Carol Carr Resolution

HD Lighthouse Contributing Editor's Comment: This seems a fair resolution for our national Huntington's Disease caregiver. It is in keeping of the demonstrated grass roots support of the HD community. -Jerry
Posted to the HDL: 30 Jan 2003

Resolution
"Carol Carr could not bring herself to walk into that courtroom and say 'I murdered my children.' All she did was keep a promise to them to end their suffering, Carr was overjoyed to reach a plea agreement." Lee Sexton, defense attorney .

His mom could be in jail for up to five years. She can't live with him when she gets out. And she can't care for him as he battles a disease that will be a battle for his life.

But 38-year-old James Scott felt relief when his mother, Carol Carr, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the assisted suicide of his two older brothers, who were in the late stages of Huntington's disease.

"It's a big burden off my shoulders," he said to a knot of reporters on the steps of the Spalding County courthouse in Griffin.

Inside, Spalding District Attorney Bill McBroom was feeling much the same thing about the first conviction under the 1994 law banning assisted suicide.

He had to prosecute Carr, who killed sons Randy, 42, and Andy, 41, by shooting them behind the ear while they lay in nursing home beds.

The Carr case made Spalding County the latest stage for the national debate over so-called mercy killings.

"Some people were calling me to say you ought to hang Carol Carr," said McBroom, sitting in his office. "Other people were calling and saying you ought not to prosecute.

"I think this is the best way this could have been resolved."

McBroom dropped the malice murder and felony murder charges against Carr, 64, and recommended she be allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charges of assisted suicide, one count for each son.

She got five years for one count of assisted suicide, and five years of probation for the second count. She has served seven months in jail. Her lawyer, Lee Sexton, said she may be out of jail in another 13 months.

The hearing Wednesday brought new twists to a drama that had plenty.

A prosecution witness, psychologist Catherine Boyer, testified Carr had tried to help her two ill sons kill themselves at least one other time, during Christmas 1998.

She said Carr and her two older sons gathered, reminisced about old times, then the men each took 50 tablets of the tranquilizer Tranzene.

Their next attempt at death was the successful one, on June 8, at Sunbridge Care and Rehabilitation nursing home in Griffin.

Griffin police Officer Joe Hudson was one of the first to arrive at the nursing home. Hudson, who testified Wednesday at the hearing, said he had his gun out because he was responding to a report of a shooting.

He found Carr in the waiting room, sitting on a couch.

He testified she told him: "I did it. I shot them." Then she asked Hudson to shoot her. Later, in a squad car, between sobs, she begged a police officer: "I want you to kill me."

During the hearing, Carr appeared tired and distraught, dabbing her eyes with tissues. She asked for and was granted permission to leave the courtroom when McBroom played videotapes from the night of the killings.

In her statement at the police station, she is asked when she decided to kill her sons. "Tonight," she said on the tape.

"What sparked you to do it?" asked investigator Lt. Joe Estenes.

"When I saw Andy crying," she said.

McBroom said Carr's health was a consideration in the plea agreement. She has ruptured discs in her back, kidney problems, has had one heart attack and is on prescription painkillers. He didn't want her to die in prison, he said.

A key part of the agreement is she cannot live with son James Scott when she is released and cannot be his caretaker. Scott is in the early stages of the hereditary nerve disease that causes loss of mobility and speech.

Bob Keller, district attorney for Clayton County, said the plea was an adroit way out: "It was a fair resolution to a tragedy."

Outside the courtroom, family friend Ellene Greene said she had feared a jury trial, as had much of the Scott family. The grand jury had indicted, after all, she said. That surprised her.

"It's wonderful they did it this way," she said

Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 30 Jan 2003

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