LUYAO JURORS SHARE DELIBERATIONS, VERDICTS

For nearly five years, Dr. Asuncion Luyao treated Julia Hartsfield for
hip and shoulder pain, but the doctor never ordered an X-ray or
diagnostic test to figure out the cause of the pain -- and never
referred her patient to a specialist.

Instead, from June 1996 until Hartsfield's death in March 2001 at age
53, Luyao prescribed heavy-duty painkillers such as OxyContin,
methadone, Percocet and hydrocodone and other drugs such as Xanax,
Prozac and Ambien, according to court records.

Hartsfield's adult son called Luyao in June 2000, worried that his
mother was on too much medication.

Her insurance company sent Luyao two letters cautioning her to stop
prescribing some of the pills.

Still, two days before Hartsfield's death, she filled prescriptions
from Luyao for methadone and Xanax.

The combination of those two drugs killed her, the Treasure Coast's
medical examiner determined. He ruled her death an accidental overdose
and said high levels of both were found in her blood.

A jury last week decided Luyao's role in Hartsfield's death equated to
manslaughter. The jurors, however, found Luyao not guilty of five
other manslaughter charges connected to the drug-related deaths of
five more patients.

The 64-year-old, whose license to practice medicine has been suspended
since her 2002 arrest, also was found guilty of one count of
racketeering and five counts of trafficking oxycodone, which is the
active ingredient in the painkiller OxyContin.

But the single manslaughter conviction left many who followed the
high-profile trial wondering: What set Hartsfield's case apart?

"Each individual manslaughter case was very different," the jury's
foreman, Ransom Johnson, said last week, a few days after the verdict
was announced. "We scrutinized every one until there was nothing more
to scrutinize."

The prosecution had to prove that Luyao's actions equated to "culpable
negligence," meaning she might not have intended it, but her reckless
disregard for human life led to each of their deaths. Several of the
jurors said that, by following that standard, they had enough evidence
only in Hartsfield's case to convict Luyao.

"That was the only case where it was clear that the drugs the doctor
prescribed dictated her life cycle," Johnson said. There were too many
other circumstances and unanswered questions involved in the five
other deaths to make that clear link, he added.

Jurors George Dietz and Alexandra Sanders echoed Johnson's
thoughts.

"All I can say is we definitely studied each one of these cases,"
Dietz said. "With all the different evidence we had and with the
instructions on the law from the judge, none of the other cases could
be proven to be culpable negligence."

Although some of Luyao's former patients testified they sought Luyao
out because they heard she would prescribe narcotics with few
questions asked, Johnson said he believed Hartsfield was a
"responsible person" who went to Luyao with a legitimate pain issue --
and Luyao led her down the path that ultimately resulted in her death.
The jury rejected the defense argument that heart disease was her real
cause of death.

Prosecutors argued that Hartsfield, a Fort Pierce mother and wife who
sold antiques on eBay, showed obvious signs of addiction to the
medications, but Luyao kept prescribing increasing doses. Hartsfield's
husband could not be reached for comment on the jury's verdict.

The jurors said they struggled with each count, but could not wash
away all their reasonable doubt in the other manslaughter charges.

In the case of 23-year-old Bradley Towse of Palm Beach Gardens, the
medical examiner who conducted his autopsy tested only blood taken
from him at a hospital before his death. That made it impossible to
know exactly what drug he really overdosed on, a defense expert
testified during the trial.

Towse had taken methadone, which Luyao had prescribed for him the day
before he died, but defense attorney Joel Hirschhorn argued that he
was released from the hospital, and no one knows whether he took other
drugs in the hours before his death. He also said if Towse had not
been released from the hospital, he might have survived.

"There were just too many opened questions not answered in that case,"
jury foreman Johnson said.

The jurors said the fact that some of the other patients who died
appeared to be seeing other doctors in addition to Luyao cast doubt
about Luyao's culpability in those cases. One, Janice Byers, 41, of
Vero Beach, also had a longtime history of drug abuse.

The fact that patient Robert Gustaf, 40, of Jensen Beach also had
pneumonia at the time of his death cast some doubt in his case,
Johnson said.

He recalled that the jurors were concerned that patient Rona Kay, 34,
of Pembroke Pines had a history of taking gamma hydroxybutrate. The
defense argued that it's impossible to know whether that drug
contributed to her death because it clears out of the body so quickly.

"It was very hard, but we could not convict her of manslaughter in the
other five cases based on the evidence we had," Sanders said.

The prosecution was able to give the jury more evidence and
information about Luyao's influence over Hartsfield than any of the
five other patients, Sanders said. Of the five, Hartsfield was Luyao's
patient for the longest time.

Throughout the monthlong trial, prosecutors argued that Luyao
essentially ran a "pill mill" from her office in the old Village Green
plaza. Her goal, they said, was to make money by keeping patients
addicted to powerful narcotics. If the patients were addicted, they
would continue to pay an $80 cash-only office fee required for a
refill, prosecutors argued.

Luyao's attorney said she was a compassionate doctor who wanted to
help patients who complained of pain and had nowhere else to turn to.
She was "taken in" by some who lied and manipulated her in order to
get the drugs, he said.

She might not have been a good judge of character, but her actions
weren't criminal, Hirschhorn argued.

This was Luyao's second trial on the same charges. The first ended
with a hung jury last year after those six jurors couldn't reach a
unanimous decision.

The jurors in her retrial said they methodically reviewed each count
one-by-one and read every one of the 200 exhibits sent back to the
jury room.

"It was tough," the jury foreman said. "But we believe we made a true
and honest and correct verdict."