Ohio doctor William Husel has been found not guilty on 14 counts of murder after he was accused of speeding up the deaths of several of his patients.
Dr Husel was acquitted on Wednesday of hastening the deaths of several critically ill people by prescribing large doses of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller.
The physician faced one murder count for each patient and was found not guilty on all of them following jury deliberations that lasted seven days. The trial went on for around two months.
The case is one of the most expansive against any healthcare professional in the US.
Dr Husel’s medical licence was suspended in 2019. He could’ve been sent to prison for the rest of his life if he was found guilty on just one of the counts.
The jury also considered the charge of attempted murder, considering if Dr Husel was acting within the confines of Ohio law when he prescribed 10 times the amount of fentanyl that expert witnesses said was normal outside of surgeries, prosecutors argued.
Most of the patients in the intensive care unit who got 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl were older, in their 70s and 80s, and needed ventilators to help them breathe. But others were younger, with some being in their late 30s, NBC News reported.
Dr Husel treated the patients between 2015 and 2018. They were taken to Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus with various issues, such as cancer, pneumonia and organ failure.
Franklin County prosecutors assembled more than 50 witnesses in the trial, such as medical experts, family members of the deceased patients, and former co-workers of Dr Husel.
“Even if their death is assured as the sun is going to rise in the morning, if you hasten that along, you caused their death in the eyes of the law,” Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor David Zeyen said towards the end of the trial.
Dr Husel’s defence team argued that no maximum doses of fentanyl are illegal under state law and that he was trying to ease the pain of dying patients.
“Why will this man risk his family, his career, 17 years of trying to be a doctor, every single thing he has worked for, to hasten someone’s death or to kill them?” lawyer Jose Baez said.
Dr Husel didn’t testify and hasn’t spoken publicly about the case. The allegations came to light in a number of lawsuits filed by family members of the deceased patients in early 2019.
Around 35 families filed wrongful death lawsuits against Dr Husel, as well as the hospital and other members of staff. Several families settled their cases for around $13.5m in total.
