If Ceceli Freed only gets five years probation,and she stole her drugs,falsified documents to steal,guess Mr.Sanders can expect less time,since Briney Welborn has set a precedence for pleading out!

What's sadly good for the goose is good for the gander,huh?

Thanks bearcatmom, and I agree with you!

By playing "Red Rover" with these thieving junkie nurses, healthcare companies are putting patients at real risk. Most junkies are shrewd enough to "clean" up for their pre-employment drug tests,but they don't keep it up for long,so more RANDOM testing is needed.

Lord knows,these hospitals and nursing homes spend untold millions on government lobbyists to control laws to keep their pockets full-why not lobby to protect the public from healthcare professional drug addicts who ARE detected, yet go unpunished for so long?

We are talking about hardcore drugs folks,so they are driving and working impaired,putting everyone at risk they come into contact with,not just some skeevy dude sneaking around dealing.

I think Mr. Sanders should be punished too,and Mr. Robinson's family deserves justice,but we need to treat these nurses at least as harsh!

Mr. Truthy,I think the difference is intention,education and desire to help.

The doctor takes an oath,"First,do no harm". He has some formal education and a desire to promote better health by hopefully prescribing the correct course of treatment to help a person,not just get you high. Because doctors are humans dealing with humans,that course of treatment won't always help,and can even kill us sometimes,but that was never the intention of the doctor.

A drug dealer works outside of the law,does not care about potential interactions,reactions and adverse side effects. A drug dealer usually has no way of knowing their client's medical history, although if they kill off their clients that's bad for business too. Their intention is to make easy money outside the law with non-taxable income and if you die-well,it sucks to be you!

I'd think a wife,especially a nurse, would know her hubby's medical history and be aware of the side effects of these narcotics.She also probably spent more time with her hubby than the average drug dealer spends with their junkie client, so she was even more culpable than the other drug dealer.

I haven't read whether Mr.Sanders had a valid prescription,where did he get the drugs come from?

I want to know why these local nurses keep job hopping from places,being fired for not following drug disposal policy or their narcotic counts were off. Why don't these nursing homes and hospitals do a mandatory drug test before they pink slip them, or at least have the cops bring the drug dog to sniff their vehicles? I thought druggies were given the choice of rehab or firing? If they choose to quit, the local police should be alerted this person should be added to their list of local dealers, instead of just letting them move onto another unsuspecting employer!

I think bearcatmom makes a very interesting point,what is the difference? The nurse is a medical professional,her knowledge seems to eliminate the "I didn't know what would happen" defense.

A few years ago, another of our local drug dealers injected a young woman with drugs,and she died. He did prison time. If the laws need to be changed,then we need to demand they be changed,but this double standard needs to be addressed,or at least explained.

Even pretty,rich white girls should do hard time if we expect it of guys who commit the same basic crime!

The Stoddard County PA charged Larry Kenton Sanders with felony murder precisely because Michael Robinson's death has been ruled an accident. Consistent application of that theory requires that every Stoddard County doctor should be charged with felony murder who has a patient die as an unintended consequence of prescribing a potentially lethal drug, or even engaging in a potentially life-threatening procedure. (Which is literally any surgical procedure.)

But that isn't all. 7.600 people accidentally die annually from ingesting aspirin. So it is known that aspirin can be a lethal substance. If someone dies as a consequence of aspirin given to him or her -- to be consistent with Sanders' prosecution the Stoddard County PA would have to prosecute the person who provided the aspirin with felony murder.

That person wrongly prosecuted for the non-crime of providing aspirin could be you I.B., or someone you know. If you or they were not prosecuted, it would only be because the PA chose not to do so -- not because they don't think they could if they wanted to.

The moral is that if you don't stand up for the rights of the least member of society, then none of us are protected from government prosecutors run amok.

If anything a doctor should be held to a higher standard of criminal liability for prescribing a drug that accidentally kills a patient than someone who sells an illegal drug to someone who accidentally dies. The doctor's patient has an expectation that the drug isn't going to harm them, while the purchaser of an illegal drug can at best only cross their fingers.

I don't think there is any justification to put doctors on a special pedestal because they wear a white coat and have degrees hanging on their wall. Much of what they do is in reality not much more helpful to a patient than the chanting of a "witch" doctor in Africa.

If Larry Kenton Sanders is going to be prosecuted for felony murder, then I say that Stoddard County doctors who have a patient accidentally die from a prescribed drug should likewise be criminally prosecuted for felony murder, and if convicted, they should be shown no favoritism in their sentencing because of who they are.

225,000 people die each year because of medical errors by doctors, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. A significant number of these deaths result from an erroneous drug prescription by the doctor.

How many of these doctors are prosecuted for felony murder? None. Yet their patient's death is attributable to an action by the doctor. Why aren't doctors criminally charged? Because there is no way to prove they had any intent to "murder" or otherwise cause harm to their dead patient. Yet there is no question that except for some action by the doctor their patient wouldn't have died at that moment in time.

If doctors aren't going to be prosecuted for felony murder whenever a patient dies from an identifiable error by the doctor -- or especially when a patient dies from accidentally taking an overdose of a prescribed drug, which the doctor had no control to prevent, then no one else in society should be held to a higher standard.

Michael Robinson's autopsy reported, "Manner of death: Accident." Michael Robinson didn't intend to kill himself with an overdose, and Larry Kenton Sanders had no intention for him to die. (Otherwise he would have been charged with first-degree murder.)

We all know that the Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney is not going to begin prosecuting a doctor for felony murder whenever the accidental death of a patient can be attributed to some action by the doctor. So fairness and consistency in the law requires that other people should not be treated differently just because they don't have MD after their name and a respected position in the community.

I absolutely think the felony second-degree murder charge against Larry Kenton Sanders should be dismissed.