High court asked for Blanco ruling in Katrina nursing home trial

ST. FRANCISVILLE, La. (AP) – The Louisiana Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether Gov. Kathleen Blanco should be forced to testify in the negligent homicide trial of the owners of a nursing home where 35 patients died in Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters.
Lawyers for the state have fought the subpoena that defense lawyers used to summon the governor to the witness stand. They appealed to the Supreme Court a judge’s ruling upholding the subpoena; defense lawyer John Reed said the defense filed its motion with the high court, in favor of the subpoena, on Tuesday.
The trial, expected to last into September, is set to resume Wednesday with testimony from St. Bernard Parish Councilman Joey Difatta.
Prosecutors with the state Attorney General’s office have argued that Salvador and Mabel Mangano, owners of St. Rita’s nursing home, are to blame for the 35 patient deaths because they failed to evacuate as Katrina neared landfall in August, 2005.
The Manganos face 35 counts of negligent homicide, plus 24 counts of cruelty, for the suffering of the survivors.Defense lawyers have sought to lay blame for the St. Rita’s deaths on local government officials, who never issued a formal, mandatory evacuation order.
Prosecutors on Tuesday called Dr. Joe Johnson, medical director at St. Rita’s when Katrina struck. Johnson testified that a majority of St. Rita’s 59 patients would have survived if they had been evacuated, “as long as they’re hydrated and they’ve got somebody there to take care of them.”
“The majority of them should be able to survive,” Johnson said.
Johnson acknowledged that transporting the patients could have put them in danger, because of their frailty. He said the Manganos did not consult with him before deciding against moving the patients away from the storm in the days leading up to Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005.
Defense lawyer James Cobb said Johnson’s comments amounted to “Monday morning quarterbacking.”Cobb argued that the patients were too frail to be transported, and that loading them onto buses would have put them in greater peril than keeping them at the home. Cobb recalled that highways were clogged with people driving north.
Evacuating north to Baton Rouge normally a two-hour drive could have taken up to seven hours, he said.
Cobb read from a survey of the patients, compiled several months before the storm: five were bedridden, 45 restricted to wheelchairs, 30 demented or senile, and 48 could not bathe themselves without assistance.
Johnson, the primary care physician for about two dozen of the patients, responded: “I would agree that there is risk associated with” evacuating such people.