A West Texas jury took but an hour Thursday to acquit a nurse who had been charged with a felony after alerting the state medical board that a doctor at her hospital was practicing unsafe medicine.
The uncommon prosecution had ignited deep concern among health care workers and advocates for whistle-blowers about a potential chilling effect on the reporting of malpractice.
But after a four-day trial in Andrews, Tex., a state court jury quickly found that the nurse, Anne Mitchell, was not guilty of the third-degree felony charge of “misuse of official information.” Conviction could have carried a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000.
The prosecution said Mrs. Mitchell, 52, who had been a nurse at Winkler County Memorial Hospital for 25 years, had used her position to obtain and disseminate confidential information — patient file numbers — in her letter to the medical board with the intent of harming Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr. The prosecutor argued that state law required that reports of misconduct be made in good faith, and that Mrs. Mitchell had been waging a vendetta against Dr. Arafiles since his arrival at the hospital in April 2008.
Witnesses testified that they had heard Mrs. Mitchell refer to Dr. Arafiles, a proponent of alternative medicine and herbal remedies, as a “witch doctor.”
But other nurses vouched that Mrs. Mitchell’s concerns were legitimate, and that internal complaints were not dealt with adequately by the hospital’s administration.
The jury foreman said the panel of six men and six women voted unanimously on the first ballot, and questioned why Mrs. Mitchell had ever been arrested.
“We just didn’t see the wrongdoing of sending the file numbers in, since she’s a nurse,” said the foreman, Harley D. Tyler, a high school custodian.
Mrs. Mitchell, who did not testify in her defense, said after the verdict that she had been trying only to protect her patients.
“It’s a duty to every nurse to take care of patients,” she said, after wiping away tears of relief.
The prosecution has so polarized the small town of Kermit, where the hospital is located, that the judge moved the trial to a neighboring county. The case was investigated by Sheriff Robert L. Roberts Jr., a friend and admiring patient of Dr. Arafiles, and tried by the county attorney, Scott M. Tidwell, a political ally of the sheriff and, according to testimony, Dr. Arafiles’s personal lawyer.
Sheriff Roberts said he was disappointed in the verdict but did not regret the prosecution.
“The defense had to spin this as a reporting issue, that nurses were not going to be able to report bad medical care, and it’s never been that,” he said. “We encourage people to report bad medical care. But I encourage public servants to report it properly.”
Mrs. Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle, a co-worker who helped her write the anonymous letter to the medical board, were fired by the hospital last June, shortly before being indicted. The charges against Mrs. Galle, 54, were dismissed late last month at the prosecutor’s discretion.
After the verdict, the nurses’ lawyers pivoted quickly to the lawsuit they have filed in federal court against the county, the hospital and various officials, charging that the firings and indictments amounted to a violation of due process and their First Amendment rights.
“We are glad that this phase of this ordeal has ended and that Anne has been restored to her liberty,” said Mrs. Mitchell’s lawyer, John H. Cook IV, “but there was great damage done in this case, and this does not make them whole.”
Mr. Cook presented broad evidence that the nurses’ concerns about Dr. Arafiles, 47, were well founded, and that Mrs. Mitchell had violated no laws or regulations in alerting the governmental body that licenses and regulates physicians. He walked the jury through a series of questionable cases involving Dr. Arafiles, including one in which the doctor performed a skin graft in the hospital’s emergency room, despite not having surgical privileges, and another where he sutured a rubber tip to a patient’s crushed finger for protection.
Some watchdog groups worried that the prosecution would stifle reporting of improper medical care, regardless of the outcome. But Rebecca M. Patton, president of the American Nurses Association, called the verdict “a resounding win on behalf of patient safety.”
Ms. Patton said, “The message the jury sent is clear: the freedom for nurses to report a physician’s unsafe medical practices is non-negotiable.”
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