Husband, 84, Ordered to Serve Prison Time in 'mercy Killing' of Wife With

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB920J45BE.html

Husband, 84, Ordered to Serve Prison Time in 'mercy Killing' of Wife With Alzheimer's

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - An 84-year-old man who said he strangled his wife of more than 50 years as she slipped deeper into Alzheimer's disease was sentenced to prison by a judge who said the case was the toughest he had faced on the bench.

William Wallace Hurt was sentenced Wednesday to a 10-year prison term, to be suspended after he serves one year, for killing 83-year-old Neva Hurt.

Hurt had pleaded no contest in March to second-degree murder.

On Easter morning 2004, Hurt placed a plastic bag over his wife's head to end what he said was her steady decline to the disease. He then attempted to kill himself - first by placing a bag over his head, then by ingesting weed killer and finally by striking his head repeatedly with a hammer.

After 50 years together, this man obviously loved his wife very much.

let that man walk

He's been jailed to satisfy the hunger of the insane right.

...right!

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13
Buttons for brainy people - educate your local freepers today!

If he loved her then the judgment of society matters spit.

in the slammer. That is just stupid. yes he knew what he was doing and he probably knew that the justice system would punish him, heck he tried to kill humself, that doesn't excuse our criminal justice system from acting in a senseless manner.

Yes, it is broken, and it must be fixed.

I just believe that to live a moral life one must chose our path and accept the consequences of our actions. To my mind this man is a hero, and his sentence a badge of honor. I salute him for his sacrifice and for his demonstration of love and devotion to his spouse. Nothing can take that away.

As for the system, I believe in malicious compliance. The best way to destroy a stupid law is to follow it to the letter. We as a society must now live with the shame and guilt of having enacted such laws.

but also very cold. The man is 84 years old.

sad. I just wish that all these fundie types who are against stem cell research have to look in the eye of those who have to deal with disease and others like it and explain how this suffering is justified when it could be remedied.

Whatever yo think of what he did (I happen to think she's better off where she is, and would want the same done for me under the circumstances...), you have got to agree this was probably the hardest thing he ever had to do.

Ten years for a man this age is a life sentence without parole, imo... why would his lawyer allow him to plead no contest to 2nd degree murder under those circumstances? Probably because the old guy had no $$$ to pay a decent one.

Just goes to prove what I've been saying for a while now: In this country today, no good deed goes unpunished.

TC

this story breaks my hart, but i think the judge made an ok decision based on the everything about the case.

Let this man go!
House arrest is more than sufficient.

yrs. old and he is not a threat to society. this was an act of love. at the most, he should be under house arrest with psychiatric help to get him through this phase of his life.

I realize that 'mercy killing" IS a slippery slope (was it really a mercy, what were the "victim's" desires...?)That's why it needs to be looked at "case by case" ....

what you want to happen with your life.

I've got a living will, but it doesn't go far enough IMO.

They get to a point where they are aware of nothing...one step shy of Shiavo. It's dreadful, her husband sounds like a caring, loving man.

My mother works with alzhiemers patient and she told me a story years ago about a guy she was caring for that came at her swinging a shovel because he thought she was a burgler and didn't remember why she was there.

you really just waste away
Let this poor man go!

suffered more than enough.

My grandma has some senility, from a series of strokes, and she lives in a nursing home, but she is lucid, talkative and still can read and eat on her own. She's been like that for a couple of years without getting worse, so she has a pretty decent quality of life.

My 92 year old grandpa still lives independently, and although I don't really like riding in the car with him (he drives too slow), he drives pretty safely and doesn't drive out of town.

The ill person needs to have had some say ... There are people who wish to be kept alive regardless (That's not my belief but, it should be taken into consideration) and alternately there are those that would wish to nEVER be in some conditions ...

There are no easy (or one size fits all) answers. I do think this poor old man's incarceration is NOT is anyones best interest.

Just think about it.

2. He could get remarried.

2. Stay married to wife # 2 for 50 + years .

3. And then strangle her if she became sick.

4. We need to keep people who could "RE-OFFEND" locked up.

5. Geeze I "FEEL SAFER"

Please?!

We had Chong in jail, while Rove will walk free. Limbaugh's go free while three strikes petty thiefs spend life in jail. I'm getting really sick of this country.

edit- OK, I did get a bit hystrionic there. Rove is only one of many. And that's not over yet. And at 84, that old guy should have known what he was doing could be construed as murder. BUT STILL....

their lives. Assisted suicide or whatever it's called.

to incarcerate this poor man. This is a tragedy - they could at least put him on house arrest.

You have to wonder about a society that deals out death indiscriminately to brown people, while bizarrely refusing to let its own suffering lot die.

Let this Mr. Hurt go; he's a political prisoner.

health care and social services much earlier, and this poor man's desperation and despair could have probably been avoided.

and 1 year + 5 years probation for screwing a 10 year old...

But, if your busted with 20 grams of cocaine, watch out, looking at 20-40 years....

Our legal system's priorities are seriously fucked up...

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

He should've been able to talk it over with her doctor and his doctor and get help much earlier before feeling driven to such an act.

As my retired Navy surgeon uncle says, "Assisted suicide happens every day." It does. My husband even saw it in med school. Most of the time, it is just meds given to the patient with a careful explanation of how to use them that way so that the patient truly decides on his or her own.

He should never have felt the need to do that--or to try ot kill himself in such a painful, horrible way. He doesn't need jail--he needs love and support and lots of time to cry.

...health insurance much less a doctor.

This is the kind of horrible thing that happens when the medical system tanks. He should've been able to get help but obviously couldn't.

Trust me, I have never found anyone who wants socialized medicine more than my husband, and I'm second. He is sick and tired of having to re-figure someone's meds so they can afford them or not see someone for way too long because they can't afford to come in. He's mad as hell and is working on everyone he works with (he's got the nurses, NPs and PA, and the doctors are now listening).

I say none. OK, I understand under current law the court cannot condone this sort of action so they must impose some sort of sentence. Ten years suspended would be fair in my view.

I'm sure they could've come up with something better than locking him up for a year (which will probably kill him, given the prison health care system).

Mr. Hurt murdered his wife, legally that is. once the prosecution brought the charge and convicted him ,the judge had no choice, really. He did say it would be a medical unit.

anyone catch this last paragraph? "Prosecutor Randy Leach emphasized that Hurt should have some punishment for taking his wife's life, adding that help was on the way, because social service workers had been scheduled to go to the home to arrange in-home health care.

interesting, I wonder when they were coming?

The law is what it is, badly as it needs changing. And I might agree that this is one instance in which the law should not be overthrown by courts - although courts might well be given discretion to address such genuinely exceptional cases, by exempting them from mandatory minimum sentences, for instance.

An equivalent Canadian case was Latimer, the man who killed his daughter, who had been severely disabled from birth and was in constant pain and not significantly aware of her surroundings, rather than put her through another round of surgeries.

The Supreme Court decision:
http://www.canlii.org/ca/cas/scc/2001/2001scc1.html

The accused was charged with first degree murder following the death of T, his 12-year-old daughter who had a severe form of cerebral palsy. T was quadriplegic and her physical condition rendered her immobile. She was said to have the mental capacity of a four-month-old baby, and could communicate only by means of facial expressions, laughter and crying. T was completely dependent on others for her care. She suffered five to six seizures daily, and it was thought that she experienced a great deal of pain. She had to be spoon-fed, and her lack of nutrients caused weight loss. ...

... After the jury returned with a guilty verdict, the trial judge explained the mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment, and asked the jury whether it had any recommendation as to whether the ineligibility for parole should exceed the minimum period of 10 years. Some jury members appeared upset, according to the trial judge, and later sent a note asking him if they could recommend less than the 10-year minimum. The trial judge explained that the Criminal Code provided only for a recommendation over the 10-year minimum, but suggested that the jury could make any recommendation it liked. The jury recommended one year before parole eligibility. ...

The judge found that the mandatory minimum was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, and exempted Latimer from it -- there are very few mandatory minimum sentences in Canada because the Supreme Court does regard them as cruel and unusual and thus unconstitutional, except in unusual cases. In this case, the Court upheld the 10-year minimum, deferring to Parliament on an important matter of public policy.

In some cases, supports for caregivers would make a big difference -- obviously, someone like the husband in this case was severely depressed himself, and had he actually had such supports, he might not have become so despondent. And the person being cared for might be able to live in sufficient comfort.

In others, like Tracy Latimer's, there really is the question of whether someone would be better off dead. Really. And it's a question that legislators really do have to address. Or unfortunate people like these are going to keep doing what they see no alternative to, and these events will keep ruining the lives of people who don't deserve it.

It sounds horrific, but the notion of having a public authority that would oversee such decisions, which would certainly remain extremely rare and subject to careful examination of caregivers' motives before the fact, may be one whose time is almost here.

A few generations ago, or less, people simply did not survive in the kinds of states that people we are talking about are in -- there were no feeding tubes, no surgeries that do little but prolong pain. We're the ones who have created this situation in many cases, by extending the life, and we should maybe take responsibility for the harm that it sometimes does.

if we look back to German society of the twenties and thirties, we find a civilized culture not so unlike our own........

In 1920 was published a book titled The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, by Alfred Hoche, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, and Karl Binding, a professor of law from the University of Leipzig. They argued in their book that patients who ask for "death assistance" should, under very carefully controlled conditions, be able to obtain it from a physician. The conditions were spelled out, and included the submission of the request to a panel of three experts, the right of the patient to withdraw his request at any time, and the legal protection of the physicians who would help him terminate his life. Binding and Hoche explained how death assistance was congruent with the highest medical ethics and was essentially a compassionate solution to a painful problem.

Death assistance, according to the authors, was not to be limited to those who were able or even willing to ask for it. They would have such mercy extended as well to "empty shells of human beings" such as those with brain damage, some psychiatric conditions, and mental retardation, if by scientific criteria the "impossibility of improvement of a mentally dead person" could be proven. The benefits to society would be great, they said, as money previously devoted to the care of "meaningless life" would be channeled to those who most needed it, the socially and physically fit. Germans needed only to learn to evaluate the relative value of life in different individuals.

An opinion poll conducted in 1920 revealed that 73% of the parents and guardians of severely disabled children surveyed would approve of allowing physicians to end the lives of disabled children such as their own. Newspapers, journal articles, and movies joined in shaping the opinion of the German public. The Ministry of Justice described the proposal as one that would make it "possible for physicians to end the tortures of incurable patients, upon request, in the interests of true humanity" (reported in the N.Y. Times, 10/8/33, p. 1, col. 2). And the savings would redound to the German people if money was no longer thrown away on the disabled, the incurable, and "those on the threshold of old age."

A 1936 novel written by Helmut Unger, M.D., further assisted the German people in accepting the unthinkable. Dr. Unger told the story of a physician whose wife was disabled by multiple sclerosis. She asks him to help her die, and he complies. At his trial he pleads with the jurors to understand his honorable motive: "Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?" The jury acquit him in the novel. The book was subsequently made into a movie which, according to research by the SS Security Service, was "favorably received and discussed," even though some Germans were concerned about possible abuses.

With the public now assenting, the question turned from "whether" to "by whom" and "under what circumstances."

The first known case of the application of this now-acceptable proposal concerned "Baby Knauer." The child's father requested of Adolph Hitler himself that his son be allowed death because he was blind, retarded, and missing an arm and a leg. Surely, in his condition, he would be better off dead. Hitler turned the case over to his personal physician, Karl Brandt, and in 1938 the request was granted.

Over the next few months, a committee set out to establish practical means by which such "mercy deaths" could be granted to other children who had no prospect for meaningful life. The hospital at Eglfing-Haar, under the direction of Hermann Pfannmuller, M.D., slowly starved many of the disabled children in its care until they died of "natural causes." Other institutions followed suit, some depriving its small patients of heat rather than food. Medical personnel who were uncomfortable with what they were asked to do were told this was not killing: they were simply withholding treatment and "letting nature take its course."

Over time Pfannmuller set up Hungerhauser (starvation houses) for the elderly. By the end of 1941, euthanasia was simply "normal hospital routine."

In the meantime, no law had been passed permitting euthanasia. Rather, at the end of 1939, Hitler signed this letter:

"Reichleader Bouhler and Dr. Med. Brandt are responsibly commissioned to extend the authority of physicians to be designated by name so that a mercy death may be granted to patients who, according to human judgment, are incurably ill according to the most critical evaluation of the state of their disease."

Interestingly, physicians were not ordered to participate, but merely permitted to if they so wished. It was to be a private matter between the doctor and his patient (or the family if the patient was unable to speak for himself).
Brandt, testifying at his trial in Nuremburg after the war, insisted:

"The underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves and were thus prolonging their lives in torment. ... To quote Hippocrates today is to proclaim that invalids and persons in great pain should never be given poison. But any modern doctor who makes so rhetorical a declaration without qualification is either a liar or a hypocrite. ... I never intended anything more than or believed I was doing anything but abbreviating the tortured existence of such unhappy creatures."

Brandt's only regret was that the dead patients' relatives may have been caused pain. Yet he justified even that: "I am convinced that today they have overcome their distress and personally believe that the dead members of their families were given a happy release from their sufferings." (A. Mitcherlich & F. Mielke, The Death Doctors, pp. 264-265.)
http://suewidemark.netfirms.com/nazieuth.htm

This a very clever start towards the creation of a culture that presumes that healthcare access should be available only to those who can afford it.
The rest can be left to die, and the liberals and conservatives alike will feel comfortable. They'll be covered, and the poor people whose "tragic" lives would have been lived in horror would never be written.
These opinions are coming from people who do not live the experience. Whether people agree or not, the outcry against the Terry Shiavo case from disability rights activists should at least indicate that many people living with disabilities are not as unhappy as presumed.
That should make a valid point against the assumption that it "must" be a tragic existance. People adapt and learn that their bodies become just an ordinary part of life experience.
It's not always as tragic as it might appear. The assumption that it is devalues people.
This man's conviction and treatment as an offender is recognition that his wife was a person of value.

If only there were actually some similarity between me and a Nazi, I'd bother reading that bumph. I'm just not in the habit of reading crap lifted off some anti-choice internet site.

Hmm. Nazis owned cats. I own cats. I'm a Nazi.

This a very clever start towards the creation of a culture that presumes that healthcare access should be available only to those who can afford it.

Well, friend, I live in a culture where health care is available to EVERYONE. "Affording it" just ain't an issue. And that issue doesn't come into ANYTHING I SAID, as was quite evident from what I said. How's that?

The rest can be left to die, and the liberals and conservatives alike will feel comfortable.

You don't say?

Me, I'm not a liberal or a conservative. I'm a social democrat, in the present circumstances. And I'm not comfortable unless everyone has access to the best level of the conditions necessary for a decent life that we can provide.

They'll be covered, and the poor people whose "tragic" lives would have been lived in horror would never be written.

I really have no clue why you're addressing this to me. I don't doubt that there are people like that in the world. Why don't you go talk to them?

These opinions are coming from people who do not live the experience.

Really? What the FUCK do you know about MY experience? I mean, you ARE talking to ME, right?

What do you know about watching my father die of metastacized melanoma? (He, and we, were lucky; he died of a heart attack before he got to experience the three to six months more of agonizing pain that awaited him. Ever had bone cancer?)

What do you know about watching my grandfather live for 6 months in misery (in a nursing home, with the best possible medical care and family support) after two strokes, while he hoped to die?

Whether people agree or not, the outcry against the Terry Shiavo case from disability rights activists should at least indicate that many people living with disabilities are not as unhappy as presumed.

"Presumed" by whom? Is there someone in the room with thee and me whom I haven't noticed?

Who EVER said that any of those people should have choices made for them that they did not want?

Do you happen to know about the fellow whom my law partner represented (for free) a few years ago, who was confined in a nursing home and not being allowed out because he had a habit of running his wheelchair into ditches? ... Nobody could quite figure out whether he was trying to kill himself or not ...

That should make a valid point against the assumption that it "must" be a tragic existance.

No one assumed that Tracy Latimer's life "must" have been a tragic existence. She was in constant severe pain, and her body was consuming itself because she could not get nourishment. No one "assumed" a bloody thing; her father LIVED that tragic life with her.

We could figure out how to keep her alive, but not how to give her a life that wasn't tragic. WE did that. WE gave her the tragic life. Are WE proud of ourselves?

People adapt and learn that their bodies become just an ordinary part of life experience.

What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?

How does a 12-yr-old with the mental capacity of a 4-month-old, suffering from constant seizures and in constant pain, unable to communicate with the world or understand any communications, "learn" ANYTHING about her body, or anything else?

It's not always as tragic as it might appear. The assumption that it is devalues people.

The assumption that people want to be kept alive when they are in pain that YOU have never experienced, or when they have ceased to have any control over their lives at all because of a disease or disability that has robbed them of their personality or their ability to express it, devalues them more.

This man's conviction and treatment as an offender is recognition that his wife was a person of value.

Well, even a blind pig, etc.

Yes, you're right -- the purpose of the law was to do just that, to recognize that each individual has value, and no other individual is entitled to determine what value that is.

This does not mean that there are no OTHER ways of recognizing that each individual has value, and of treating individuals as having value.

It is simply a fact that sometimes, and yes, rarely, the way to recognize that an individual has value is to stop the torture they are suffering, on their behalf.

That's more easily said than done, very obviously.

But your way, what's done doesn't always jibe with what's being said.

It sure seems to make a lot of people feel real good to tell other people how morally superior they are though, doesn't it?

You listed some obvious examples of observation of another person's experience with disease\disability.
It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. Unless you have a condition yourself, you did not live anything.

"Well, friend, I live in a culture where health care is available to EVERYONE. "Affording it" just ain't an issue."
Only a person who has never been denied care would have the nerve to say this.

"The assumption that people want to be kept alive when they are in pain that YOU have never experienced, or when they have ceased to have any control over their lives at all because of a disease or disability that has robbed them of their personality or their ability to express it, devalues them more."

The point is that assuming anything devalued her previous existance. Her entire existance is based upon this assessment and that devaluation and all aumptions that follow, including the fact that you would never want to be in her shoes- nor would any other rational human being. Thus, if she ever was sane she would have wanted her life terminated- right?
There is no dignity presumed for her even in whatever moments she may have left that are worthwhile, because her life is relegated by some as unworthy.

BTW- The historical notation that preceded appears in numerous places. I just picked up from the first place that popped up on my google search.
You would do well to familiarize yourself, if you truly do care about the decency of "everyone's" life (as in equal rights).
http://www.freedom-of-thought.de/may2/may2_2003.htm

Well, friend, I live in a culture where health care is available to EVERYONE. "Affording it" just ain't an issue.
Only a person who has never been denied care would have the nerve to say this.

And only a person who doesn't have a clue what s/he is talking about would say that, I'd have to say.

Frankly, I don't even know what you're talking about. Are you suggesting that in the culture of which I was speaking -- CANADA -- people are denied care? That would be a pretty false assertion, if so.

But it does kind of raise an issue. If a society does its utmost to provide everyone with well above a basic minimum of care, and accomplishes that goal, and that is still not enough for a few people with extreme needs, what's the answer?

Are you submitting that I am saying the answer is to bump those people off to prevent them from suffering?

If so, you're making a false assertion, of course. I have never said any such thing. I have never, ever suggested that ANY PERSON'S OWN WISHES should EVER be overridden by ANYONE else, including "society".

So what exactly was your point?

The point is that assuming anything devalued her previous existance. Her entire existance is based upon this assessment and that devaluation and all aumptions that follow, including the fact that you would never want to be in her shoes- nor would any other rational human being. Thus, if she ever was sane she would have wanted her life terminated- right?

We're talking about the woman in this case? The foregoing makes so little sense that I'm going to have to assume that's what it's about, even if I don't know what it's supposed to be saying.

So you can blather on about what you claim "devalues" someone else's "existence" if you like, but that don't make you right, or what you say meaningful.

"If she ever was sane"? In what universe would that be?

There is no dignity presumed for her even in whatever moments she may have left that are worthwhile, because her life is relegated by some as unworthy.

There's certainly someone here who needs to stop assuming what other people think, and it ain't me.

And your characterization of other people's motivations is just that: your characterization. And worth not much.

And I'm not the one who needs to look up how to use "relegate" in a sentence.

The historical notation that preceded appears in numerous places. I just picked up from the first place that popped up on my google search.

Find me one that isn't a deceitful disingenuous right-wing anti-choice outfit, and we'll talk.

You would do well to familiarize yourself, if you truly do care about the decency of "everyone's" life (as in equal rights).
http://www.freedom-of-thought.de/may2/may2_2003.htm

Oooh! Lookie there, another bit of info about the medical mass murder perpetrated by Nazis.

YOU would do REALLY well to stop aiming veiled accusations of Nazi sympathies in my direction. My own advice would be that you quit before you go any father. Please give it your careful consideration.

I doubt there would have been an outcry from the community for being too lenient if he had.

Don

*ALL* of our rules have exceptions.

Thou shalt not kill ... except in self-defence or in a just war.

People who break laws must be punished ... except where they were not responsible, by reason of mental disease or defect, for what they did.

But the standard exceptions that have been built into the rules over time don't cover *every* eventuality, any more than the rules themselves did.

It can be agreed that he broke the rule and an exception to the rule against killing should not be made for him in particular, but it can also be agreed that an exception to the rule about punishment should be made for him in particular -- he should not be punished, or not severely punished, because he in particular doesn't deserve it.

That was the point behind what the trial judge did in the Latimer case I referred to in my other post -- the man who killed his severely disabled daughter, who was living in constant severe pain, unable to communicate. He committed homicide; he did not deserve an exception to that rule. The law demanded that he be sentenced to life and to serve no less than 10 years before parole. The jury that convicted him didn't know this, and the jurors became agitated when they heard it -- they didn't think he deserved it. The judge told them to go ahead and recommend whatever minimum before parole they thought wise. They recommended one year.

The judge granted Latimer a "constitutional exemption", because in *his* case the sentence amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment". The judge used the overriding rules of the society -- the constitution, and the protections it gives individuals -- to make an exception in a special case.

Arguably unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada overruled him.

Exceptions have to be limited to exceptional circumstances. This man really does look like a case of exceptional circumstances.

back on the street with only a sentence of probation. This is ridiculous. The poor guy very well won't make a year in prison.

Republicans 'Pro-life' status is laughable. If they hadn't turned Jack Kevorkian into some criminal killer, than this man would have never had to recourse to strangling his wife. It's a horrible thing to have to watch a loved one suffer, and its disgusting that the 'Small Government' Repigs want to step into to people's personal lives! Euthanasia shouldn't be allowed to be a GOP wedge issue. Terri Schaivo should be a lesson to the right wing. And this man should walk. What he did is not by any stretch of the imagination tantamount to murder, but an expression of compassion and love for his wife.

Now this guy deserves a medal!

1. (no longer available in this case) Jury nullification.


2. (a pardon or a commutation of sentence) This could still happen.


A third way would be for the legislature to rewrite some of the laws to allow judges more discretion--in some states, including South Dakota, a judge who follows the law would have no discretion at all, and would be required by law to order a life sentence.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke%5C27433.html

And a brief interview with their son.
Elderly Man Murders Wife with Alzheimer's: Son Speaks

for themselves. People with Alzheimer's are still alive and still feel things and still like things at times.

have been in a fog of immense proportions. God bless both of them.

such as this. He must have loved her so.