Jury deliberates again today in murder case of doctor accused of overprescribing fentanyl to the dying

By Jean Casarez and Lauren del Valle, CNN

A jury deliberating the legal fate of an Ohio doctor accused of overprescribing the powerful opioid fentanyl to patients near death will continue its work for a third day on Thursday.

Dr. William Husel has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of first-degree murder. The state charges are related to the allegations he prescribed fentanyl in doses “designed to hasten the death of the patients that were being treated,” prosecutors said when Husel was indicted in June 2019.

Husel worked at Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus. The patient deaths took place between February 2015 and November 2018, according to his indictment. Husel was fired December 5, 2018.

All of the counts include the lesser charge of attempted murder. Husel was initially indicted on 25 counts of murder, but in January — about a month before the trial began — 11 of the counts were dismissed.

Jurors got the case Tuesday morning and deliberated for about 14 hours over the first two days. Court was due to resume Thursday at 9 a.m. ET.

Jurors on Wednesday asked two questions, both requesting to see the same defense exhibit: “the list of cases beyond the 14 counts, others who were extubated and given fentanyl by Dr. Husel.”

But Judge Michael Holbrook told jurors they could not see the exhibit because it was not formally introduced into evidence.

Jurors on Tuesday asked a question concerning Dr. Joel Zivot, who testified as an expert and was the only defense witness called (the prosecution called over 50 witnesses). Zivot received his undergraduate and medical degrees in Canada and his board certifications in anesthesia and critical care medicine from the Cleveland Clinic.

The jury asked, “Dr. Joel Zivot states he included a list of articles in support of his opinion. Why are they not included? Why are they missing?”

After attorneys for both sides met, the following reply was sent to the jury: “Any article not authored by the experts themselves were not sent back.”

‘It is murder to kill a dying person,’ prosecutors argue

Prosecutors spent more than two hours Monday presenting their closing, arguing, in part, “It is murder to kill a dying person.”

Husel had the “specific intention” to cause the deaths of all 14 patients, Assistant Franklin County prosecutor David Zeyen told the jury.

“You have to get into his mind,” Zeyen said. “You have to figure it out.”

Zeyen told jurors that even if the patients’ underlying medical conditions also caused the deaths, if the fentanyl “hastened the deaths,” Husel is responsible.

Zeyen lined up a long row of fentanyl bottles for the jury to see as he referenced the testimony of witnesses describing patients’ medical conditions. Each patient was different, he said, but many were given the same amounts of the drugs.

Several patients were brain-damaged, Zeyen told the jury, but instead of giving them less medication because they wouldn’t be able to feel the pain, larger doses were ordered by Husel.

Experts for the prosecution testified that no one else in the field of comfort care medicine is giving similar amounts of fentanyl.

“No literature supports this,” Zeyen argued.

Three other ICU physicians at Mount Carmel West, where Husel practiced, testified they used morphine for pain rather than fentanyl, and the morphine was given in small doses at designated intervals.

Defense rails against prosecutors, police

Defense attorney Jose Baez argued prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the doses Husel prescribed actually hastened the patients’ deaths or that Husel purposely intended to kill the patients.

He criticized prosecutors’ case, telling jurors, “Things that were fed to you … were just not true, completely contradicted by the records. That’s not what this process is for.”

Baez argued police initially didn’t carry out a fair and impartial investigation. He accused police of relying too heavily on the hospital’s internal investigation and argued prosecutors failed to ask when patients stopped breathing, why they had respiratory depression and then when their hearts stopped beating.

“William Husel is sitting here now because they didn’t do that,” he said.

Husel never tried to hide the amount of fentanyl he was giving patients, Baez argued. “You do something wrong, you try to hide it,” he told the jury. “That shows his intent right there.”

Baez also argued both sides agree there are no maximum doses for fentanyl used in comfort care medicine and went through all 14 patients’ cases, outlining measures Husel performed to save their lives.

The nurses who worked alongside Husel were the most important witnesses of this trial, he said, adding that they all lost their jobs and most are no longer nurses.

“You would think they would be really angry at William Husel,” but they all spoke extremely highly of him as a physician, Baez said.

“They were there. We were not,” he said.

Husel did not take the stand.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Amir Vera and Taylor Romine contributed to this report.