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Date Posted: 08:11:02 05/05/08 Mon
In reply to:
Jackie Juntti
's message, "Judge orders all references to 'Taser' stricken from medical examiner's reports" on 08:08:59 05/05/08 Mon
Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 07:45:37 -0500
From: T
Subject: More: Judge rules for Taser in cause-of-death decisions
Chief Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler said that her examiners rightly concluded Taser contributed to the deaths and said county lawyers will appeal the judge's ruling.
"I would not be going forward with this if I did not believe in the rulings," she said.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/05/02/20080502taser0503.html
Judge rules for Taser in cause-of-death decisions
by Robert Anglen - May. 2, 2008 07:28 PM
The Arizona Republic
Taser International has fired a warning shot at medical examiners across the country.
The Scottsdale-based stun gun manufacturer increasingly is targeting state and county medical examiners with lawsuits and lobbying efforts to reverse and prevent medical rulings that Tasers contributed to someone's death.
That effort on Friday helped lead an Ohio judge's order to remove Taser's name from three Summit County Medical Examiner autopsies that had ruled the stun gun contributed to three men's deaths.
"We will hold people accountable and responsible for untrue statements," Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle said earlier this week. "If that includes medical examiners, it includes medical examiners."Many medical examiners, who are charged with determining the official causes of death, view the Scottsdale-based company's efforts as disturbing, the spokesman for the National Association of Medical Examiners says.
"It is dangerously close to intimidation," says Jeff Jentzen, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. "At this point, we adamantly reject the fact that people can be sued for medical opinions that they make."
In the Ohio case, the judge said the county offered no medical, scientific or electrical evidence to justify finding the stun gun was a factor in the deaths of two men in 2005 and another in 2006. Taser and the City of Akron sued the medical examiner, saying examiners in the case lacked the proper training to evaluate Tasers.
Chief Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler said that her examiners rightly concluded Taser contributed to the deaths and said county lawyers will appeal the judge's ruling.
"I would not be going forward with this if I did not believe in the rulings," she said.
The judge's order could have an immediate impact on criminal cases against five Summit County sheriff's deputies who were charged in the 2006 "homicide" of a jail inmate. Instead of homicide, the judge ordered the cause of death changed to "undetermined."
Laying a foundation
Before Friday's verdict, legal experts said Taser's victory could lay the foundation for other cases against dozens of medical examiners who have ruled that shocks from the 50,000-volt stun gun can be fatal.
Medical examiners say they're concerned that Taser's aggressive moves could have a chilling effect on doctors, preventing them from blaming Tasers for deaths even when evidence exists.
Taser still faces lawsuits from family members of victims who claim the stun gun is deadly and the company has not done proper medical research. They allege police officers are using the weapon as a compliance tool against people who do not pose significant threats.
But the company has won an impressive number of legal victories and said it has only paid out settlements in a few cases involving police officer injuries. To date, the company says more than 60 cases have been dismissed.
Taser stun guns are a fixture among police. It is used by more than 12,000 police agencies across the country, and by every major law enforcement agency in the Valley. Many police agencies credit the gun with preventing deaths and injuries to officers and suspects.
Taser maintains they are safe
Taser maintains that its guns have not caused a death or serious injury. Officials say company-funded and independent medical studies show the stun guns are safe.
More than two dozen medical examiners across the country have found the stun gun at least partly responsible in the deaths of suspects.
Since 1999, more than 300 people have died in North America following police Taser shocks. The vast majority of those deaths have not been linked to the stun gun. But medical examiners have cited the gun directly or could not rule it out as a factor in nearly 10 percent of the cases, an The Arizona Republic investigation found.
Medical examiners, who typically work for the county or state, are supposed to provide independent scientific analysis about the cause of someone's death. Their rulings are recognized by courts and the police as the official cause of death.
Taser officials have repeatedly said that medical examiners who rule against the stun gun are not qualified to judge whether a Taser was a factor in someone's death. In court disputes, it often presents opposing testimony from company representatives, doctors and medical examiners paid by the firm.
"The qualifications of a medical examiner depend on their professional and educational background as well as their level of understanding of Taser technology and the underlying effects of electricity upon the human body," Tuttle said.
The company's tactics worry Jentzen, a former medical examiner and current director of autopsy and forensics at the University of Michigan.
"I am concerned any time there is a person who is an advocate who may have a conflict of interest," he says.
Jentzen says there are few cases where companies have taken the position that coroners can't be trusted to evaluate their product's involvement in someone's death, and none so aggressively as Taser.
Taser targets rulings
In addition to Ohio, Taser sued a coroner in Indiana who had ruled that Taser caused the death of a man in 2004.
Several coroners have also reported being challenged by Taser, says Jentzen. Among them was a Cook County, Ill., medical examiner who ruled Taser shocks contributed to the death of a 54-year-old man in 2005. Taser dismissed the autopsy report as not credible and said the medical examiner was unqualified. The company demanded a judicial review.
Taser also has asked coroners to reverse opinions. An Anderson, S.C., deputy coroner said Taser representatives showed up in his office on the same day that he ruled Taser shocks contributed to a man's death in 2004.
Charlie Boseman said Taser wanted him to remove any reference to the stun gun from his report. He refused.
Coroners told to bone up
Taser officials have provided coroners reams of medical research in support of the stun gun following a death.
Tuttle says it is up to medical examiners to do the proper research, read the papers and perform tests before making a ruling on a death involving a Taser.The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in 2007 that a county medical examiner based half of his testimony at a coroner's inquest on information supplied by Taser. The medical examiner did not disclose to a jury that he met with Taser officials and reviewed the company's literature before testifying that the stun gun's role in a death was debatable.
In Summit County, Kohler said she has received volumes of medical studies and literature from Taser, all suggesting that the rulings in her cases are wrong.
In Maricopa County, at least 10 people have died following police Taser strikes since 2002. In a 2004 case, the medical examiner's office ruled that Taser shocks contributed to a Mesa man's death. Autopsy reports were unavailable for review this week by The Republic.
Neither Chief Medical Examiner Mark Fischione nor Taser would discuss what, if any, involvement the company had with medical examiners performing autopsies in the cases.
Fischione did not respond to repeated interview requests.
Taser for years touted autopsy reports as proof of the stun gun's safety. Company officials told police departments and shareholders that no medical examiner had cited the stun gun in an autopsy report. But The Republic's investigation found that 27 medical examiners concluded that the gun caused, contributed to or could not be ruled out in deaths.
'Excited delirium' blamed in Taser-related deaths
Taser advocates an alternative cause-of-death scenario called excited delirium. The condition, which is not recognized as a diagnosis in official medical manuals, is used to describe deaths of suspects who become so agitated by drugs, psychosis or poor health that their bodies shut down during struggles with police.
Excited delirium has been cited in police custody-death cases for decades. It is now being blamed more and more by medical examiners for deaths that occur following a police Taser strike, including at least one in Maricopa County in recent years.
Taser has funded excited delirium studies and has been involved in promoting its research. The company maintains that excited delirium is a valid syndrome, and some doctors say it will gain acceptance as more research is conducted.
Mark Schlosberg, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California who has worked on several Taser cases, argued that excited delirium has become a convenient way to explain away deaths that occur at the hands of police.
"There are plenty of medical examiners who are very skeptical of excited delirium," he added. "But that is not what Taser is promoting . . . They attribute almost all of the deaths following a Taser strike to excited delirium."
Reach the reporter at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8694.
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http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=81947454
Autopsy findings must be changed, judge rules: Medical examiner told to remove references to Taser as contributing to the deaths of three local men
Ed Meyerand Phil Trexler
May 03, 2008 (The Akron Beacon Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A judge has ruled that the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office must change its autopsy findings to remove all references to the Taser stun gun as a contributing cause of death in the cases of three men who died during encounters with county law enforcement officers.
In one of those cases -- the August 2006 death of 28-year-old county jail inmate Mark D. McCullaugh Jr. -- the judge ruled the manner of death must be changed on the official autopsy report and death certificate, from "homicide" to "undetermined."
What effect Friday's decision will have on the criminal cases against five Summit sheriff's deputies was not immediately clear, but Sheriff Drew Alexander applauded the judge's ruling.
Alexander, in a written statement, said it was more evidence that his deputies "acted appropriately" in their treatment of McCullaugh.
Deputy Stephen Krendick, 34, faces the most serious charge in the McCullaugh case. He is charged with murder.
The decision by visiting Judge Ted Schneiderman -- released Friday after a four-day civil trial in Common Pleas Court last week -- stated that there is "simply no medical, scientific or electrical evidence to support the conclusion that the Taser . . . had anything to do with the death of Dennis S. Hyde, Richard Holcomb" or McCullaugh.
Hyde, 30, died on Jan. 5, 2005, after a confrontation with several Akron police officers. They used a Taser on him after he broke into a Triplett Boulevard home, shouted that he was the devil and struggled with responding officers.
Holcomb, 18, was involved in a confrontation with a Springfield Township officer on May 28, 2005. The officer was responding to a trespassing report at a private home and shot Holcomb with the Taser when he allegedly charged at her despite repeated warnings to stop.
McCullaugh died Aug. 20, 2006, after a struggle with deputies in his cell in the jail's mental health unit. In what the sheriff's office said was an attempt to get him under control, deputies used a Taser on him and a jail nurse injected him with two drugs, Geodon and Ativan, which are used to treat anxiety and mood disorders.
Taser's civil lawsuit
The civil lawsuit prompting Schneiderman's decision was filed by Taser International Inc., with the city of Akron joining in the action, against the medical examiner, Dr. Lisa J. Kohler.
Kohler declined to comment about the 14-page ruling, deferring all questions to the Summit County Prosecutor's Office.
In his findings of fact and conclusions of law, Schneiderman said that Taser's lawyers "proved their claims for changing the reports of autopsy and death certificates . . . by more than a preponderance of evidence."
Taser, relying on a "multiple number of experts . . . in the area of sudden and unexpected death while law enforcement attempted to obtain custody provided overwhelming credible medical and scientific evidence to support their positions," Schneiderman ruled.
Quoting passages from Kohler's autopsy report on McCullaugh, Schneiderman stated that the inmate's death "shall be ruled undetermined and any reference to death by 'asphyxia due to the combined effects of chemical, mechanical and electrical restraint,' as well as any reference to 'homicide' due to 'multiple restraint mechanisms with beating and anal penetration' shall be deleted from both the death certificate and the report of autopsy."
Kohler's autopsy findings for McCullaugh, released Oct. 16, 2006, ruled his death a homicide. The cause was multiple forms of restraint and blows, including an unspecified anal injury, according to the official ruling.
Medical examiner
Although Kohler would not comment about Schneiderman's decision, the chief medical examiner for the state of Tennessee, Dr. Bruce Levy, did comment, contacting the Beacon Journal soon after reading a story about the judge's ruling on the newspaper's Web site, ohio.com.
Levy said by telephone from his office that he was shocked by Schneiderman's decision.
"Judges should not be practicing medicine, and that is clearly what the judge is trying to do in this case," Levy said. "I, for one, would never sign my name to reports that I did not write myself, or agree with myself.
"And that is literally what the judge is asking Dr. Kohler to do, which is to change her report and sign her name to something she, in her professional opinion, does not believe."
Levy, who has been the state medical examiner for 10 years, said he has had a few cases in which a Taser was involved.
"I don't think there is any way that you can say definitively that Tasers do not play some role in what is going on in these [three] cases," he said. "The ones I've dealt with are usually very complicated deaths involving a multitude of factors, and it is commonly accepted practice to include all of the factors that could play a role.
"That is not saying the Taser somehow electrocuted these people. But the stress of the confrontation and the stress of being tased can certainly push somebody . . . over the edge."
Schneiderman, who retired from the Common Pleas Court bench in 2003, presided over the trial as a visiting judge.
In his findings on the McCullaugh case, Schneiderman wrote that "the testimony and the exhibits presented by the plaintiffs' experts demonstrated that the Taser devices did not cause, nor did they contribute to asphyxia, as found by the medical examiner.
"More likely, the death was due to a fatal cardiac arrhythmia brought on by severe heart disease, his schizophrenia, the struggle and possibly the Geodon injection. There was no expert evidence to indicate that Taser devices impaired respiration."
A lawsuit filed against Taser and the city of Akron by Hyde's family was dismissed last year by a U.S. District Court judge. The family voluntarily dismissed Taser as a defendant, and Judge Peter C. Economus granted the city and its officers immunity, ending the case.
Court records do not reflect any financial settlement.
Holcomb's family reached a settlement in its lawsuit against Springfield police and Taser in 2007 for $70,000, according to Summit County Probate Court records.
After paying attorney fees and expenses, Holcomb's mother, Kimberly Miller, received $13,762. It is unclear from court records whether Taser shared in the settlement with Springfield Township.
Comments on case
Sheriff Alexander said he was pleased by Schneiderman's ruling, saying it "supports my initial beliefs that my employees acted appropriately."
"I am particularly encouraged as to his findings that [McCullaugh's] death is 'undetermined' and not a homicide and . . . that the findings claiming McCullaugh's death was caused by asphyxia due to combined effects of chemical, mechanical and electrical restraint . . . and anal penetration were ordered deleted from both the certificate of death and the report of autopsy," the sheriff said.
Alexander declined further comment, citing pending civil and criminal court cases.
Steve Tuttle, vice president of communications for Taser, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., said in an e-mail that Schneiderman's findings backed up what the company has said all along on behalf of "the 15 police officers and medical personnel who have been indicted for criminal charges . . . or sued in civil lawsuits" in connection with the device.
"Taser International believed from the beginning that these determinations of cause of death must be supported by facts, medical research and scientific evidence," Tuttle said.
John Manley, head of the county prosecutor's civil division, said he will review Schneiderman's ruling with Kohler and will be preparing a response.
Lawyers for Krendick, the deputy charged with murder, did not return messages seeking comment.
Krendick's trial is scheduled for June 16. A spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, which is handling the case by appointment as special prosecutor, said its lawyers "are prepared to go forward" on the charges against all five deputies.
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
To see more of the Akron Beacon Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.ohio.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio Distributed
by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to
847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303,
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