Rodolfo "Rudy" Linares Sr. was an American
house painter who in April 1989 held nurses at bay at gunpoint and disconnected the
respirator
A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling hazardous atmospheres including lead, lead fumes, vapors, gases and particulate matter such as dusts and airborne pathogens such as viruses. There are two main categories o ...
keeping his
coma
A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...
tose infant alive.
Cause and the incident
In August 1988, Rudy's 6-month-old son Samuel had accidentally swallowed a balloon at a birthday party, damaging his brain. Despite Rudy's attempt to resuscitate him and then carrying him to a fire station,
Samuel came to be in a
persistent vegetative state
A vegetative state (VS) or post-coma unresponsiveness (PCU) is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. After four weeks in a vegetative state, the patie ...
, and was only kept alive via a
respirator
A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling hazardous atmospheres including lead, lead fumes, vapors, gases and particulate matter such as dusts and airborne pathogens such as viruses. There are two main categories o ...
.
After eight months the family had requested that Samuel be allowed to die. The doctors agreed, but the hospital's lawyer advised against it due to potential criminal charges.
Linares entered the hospital on April 26 with a .357 Magnum revolver and proceeded to the bed where Samuel lay. Holding the medical staff at bay he disconnected the respirator and cradled the infant in his arms for approximately 20 minutes until a nearby doctor confirmed Samuel had died at the age of 15 months. Rudy then handed himself over to police.
Trial
The
Cook County
Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40 percent of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. ...
state attorney's office referred the case to a
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
. Under a deal made with the prosecutors, Rudy pleaded guilty to a weapons charge
misdemeanor
A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than admi ...
and one year of probation. The jury delivered a 'not guilty' verdict on the murder charges.
Circuit Judge Robert Bastone noted to Linares, "as far as punishment is concerned, I think you have suffered enough." The Guardian compared the case to ''
In re Quinlan,'' as it set a similar precedent of a guardian withdrawing consent for treatment.
Right to die debate
Goldman, a doctor residing over Samuel at the time, stated: "There was no ethical difference of opinion here. The physicians agreed that the child was in an irreversible coma and would not recover. There was no medical opposition to removing the ventilator. What we faced was a legal obstacle."
Philosopher
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...
discussed the Linares case in his 1994 book ''Rethinking Life and Death'' as a real world example in the
Right to Die
The right to die is a concept rooted in the belief that individuals have the Self-ownership, autonomy to make fundamental decisions about their own lives, including the choice to Suicide, end them or undergo voluntary euthanasia, central to the b ...
debate. Singer argued that while Rudy acted against the law and prevailing moral ethic, he did so to cease human suffering of not just Samuel but the wider Linares family.
See also
*
Terri Schiavo case
*
Haleigh Poutre
*
Vincent Lambert case
*
Letting die
In non-consequentialist ethical thought, there is a moral distinction between killing and letting die. Whereas killing involves intervention, letting die involves withholding care (for example, in passive euthanasia), or other forms of inaction ...
References
{{Reflist
Euthanasia in the United States
Medical controversies in the United States