Trayvon Martin case: What is difference between manslaughter and murder charges?

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By Attorney David Engler

Florida’s laws are pretty consistent with those throughout the country. The “Stand Your Ground” law will not be a factor if George Zimmerman is charged with a murder or manslaughter charge. (he will be…better to let a jury be the potential bad guy that acquits Zimmerman) Was the force of a deadly weapon necessary to end the threat of violence Trayvon Martin had against Zimmerman, if he is believed at all?

Renee Stutzman of The Orlando Sentinel on March 31, 2012 laid out the differences between murder and manslaughter:

“A 35-year-old Sumter County man whose hungry python strangled a 2-year-old child was guilty of manslaughter. So was the doctor who gave Michael Jackson a lethal dose of a sedative.

But is George Zimmerman, the Sanford Neighborhood Watch volunteer who got into a fist fight and wound up killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, guilty of the same crime?

Trayvon’s father says Zimmerman should be charged with murder, but manslaughter is the crime that Sanford police investigated, according to case records.

What exactly is it?

“Manslaughter generally is a crime that’s committed in the heat of passion, meaning there’s no premeditation,” said Isadore Hyde Jr., a Lake Mary criminal defense lawyer. “It’s something that happens in the moment. It’s quick, and you’ve got a dead body.”

Richardo Roach is one example. He celebrated New Year’s Eve by firing an assault rifle into the air at an Orange County gathering in 2004. A mile away, one of the bullets fell back to Earth, striking a 75-year-old man in the chest and killing him.

Roach was arrested, accused of manslaughter but wound up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor and served one day in jail.

As spelled out in Florida Statute 782.07, manslaughter is a killing caused by an individual’s “culpable negligence.”

What is culpable negligence?

“You’ve got to do something really stupid,” said William Orth, a Longwood lawyer and former Seminole County prosecutor, “…something that you and I as intelligent humans — adults — know, ‘Don’t do that. Somebody could get hurt.’ “

It requires a suspect to be much more than negligent, lawyers say. It requires him to show a gross disregard for the safety of others.

In Trayvon’s case, prosecutors would have to prove Zimmerman was wanton and reckless, according to the set of jury instructions that all Florida judges read aloud before sending jurors to begin deliberations in manslaughter cases.

If Zimmerman was the aggressor and provoked the fight, that might be manslaughter, said Orlando defense attorney Diana Tennis.

For example, if he had his gun drawn and was chasing Trayvon, cornered him then the 17-year-old turned and began to throw punches and Zimmerman shot and killed him, that might qualify, she said.

But that does not match Zimmerman’s account to police. In his version of events, he stepped from his SUV and followed Trayvon but lost sight of the teenager and turned and was walking back to his vehicle.

Trayvon appeared from behind, Zimmerman told police, they exchanged words then Trayvon punched him, knocked him to the ground, got on top of him and began banging his head against the sidewalk.

Zimmerman pulled his 9 mm semiautomatic pistol from his waistband and fired one shot in self-defense, he told police.

If that’s what happened, Tennis said, “I don’t believe that’s manslaughter.”

One critical piece of evidence is how the two came to be face to face, lawyers said.

But how that happened is not clear. Police said they have someone who may have caught a glimpse of that — but not a full picture.

In her investigation, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey might turn up something more, but she imposed a news blackout last week, so no information is coming from her office.

One witness could be Trayvon’s 16-year-old girlfriend. An attorney for Trayvon’s family said the girl was on the phone with him, heard someone ask the teen, “What are you doing around here?” then heard what sounded like a shove, and the phone line went dead.

Prosecutors would have to prove, Tennis said, that Zimmerman set into motion an unbroken chain of events that he should have known had a reasonable chance of leading to someone’s death.

If Zimmerman were to be convicted of manslaughter, he would face a possible 30-year prison sentence. Normally, manslaughter carries a 15-year sentence, but Florida law imposes a harsher sentence in the death of children, the elderly, the disabled and caregivers.

Henry Pierson Curtis contributed to this report. rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394.

Copyright © 2012, Orlando Sentinel”

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website

Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on Attorney David Engler’s Legal Blog on April 1, 2012 http://davidengler.wordpress.com//

An emergency room story to make anyone ill

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By Attorney David Engler

Have you ever received an Explanation of Benefits letter from your insurance provider and cannot figure out what you owe? You are not alone in deciphering a hospital bill. At http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-lopez-medicalcosts-20120325,0,6538717.column/ Steve Lopez describes how a father received a $5000 dollar emergency bill for his daughter’s tummy-ache!

STEVE LOPEZ

So they went to Providence Tarzana Medical Center’s emergency room, where Moser handed over his insurance information. He had lost his job in TV production, and later bought his own medical insurance. To keep the monthly premiums manageable, he went for a plan with a $5,000 deductible.

“I kept asking, ‘Is this really necessary?’ ” said Moser, who first questioned the emergency room staff about the need for an IV drip to administer a saline solution.

The staff agreed not to do the saline solution. After some blood work, the doctor recommended an ultrasound, which Moser questioned. He relented, though, when the doctor said it wasn’t absolutely necessary but would rule out anything serious. And it did, so Ella went home with what was diagnosed as nothing more than an upset stomach, from which she quickly recovered.

But when the bill arrived, John Moser felt a sharp pain in his own gut.

The cost for just walking in the door of the emergency room? That came to $1,288. The ultrasound nicked him an additional $1,135. A comprehensive metabolic panel (blood analysis) was billed at $1,212.

Moser was also charged $158, accidentally, for the saline solution he had turned down. The total came to $4,852.55, not counting separate bills that would arrive later and total nearly $1,000, including $540 for pathology and $309 for the doctor.

“I was shocked,” said Moser.

The first bill, $4,852.55, was confusing, as medical bills often are. It said “your health plan has recently made a payment on your account.” It said the balance, $2,571.85, “is now your financial responsibility.”

When Moser mentioned the bill to his father, Marvin Moser flipped.

“Yes, the fees in ERs are off the wall all over the country,” the professor of medicine told me, but he found Tarzana’s to be extraordinary. “The one thing that stands out, beyond belief, is $1,212 for a metabolic panel.”

That’s a test, Dr. Moser said, in which a technician draws blood for chemical analysis, and it takes just minutes. Moser questioned not only the charge, but the usefulness of the test in his granddaughter’s case.

Out of curiosity, I went online to see what a lab might charge for a comprehensive metabolic panel.

Any guesses?

Some labs advertise prices as low as $39.

Glenn Melnick, who teaches hospital economics at USC, was not surprised.

“By and large, these prices are fictitious numbers,” said Melnick, who argued that Tarzana and most other hospitals routinely charge astronomical fees, especially for emergency room services.

Of course, and it’s all part of a years-long game in which the charge for service, the true cost of the service, and the acceptable payment are in three different orbits. And that doesn’t even take into account how the charges are adjusted up or down depending on who’s paying them and whether they have worked out a deal. How can patients hope to make sense of such an indefensibly convoluted system?

Starting Monday, President Obama’s healthcare reform act will get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. But how can you have an honest conversation about soaring healthcare costs and health insurance, Dr. Moser asked, without addressing the maddening fictions built into the system? Patients seldom know in advance what they are being charged, he said, and many later find themselves in “medical bill bankruptcy.”

Melnick said hospitals argue that they lose money providing service to the uninsured, and by not getting reimbursed enough for Medicare or Medicaid patients. There’s some truth to that, Melnick said, but prices are set artificially high to help balance the books on the backs of paying customers. In the case of a $1,200 charge for entering an emergency room, Melnick said, the Medicare reimbursement is likely to be $300 or less, and far closer to the hospital’s true cost.

“Hospitals have figured out they can rapidly increase charges in the ER,” Melnick said, “and that will lead them to get higher amounts even from insurance companies they negotiate with.”

This is a very big deal, Melnick said, because half of all patients admitted to a hospital in California go in through the emergency room. Melnick said there’s also been a huge increase in the number of patients who lost group coverage and purchased individual plans with high deductibles, making them more vulnerable to exorbitant charges.

“More and more, people are seeing their deductibles eaten up on one visit.”

Melnick directed me to a state website (http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/chargemaster/) where every California hospital lists its fees. I did a little surfing and it appeared that the comprehensive metabolic panel for which Tarzana charged $1,212, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center lists a price of $786.45 and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center charges $350.

A Tarzana spokesperson, Patricia Aidem, sent me a statement defending Ella’s care. “A child’s life was in our team’s hands and they acted accordingly…” said the statement.

It added that Providence hospitals spend millions each year on charity care for those who can’t pay. Aidem also provided data from the state website showing higher fees at other hospitals than Tarzana charged in the Moser case, including $2,678 for an abdominal ultrasound at West Hills Medical Center and a $4,413.24 emergency room visit at Cedars.

But that’s just the point. The price swings are so dramatic that they seem arbitrary, if not indefensible. I can’t predict how the Supreme Court will rule on healthcare, but I’m prepared to issue my judgment: It’s a mess.

(Look for a column in the next week on how the bill for Ella Moser’s tummy ache was settled and tips on how to avoid going broke from a minor medical emergency.)

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on eGuardianship.com on March 26, 2012 http://eguardianship.wordpress.com// and Attorney David Engler’s Legal Blog http://davidengler.wordpress.com//

Age and Its Awful Discontents

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By Attorney David Engler

Walking Woman

In my earlier blog I wrote about my Mother finding a new friend in the weeks of her final dawn. “Wanda and Stella” was about the two WWII era nurses that made a pact to go to heaven together.

Mom died on February 3, 2012 and Stella died March 3, 2012. The following piece is from Louis Begley who writes with beauty about friends lost as we age. This was published in the March 18, 2012 New York Times.

“My mother died in 2004, two days short of her 94th birthday, and 40 years and two months to the day after the death of my father. He died at 65; for the preceding four or five years he had been in poor health.

My mother and I lived through the German occupation in Poland; my physician father, having been evacuated with the staff of the local hospital by the retreating Soviet army, spent the remaining war years in Samarkand. Left to fend for ourselves, my mother and I became unimaginably close; our survival depended on that symbiotic relationship. All three of us — I had no brothers or sisters — arrived in the United States in March 1947, and once here I began to keep her at arm’s length. Especially during her long widowhood, I feared that unimpeded she would invade my life, the life she had saved. I remained a dutiful son, watching over her needs, but was at first unwilling and later unable to be tender.

My abhorrence of the ravages and suffering inflicted on the body by age and illness, which predates my mother’s decline in her last years, is no doubt linked to there being no examples of a happy old age in my family. The grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins who might have furnished them all met violent deaths in World War II.

Unsurprisingly, dread of the games time plays with us has been a drumbeat in my novels. Thus, arms akimbo, majestic and naked, standing before a glass, Charlie Swan, the gay demiurge of “As Max Saw It,” illustrates for the younger narrator on his body the physiology of aging: misrule of hair, puckered brown bags under the eyes, warts like weeds on his chest, belly, back and legs, dry skin that peels leaving a fine white snow of dandruff. Listening to him, the younger man is reminded of his own father in a hospital, permanently catheterized, other tubes conducting liquids to his body hooked up to machines that surround his bed like unknown relatives. He prefers his mother’s “triumphant” exit. A headlong fall down the cellar stairs kills her instantly.

I have followed the progress into old age of Albert Schmidt, like me a retired lawyer, in three novels. Schmidt is 60 when we meet him in 1991; when we part on New Year’s Day 2009, he is 78, therefore a couple of years older than I was then. Life has not been kind to him, but so far, Schmidt enjoys excellent health, marching up and down the Atlantic beach in Bridgehampton and New York City’s avenues, and doing laps in his pool. Although he worries about performance, his libido is intact. Nevertheless, the reflection of his face in the window of a shop is frightening: he sees a red nose and bloodshot eyes, lips pursed up tight over stained and uneven teeth, an expression so lugubrious and so pained it resists his efforts to smile. My appreciation of my own charms is not very different. Like Schmidt, I see that nothing good awaits me at the end of the road, and that passing years will turn my life into a Via Crucis.

And yet my body, like Schmidt’s, continues to be a good sport. Provided my marvelous doctor pumps steroids into my hip or spine when needed, it runs along on the leash like a nondescript mutt and wags its tail. My heart still stirs when I see a pretty girl in the street or in a subway car, but not much else happens. Except that, since by preference I stand leaning against the closed doors, she may offer me her seat. When last heard from, Schmidtie figured he had another 10 years to live. I have a similar estimate of my longevity. Such actions as buying a new suit have become dilemmas. The clothes I have may be fatigued and frayed, but won’t they see me through the remaining seasons? Can the expense of money and waste of time required to make the purchase be justified?

My mother did not remarry after my father died. She lived very comfortably, but alone, in an apartment 15 blocks away from my wife’s and mine. If we were in the city, we went to see her often and then daily as her condition deteriorated in the last two years of her life. Our children and grandchildren tried to see her often, too — and those visits brought her great joy — but they live far away and the happiness was fleeting. During her last decade she was very lonely. Most of the friends she had had in Poland had been killed. Those who had escaped and settled in New York one by one became homebound or bedridden, lost their minds or died. Or she found they bored her. Hearing poorly, tormented by arthritis in hip and knee joints, too proud to accept a wheelchair, she stopped going to museums, concerts and even the movies. She had loved sitting on a Central Park bench and putting her face in the sun. That humble pleasure was also abandoned; she couldn’t get the hang of using a walker.

Having rehearsed the bitter gifts reserved for age, T. S. Eliot wrote in “Little Gidding” that “the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.” The closer that place — the human condition — is to home, the harder it is to take in. I could speak movingly of Schmidt’s loneliness after the loss of his daughter, calling his existence an arid plane of granite on which she alone had flowered. But it has taken me until now, at age 78, to feel in full measure the bitterness and anguish of my mother’s solitude — and that of other old people who end their lives without a companion.”

Louis Begley is the author of several novels, including “Schmidt Steps Back.”
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 18, 2012, on page SR7 of the New York edition with the headline: Age and Its Awful Discontents.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on eGuardianship.com on March 20, 2012 http://eguardianship.wordpress.com//

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

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By Attorney David Engler

Young Man in Trouble

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

It is easier to draft this blog after the jury has come back from 70 minutes of deliberations. In 26 years of practicing law the pressure point of a judge getting ready to say “guilty” or “not guilty” is easily the most excruciating second of time.

On a Thursday night in October of 2010 two girls, one who was petite and at least 20 and the other who was more developed but with a younger face show up at the house of four 22 year old young men. They are carrying a duffel bag and are staying the night. The one is blowing up the cell phone of her soon to be ex-boyfriend who attends college and is not answering any frantic calls after 2:00 a.m.. I ask her on the stand was she crying that night because she thought her boyfriend was with some other girl. She said “no” she was worried about him. When she came in to take the stand, the only thing missing was a rattle and blanket. My client and one of the other four boys did not recognize her. Her hair was in a pony-tail and she wore a shirt buttoned up to the neck. Her sister came to testify as well that she warned everyone at the house that night that her sister was just 14, ready to turn 15. The sister promptly then changed into a leopard print corset and later had the boys sign their names on her chest like they were a rock band. Even later the sister goes to bed with a housemate and sleeps the night. What turns out to be the younger sister goes into the bedroom of my client and they have sex.
The sister on the stand gets a real foggy memory and does not recall if she had to wash sharpie from her chest the next day.

A few days later the younger sister tells her boy-friend who is no longer the ex-boyfriend that she was raped by the older guy at the party. A month later the news slowly gets to the mother, who calls the police and my client, Matt gets charged with 2 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The issue for the jury was whether Matt knew or was reckless in not knowing that the girl was either 14 or 15. In Ohio as in most states the age to consent to sex is 16. Matt thought she was 19 and friended her on Facebook the night of the sex and she posted her age as 19.

The jury was a very bright group based upon their education. I left two police officers on the jury. This caused a minor buzz in the Courthouse, since defense attorneys believe police want everyone arrested. I thought differently. I am not sure if it worked but I knew my client had no idea the girl was nearly 15. Police have an instinct to cut through lies quickly and I believed it was the victim, her sister and Mom who would be fibbing through the trial.

So the words came out of Judge Evans’s mouth: “We the jury find Matt not guilty of Count 1 and 2 of the indictment”. I heard a long sigh come from my client. His life was back. One of the woman on the jury asked Matt if he learned a lesson. He did. I am not sure the young girl learned anything since the day of her testimony she posted on her Twitter account, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Matt told me he had not been able to take a breath of air or a bite of food over the last 17 months awaiting this trial without thinking of his fate. This is a tale of caution to our sons and daughters. The Mom thought her little girl was at a sleepover and never bothered to check. The girl started telling a lie all because she was playing college girl, was over her head and wanted the attention of her boyfriend. The jury wasn’t able to see this girls Facebook pictures, tweets and texts that portray a very cunning now 16 year old. She could care less who was going to get hurt. For her it was an interesting story of teen drama. For my client and the rest of us it is a story of the risks of casual hook-ups with someone you just met. Protect your daughters……and sons.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

How Did Trumbull County Miss This Sick Boy?

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To be sure there are a thousand sad stories of abuse or neglect of children even in a County the size of Trumbull County, Ohio.  This is why records must be kept on national and state databases. Trumbull may have kept these records correctly but they do not have a good track record of keeping information timely.  Parents or care-givers like to “jump” state or move when CSB is after them for a drug screen or if the parents sense the bruises might be discovered.  The person or person’s under investigation need to know moving will not buy them time.  In the tragic case of Willie, TCCSB knew he was sick and it is not clear what they did or what they knew.

Look at the story posted below and ask how there could have been a concern in the summer of 2007 noted by CSB, then a follow-up contact in early 2008 and finally a death in Cuyahoga of the same little boy two months later. Did CSB ever force the parents to take the boy to the doctor’s in 2007.  Did they seek verification in January of 2008? The boy’s Aunt thinks CSB might have been tricked into believing Willie was someone else.  Willie at the time of his death was a poor skeleton of a person.

Does Children Services Board, it’s Director or the Commissioners even care to ask questions?  There is an epidemic of children dying in either foster care or care overseen/approved by CSB.  This would be the 5th death in 9 years.

I will send a copy of this blog to the Governor’s office and the Attorney General of Ohio.  They ought to know.

Cleveland (AP)

The parents of an 8-year-old boy who died from Hodgkin lymphoma after suffering for months from undiagnosed swollen glands have pleaded guilty to denying him medical treatment.

Monica Hussing, 37, and William Robinson Sr., 40, both of Cleveland, face up to eight years in prison at sentencing. They pleaded guilty Monday to attempted involuntary manslaughter in a last-minute plea deal before their trial was about to begin.

Willie Robinson collapsed at his home on March 22, 2008. Prosecutors say he had begged his parents to take him to see a doctor but was rejected. Hodgkin lymphoma is a highly treatable cancer.

Hussing’s attorney, John Luskin, said his client took responsibility in the case but, given her education and background, didn’t realize the boy was seriously ill and was treating him with cold medication.

“She is a mother that just did not have the capability to recognize” cancer, Luskin said Wednesday.

Robinson’s lawyer, Thomas Rein, called it a “sad, horrific case” that drew him inquiries from the White House as changes to federal health care law were being considered in 2009.

“Had he had regular health coverage, it possibly could have prevented this,” Rein said of the boy’s  death.

Luskin and Rein said the parents had financial problems and tried to get checkups for their children but couldn’t afford it.

“The kid had what appeared to be swollen glands,” Luskin said. “This was not a tumor that was getting bigger. It would come and go. He would have his good days, he would have his bad days.”

Hussing’s daughter, Lillian Hussing, said the family didn’t have money for medical care when they lived in Warren, tried repeatedly to get help from social services and visited a free clinic but left when told they would have to pay $180.

“We did not know it was cancer,” she said. “We tried and tried to get help and were denied every time,” said the daughter, who’s 18.

The family soon moved to Cleveland and the boy died within weeks.

Prosecutors say that while the boy was suffering, the parents claimed financial hardship but paid $87 to have a pit bull treated for fleas. Luskin said the dog belonged to Hussing’s parents and her parents paid for the treatment.

Trumbull County Children Services says it had worked with the family to provide Willie health care, getting involved after receiving a phone call in July 2007. Agency officials said a case worker visited the family at least monthly and pushed the parents to have a medical follow-up on his swollen neck but they didn’t.

However, Rein said a social worker who visited the family in January 2008 “indicated the kids were healthy and happy.” He said no one knew the boy had cancer until he died and an autopsy was performed.

And Lillian Hussing said a case worker had told the family the boy’s lump looked like a swollen gland and to hold off until they could secure financial assistance before getting it checked.

About two weeks after they moved to Cleveland, she said, her brother came down with something. Her mother treated him with cold medicine and he died within three days.

She said the boy never complained about his neck.

“He played, he went outside, he wrestled, he played video games,” the boy’s sister said. “He was the happiest kid you could imagine. It never seemed like he was suffering.”

The emotional aftermath from their son’s death led the couple to split, according to Luskin.

The couple’s four other children under 18 were placed in the custody of a family member. Luskin said the daughter, upon turning 18, decided to return to live with her mother.

Rein said Robinson agreed to plead guilty so his children could be spared any further grief and wouldn’t have to suffer by testifying. Lillian Hussing said her mother took a plea bargain because of the uncertainty of a trial and fear she could be sent to prison for a long time.

As part of the deal, the prosecution agreed to drop four counts each against each parent, including child endangering. Prosecutors didn’t agree to a sentence recommendation. Both Luskin and Rein said they hope the judge will consider probation.

“There’s not a day my client … starts without shedding a tear for his son,” Rein said.

The coroner ruled that the boy was a victim of medical neglect and died from pneumonia due to Hodgkin lymphoma.

Hodgkin lymphoma is a highly treatable cancer, with as many as 95 percent of patients in early stages of the disease surviving for five years or more with treatment. It’s one of the most common forms of cancers among children.

Dr. Stanton L. Gerson, director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University, said parents should watch for glands that are swollen for more than two or three weeks, particularly if accompanied by weight loss and nighttime fevers.

This Should Have Been Stopped

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By Attorney David Engler

Teacher
I have been an elected official for over 22 years. The past 11 have been with the Board of the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. I was a Board Member who received a deranged business card from the killer who stalked Stacey Sutera. Please make no mistake about it: Stacey Sutera was a beautiful daughter, mother, granddaughter, teacher, friend and colleague. This was not some boyfriend-girlfriend relationship gone bad. This was a freak ego-maniac; obsessed old man who was bent on revenge once he learned the object of his obsession had rejected him. There was no relationship. It existed in his twisted mind. And then this criminal monster stole this tremendous young successful life from her family, friends and students.

I cannot remember being so sad and angry at the same time over something that has unfolded in the public. It did not have to happen. It could have been stopped. The government paid to protect us should have insisted that if the killer was not going to be in jail for 5 years, he should have worn a GPS tracking device that kept him out of Mahoning County. If he took the bracelet off or came within the County limits the victim and police would be immediately notified. She lived a nightmare of wondering where he was. And I do not know if she approved the plea agreement that got him no monitoring or jail or if that was recommended to her. Often a battered or stalked woman will not want to push too far. They fear retaliation. Stacey did everything right.

She called the police and Canfield PD responded to protect her. She received a restraining order. She filed a civil suit. She installed cameras. She asked for help. So why wasn’t he made to pay for a GPS tracking device? It was available.

The federal government, state government and every person that is elected to represent people should recognize that the answer to this tragedy is to hold those that should have protected Stacey accountable and to make sure it never happens again. Never again should a madman stalk an innocent young woman, put her life in tatters and not be required to wear a bracelet that would protect his victim. Anywhere. Anytime.

Some will argue where to draw the line. I trust the Judges will know that line if they are presented with the facts and threat. But please be sure that the devil that took Stacey was an obvious threat. She knew that and it meant that others knew the danger as well. May her memory be a call to action.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Rest In Peace Mom

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Austintown, Ohio and Orono, Maine- Wanda Jane Engler, 84, died February 2nd, 2012, at the Maine Veterans’ Home after battling Parkinson Disease. She was born February 27th, 1927 in Bellwood, PA, daughter of Samuel and Emma (Hostler) Hildebrand. She graduated in 1948 from the Clearfield School of Nursing at Indiana State College with a degree in Nursing. Wanda was proud of her service as Nurse Cadet during WWII and working with veterans at the Cleveland VA Hospital, where she participated in some of the very first open heart surgery as Operating Room Nurse. On January 20th,1951,she married William L. Engler, the father of her four children. She worked as a homemaker and nurse throughout Ohio, finally settling in Youngstown, OH, where she worked as an office nurse for Dr. Tochtenhagen in Girard and as a nanny for her grandchildren until her retirement. She loved working around her home and reading. She loved her grandchildren immensely and was known to everyone as “Nana”. She enjoyed her neighbors and lived next door to the best neighbors ever, Carl and Mary Gump. She moved to Maine in August 2009, to be closer to her youngest daughter and granddaughter who cared for her during her hardest months.

Wanda was predeceased by her loving husband of 39 years, Bill; sisters, Lorraine Fair and Grace Large and brother Eugene “Red” Hildebrand. She is survived by her four children: Patricia Engler of Conifer, CO; William Engler (Wendy)of Minneapolis, MN; David Engler of Canfield, OH; and Amy Engler Booth,(John) of Orono; grandchildren: Mallory Engler of Houston, TX; Elizabeth Engler, of Chicago, IL; Taylor Engler, of San Diego, CA; Emma Engler, of Canton, OH; William Engler, of Pittsburgh, PA; and Molly Booth, of Orono. She is also survived by: sister Thelma McWilliams of Bluffton SC; and brother Ralph Hildebrand of Altoona, PA; and nieces and nephews.

The family would like to express sincere thanks to the staff at Maine Veterans’ Home. Interment and a memorial service will be held in Austintown, OH in the late spring. In lieu of flowers, those who wish to remember Wanda in a special way may make gifts in her memory to the Clearfield Hospital Nursing Alumni Association’s Nursing Scholarship, c/o Rita Thomson, 612 Arnold Ave., Clearfield, PA 16830.