First Katrina Criminal Charges

From AP:

The husband-and-wife owners of a nursing home were charged with homicide because they did not evacuate 34 elderly patients who died after Hurricane Katrina struck, the first major criminal case related to the storm's still rising death toll.
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Including deaths in four other states, Katrina's overall toll stood at 659.

Authorities said the toll would be lower if Salvador and Mable Mangano, owners of the St. Rita's nursing home in town of Chalmette, had heeded warnings to evacuate their patients as Katrina came ashore Aug. 29.

"The pathetic thing in this case was that they were asked if they wanted to move them and they did not," said Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti. "They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these people."

The Manganos were released on $50,000 bond each; each of the 34 counts against them carries up to five years in prison. Their attorney, Jim Cobb, said his clients were innocent and had waited for a mandatory evacuation order from the officials of St. Bernard Parish that never came.

Cobb said the Manganos were forced to make a difficult decision as Katrina approached: risk the health of the patients — many of them frail and on feeding tubes — in an evacuation, or keep them comfortable at the home through the storm.

Tom Rodrigue, whose mother died in the home, was not satisfied. "She deserved the chance, you know, to be rescued instead of having to drown like a rat," he said.

The attorney general is also investigating the deaths of 45 terminally ill and immobile patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans itself, presumably from heat and their illnesses. There one doctor, a cancer specialist named Scott Sonnier, has already admitted leaving patients under his care to die in favour of aiding his physically capable fiancee who is a doctor at another New Orleans hospital. Dr. Sonnier, it seems, goes by the nickname "Scoot".

But it occurs to me that if the Louisiana attorney general is seeking 5 years in prison for each of 34 counts of homicide for the Manganos, should he be thinking about charges for those in authority if they are shown to be likewise negligent in failing to evacuate those under their care? Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Chertoff and Bush would do well to consider the possibility.