Depends on your jurisdiction. In England and Wales the penetration has to be by a penis. But “sexual assault” can involve any object or appendage, and has the same sentencing guidelines.
Though if this were England rather than Syracuse, the prosecutor might need to argue that the cops or doctor were getting off on this act to claim it was sexual assault.
The cops were definitely getting off on it. That’s why they went shopping for medical personnel to violate their prisoner and the law, rather than waiting for the guy to poop on his own.
Not a good reason for treating them any less harshly than the board of a for-profit hospital.
Really???
So for them denying reproductive health procedures to women is fine and part of their religious faith, but forcing stuff into people asses is something that they may agree with. Nice religion that they profess.
I disagree. For-profit hospitals are mechanisms for sucking the money out of the pockets of sick people (or their insurers or the government) into the bank accounts of board members and investors, and bad behavior on the part of such hospitals are attributable to greed on the part of their governors, either directly or indirectly through pressure to increase the revenue/cost ratio.
Bad governance decisions on the part of a non-profit are more likely to be a consequence of incompetence than greed, and it is harder to make a case for punishing individual board members, beyond removing them.
ETA (after @Barradeno’s post): I don’t think their Catholic affiliation affords them any good will, it was the “nonprofit” aspect prompting my comment.
the doctors refused to do it because of ethical reasons, so the police got a warrant and the hospital’s lawyer decided it was valid & said the doctors had to comply. So no, those who performed the procedure shouldn’t be sent to jail.
hospital administration can order doctors to do work, yes. And that’s what happened.
“I was just following orders” is always a completely valid defense, am I right?
I’m thinking of the nurse/medical staff at a hospital in Utah who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient without a warrant and was arrested. There was a satisfying resolution. https://nypost.com/2017/10/10/cop-who-forcibly-arrested-nurse-for-refusing-to-draw-blood-is-fired/
Seems like the doctors said “this doesn’t seem legal, or ethical”. So everybody goes to the hospital’s lawyer and asks what to do. The lawyer, lacking a spine, caves into the police demands and tells the doctors that not only is it legal, but they are obligated to do their job. At that point the doctors don’t have much leg to stand on. They can refuse on ethical grounds, but that’s a difficult defense and an easy way to lose your job.
Given that there is already legal precedent on an extremely similar case the hospital’s lawyer did a terrible job.
I wonder how many times the cops have tried this on other hospitals and been turned down because their legal counsel is better at searching out relevant precedent?
Neither “my boss told me to do it” nor “my lawyer said it was OK” make it legal to commit a crime.
On the other hand, upholding the ethics of the medical profession can also make you look very attractive to other hospitals even if you do lose your job.
Thank you for the context. As a person not living in the USA, I would not have realized the context otherwise.
Yes, definitely jail for both…and that judge should get his ass reamed as well…there is NOTHING legal about this situation!!!
Every single person involved. Doing a medical procedure on someone without their consent is illegal. Period. Everyone involved who knew that he didn’t consent is liable. And that would be everyone involved in the procedure since the first thing you do is check the consent form before you start anything.
We have if the individual is unable to consent AND there is not family etc available to consent get a court order…
Let’s not hindsight this. The hospital lawyer ordered compliance with a court order/warrant because of the law. Their interpretation of that law and subsequent order can certainly be debated and challenged.
No, they didn’t “have to”; they still had a choice in the matter just like the nurse who refused to draw blood. She made the right choice, while whatever doctor finally agreed to perform the anal probe made the wrong one. He or she may not get any jail time, but a heavy lawsuit for knowingly violating their Hippocratic oath is absolutely a viable possibility.
I hope Jackson sues everyone involved and wins.
*Edited for typos and Freudian slips.
I mean … more people than you read this and context needs to be built repeatedly to show the history for those that comes afterwards or from under a rock.
