Taser International Takes the Upper Hand
Taser International, the manufacturer of the Taser gun weapons that 12,000 police agencies in the U.S. use and seem to love, has embarked upon an aggressive legal campaign against medical examiners in the United States who have stated in their reports that Taser weapons were a contributing cause of death in some cases. Interestingly enough, in one lawsuit an Ohio judge recently ruled in favor of Taser International and ordered that the Taser name be removed from three autopsy reports as a contributing factor in the deaths.
In addition to filing lawsuits against state and county medical examiners around the country, the Arizona Republic reports that the Scottsdale-based company is also increasing lobbying efforts to reverse and prevent medical rulings that indicate that Taser weapons contributed to a person's death.
Taser International instead believes that a condition called "excited delirium" leads to the deaths that are so often blamed on Taser guns. Excited delirium has been noted as the cause of death in police-custody fatalities for decades; however, it is not a recognized diagnosis in official medical manuals. The terminology is used to describe deaths of suspects who become so agitated by drugs, psychosis or poor health while struggling with police that their bodies shut down.
A spokesman for Taser International has said that the company will hold people accountable and responsible for making false statements about Taser guns and this can only mean that more lawsuits will be filed. Since it is a medical examiner's job to determine the official cause of death, it is expected that they will be the target of the lawsuits. These lawsuits really rock the boat, as the medical examiner's official determination of cause of death is generally accepted by courts and police. Deaths following a Taser shock put a kink in the accepted flow of accepted legal procedures.
There is a recent and notable trend among medical examiners to label deaths involving Taser guns as being caused by excited delirium. Taser International has promoted research of excited delirium and has provided funding for excited delirium studies. The company asserts that excited delirium is a valid syndrome and some doctors have agreed. Others find that it is a catch-all convenient excuse for police custody deaths.
While Taser International's tactics are perceived by some as bullying or an attempt to intimidate medical examiners into not stating their true medical opinion if they believe that a Taser gun contributed to the death, not everyone is willing to roll over and play dead on the issue for fear of being sued. In the Ohio case, the chief medical examiner has said that the medical examiners did not make an error when they concluded that the Taser guns contributed to the deaths and has vowed that Summit County lawyers will appeal the decision.
The judge in the Ohio case concluded that the Summit County lawyers provided no scientific, medical or electrical evidence to justify the finding that the Taser gun was a factor in the deaths of three men during 2005 and 2006. Taser and the City of Akron, Ohio filed the lawsuit against the Summit County medical examiners claiming that the examiners did not have the training or expertise to evaluate the use of Taser guns.
Because the judge ruled in favor of Taser International in the case, the official cause of death for a jail inmate will be changed from "homicide" to "undetermined." This change will be especially beneficial to five Summit County sheriff's deputies who were charged with killing the man in 2006.
The ruling in the Ohio case is also important because it opens the floodgates and sets a precedent for dozens of other lawsuits that have and will be filed against medical examiners who have determined and documented in medical reports that electrical shocks from a 50,000-volt Taser gun have been fatal. Medical examiners are now concerned that doctors will fear being named a defendant in the Taser International lawsuit and thus opt for other explanations in cases in which the true medical opinion is that the Taser gun contributed to the death and the medical evidence supports the opinion.
Since 1999, more than 300 people in North America have died after being shot with a police Taser gun. In approximately 10 percent of those deaths, medical examiners have either stated that the Taser gun contributed to the death or that it could not be ruled out as a contributing factor.
