COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jurors deliberating the murder case against former Mount Carmel doctor William Husel have concluded their third day of deliberations.
They will resume their deliberations Monday at 9 a.m., Judge Michael Holbrook told reporters Thursday afternoon.
All told, the jurors have deliberated for approximately 17 hours since beginning their work Tuesday morning.
On Thursday, jurors had another question – asking if they could review an exhibit detailing how medications were removed from a dispensing machine in the Mount Carmel West’s intensive care unit.
It marked the third time jurors asked to review something that was not entered into evidence.
In each case, the jurors were told they were supplied with the materials that were entered into evidence, so they would not be able to review materials that were not.
Earlier questions by the jury sought to review a posterboard used by defense attorney Jose Baez that detailed other patients who were extubated by Dr. Husel. They had also sought to see articles referenced by defense witness Dr. Joel Zivot.
Zivot compiled a report for the defense which mirrored their chief argument – which is that it was the patients’ underlying illnesses that led to their deaths – not Husel’s drug orders.
Prosecutors allege that Husel’s drug orders were excessive – so excessive their experts concluded – that they either outright killed these patients or hastened the deaths of the critically ill patients under Husel’s care.
Many of the patients received large doses of fentanyl and other sedatives around the time that their ventilators and breathing tubes were being removed. Prosecutors have said Husel was the only physician at Mount Carmel who was using 500 micrograms of fentanyl or more outside of the operating room on patients not on ventilators.
Husel’s legal defense team says he was providing comfort care medication in order to prevent patients from suffering a painful death.