"The True Administration of Justice Is The Firmest Pillar Of Good Government" are words chiseled in granite above the New York State Supreme Court at Foley Square in Manhattan. The reader who explores "A Death in the Hospital" will come away with the understanding that the principle intention of the New York State Court System in their consideration of the case of Speken V. Columbia was not Justice but rather the imposition of silence.

            Nine years before Seth died, another young New Yorker, Libby Zion, died at a premier New York City hospital. As was the case with Seth, she died due to the actions of medical trainees. Inexperienced trainees were given the responsibility, unsupervised, of caring for the sickest of patients. Over the course of the next eleven years, there was much legal wrangling about the issues of the case. The Hospital mounted a vigorous public defense that they were not responsible for Libby’s death.

            For several months in the winter of 1994-1995, the Nation was transfixed as the Zion case was shown live on Court TV. The Hospital moved ‘Heaven and Hell’ in order to convince the Jury that Libby was responsible for her own death because of her cocaine use. If there was any blame, it could only be to a ‘system’ of medical education that overworked the trainees into a state of sleep deprivation.

            But it was not so much that the students weren’t getting enough sleep, as their supervisors getting too much. The reader of "What Killed Libby Zion? A Reexamination of the Evidence" will learn that the cocaine issue was bogus. As with Seth, Libby’s death resulted from the actions of the trainees.

            From the start, the Hospital and State Authorities knew this. Seth Speken would die nine years later as a result of the same illegal 5 point restraining that killed Libby Zion. Were the Government to have been protecting the Public, the true implications of Libby Zion’s death would have been recognized and changes in medical trainee supervision imposed. Seth would be alive today. The Zion and Speken cases represent yet again the manner in which Government can fail to protect.

           Justice was denied Libby Zion, Seth Speken - and how many others?

Click to Read "What Killed Libby Zion? A Reexamination of the Evidence"

Click for "A Death in the Hospital"