to describe to you how intense the heat was," Pou told Safer. "It was relentless. It was suffocating. It made it extremely difficult to breathe. And with the heat came the terrible smell from all of the human waste and the fact that we didn't have water."

Foti said the women put desperately ill patients to death using a lethal injection of drugs, after determining the patients were either too ill or too incapacitated to be moved. In an interview with 60 Minutes, he acknowledged some of the patients had "do not resuscitate orders" but "Do not resuscitate does not mean do not rescue."

The women, backed by many medical professionals, deny wrongdoing; Pou has said she was trying to ease the patients' pain, not kill them.

"I do not believe in euthanasia. I don't think that it's anyone's decision to make when a patient dies," Pou said in September. "However, what I do believe in is comfort care. And that means that we ensure that they do not suffer pain."

"We remain confident that once all the facts are known, all medical personnel will be exonerated of any criminal charges," Pou's attorney, Rick Simmons, said in a statement Tuesday. "The fact that certain witnesses may or may not be talking to the grand jury does not change that fact."

"I don't think I could have done anything more. I worked almost around the clock running up and down the stairs," Pou told Safer. "I did the best I could under these dreadful conditions that I did not create, but were created by the fact that we were abandoned."

[charlesdjohn]

Sounds like another Nifong in LA. I wonder how long it will take to have him disbarred.....

[bombadil4]

This is typical behavior from our officials, primarily incompetent males. Having totally made a tragic and probably in some cases criminal mess of reacting to Katrina, we will now see charges lodged against a few women who were in a predicament most of us can't even imagine. But it will generate a lot of press, political careers will be advanced and some small fish will be punished which may help slake our insatiable need to incarcerate more of our population than any other nation on earth. Meanwhile Mike "great job brownie" Brown gets a fat "consulting" job and gets to make jokes on talk shows. It's truluy nauseating.

[rushlimpdrug]

Charles Foti grow up. These people did not run like so many cops did. Leave these people alone.
You are wasting good money doing a bad deed.
This is just more proof of lawyers being the scum of the earth.

[dragonmouse-2009]

I can't and don't want to imagine what this situation was. Considering how desperate they were to try to save their patients that they could I really don't think this was a situation they took lightly. Sounds like the patients would have died anyway.

[texas468]

Didn't I just see this on Boston Legal last night??

[bgj1552]

Arrest the Mayor and the Govenor they were the criminals in this disaster!!!!!!!!!!

[cathaleen]

These people did the best they could under the most horrific circumstances. If anyone should be charged, it's the mayor and governor.

[passerby2]

this is another example of an over zealous official, who is corrupt with power, sitting on his high horse unable and unwilling to comprehend the suffering of others.

[barbaraf4]

"Didn't I just see this on Boston Legal last night??"
Posted by Texas468 at 10:20 AM : Jun 20, 2007

Yes.

[ekucrew]

I'm surprised ANY medical staff hung around after the gangs of thugs ran rampant in the hospital, looking for drugs, threatening and assaulting staff.

[barbaraf4]

I washed my hands of New Orleans and its problems when they re-elected that idiot "a chocolate city" Nagin and that corrupt "doesn't everyone keep money in their freezer" Jefferson.

For the honest few who get swept into the web of the career corruption officials (who are trying to cover their own behinds), good luck and run like the wind if you survive.

[passerby2]

I have no doubt that if these prosecutors were in the situation, they would have abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble.

[jetlizhan]

if this were my elderly mom laying there suffering and dying a slow, horrible death - i'd want someone to take drastic action and take away the pain and suffering - whatever it may be. these women were angels of mercy. why can't the officials see this? these were deplorable conditions, unlike in a normal working hospital. of course, this would have never been done if otherwise. let these ladies go.

[rgold02]

I would want to killed if I was very sick and Katrina hit. I just drove through New Orleans this past weekend. Every other house and business is open and closed, destroyed or rebuilt. I saw "Help" signs on some of the rooftops still. This was a real bad thing that happened and no one was ready for this! I pray for the La people.

[antoniof123]

For those of you who think that this is something that will go away think again. why do some people always think that there is an easy answer, do they talk to God if so we have medicine for that now.

When someone is hurting no matter if it is one or many you should try to help. I realize that some of you are incapable of felling but then you should not try to dehumanize the ones who want to help. Enough is enough already you are the low life not the ones who stayed or could not leave.

For those of you who want to help others thank you because I do give to the voice of the homeless and to other orginazations as long as they have nothing to do with religion. That is the true source of evil take a look around and see how many religious wars are going on now and have in the past.

[susanhelit]

Sounds to me like the prosecutor is just trying to save face and see if he can blackmail the nurses into framing the doctor for him.

I don't know what may have happened, and there's a fine line between treating pain and euthanasia at times. All of the dead were extremely sick, and it's nothing surprising that they died.

If it was euthanasia - I think they made the right choice - the situation was desperate, and there was no way to evacuate these people, nor to get electricity, nor equipment, nor more personel to treat them.

If it was agressive pain treatment - I also think that's the right decision.

And I think the prosecutor should have to go to a hospital somewhere in a 3rd world country, be in the same situation, and have to care for a bunch of patients in agony before he's allowed to proceed in this case.

[a-ji]

"I did the best I could under these dreadful conditions that I did not create, but were created by the fact that we were abandoned." - Dr. Pou

The actions taken were base on the situation they have during those times. Some may not agree on it. No matter what others will say it can no longer be undone.

[nyckate]

This is horrendous - these people who stayed behind risking their lives are the ones who are going to take the fall for the feds not being able to get in there in time??

This is a reprehensible prosecution - truly.

All you bushbots out there - you're leader is to blame - not these nurses or the doctor. But like the cowardly thing he is they're going to let these poor people pay the penalty - but then againt BushCo has a lifetime of letting others take the fall.

[susanhelit]

All of these nurses and doctors are heros. They could have run. They risked their lives, their health, and more to stay behind to try to care for their patients. We should be celebrating them, not prosecuting them.

What is it with New Orleans? Everything's upside down - corrupt politicians reelected, heros prosecuted, people will see murders and not testify, etc.

[ajaxrose1]

What is it with the freaking prosecutors in this country these days? No REAL crooks to go after? I would like to have seen the moron who's chasing after these three women do any better than they did in those horrendous conditions. If any one of those patients had been my family member or myself, I would have welcomed any care that could be administered. It's bad enough to have been in that situation, trying their damdest to care for people, but to be accused of murder is just out-freaking-rageous! I hope this is another prosecutor that's out the door when this is all said and done. He's no better than that jackal, Nifong, when he was on his crusade.

[musyk4me]

To barbaraf4:

Just wondering about your comment you posted:

"I washed my hands of New Orleans and its problems when they re-elected that idiot "a chocolate city" Nagin and that corrupt "doesn't everyone keep money in their freezer" Jefferson."
For the honest few who get swept into the web of the career corruption officials (who are trying to cover their own behinds), good luck and run like the wind if you survive.
Posted by barbaraf4 at 10:52 AM : Jun 20, 2007

Without your statement bordering on a racist one, as both of these persons are Black, I think you should include some of those other "corrupt" politicians. I guess you must have washed your hands of the United States, too, when Bush got re-elected. He wrote the handbook "How to Get What You Want and Get Away with It"; which is subtitled "Let Other's Go to Jail - You're the President!"

[rushlimpdrug]

Without your statement bordering on a racist one, as both of these persons are Black, . . . .
Posted by musyk4me

you can't be for real injecting racism like that.

[bgj1552]

Enough with trying to blame the federal government,if you remember the offers of federal assistance before Katrina were offered and rejected by the Mayor and the Govenor!!!!

[fizzal-2009]

How can anyone confuse the order too evacuate and still end up in a mess from a storm where your your not supposed to be in the first place.

[sandy19731]

What is it with the freaking prosecutors in this country these days? No REAL crooks to go after? I would like to have seen the moron who's chasing after these three women do any better than they did in those horrendous conditions. If any one of those patients had been my family member or myself, I would have welcomed any care that could be administered. It's bad enough to have been in that situation, trying their damdest to care for people, but to be accused of murder is just out-freaking-rageous! I hope this is another prosecutor that's out the door when this is all said and done. He's no better than that jackal, Nifong, when he was on his crusade.
Posted by ajaxrose1 at 01:27 PM : Jun 20, 2007

Applause!!!!!

[timbobmc-2009]

I'm not defending Foti. I think the man is a total idiot for prosecuting those women who stayed behind to help those sick people, but I think, if I'm remembering the local news correctly, that a family member complained about one of the deaths, and Foti went berserk.

What Foti, the DA for those of you not from Louisiana, doesn't understand is that "too sick to move" means "very close to death", AND if he succeeds with putting Dr. Pou in jail for this, no medical personnel will volunteer to stay behind in any future disaster. Then how many people are going to die?