"Calif. judge signals he will dismiss right-to-die lawsuit" by Julie Watson Associated Press July 25, 2015
SAN DIEGO — A judge has strongly indicated that he will dismiss a lawsuit against the state by a single mother given only months to live and other California right-to-die advocates who want doctors to be allowed to prescribe fatal medication for terminally ill people.
During a hearing in which two of the plaintiffs broke down in tears, San Diego Superior Court Judge Gregory Pollack said Friday that the court is not the place to change the current law that prohibits physicians from prescribing such drugs, and that he would issue a written decision Monday.
The lawsuit was brought against the state by Christy O’Donnell, two other terminally ill California residents, and a San Diego doctor. Attorneys on both sides agreed that dismissal was certain, and the plaintiffs vowed to appeal.
O’Donnell, who turned 47 on Friday, has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer of the left lung, which has spread to her brain, liver, spine, and rib. The Santa Clarita woman said she will likely not live through the appeals process.
‘‘For any judge, or anyone, or any law or legislator to tell me that my daughter has to watch me die painfully — that’s wrong,’’ said O’Donnell, crying after the hearing.
Pollack did not formally rule Friday but told the court that he did not have the power to declare the statute unconstitutional.
‘‘You’re asking this court to make new law,’’ Pollack said. ‘‘If new law is made it should be by the Legislature or by a ballot measure.’’
The judge said the parties probably could get ‘‘new law’’ from a higher court ‘‘but you can’t get it from a lower-level Superior Court judge like me.’’’
At the end of the hearing, O’Donnell and Elizabeth Wallner, of Sacramento, stood up and asked to speak to the judge. Wallner told him the slow death allowed by current law is equivalent to torture.
Now that we have national gay marriage and abortion, maybe....
Under California law, suicide is legal.
Just trying to encourage you.
Doctors are also allowed at a patient’s request to sedate the person and withdraw nourishment and further medical treatment until they die. Attorneys for the plaintiffs had argued that is the same as prescribing life-ending drugs that can be self-administered when the suffering becomes unbearable.
And we can't even get a pot clinic up and running.
Pollack said he disagreed and that courts have made a clear distinction between letting someone die and making someone die.
The plaintiffs are backed by Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that has supported legislative efforts and lawsuits in various states.
Some advocates say they thought the nationally publicized case of Brittany Maynard, the 29-year-old California woman with brain cancer who moved to Oregon to legally end her life last fall, might usher in a wave of state laws allowing doctors to prescribe life-ending medications, but that hasn’t happened.
Why do you have to dig her up?
In California, a bill that would allow such prescriptions stalled. Similar legislation failed in 2007 amid religious opposition.
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Looks like you will have to look for another state to end your life.
Related:
Making the end of life part of health care
New guidelines may encourage more talks about end-of-life care
They want you gone as soon as possible.
Lot of killing in California:
"Man held in deaths of daughter, 4 others in Calif." Associated Press July 20, 2015
MODESTO, Calif. — A man was arrested Sunday in the deaths of his daughter, two other girls, and two women whose bodies were found in a California home, police said.
Modesto police spokeswoman Heather Graves said Martin Martinez, 30, of Modesto, was detained in San Jose early Sunday and booked into a Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of murder.
Martinez had a past relationship with one of the women and is the father of one of the girls found dead Saturday afternoon. Officers in Modesto, part of California’s Central Valley, discovered the bodies Saturday afternoon while responding to a request to check on the home, Graves said.
The house is in a tidy subdivision lined with four- and five-bedroom homes that were built seven or eight years ago, the Modesto Bee reported.
Nimala Kumar, who lives five houses down from where the bodies were found, said the street is quiet....
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Related:
"A suspect in the homicides of five people whose bodies were found in a Northern California home over the weekend is also responsible for the death of a toddler left in his care last year, police said Monday. Martin Martinez, 30, was arrested early Sunday as he left a San Jose movie theater with his father."
Good thing there was no shootout, and how did they know where he was?
"California teen accused of killing 8-year-old" Associated Press July 29, 2015
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — A teenager lured an 8-year-old girl into his apartment and killed her before hiding her body in a recycling bin at the housing complex where they lived, authorities said Tuesday.
Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel told reporters that Madyson Middleton was probably dead even before she was reported missing Sunday evening.
Federal and local law enforcement searched the area surrounding the complex Sunday night and throughout Monday before finding the girl’s body that night.
A 15-year-old, who police say knew the girl as a neighborhood acquaintance, was arrested on suspicion of murder, Vogel said.
The teen, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, was nearby when the body was discovered, and officers found evidence in the apartment that links him to the slaying, the police chief said.
Madyson reportedly willingly went to the apartment, authorities said. A motive has not yet been released, Vogel said.
Prosecutors are ‘‘absolutely considering’’ bringing charges against the teen as an adult, Santa Cruz District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell said.
The girl’s disappearance has shaken the artists’ community, called Tannery Arts Center, on the outskirts of this small beach town.
The girl had last been seen riding her scooter in the area.
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"Prosecutors charge teen with murder in death of 8-year-old" Associated Press July 30, 2015
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Prosecutors charged a 15-year-old boy with murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault Wednesday in the death of an 8-year-old girl in an artists complex in a California beach town.
Police said Adrian Jerry Gonzalez lured Madyson Middleton from a courtyard where she had been riding her scooter over the weekend into his family’s apartment, where he attacked and killed her.
Gonzalez remains in custody at the Santa Cruz County juvenile detention center, where he has been held since being arrested Monday evening near a recycling bin where the girl’s body had been dumped.
Related: Deer Island Girl
Also see: Memorial Mass held for child found on Deer Island
‘‘Unfortunately, the search for Maddy ended in the worst way possible,’’ Santa Cruz District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell said.
He said Gonzalez will be charged as an adult and added that in his two decades in Santa Cruz, he’s never seen a 15-year-old charged with murder.
Prosecutors said they considered the nature of the crime, how the crimes were committed, the age of the defendant, and prior criminal record when making their charging decision.
Authorities say they don’t have a clear motive in the killing.
What pharmaceuticals was the kid on?
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Look what they found in the apartment:
"Arsenal found at LA home of man whose body was in car for weeks" Associated Press July 24, 2015
LOS ANGELES — The body of a man lay in his car in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Southern California nearly two weeks before it was found by authorities, an attorney said.
Inside the man’s home, detectives discovered about 1,200 guns, 6½ tons of ammunition, bows and arrows, knives, machetes, and $230,000 in cash. The body was found last Friday.
Police also located eight of the 14 vehicles stashed around Los Angeles registered to the man, including an SUV designed to drive underwater.
Who he was and how he came to accumulate the guns and vehicles are questions authorities are trying to answer.
Veteran defense attorney Harland Braun represents the man’s fiancee, Catherine Nebron, and identified him as Jeffrey Alan Lash.
That’s the name authorities are working with and they’re in touch with a relative to try to officially identify the body, said the coroner’s chief of investigations.
Lash and Nebron were together for 17 years. He told her he worked as an undercover operative for unnamed government agencies, Braun said.
A false flag agent provocateur!
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Looks like he ran into someone who didn't like what he was doing.
Related:
"Two animal rights activists have been charged with terrorizing the fur industry during cross-country road trips in which they released about 5,740 mink from farms and vandalized the homes and businesses of industry members, the FBI said. Joseph Brian Buddenberg, 31, and Nicole Juanita Kissane, 28, both of Oakland, were charged with conspiracy to violate the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AP)."
NDUs:
3 rescued from sinking boat off Deer Island
Samaritans revive girl pulled from Milton pond
I also have the right to revive it.
UPDATE: California tries again on right-to-die bill
If at first you don't succeed....
"A national right-to-die group was fined $30,000 on Monday for assisting in a Minnesota woman’s suicide in 2007. Final Exit Network Inc. was convicted in May of assisting the suicide of Doreen Dunn, 57, of Apple Valley, who lived with chronic pain for a decade before she took her own life. Final Exit Network, founded in 2004, is a nonprofit incorporated in Georgia that says it has about 3,000 members. It is run by volunteers who believe mentally competent adults have a right to end their lives if they suffer from unbearable pain."
I'm all for individual liberty no matter what the issue.
Of course, Obama's death panels encouraging you to, you know, think about hanging it up, that's okay.
Related: I Didn't Plan on This Post
No choice there, either, and what an odd juxtaposition.
Also see: ‘Right to die’ legalized in California
