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| Pres. James A. Garfield |
Here's one military justice mavens won't want to miss: Col. James A. Young, USAF (Ret), The President, His Assassin, and the Court-Martial of Sergeant John A. Mason, 77 A.F. L. Rev. 1 (2017), available here.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
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Guiteau-one of his defenses being medical malpractice, there may be some validity to this. Candance Millard, in Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President (an editor’s recommendation as Worth-the-Read), discusses the absence of medical protective measures against infection of wounds at the time of Garfield’s shooting—summarized as, “Garfield survived the attack, but become the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation's future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care.” She discusses medical advances in Europe, especially those advanced by the likes of Joseph Lister (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Lister-Baron-Lister-of-Lyme-Regis). The strong suggestion is that if Garfield’s doctors had been more aggressive at preventing or reducing infection of the wound he would have lived. There was a young practitioner at the time of Garfield’s treatment who advocated, to Garfield’s doctors, using the medical practices shown to stop or reduce infection of wounds. The older experienced practitioners declined to follow the “new” methods. So, there are some who would say that Garfield did die of medical malpractice. Whether, if proven, that intervening medical cause would be a defense to murder at a court-martial is—[true then or now] [not true then or now]? Let’s say SGT Mason shot Guiteau who died months later (but less than a year and a day) through infection of the wound. What if the evidence showed medical treatment like Garfield’s? To paraphrase Young, while the medical care may not meet today’s standards his defense would have had to deal with those of his time.
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