Friday, March 13, 2009

Anna Nicole Smith

The Miami Herald reports on the indictment of the companion and doctor of the late Anna Nicole Smith.
Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend Howard K. Stern and two doctors were charged Thursday with giving thousands of prescription drugs to the former Playboy Playmate in the years leading up to her fatal drug overdose in 2007.

Stern and doctors Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich were each charged with three felony counts of conspiracy and several other charges of fraudulent prescriptions. Prosecutors said the doctors gave the drugs - including opiates and sedatives - to Stern, who then gave them to Smith.

The prescriptions were issued between June 2004 and January 2007, just weeks before Smith's death.

Everyone probably remembers who Anna Nicole is from the time of her headline-grabbing inheritance case after the death of her billionaire husband, J. Howard Marshall. Just in case, you can find all those gory details as well as those of her titillating modelling career on Wikipedia.

What I find interesting in this story is the question of personal responsibility. If she was an adult person, who took drugs willingly, and that caused her death, how can the boyfriend and the doctors be held responsible? I realize they're not being charged with murder or even manslaughter, but I take that to be only a technicality. The charges of fraudulent prescriptions are probably the best the government can do in a case where these people are being blamed for her death. Do you agree with that analysis?

Documents obtained by The Associated Press after Smith's death showed Eroshevich authorized all 11 prescription medications found in the model's hotel room the day she died. Most of the drugs were prescribed in the name of Stern, her lawyer-turned-companion, and none were prescribed in Smith's own name.

The quantity was staggering. More than 600 pills - including about 450 muscle relaxants - were missing from prescriptions that were no more than five weeks old. Ultimately, it was a syrup - the powerful sleeping aid chloral hydrate - blamed with tipping the balance in the toxic mix of drugs and causing her death.


It sounds to me like they were lucky to be cleared of more serious criminal charges at the time of her death. What's your opinion? Is Anna Nicole Smith an example of a person with diminished capacity? Was her tremendous pill addiction such that she was no longer fully responsible for her actions, in this case, actions which resulted in her own death? Would that cast some of the burden on those around her? I say yes.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. Is Anna Nicole Smith an example of a person with diminished capacity? Was her tremendous pill addiction such that [...]

    when do we ever consider an addict to have diminished competency simply because of their addiction?

    here's a clue as to the answer: if the corpse had been named Adam Nicholas Smith, would you even consider asking those same questions?

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  2. Mike,

    So you ask how can the boyfriend and the doctors be held responsible? ?

    How about for breaking the law, for helping her feed her addiction?

    They aren't responsible for her being an addict. That was her choice, but if they were assisting her in her addiction they have responsibility for that assistance.

    Is Anna Nicole Smith an example of a person with diminished capacity?

    How about turning it around and you try explaining how SHE WAS a person with diminished capacity?

    Was her tremendous pill addiction such that she was no longer fully responsible for her actions

    So the first pill she took and every pill there after was forced down her throat by others?

    If I start down a path, knowing the dangers of that path, I can't suddenly claim that I'm not responsible for being on that path. How is this any different?

    Stop making excuses for people messing up their lives.

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  3. How about turning it around and asking why is Rush Limbaugh running around polluting the planet with his noxious emissions while his house keeper was prosecuted because he dunned her into providing oxycontrin for him?...oxycontrin, that's hillbilly heroin.

    No, we have to start looking at the drug culture we live in. Again, it is so easy to say, it was their decision to OD on heroin or whatever....

    There are users and providers and the place where the two worlds interact and become one.....
    One cannot exist without the other.

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  4. Bob, What if in the mind of the doctor there is a flagrant disregard for the well being of the patient and in the mind of the boyfriend there was a desire to kill her so he could get the inheritance? If those intentions on their part were known, yet all the behaviour was the same, would that make them partly responsible?

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  5. Bob, What if in the mind of the doctor there is a flagrant disregard for the well being of the patient and in the mind of the boyfriend there was a desire to kill her so he could get the inheritance?

    Mike, what part of the law are you unclear about?

    What part of morality are you unclear on?

    If the doctor has ill intentions then he is responsible for those ill intentions. If he has broken the law, then he is responsible for breaking the law.

    No one shoved the pills down her throat. No one claims that, no one shows any evidence.

    The people are responsible for their own actions. If they do something, they have to answer for that....what is hard to understand about that?

    Was her tremendous pill addiction such that she was no longer fully responsible for her actions, in this case

    When does a person lose responsibility for their actions Mike?

    Anna Smith took drugs, repeatedly, consciously and with full knowledge of what she was doing. She continued to take drugs until she was addicted. After her addiction, she continued to take drugs instead of seeking treatment.

    She is still responsible for her actions.

    The actions of the others, they have to answer for their own misdeeds. The misdeeds of one do not excuse the behavior of others.

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