In the blog entry below this one, I touched on an incident that occurred in New Mexico which has set a fire in the blogosphere. That entry drew a lot of criticism from folks who want the involved officers, and their little dog too, to be hung out to dry because they took a guy to the hospital for a rectal exam because they thought he had hidden drugs up his butt. The examination found no drugs. The examination went to an extraordinary degree: multiple digital anal probes, multiple enemas, and finally, a colonoscopy, all without the suspect’s consent.
A disproportionate number of the critics were first time posters here, generally an indication that they read somewhere else that I disagreed with them, and just had to fight. No comments on that last blog entry here have been deleted at this writing; I encourage debate here, unlike the anti-gun blogs. I do, however, appreciate it if those with opposing views at least know what they’re talking about.
Let me address some of the issues.
“They didn’t find drugs, so they were wrong. Punish them.” Sorry, folks, that’s not how it works. To make a long story short, “You don’t have to be right, you have to be REASONABLE.” Do a Google search for Graham v. Connor. The suspect, with a long record of drug arrests, was known to one officer to have stuffed drugs up his butt before; the drug-sniffing dog alerted to the driver’s seat where he had been sitting; and, what first alerted the officers to that area of his body, he was visibly clenching his buttocks tight.”
“They based it on an anonymous tip! Punish them!” No. ONE basis of multiple bases was that another officer said the suspect was known to put drugs up his butt. The fact that the officer giving that information was not named in the warrant does not make it an “anonymous tip,” and only someone with a child-like grasp of the criminal justice system would think so. It’s more like “transferred probable cause.”
“He was anally raped by the authorities! Punish them!” Uh, no. Any cop with experience and good training, like any experienced medical professional who works the emergency room, knows of cases where drug suspects have hidden the dope in their body cavities and died from that act. It normally comes from swallowing a baggie of heroin or a balloon full of cocaine, but anally-inserted drugs can act even faster than those taken orally. If these officers AND medicos had failed to investigate this and the man died, the same anti-authoritarians would be calling for all their heads for letting him die untreated and unexamined. The cops followed the protocol: when there’s a medical issue, turn it over to the medical people. No cop held a gun to the head of the physician who ordered the more extensive and invasive testing. When digital examination and X-ray were done, don’t you think there was SOMETHING that made the medical professionals involved continue the testing? Some considerable time elapsed between the arrest and the colonoscopy: by that time, any physician would have to consider the possibility that the drugs had already been absorbed, and might reasonably do the colonoscopy to detect other signs of that having happened.
I have to note that, to my knowledge, none of the bloggers who fueled the flames for outraging the public even considered any of this when they made their initial inflammatory posts.
But one other hospital refused to do it! That’s the way it looks. However, I also know of one hospital whose policy is that if they have reason to believe that the conscious adult patient has swallowed poison and he refuses to be examined and treated, personnel are under orders not to examine or treat. Was that policy in place at the first hospital? I don’t know. I do think that in any hospital with that policy, Risk Management needs to cross-pollinate with the Ethics Committee.
But the warrant was from another jurisdiction, and had timed out. If there is good reason to believe there may be life-threatening substances inside the patient’s body, exigent circumstances (look it up) have kicked in. That triggers the doctrine of competing harms/doctrine of necessity/doctrine of two evils. (Look those up, too.) The importance of the warrant now pales.
We all need to apply common sense. One commentator in the last blog entry noted the striking comparisons of this case to Florida v. Zimmerman. In many respects, I have to concur. Each trope came first from plaintiff’s counsel, unanswered by the defense (and the involved authorities) until much later. In this case, the defense (the police and the medicos) have not yet put their defense forward. We’ve seen their warrant from before the fact of the examination, but not their reasoning for what they did next. Doctors are constantly under siege from bogus malpractice complaints, cops likewise with false excessive force allegations, and lawyers tell their defendant clients “We won’t try the case in the press.” Thus, only one side gets heard.
It’s laughable that the cops did that for the suspect’s safety, according to one critic. And, cops have no responsibility for our safety. BS and more BS. A “special relationship” existed between the officers and the suspect the moment the investigative detention began. Once they came to believe he may have stuffed enough drugs up his butt to kill him, they had both legal and ethical duties to seek further examination. And if, when the docs caught the ball and did the examinations, they didn’t see some reason to continue looking, why on earth would they have done so? Cui bono? What would the docs who did the exams have possibly had to gain at that point, if those medical professionals DIDN’T have reason to think it was necessary?
The medical records and testimony will come out at trial, if not before. Don’t judge based on one side, get outraged at what that one side told you, and then feel a need to defend it so you won’t be embarrassed by being on the wrong side when the truth comes out.
Let’s wait to hear from both sides.
What should be troubling to all of us is, that the courts may find for the defendants in this case, and rule that what the officers and medical staff did is perfectly reasonable.
If that were to occur, it would be the final deadly stake thrust into the heart of what is left of the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment PEACEFULLY protects our property, our loved ones, and ourselves, from over reaching government. Once the 4th Amendment is gone, peaceful prevention, and / or remedy, to invasive government will no longer exist…
Wow. It must be hard to type while licking the “boot stamping on a human face, forever.” (look it up)
So, imagine that you are taking a little vacation, and happen to be driving through Deming, NM. You get pulled over for a minor traffic violation. The officer thinks you look like a druggy. Since drug sniffing dogs are wrong more often than not, I assume they key on what their handlers suspect, consciously or not. So, the dog alerts on you. Now, just for a minute, Mr. High and Mighty, cleaner than the new driven snow, imagine that it was you. I bet your take on this would be a little different once the anal-probing began.
There is a reason why we go through all that tiresome legality; you know, little things like innocent until proven guilty, trial by one’s peers, habeas corpus, things like that. Just because a cop knows, just knows, deep in his soul, that you are guilty, doesn’t make it true.
And your whole line about the police being responsible for the suspect’s health is crap, too. There was zero proof that he was endangered by bags of drugs leaking into his bum; while it is a known medical fact that anesthesia can, and does, kill people. Which is the reason that you have to sign consent forms when undergoing surgery.
But lick on; I guess you must like the taste of jack-boot.
Oh, to be clear, my comment was directed at the author of this Statist piece of excrement of a blog. I suspect that he is one of those jack-booted thugs himself, willing to offer any excuse for his fellow cronies in their ever escalating pursuit of the perfect police state.
You know, the one’s who excuse police misconduct on the grounds that “they need to make sure they make it home at the end of the day”, despite the fact that law enforcement is not even close to one of the most dangerous jobs. These people need to be reminded of who they work for. This is the people’s government, and the police are supposed to be the ones who guarantee our safety. Instead, they act like an occupying army, and become a threat to our persons, lives, freedom, pets, and family.
Once upon a time, parents taught their children to view the police as their friends. Now, thanks to the actions and policies of the police themselves, we should teach our children to avoid any and all interaction with law enforcement, because they are no different than any other gang of thugs, excepting the fact that they have their fellow thugs in the government to back them up.
Joe in SC, the reason I made reference to concealed carry is that it seems to be some sort of bizarre benchmark Americans cling to as a means to determine whether they still have some measure of freedom left.
I guess there’s not much zing in saying “they can pry my anal virginity from my cold, dead buttocks” but it beggars belief that in the so called beacon of the free world that people are arguing the legality of forced rape on the say-so of a dog.
For gods sake. Your kids are being “legally” molested by the TSA on a regular basis. The time for arguing about this “reasonable suspicion” nonsense is far behind you lot. In the name of all that’s holy, it conjures up images of Jews in cattle cars poring over legislation.
“Oy vey!” they mutter, “It looks like dis is all legit…”
“Frank, I think you missed the “you don’t have to be right, you have to be reasonable” part.”
No, I didn’t. We all agree that the finding- or non-finding of contraband at the end does nothing to inform the reasonableness of the search warrant. What we’re disagreeing on is whether the word “hunch” is or is not an appropriate epithet for the supposed alert by a known-poor-performer dog (who failed once on the same person in the recent past), plus an unfounded historical anecdote about prior rectal episodes from a “brother officer”.
Frank, are you telling us that if they had ignored what they saw as probable cause and abandoned the idea of a rectal search, and it turned out that a baggie of drugs burst inside the guy and killed him, you would have been fine with that?
I would like to begin by stating that I am a long time follower of your work and include myself in the group of people who are first time posters. I post this time only because I believe you to be wrong-headed on this entire episode.
“Frank, are you telling us that if they had ignored what they saw as probable cause and abandoned the idea of a rectal search, and it turned out that a baggie of drugs burst inside the guy and killed him, you would have been fine with that?”
I certainly would have been. At that point that guy would simply have died from his own stupidity. Instead we have a mentality that says you have a duty to commit what would essentially be rape if somebody not dressed in a blue costume had done it. And for something as stupid and arbitrary as not permitting people the right to dispose of their income and their health in whatever fashion they deem fit. People hurt themselves doing all sorts of stupid things all the time. Does that mean the state should forcibly inter people on any grounds in the benefit of “their safety”. This is the same strange logic that allows the FDA to prevent people with terminal illnesses from choosing whatever course of medical treatment they may desire. Why? FOR THEIR SAFETY OF COURSE!!
There is no smaller minority than the individual, and the individual self-owning person is where all rights originate from to begin with. This absurd notion of protecting society by sacrificing the individual is nonsense; there is no society without the individual. The same moment you make decision to start violating individual rights for the sake of “society” is the same moment you have decided to impose whatever force on whomever you want to whatever end you may be so inclined. Society is a malleable term that can be made to mean anything.
I also dispute the notion that police have any duty to protect, given the numerous court decisions which have explicitly stated that no such duty exists.
I heard about you defending JBT rape elsewhere in the web, but I had to come see for myself. I’m astonished and disgusted.
And for you, Klapton, I’m saddened. The officers didn’t hold guns to the doctors’ heads when the colonoscopy was done. Making sure the guy had nothing inside him that could kill him is JBT rape? Good lord…
Slim, you say you would be fine with the guy dying from a bag of drugs inside him. The cops wouldn’t be. The docs wouldn’t be. By your standards, when NYPD Emergency Services Unit officers pulled a distraught jumper off a bridge a few days ago, they should have just let him jump and waved bye-bye to him on his way down.
Saving life is a prime directive for the emergency services, whether it’s law enforcement, firefighters, or practitioners of emergency medicine.
Slim & Klapton, dissenting opinions and first-time posters are all welcome here, but it will be best for all if you study up a little bit and get a better idea of who is responsible for what before you post. Slim, your contention that police have no responsibility for the safety and well-being of those in their custody is 180 degrees away from reality.
It’s quite simple, really. The man’s butt is HIS, not the state’s. He can shove whatever he wants in there, as long as it belongs to him or he has the consent of the owner of the object.
Clearly, you believe that our asses belong to the government and should be subject to their scrutiny. You suffer from a mental disorder called “Statism.” Liberty is the cure.
Btw… I’m not a first time poster here either. I posted several times on your blog where you defended the mafia-style murder of Jose Guerena.
I see you still have not evolved beyond your worship of the state and its thuggish minions.
Ah, I understand now, Klapton. You come here from the cop-hater blogs and attack anyone who says, “Wait for the cops’ side to be told”? How did you and your kind handle finding out that Guerena’s stolen rifle had bullet tracks on it showing it was pointed toward the officers when they shot him? How did you handle the convictions of his fellow travelers, and the exoneration after thorough investigation of the officers who shot him?
How obviously you avoid the question of whether someone about to die from his own stupidity should or should not be rescued by those responsible for his safety once they are on the scene…
You can try to justify killing people over a plant that has not caused a single death in over 10,000 years for human consumption if you want. It’s obvious to anyone whose mind has not been damaged by the abuse of power that the police are FAR more dangerous than the substances they waste our taxes persuing.
“Frank, are you telling us that if they had ignored what they saw as probable cause and abandoned the idea of a rectal search, and it turned out that a baggie of drugs burst inside the guy and killed him, you would have been fine with that?”
I thought you agreed that whether or not probable cause existed (versus was a mere hunch) has nothing to do with the ultimate outcome.
But to answer your direct question, yes I would’ve been fine with that. It’s better to let idiots kill themselves than to empower the state to rape upon a hunch.
Mas:
No Mas that is a false analogy. Using somebody else’s building to commit suicide without the owners permission is a violation of his rights; furthermore it is also a violation of the rights of the road and sidewalk owners, as well as to the people on the sidewalks who would be passing underneath and may accidentally be harmed by the man throwing himself from building.
Even if one believed they had a duty to intervene it is still not a proper analogy because the circumstances of the intervention are significantly different. Impeding some one from falling over the edge of a building is not the same as sedating a man against his will and forcibly shoving things up his butt after exposing him to radiation against his will. Unless you dispute that these are in fact the same thing, which I think a vats majority of the readers here would dispute.
“Slim, your contention that police have no responsibility for the safety and well-being of those in their custody is 180 degrees away from reality.”
You are changing around the argument. You did not specifically state anywhere previously that they had a duty to protect people IN THEIR CUSTODY. You referred to a general duty to protect. This is where I am disputing you. I did not refer to people who are under police custody. I referred to individuals in society who are under their jurisdiction. There is some case law that shows that police do have a duty to protect people who have been formally arrested. My argument was that police have no specific duty to protect individuals. And the case law supports this point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
So please explain, when the courts say that police have no duty to protect individuals from harm, how you can say that they DO have such a duty? It seems to me that the only time this is NOT true is when some one is placed under direct police custody.
Slim, he was obviously in custody, and the police had an obvious duty regarding his safety. If you can’t grasp that, and the difference between the case under discussion here and the two you cited, you simply aren’t ready for this discussion.
Klapton, you just accused me of justifying killing people for having pot. You’re losing your grip.
I think several points need to be made or reemphasized.
1. This was not done for the man’s safety. If it had been, the testing wouldn’t have been carried out recursively. The first negative results would have been the end of the story. Frankly, I still wouldn’t have approved.
2. Somehow the defenders of the police actions here keep forgetting that the doctor at the first hospital said it would be illegal and unethical to do what the police requested. At least somebody showed some principle. We need more doctors (and cops) like that man.
3. I defy anyone – doctor or police – to come up with a plausible explanation for the course of events in this case. That’s why I don’t think we need to ‘wait’ to hear the police explanation. What can they _possibly_ say? (I’ll bet their attorneys are frantically trying to figure out ways to lend an air of verisimilitude to this otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative even as I type.)
Old Crusader, with all respect, you aren’t listening to the other side’s arguments. To respond to your points in order:
1. Why do you think physicians kept looking? Does it occur to you that they might have been concerned that there was still a problem?
2. If the search had stopped at that first hospital and the guy had died, do you seriously doubt that there would have been accusations of negligence, wrongful death, and malpractice?
3. You defy? Old Crusader, please read the couple hundred comments and the original blog entries, and get back to me, because that has been clearly and thoroughly explained.
Mas, you are way out in left field now. He was taken into custody for the purpose of the search. Absent that, they had no other cause to hold him. The wording in the probable cause for the search warrant makes clear that you are making stuff up.
I disagree with Klapton about pot killing people, its as dangerous or more so then tobacco. Also, the cops there in Deming have to deal with traffickers from the Mexican cartels on a regular basis. Some one tell me that the violence there is acceptable.
I don’t have a problem with pot. A lot of states are deciding to legalize it for medical reasons even though there are better alternatives. As I see it, its something that grows naturally, and we have wasted a lot of time and money on it.
Even if i is legalized though, the federal government I believe should still ban importation. That I believe is within their right, and also to control interstate commerce.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think pot was the suspected drug here. iirc, they thought he had meth.
Again though, the search was still about an arrest for drug possession, not Eckert’s safety. And no, I do not want meth legalized. Pot users are pretty much mellow, and don’t commit a ton of crimes to support their habit. They can and do hold jobs and are productive members of society. Meth, crack, and prescription abusers only care about their next fix. they will lie, cheat steal, and even kill for their next high.
I don’t know that Eckert was a user, and maybe even a mule. I view him like I do the Llamas bothers in Topeka. If he was dirty, and the cops just missed, he gets a pay day he does not deserve, and thousands, possibly millions of tax payer dollars, money that people had to work HARD for just got tossed down the tube. If he’s not a mule or users, well, its still good money that should never have needed to be spent.
“Klapton, you just accused me of justifying killing people for having pot. You’re losing your grip.”
You defended the murder of Jose Guerena, who not only had no pot, but the entire investigation and issuance of the warrants was for alleged marajuana sales.
Obviously you are JUST FINE with enforcing marajuana prohibition with SWAT teams.
And now you are arguing with someone claiming that they violated this man for his own safety. Obviously he would have been MUCH safer if the police had simply left him alone.
You are a truly sick person. I said what I wanted to say, and I won’t be responding further.
Klapton, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Next time you want to write about police cases, expand your research beyond the Kool-Aid of the cop-hater blogs. If you had done so, you would have found that one of the things Guerena was being investigated for was ripping off and possibly murdering other drug dealers.
JeremyR, the initial warrant was obviously about search. Once the doctors took over, it’s hard to believe that their escalating medical procedures were about anything other than the patient’s safety.
I just realized that I wrote a wall of text, so let me ask my questions up here:
1) Who ordered the procedures at the hospital? Was it the police or the staff there? Well, maybe I should re-word that, because (IIRC), it’s usually doctors who actually order the tests. I could see the police saying “we want this, this, and this procedure”, or it could be the police showed up, said “we suspect Mr. Eckert is hiding drugs inside his rectum. Please try to find them”, and then the doctor ordering the tests. I’m curious to know how the events played out in the hospital.
2) If Mr. Eckert had suffered complications from these procedures, would it be on the police department, or on the hospital? As Mr. Ayoob pointed out, the police are responsible for people in their custody.
3) What would be the legal ramifications of a medical professional refusing to perform these procedures on Mr. Eckert?
I’m trying really hard to hold off judgment until we hear from the police, but as Mr. Ayoob has pointed out in several of his books, your gut instinct is usually right.
I’ve pondered this a bit, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only big question that matters is WHO ORDERED ALL THE TESTS? Was it the doctor, or the police?
Now, onto the wall of text:
On the one hand, yes, the police are responsible for the safety of the people in their custody. But I’m still trying to figure out the 2nd rectal exam, along with the 2nd and 3rd enemas and the colonoscopy. I can understand the first rectal exam, along with the first enema, and the x-ray, but after that, I just don’t see the logic behind continuing the procedures. I keep trying to put myself in the position of the officers and medical professionals and follow their logic, which follows.
Sure, start off the xray. Non-intrusive (although you do get a little bit of radiation), comfortable for the patient, and you get to see what’s inside. Only problem is that all the insides are stacked on top of each other, so it’s possible to miss something.
So you move on to the rectal exam with a digit. Not very comfortable for the patient, but you can feel around 3″ up the colon. Still nothing….hmmm….well, let’s think about this for a second. Let’s assume that Mr. Eckert did have drugs in his rectum. How did they get there? The same way you’re checking to see if there are drugs there. By pushing them through the anus and into the rectum. So, theoretically, Mr. Eckert’s drug package would be in reach of the person performing the rectal exam.
Ah! But Mr. Eckert is a smart one. He used something else to push the drugs further into his rectum, and perhaps even his colon, putting them out of reach of a probing digit. But then there would not be anything pressing down on Mr. Eckert’s anus. So then why his butt clenching? This series of events started with an officer observing Mr. Eckert clenching his buttocks, and an uncertificated police drug dog hitting on the driver seat of Mr. Eckert’s car.
Okay. So right now, we have 2 indications that Mr. Eckert was hiding drugs his rectum: the butt clenching, and the drug dog. However, the rectal exam just came up empty. So there’s a few possibilities for this result: The rectal exam was done improperly, or there are no drugs in his rectum. So right now, we have done 2 tests that are usually accurate in detecting drugs on the rectum, and they have both come up negative. But, just to be triple sure, let’s try the enema.
Now, there are two general types of enemas: low volume, and high volume. Low volume enemas typically consist of a few ounces of glycerin, or other defecation-inducing chemical. Basically, a low volume enema irritates the lining of the large intestine, causing a bowel movement. The other type (large volume) typically consists of 2-3 quarts of water (salt or soap might also be added), which is injected into the rectum and colon. This fills the rectum, and most of the colon, and essentially “flushes” everything out.
I haven’t been able to find any information on which type of enema was used in Mr. Eckert’s case, so let’s assume that it was the low volume, because these are the ones typically used in hospitals today. They are effective, and quick to administer (30 seconds for a low volume vs 15 minutes for a high volume). So the enema is administered, Mr. Eckert defecates, and once again, no drugs are found.
Now we’re at 3 tests that have come up negative. Each once has a probability of producing a false negative, but the probability of all 3 producing a false negative is extremely low. When 3 tests all come back negative, it’s time to re-evaluate your assumptions.
But we want to really, really, REALLY make sure. So 2 more enemas, and one more rectal exam. Now we’re up to 6 tests, all of which come back with the same result. It doesn’t take a statistical genius to realize that the probability of all 6 tests coming back negative is very, very, VERY close to 0. There is no perfect test, I’ll give you that. But 6 tests all come to the same conclusion, that’s a HUGE wake up call that your assumption is wrong.
And then we get to the colonoscopy. The 7th test, and the most invasive (not to mention terrifying) of the whole ordeal. Mr. Eckert was forcibly put under to undergo an unwanted medical procedure. To me, that’s terrifying. I’ve only been put under once (when I donated a kidney). That was with my consent and everything, and being put under was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I keep trying to put myself in Mr. Eckert’s shoes, and being informed that, after 6 tests (all coming back negative), I’m GOING to under go a procedure where I will be rendered completely helpless. Granted, the colonoscopy is the sure fire way to ensure that nothing is present in the large intestine.
Welcome, That Guy. You raise many good points. We won’t have answers to those until specific questions are asked, and detailed answers elicited. That’s what I’m waiting for…and urging others to wait for before they start tying lynch nooses.
Without knowing all the facts I’ll speak in general terms and say that an overwhelming majority of people will have made up their minds BEFORE hearing the story, any story. In what happens around them they look for confirmation of their biases and disregard what challenges them as aberrations or lies.
So when someone expresses an opinion, and ESPECIALLY a strong and emotional one, I tend to not take it overly seriously. It’s a form of ‘consider the source’ attitude, if you will, and it’s more interesting for me to learn about who says what than what it is exactly they’re saying.
That Guy asks: “WHO ORDERED ALL THE TESTS?”
According to Chavez’ own report:
“… Dr. Odocha did state that since there was a court order search warrant for Mr. Eckert anal cavity a colonoscopy was going to be performed in surgery. …”
In other words, the police ordered it.
Anal cavity search does not equal colonoscopy, Frank.
I know that, and you know that, but the doctor and the officer apparently didn’t.
Frank, you’re evading the point. Once the cops turned it over to the docs, as they’re supposed to, it was the docs who were in charge of determining how to do it. I find it very hard to believe that the docs would have escalated the examination as they did, if they didn’t have some reason to believe they had to. Their duty was to the patient more than to the warrant. I am waiting for the facts to come out as to what they saw and perceived, step by step as the exam escalated, that led them to do what they did. Tell me exactly what your problem is with that, or do you just feel a need to defend your leap to your conclusion?
“Their duty was to the patient more than to the warrant.”
It takes quite a willingness to grant benefit of doubt to avoid taking at face value the officer’s quotation of the doctor: that because of the warrant, a colonoscopy was going to be administered. If the officer knew that this was out-of-bounds of the warrant, he would surely have stepped in at that point. If the doctor knew it was out-of-bounds of the warrant, he would not have used it as a rationalization.
How could your speculation about heroic life-saving efforts be consistent with that bit of evidence?
Frank, please post here links to the documents you are using as resources. Not your quotes from them, but links to the actual documents.
I don’t think you realize how self-contradictory your last posting here sounds.
Mr. Ayoob,
I love your posts and I devour your firearms posts with pleasure.
I too could be considered one of your “first time responders”.
As a medical professional, in the ER no less – let me be unequivocal: What happened to Mr. Eckert was gross medical abuse. While folks may be appalled at what the Doctors did to this man, I’m more appalled at the Nurses who did NOTHING to stop this!
A Nurse’s first duty is to ADVOCATE for the patient – not in a legal way – but in a MEDICAL way. There was NO MEDICAL REASON for this man to have an colonoscopy, much less multiple ENEMAS. Even if you state with 100% certainty that “he has the plans for the next Al-Qaida attack on The Capitol up his rectum that is sure to kill millions! I personally saw him shove it up there!” – that’s still NOT a MEDICAL reason to FORCE a patient to undergo such an invasive procedure!
If the cops were so sure of their suspect’s guilt, why not just wait it out – nobody can hold poop forever! It either comes out or becomes a medical condition which would require a medical intervention!
So what if there was a ‘warrant’?
As a medical professional, the oath you take is: “First do no harm” – not “First do no harm… unless compelled by the State.”
Sure, you run the risk of ‘contempt’ – but any “Court” that orders you to violate your patient DESERVES contempt itself…
A fictional character (a Doctor) in a popular drama series on TV (Law and Order) says it perfectly: “You took an oath, you don’t get to take a time out because we’re at war or because it’s difficult to upload. The oath was made for times like these.”
Mr. Ayoob – I most strongly disagree with you. EVEN if the police are “vindicated” in the end, it is still a gross violation of a patient’s rights.
And last but not least – “there but for the grace of God go I…”
cheers,
Spook, RN
The quote comes from http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Eckert-Police-Report.pdf
page 3, middle paragraph.
If there is a self-contradiction in what I say, please point it out.
Spook RN, welcome and thanks for your input.
Frank, you appear to be referring to the officer’s statement in his report, “Dr. Odocha did state that since there was a court order search warrant for Mr. Eckert anal cavity a colonoscopy was going to be performed in surgery.”
That is not a “quote” of the doctor as you implied earlier, it is the officer’s interpretation of a statement…a statement which can be interpreted in two ways.
It could be interpreted by those who believe as you do that the purpose of the colonoscopy was to search for contraband.
It could also be interpreted by those who believe as I do, that the doctor’s search for potentially lethal drugs against the patient’s will, done with a view toward preserving that patient’s life, was authorized by the scope of the warrant.
As I’ve stated repeatedly, we won’t know the doctor’s rationale in detail until his explanation becomes public, which it has not.
You asked where I thought you were self-contradictory. In your earlier post, you recognized that the doctor’s duty to the patient exceeded any duty to the warrant, yet you mock his “heroic life-saving efforts.”
“As I’ve stated repeatedly, we won’t know the doctor’s rationale in detail until his explanation becomes public, which it has not.”
You may see his own reports attached to the lawsuit (exhibit 6). Again no indication of any concern about patient safety, only a reference to a “judge’s order” in place of consent.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/181824808/David-Eckert-lawsuit-documents
“You asked where I thought you were self-contradictory. In your earlier post, you recognized that the doctor’s duty to the patient exceeded any duty to the warrant, yet you mock his “heroic life-saving efforts.””
I did not recognize the doctor’s duty … exceeded … the warrant. (If anything, I agree with others who are convinced it unconscionable and possibly illegal for a doctor to force treatment on a competent person.) The doctor’s *actions* exceeded the warrant, as you yourself say: “Anal cavity search does not equal colonoscopy”.
Frank, you present clinical notes on WHAT was done, which do not touch the details of WHY the procedure was escalated. Until those questions are asked and answered, it’s premature to judge.
You could be right on that (“details of WHY” missing). I’m not positive how much rationale is supposed to be documented at the time of the events, contradicting other apparent rationale (“because of the warrant …”).
Wouldn’t it be a strange sort of justice, if the motivation of an agent of government for performing controversial actions, totally undocumented at the time and disclosed verbally only under duress at trial, could affect their legal liability? “I don’t have to write down why I did that awful thing. If you sue me, I’ll come up with a story that it was for your own benefit.” Doesn’t sound absurd?
Actually, Frank, what sounds absurd to me is that medical professionals would risk throwing their careers away without good medical reason to do what they did. It’s absurd to believe the docs and the cops simultaneously turned into Dr. Mengele and the Gestapo. (And, please, don’t invoke Godwin’s law. The cop-hater blogs were spewing their jack-booted thug meme before I even became aware of the case.)
“It’s absurd to believe the docs and the cops simultaneously turned into Dr. Mengele and the Gestapo.”
OK, so if the lawsuit ends up settled or won, will you come to accept that this absurd belief was in fact correct? IF not, what kind of evidence would you require to falsify your theory?
Mas, I still wonder if you had a reply to my other question. Ignore the present case. Would you tolerate justice of a form where damning contemporaneous first-hand documentation is rendered harmless by subsequent anecdote about motives?
Frank, you ask “what kind of evidence would you require to falsify your theory?” I have absolutely no idea what “falsify your theory” means.
If the evidence shows that the cops and docs did wrong and brings judge/jury to that conclusion, I will have no choice but to accept it.
The difference between us is that I, unlike you, am waiting for the totality of that evidence.
As to your final question, Frank, what’s under discussion here is an affirmative defense. It’s like a self-defense shooting: it is stipulated that you shot the guy, but it is your contention that you were right to do so. It is clearly stipulated in the Eckert case that the invasive procedure was done, but there is ample precedent in law enforcement and emergency medicine alike for realizing that drugs hidden in body cavities can kill the patient, an exigent circumstance which can justify extreme action.
You and others have made it clear that if Eckert DID have a ruptured bag of dangerous drugs inside him, you’d let him die in the name of your principles. Emergency personnel don’t have that option, and you and those who agree with you are stubbornly refusing to recognize that irrefutable fact.
“Emergency personnel don’t have [the option of not forcing treatment on someone like Eckert; this is an] irrefutable fact.”
That amazing claim appears refuted by the refusal of the first doctor to perform any search on Eckert on ethical grounds.
Apples and oranges, Frank. On the one hand, a physician who MAY have believed that it was about a police search, and outside his medical purview; on the other, a different physician who, once there was reason to believe the patient had a poisonous substance inside him, would see a medical duty to follow up.
Frank, you don’t get that part about needing to wait to see what the participants have to say (in detail) about why they did what they did.
The oranges make it even worse for your argument: to the extent the “different physician” had more information than the first one, it was all negative information: evidence of the *absence* of drugs. He had even less obvious reason to worry for the well-being of Eckert than the original physician.
“Frank, you don’t get that part about needing to wait to see what the participants have to say (in detail) about why they did what they did.”
But the participants have already spoken in their contemporaneous reports. How they squirm out of their plain reading will be a spectacle – if the case ever goes to trial.
It’ll be a spectacle for YOU, Frank, because you’ve already made up your mind and chosen a side which you’re now blindly defending. I find it hard to believe that you can’t tell the difference between a report on what was done, and the as yet undisclosed fine point details of why it was done.
For the rest of us, it won’t be a spectacle, it’ll be a fact finding.
Frank, I’ve answered your questions repeatedly. Neither you nor anyone on your side of the argument has answered mine, the question I asked 142 comments ago: Cui bono? What had the doctors to gain? Why did they do it if they didn’t see something that warranted further medical investigation?
“the question I asked 142 comments ago: Cui bono? What had the doctors to gain?”
Collegiality with the police? Obedience of police? Business promotion? A sense of exerting power? A sense of wanting to help punish perceived criminals? Heck, it might even have been trying to help the guy, but kept that to himself. It could be a variety of reasons from well-intentioned but naive through malevolent.
From everything I’ve read though, whatever the rationalization, forcing serious medical treatment upon a competent adult has a high legal barrier; good luck (not really) to Dr. Odocha with it.
That’s all pretty far-fetched, Frank. “Business promotion?” I love it. You might want to apply the principle of Occam’s Razor.
Would YOU risk your career for any of those motives? What makes you think a physician would?
“What makes you think a physician would?”
Because a physician *did* risk his career by choosing to cooperate with police rather than the victim, and thus inviting the lawsuit.
Ah, Frank…
Your very choice of words in your last post proves you to be someone who heard one side of the story, jumped to a conclusion, and invested your ego in same.
You haven’t mentioned your background in the criminal justice system or in the courtroom. Mine is available, if you want to look for it on Google or Wikipedia.
If you had actually worked in either arena, you would know that one of the first rules is GET BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY. Another is, LISTEN TO WHAT THE OPPOSING SIDE OF THE DEBATE IS SAYING. You have clearly failed on both counts.
If you had actually read and analyzed my two blog posts on this matter, and the now hundreds of comments, you would have realized that what I am saying is, look at it the way the other side would look at it, and balance both sides…AND GET ALL THE INFORMATION.
We don’t have all that information yet. “The devil is in the details.” And, as Mies van der Roh said, “God is in the details.”
Have you noticed that the last 15 (well, now 16) comments here have been you, and me responding to you? Does it occur to you that everyone else might now have grasped the facts delineated above?
“Have you noticed that the last 15 (well, now 16) comments here have been you, and me responding to you? Does it occur to you that everyone else might now have grasped the facts delineated above?”
Actually Mr. Ayoob, those of us on the other side of the discussion have grasped that you appear to be ‘invincibly ignorant’ on this particular subject. We are prepared to let you have the last word and await the outcome – assuming of course there is one.
Personally, I can see this being settled out of court, with all details kept hush-hush as part of the deal.
Actually, OldCrusader, until all the facts come out we’re ALL ignorant to some extent, though hopefully not invincibly.
I’m glad I’m not the only one waiting for the outcome. While such suits often are settled out of court simply because that can be cheaper than going to trial, I hope it does not happen in this case. The public needs to understand why what was done, was done, and at this point it’s going to take the testimony of the principals to achieve that.
“The public needs to understand why what was done, was done …”
I’m not sure Mas understands that some of us find the prospect terrifying: that police could detain/arrest you for whatever (and there’s always *some* reason), thence cause/enable/approve the administering of surgery over one’s objections. That is true, EVEN IF they had the most angelic of reasons!
The state simply does not get to administer surgery to competent adults without their consent.