<p>(According to my exhaustive 5 minute google search) As far as news coverage, it makes Midland/Odessa TV and newspapers. In fact, the defense attorneys are from Midland.</p>
<p>So maybe the NYT got it wrong when it said charges were being brought in state court…</p>
<p>coyotes, drug dealers not much difference ;)</p>
<p>No , it is state court. In lawyer parlance , at its most generic, state court means “not federal” court. “District” is the highest level of state trial court in Texas .</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I was upset when I read about this yesterday, too. But I have to say that I wish the Times had done a better job reporting the positions of the doctor, the district attorney, and the hospital. The world is full of controversial questions that seem one-sided if all you know about them is what the attorney for one of the parties says.</p></li>
<li><p>My criminal procedure teacher (a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, by the way): “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and no one in our system has absolute power like a prosecutor deciding whether and what to prosecute.”</p></li>
<li><p>Pennsylvania: I think there’s a heck of a lot going on in the “T”, good and ill, that never appears in the Inquirer.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It didn’t make the Dallas Morning News either.</p>
<p>
Very true. And that brings to mind the oft repeated line “The Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich if the DA wants it to.” ;)</p>
<p>Actually, not always. When my mom was a 58-year-old PhD student in a SUNY ed school, she was picked to be on a grand jury for the local district (state, not federal). 35 years before, she had been the first woman to drop out of Harvard Law School. (OK, maybe the second or third.) Anyway, she got elected foreperson, and the whole thing spun completely out of control. She was asking so many questions and struggling (and getting everyone else to struggle) so diligently with all the evidence that they had to impanel a second grand jury to keep the indictment pipeline flowing. One of the ADAs was a former prom date of mine, whom she knew and liked; they brought in my ex-date to try to control my mom, and that worked a little but not well enough.</p>
<p>I would listen to my mother talk about it on the phone – reminding her periodically that she was supposed to maintain grand jury secrecy – and it was all I could do not to bust a gut laughing at how miserable she must be making the DA and his minions. She was taking it very, very seriously! She probably would have indicted the ham sandwich, too, but not without weeks and weeks of testimony and agonizing.</p>
<p>Well, good for her. We have a rogue grand jury once or twice in my 30 years . Once they get up a head of steam , it can get interesting. lol.</p>
<p>JHS - you make a good point in #3 and you are probably right. curmudgeon - accept my apologies for sounding “holier than thou”. I, too, would like to know the other side of the story and wish the NYT would have reported that.
The county in which I live has not convened a grand jury in 20 years. They talked about it last year but decided against it.</p>
<p>I can think of one recent case that never made it beyond our local paper. A woman shot her husband in bed, waited two hours to call for help and he was taken off life support two weeks later. No charges were pressed. Her story was she was depressed and going to shoot herself and accidentally discharged the gun. Very fishy.</p>
<p>starbright, i read that the guy had his license revoked in new york:</p>
<p>(from the workers’ comp. website)</p>
<p>"By Consent Order (BPMC No. 08-29), effective February 29, 2008, the New York State Department of Health, State Board of Professional Medical Conduct (BPMC) adopted Dr. Arafiles’ agreement to never register or reapply for a medical license to practice medicine in the State of New York.</p>
<p>Effective March 7, 2008, Dr. Arafiles voluntarily resigned his authorization to treat workers’ compensation claimants. [address follows]."</p>
<p>This did make the Houston Chronicle, at least in an Op-Ed:
<a href=“http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6583426.html[/url]”>http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6583426.html</a></p>
<p>Does anyone but me find it bizarre that even a malicious defamation would be a felony? Isn’t this why God gave us torts?</p>
<p>Yes. Especially in a professional area where there seems to be a primary (and apparently legal) duty to report possible problems.</p>
<p>Torts aren’t much help if the defendant is judgment-proof. I’ll admit that I’ve never heard of anyone being prosecuted for malicious abuse of process, but it doesn’t sound bizarre to me (assuming it WAS malicious and WAS an abuse, beyond a reasonable doubt, i.e., probably not this case).</p>
<p>I do note that the nurses make a big deal about their “primary (and apparently legal) duty to report possible problems”, and it IS relevant, but I doubt that sending an anonymous letter to a state licensing board acquits that particular duty. I think that’s one of the other-side-of-the-coin issues here: The nurses bypassed official procedures for raising issues like the ones they raised, and went about their whistle-blowing in a manner that was essentially guaranteed NOT to bring about quick termination of any abuses, but that WOULD cause maximum trouble for the doctor they disliked. I doubt I would send them to prison for that, but it doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy about them and their professional standards, either.</p>
<p>I am on my phone and I don’t know how to copy text from the article but I believe the charge is based on " the dissemination of confidential information without a governmental purpose". The article also seems to suggest that a specific intent to injure the doc is an element the state must prove. I have no exprience with such a prosecution but that is a heckuva burden.</p>
<p>Hey. Not bad phone typing , if I do say so myself.;)</p>
<p>Physician here. Outrageous. Sounds like the nurse complained to the appropriate board, not the the local news media. There should be internal state board processes for handling complaints without it becoming the jurisdiction of the locals. Investigations would require the local hosptial to send copies of records so the medical community would find out something was being investigated, but the sheriff has no role/business in this. I would have expected this complaint could have been handled without it becoming public, thus causing no damage to the physician’s reputation unless the end result was disciplinary action by the state board of medical examiners.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is absurd. If you’re a bad doctor (which has already been established by his prior record of discipline and his ongoing issues at this hospital, which are illustrated in this article), then of course your reputation is going to be damaged, and the statements that are being made about you are going to be inflammatory. I can’t imagine a case where someone with this kind of record can be disciplined and spoken about without it being inflammatory or damaging someone’s reputation. It doesn’t matter if the two are best friends or worse enemies. It’s going to be inflammatory and damaging. </p>
<p>I’d like to see a case where a physician with his record was successfully charged and prosecuted using the Pollyanna approach.</p>
<p>She [got</a> off](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/us/12nurses.html?em]got”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/us/12nurses.html?em). Not guilty, less than an hour.</p>
<p>It’s just awful that she was prosecuted in the first place, but I guess that is our justice system. 
So glad that she was vindicated and hope it doesn’t have a chilling effect on others who try to do the right thing for patients.</p>