Involuntary Manslaughter
by digby
Can you make sense out of this, because I can't:
Story one:
Maria Kelly Whitt, a former nurse at Lexington's Veterans Affairs Medical Center, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to involuntary manslaughter in the morphine overdose death of a 90-year-old World War II veteran.
Whitt, 33, of Mount Sterling, had been charged with murder in the Sept. 3, 2006, death of Jesse Lee Chain, whose hometown was Maysville.
Whitt admitted to administering 10 milligrams of morphine to Chain without a doctor's written orders, her attorney, Patrick Nash, said. Whitt administered the morphine to ease Chain's breathing, not to kill him, he said.
The U.S. district attorney's office will recommend that Whitt serve 16 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, according to a plea agreement filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Lexington.
"We will be asking the judge for a more lenient sentence," Nash said.
The maximum federal penalty for involuntary manslaughter is eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Whitt is scheduled to be sentenced April 1.
Story two:
A former western Massachusetts police chief who organized a gun fair was found not guilty of all charges in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun.
Edward Fleury cried and hugged his attorney and family Friday after he was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of furnishing machine guns to minors in the death of Christopher Bizilj on Oct. 26, 2008. Several of Christopher's relatives quickly left the courtroom without commenting.
[...]
Fleury's firearms training company co-sponsored the annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, about 10 miles west of Springfield. Christopher, of Ashford, Conn., was shooting a 9 mm micro Uzi at pumpkins when the gun kicked back and shot him in the head.
The jury was shown a graphic video of the shooting, taken by Christopher's father, that led to a collective gasp in the courtroom.
Prosecutor William Bennett said he wouldn't have done anything differently. He said he believed the organizers of the event were the people responsible for the boy's death.
[...]
The machine gun shoot drew hundreds of people from as far away as Maine and Virginia to the Sportsman's Club's 375-acre compound. An ad said it would include machine gun demonstrations and rentals and free handgun lessons.
"It's all legal & fun -- No permits or licenses required!!!!" read an ad on the club's website.
"You will be accompanied to the firing line with a Certified Instructor to guide you. But You Are In Control -- "FULL AUTO ROCK & ROLL," the ad said.
Bennett said the ads falsely said no permits or licenses were required. He said state law bars children from shooting machine guns.
Scapicchio said there's an exemption in state law that allows minors to shoot certain automatic weapons if they're supervised by someone with a firearms license, but Bennett said the exemption doesn't apply to machine guns.
I just don't see how you can call this justice. A nurse gives too much morphine to a 90 year old patient to ease his breathing and he dies and she gets 16 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, while a man who put an Uzi in an 8 year old's hands was acquitted of the same charge. I realize that the circumstances, laws in various states etc differ, but simple logic says that this is unjust.
Moreover, there should be laws against children ever handling automatic weapons. Oh wait. There were. And apparently it didn't matter.
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