Ohio jury finds doctor not guilty of murder in fentanyl case -Columbus Dispatch
(Reuters) -An Ohio jury on Wednesday discovered Dr. William Husel, who had been accused of giving sufferers deadly doses of fentanyl, not responsible of 14 counts of homicide, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper reported.
Husel, a former physician with the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Well being System, was accused in Franklin County of purposely inflicting the dying of 14 sufferers between 2015 and 2018. He confronted 15 years to life in jail for every depend.
The jury, which initially couldn’t come to an settlement, deliberated for every week after the seven-week trial ended.
Husel’s protection attorneys argued that the doses of fentanyl – a potent painkiller – that he administered to sufferers was supposed to consolation them and that dying for critically sick sufferers was imminent, the Dispatch reported.
Prosecutors informed the jury that Husel’s actions hastened the dying of the sufferers.
Husel faces greater than 10 civil lawsuits from the households of sufferers who died whereas beneath his care, whereas a number of households have settled fits value thousands and thousands of {dollars}, the Dispatch reported.
Husel was a part of a wave of U.S. docs charged for his or her function in a public well being disaster that the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) mentioned led to a file 47,600 U.S. opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017.
The CDC reported that greater than 75,000 folks died from opioids overdoses within the 12-month interval ending in April 2021.
Fentanyl, typically given for intense ache related to most cancers, is 100 instances extra highly effective than morphine.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Modifying by Invoice Berkrot)
