Texas Jury Acquits Whistle-Blowing Nurse
Jurors in Andrews, Texas, today acquitted Anne Mitchell, who was on trial on charges that she misused official information when she anonymously reported a doctor to state medical authorities.
Prosecutors failed to convince jurors that Mitchell was motivated by personal, not professional, reasons when she wrote a letter to the Texas Medical Board last April complaining that Dr. Rolando Arafiles improperly encouraged patients to buy herbal medicines, the Associated Press reports.
Mitchell, who was indicted in June, also complained that Arafiles was employing improper surgical procedures.
The New York Times reports that it took jurors less than an hour to return with an acquittal after a four-day trial.
After Mitchell’s indictment, nursing associations and health care watchdogs in Texas and across the country rallied around the veteran nurse, holding up the case as a test of physician accountability, the AP reports. They warned that a conviction would have a chilling effect on reports of doctor wrongdoing.
A New York Times story about Mitchell this week spurred even more outrage over the prosecution of Mitchell and another nurse, who had been dismissed from the case last week.
