Hi Class,
Go ahead and read the following article and then answer the questions following the article. If by chance you have no clue what this article is about because you were absent when I shared the background of this story, following is a link that will shed some light.
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/woman-killed-at-lehi-lds-church-husband-in-custody/article_743369d0-4698-5775-87c6-072d759a4df1.html
ARTICLE BEGINS:
David Ragsdale's family is hoping to show that a cocktail of antidepressants and other mood-altering drugs are responsible for the shooting death of his wife.
After a hearing at Provo's 4th District Court on Wednesday, Tamara Ragsdale said she believed her brother is innocent and that he was "not conscious when this tragic act was committed."
David Ragsdale is charged with aggravated murder, a capital offense. According to police, Ragsdale shot his wife, Kristy, in the parking lot of an LDS church in Lehi on Jan. 6.
At the time of his wife's murder, David Ragsdale, 35, was taking seven medications, including Paxil, Doxepin, Ritalin, Provigil and two forms of testosterone, his sister said. Tamara Ragsdale said the plethora of negative side effects he suffered from the drugs were not properly monitored by the nurse practitioner who prescribed them, and the interactions chemically altered his brain.
"David put his faith and trust in a nurse practitioner, the [Food and Drug Administration] and the pharmaceutical companies that these drugs were safe," she said. "David is now living in his own hell as he is coming off of these meds. He is waking up to the horror of this reality."
At Wednesday's hearing, David Ragsdale's attorney, Gregory Skordas, requested a continuance so his client could undergo a psychological evaluation. Skordas said the evaluation would be completed by the end of the month. Judge Claudia Laycock scheduled the next hearing in the case for April 9.
"We want to make sure we have all the evidence together to make the correct decisions," Tamara Ragsdale said. "There's a couple different tests we're going to have done."
Deputy Utah County Attorney Craig Johnson said the Ragsdales will use a private psychologist, not a court-appointed one.
"This is news to us. This isn't something that we had appointed or anything in any way," Johnson said.
Tamara Ragsdale read a statement written by her brother in which he apologized for Kristy's death.
"Words cannot describe how incredibly sorry I am for the death of my wife, Kristy. I want the Palizzi family and everyone to know that I would do anything to bring her back, even if it meant giving up my own life," Tamara Ragsdale said as she read her brother's statement. "It is time for the public to educate themselves of the adverse reactions of these mind-altering drugs and how they act on the brain."
Some of the listed side effects of the medications Ragsdale was taking include manic reaction, suicide, homicidal tendencies, hallucinations, delusions, psychosis, amnesia, panic and seizures, Tamara Ragsdale said. She said her brother was suffering blackouts, severe headaches and other side effects from the drugs.
Tamara Ragsdale said her brother had gone to the nurse practitioner who prescribed the drugs at the urging of his wife. He had been taking some of the medications for about a year, she said, while others were prescribed just two months before the shooting.
While spending Christmas with David and Kristy, Tamara Ragsdale said she noticed marked changes in her brother.
"I'm a nurse, so I knew something was wrong with his behavior and his meds," she said. "These medications were altering his brain."
She criticized what she described as a tendency of some people to rely on prescriptions to fix their problems. She also said the family is considering legal action against the nurse practitioner who prescribed the medications.
"I think that when people aren't happy they tend to go to the doctor, or ask their spouse to go, and think that there's going to be a magic pill that's going to fix something," she said. "David happened to be a victim of this and tragically ... what happened was he suffered from the adverse reactions."
Carrie Peters, Kristy Ragsdale's cousin, made a brief statement to the media after the hearing, but declined to comment on the progress of the case.
"We just want everybody to know that we just love Kristy so much and we miss her a great deal, and we are hoping that through justice and forgiveness we might be able to find safety and closure," Peters said.
END OF ARTICLE
Here are some questions for you to think about and respond to. You don't have to respond to all of them but I would like to see some good thought out entries.
What is your initial reaction and thoughts about where the sister is putting the blame? Is what she is saying valid? Should the drug companies, nurse and doctors also be liable for this shooting?
How is this related to the mind brain problem?
Can drugs cause us to do things we would not normally do? If yes, are we responsible for our actions if our brain/body has been altered?
When it comes to who is in charge of our behavior, is the mind always in control? Or does the brain/body take over sometimes? If your body can take over, then are you responsible for what happens?
Have fun pondering these deep questions! :)
well first off I would like to say that I think its not fair that the sister is trying to blame this on the nurse when in the article it's self she says that she's a nurse herself and says she could tell something was wrong and different with him the first time she spent time with him after he was put on them. so my question is knowing what she knew why didn't she do anything about it? in my eyes she is as guilty as the other nurse she is trying to blame this on if not even more. I defiantly think this supports the people that believe the brain controls the mind if the medicine is changing the brain to do things that the mind would not do then obviously the brain controls the mind.you asked us the question are we responsible for our actions if our body/brain takes control? when it comes to the law I would say defiantly yes because they have no proof of what was going on in your head at the time you performed "said action"·But In the sense of religious stands and personal stands who knows? --- Alesha Grotegut
ReplyDeleteI personally think that the sister is sort of being a hypocrite. She's a nurse and she's saying her brother shouldn't have gone to a doctor yet in a way that means who would go to her if they need any help with physical or mental problems. People know the risks they are taking when they get prescribed to a medication every doctor has to inform you of the symptoms that you are going to react with. I feel like we always know what we are doing and we are responsible for our actions, even if you are prescribed to a certain pill that is harmful, it's like drinking alcohol you can either drive home drunk or ask for a ride. You have a choice on everything. If the sister knew the medication was affecting her brother that badly why not advice him to stop taking it or ask his doctor if any other medication with less side effects would help. Because she probably saw that the brother is feeling better, that his body was okay, but what was wrong with him was his mind. -Jasmine Izarraga
ReplyDeleteMy personal opinion would be that Tamara is being hypocritical, being a nurse herself. As a nurse she knew the side effects that the medication would cause David especially since he was taking so many medications. Personally I think that she thought that the side effects were just small ones and would eventually wear off, but as a nurse she was still aware of the harm that might occur to David. Eventually the side effect lead David to lose control and murder his wife. I believe that she thinks she is guilty because she had the knowledge of the dangers that could happen to him. In the end, she cannot stand the blame on her own shoulders, so she turns the blame to the doctors and nurses' for Kristy's death. I do believe that the scientists have been able to create such powereful medications that are capable of fooling our minds/brains into doing unpredictable things. -Andrea Davila
ReplyDeleteHis sister makes a good point. Meds can have an effect on the brain, causing us to perhaps act in ways we normally wouldn't. That doesn't necessarily mean that's what happened with David. I do, however, think that the drug companies should be more careful about what they put on the market. These days it seems that medication for certain conditions will either cure you or kill you. I think that if you're taking medication with side effects that can alter your mood, the brain can take over the body. But to determine that a psychoanalysis would need to take place to determine the state of mind of a person before they act out. Ultimately, though medication may have negative effects on our bodies, we are responsible for our actions. I don't believe medication can make you kill a person. We make our own choices and we have control over our own actions. Meds may influence our choices, but they don't determine them. -Candela Lattanzio
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought the sister was simply making excuses for her brother and maybe not just for her brother's sake but her own. She probably wasn't able to comprehend that one of her own family members would be capable of murder(who could blame her?)so in being unable to accept this idea she reasoned her way out of it using drugs. Drugs have been proven to effect the brain in some cases making it hard for a human to control his or her actions which makes the sister's case valid. Nonetheless I don't believe the doctors/nurses/pharmacists should NOT be held accountable for the shooting. Medical Centers are very precise and careful when administering drugs to patients, if anything, the fault lies with the patient himself for the not notifying the staff of his or her unstable condition due to the drugs because each body is unique and reacts differently with different substances and besides only you are able to feel what's happening within your body.
ReplyDeleteWhen drugs effect the brain it also connects with the mind. Our minds are what give us the ability to live on top of the food chain. With it we are able to accomplish miraculous feats even within life threatening scenarios, which in most cases delivers us from an otherwise untimely demise. And though our mind is able to overcome our natural instincts there are times when it is overpowered by physical need, this is where the brain comes in and makes the necessary sacrifices in an effort to survive. An excellent example of this process would be when you are stuck within a dark cave with no food or water, immediately your brain will slow down your metabolism(instinct) so you won't use up as much energy. Using your mind to dictate your actions you will then search for an exit or a water source(mind over brain). Due to the darkness you are unable to tell how much time has gone by so you continuously search for an exit. After being awake for more than 48 hours, the sleepless nights have taken their toll because the body needs sleep in order to complete certain functions. Finally your condition is critical with a dire need for sleep, your brain overpowers the mind's reason and shuts down to regain sleep(brain over mind).
Whether the brain overrides the mind or mind overrides the brain, it shouldn't matter because only YOU are in control of YOUR body. You ultimately decide what to feed it, when to work it, and when to rest it. And though accidents happen, YOU make the decisions and depending on those decisions consequences will follow and there's nothing you can do about that.
- Makayla Memmott
If it was the medications that made him unconscious to his actions, that is a sad situation, but still a crime was committed and someone must be punished. If his sister could really tell there was something different and wrong with how he acted at Christmas, she should have taken it upon herself, as a nurse, to diagnose the problem. The nurse practitioner who prescribed the medications should be left entirely out of the picture because there were so many other doctors who inevitably saw the prescriptions and approved them as adequate for the situation.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of the brain and the mind brings up an interesting point. Yes, at one point his brain must have taken over if he truly was intoxicated by the medications. The same thing happens when people are drunk, high, ect. This should then be handled the same way it would if he was drunk and committed the same crime. Which, in the end would result in him being found guilty. In my opinion, he could not be found more guilty. His body committed the crime, and he should get the punishment.
-Kyla Redd
I think you are in charge of what your body does. It was his chose to take all the drugs. He knew the risk. You might not like some of the side affect. But some time you have to live with them. I know with some of the medication I'm taking there are side affects. But if it gets to the point where it is unsafe for me to take them. I tell my parents and my doctor. But its my chose to put that risk on my body. So if I do any thing at fault. Its my responsibility to fix it and get back on track -- Miscia Starrs
ReplyDeleteI think that the sister is just trying to place the blame anywhere else. She says shes a nurse and she notices something off with her brother, why wouldn't she do something or have him ask if he can try a different combination of drugs? I personally think that puts some of the blame on her, and she knows it so she is trying to brush it off and blame the nurse-practitioner. I do think that drugs can cause us to do things we would not normally do; however it is still our fault because we choose to put ourselves in that situation, and by doing so we are excepting the consequences of our choices while we are under-the-influence.
ReplyDeleteFor our behavior, the mind is not always in control, like when we hear stories of moms being able to lift a car off their child. That is the body and mind working together. Even if the mind is dominate the brain and body can still sometimes take over. -Samantha Alder
Well, I think that medications/drugs only influence a person's mind, they don't dictate one's actions. I think that the person taking medicine has the obligation to take responsibility for their actions after taking their drugs, over-the-counter or prescribed. I don't think that virtually anyone is physically forced to take a pill, they are usually doing so on their own accord.
ReplyDeleteI think the mind is always in control. Medication/drugs, I think, just make the "strings", connecting our thoughts to action, are made lax by the taking of drugs- making it harder for the mind to control, intricately, the body's actions.
So, I do think that David is responsible for his actions concerning the afore mentioned tragedy, and his taking the drugs prescribed for him. He knew the probable side effects that each of the different drugs could/would have on him, and he decided to take that risk.
-Yuki Miyazawa
I feel as though the sister is just trying to put the blame somewhere else and anywhere else. If the sister had notied that something was off with her brother she should have said something earlier, especially because she is a nurse. When people are on drugs they are not in their right state of mind. They do things that they don't usually do. The sister could have recommended to her brother to take a different combinations of medicines.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the drugs do take over the mind and influences it great but it does not determine ones actions. The medications/drugs do not tel us to do a certain thing but perhaps it gets us stuck in the situation. You can't blame the doctor or the drugs because they are not the ones that did the crime. Its like you can't put the blame on the gun store, or the gun. The guilty person is the shooter holding the gun the he/she purchased. He took the drugs and thus he did an awful thing because he was not in his right mind.
-McKenzie Bushenll
If the sister was a nurse, I feel that she would've seen the early brain changes in David earlier and for putting the blame on another nurse is pretty hypocritical. I guess that whenever us humans are in a some sort of sickness or pain, we tend to just take any medicine without actually taking a minute to know what some possible side effects could affect us. I would like to think that drugs can really influence one's mind greatly,we become less focused at times as well. David, having taken 7 medications could be a really good reason as to why he did such actions. On a second note, doctors who prescribe medicine people shouldn't be held responsible, they're doing their own job to help. The one who is responsible is the one taking them because they know to be cautious when taking certain drugs.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I really do think the mind at one point can really be in control, not a lot, but some form of control for example, whenever we're in school and we just "doze off" or daydream and sometimes we don't even realize what we were just doing.
- Luiggi Puertas
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think that the sister is just wanting to make her brother not sound like a heartless man, so she blames the doctors. I also think that if you take the medication you are responsible for you actions no matter what. I know that when i get my prescription on the receipt it has a copy of all the risks and side effects and if you don't read the receipt its your own fault, the doctor cant force you to read the receipt its call reading the DIRECTIONS. Also when you get your prescription at my pharmacy you have to sign on the credit card machine saying you do or don't want advice on the presctiption. If his sister is a nurse she should know all this stuff and she should also know when some one is going crazy. In the end you should always read side effects and ricks with any medication no matter if it is for the flu or depression.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the sister shouldn't be defending her brother for his actions. Yes you do need to defend your family, but when he knew the risks of the medications he was taking its not an excuse to act a certain way you wouldn't normally act. And to take legal action against the nurse/doctor is not fair at all. David went to them because he wanted medication. And isn't that what the doctor is supposed to do? The doctor and the medication have to state the side effects anyways, by law. He knew how the medications could have altered his thinking and actions. Yes meds can affect your thinking and actions but you do have a choice. You can still think through them, and that's what he could have done. His sister should have done something if she was a nurse and knew what those medications could have done to him. But she didn't and now she's blaming the other nurses/doctors.
ReplyDeleteIf the drugs that he was taking really were affecting his mind in a way that would cause him to shoot someone, then they should also be affecting him enough to inhibit his capacity for driving. It seems to me that once a murder is committed, the defending attorney always tries to place the blame somewhere else in order to save their client from punishment. In the case with Elizabeth Smart, the defending attorney has tried to plead insanity so as to avoid punishment for his client.
ReplyDeleteThe same is with this case. The sister has tried to place the blame on someone else and allow her brother to avoid punishment for his actions. Also, I believe that she must know what the real side affects of this drug combination would be, but she is choosing to ignore that knowledge.
Drugs can cause us to do certain things, but if they alter the mind I don't think it could fill out a complex plan like this. Also, his sister said that he was just waking up from what he did, but he turned himself in moments after it happened. The drugs weren't altering his brain then. So, there is a flaw in her argument.
I think that his sisters argument is completely ridiculous. For her to be saying he was experiencing side effects from the drugs and that he was sleeping even though she was a nurse is hypocritical. She would've known something was up with him before the shooting and would've pursued medical help. This also puts a problem with her blaming David's nurse practitioner. She is not responsible for the side effects of these drugs because everyone responds differently to the taking of medications.
ReplyDeleteThis is relevant to the mind and brain problem because the dense attorney is pleading that the physical aspect of his brain was altered and that he didn't have control of what he did. The other argument is that just cause he was on medication he still had conscious awareness of what he was doing it when he did it.
-Ben Hilton
I disagree with what his sister is saying about his behavior. She does not know what he was thinking or why he shot his wife. No one knows but him, but what I think is that he had a desire to kill his wife or take out his frustrations on her from the beginning. Those medications could have made that desire into more of an actual attack/action which I think is where the brain comes into place. Maybe he didnt have that control to hold himself back from his desire to shoot his wife that most of us have, but either way he WANTED to do it and that always comes with a consequence. The nurse who prescribed David those pills cannot be held responsible for any of this. He knew what the side effects were and the risks and still chose to take them. every one does stuff they regret, but that doesnt change what you did.
ReplyDelete~ashley call
She shouldn't be putting all the blame on the nurses and the prescribed drugs. Why is she blaming someone who cant control all the chemicals in ones brain. If his sister noticed some changes in his behavior why didn't she talk to him about it and his nurse. Maybe it wasn't the drugs that led him into killing his wife, it could of just been his own conscious decision. Your mind is one thing and the brain is other. No one knows what is going through his mind. At the moment he killed his wife, it could of been something he had been planning, but no one can see it, no one knows exactly what his mind holds. On the other hand, we can examine the brain. They say that the drugs caused a lot of changes in his behavior, and It could of even caused an imbalance. They can test him and see. All they will know is the facts that come out on the exam sheets. But other than that.. he cant change what he did and still have his sister out and about blaming his nurse and his drugs. He did it, and its done. -Elizabeth Velasco
ReplyDeleteAmanda Flinders
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I noticed you phrased the questions like the mind and the brain ARE separate things. Interesting way of voicing your own opinion there?
I see how this really can be an issue of belief more than solid facts because of how different people perceive the mind and brain. There is no way to prove that he was completely controlled by the drug and no way to prove that he wasn’t. It isn’t possible to step inside his thoughts and decipher between his coherent thought process and the chemicals in his body which were potentially subjective to his many medications. Therefore, the judgment of this man is going to be based mainly on belief. I personally believe that the mind is our thoughts. It’s all the words and ideas that we come up with from who knows where. The mind chooses what we want to want. The brain is the chemicals and physical function and they are woven together to create the person. The human being who has feelings and new ideas and pictures running across their head and desires and ambitions. It’s like your eyes. When you close just one, you see something different then when you close the other. But when you open them both at the same time, you get the full picture, the whole perspective. They are incomplete without each other and so in a way, they are the same. You’re right eye isn’t your left eye, and it doesn’t do exactly the same thing because it’s in a different place on your face, but it’s not whole without your left eye, is it? That’s my opinion at least. Drugs can indeed alter our chemical balances, which changes the way our body feels and reacts to different stimuli. This can alter behavior, but to an extent the mind can decide how much. But we truly never know exactly how much, so we never know just how responsible the person is for their actions. There are probably times that I’m not aware of when the brain is completely in control and the person is incapable of controlling or changing the reaction. Now, I don’t know everything about the scientific process of identifying how the brain with react, but I do believe that normally you are in control of you unless you give up that control. By you I mean your head, your brain, and your thoughts, who you become. Perhaps David Ragsdale gave up his control over himself when he turned to those drugs to change him, so he could be responsible for that choice. Or, perhaps not. The truth is, we may never know. Or we may never believe.
I do not believe that drugs can alter your thinking so much as to want to kill your ex wife. The sister is just trying to find a way for her brother to be in jail for not as long. In all reality if he really wanted to, kill his wife he would have had that thought before he was taking the drugs. Therefore the drugs did nothing to his major thoughts and actions. If the drugs did cause a chemical imbalance it had nothing to do with his thoughts and actions. He did what he did and his sister cannot prove anything else. He needs to fess up to the crime and stop taking those drugs.
ReplyDelete-Alec Woolley
I do believe there is a strong connection between the mind and the brain. The brain does most of the work but in the end the mind has the final say. His brain may have changed because of the drugs however the common sense is still there. Drugs do alter the way the mind works but we have the final decision to make.
ReplyDeleteWe are not all the same person. Just like some people have alergic reactions and others don't the same is with the way we react to different substances.
ashley eldridge
The blame of this awful crime cannot be placed fully on any one person, drug, or circumstance. As with almost anything, there were many different factors that played into what came as the end result. David’s depression, his medication, and the stressed situation between him and his wife are just a few pieces of the puzzle. This does not mean that David is innocent. He did carry out this brutal crime and knows he must now take full responsibility for it. The medications he took had a profound effect on both his brain and his mind. They emphasized and rationalized thoughts that once seemed horrendously wrong. I wish we could see just how much of his mind was taken over by the chemicals that he chose to put in his body. If we could we might see a small bit that they did not change. That they could not change. I wonder if that small piece would be enough to make him stop and second guess. To let him truly consider what they claim the chemicals decided for him. He chose to take all of that medication. He could have known the effect that they had on his mind, and still he made the wrong choice over and over again. It is that which brought him to that church parking lot on that awful Sunday morning. For that, he is ultimately responsible.
ReplyDelete-Madison Stokes
I would have to say that his medicine lead his mind to think it was okay to kill Kristy. Yes, it could be the brain too. I see it as the medicine made him react like this because of the thoughts he had and not having the realization that it was bad. We can think about something in our mind but we have to tell our brain to do what we think. Our brain does we want, but we first have to think about it. In Davids situation he has no right to have killed her and needs to have those consequences. The mind is a big thing and sometimes we do have control and other times we dont.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the sister Ragsdale couldn't be right about blaming the shooting on the medications his brother had been on, but as I kept reading i thought that there could have been a possibility. I started to think about how when people get their wisdom teeth out and they have to use medication, they act very childish and usually don't remember what they did or what happened. I think that it could have been a possibility that the cause of the shooting was because of the medication. I think that our actions come from our brain, but our mind can influence the brain to make some actions.
ReplyDelete-Edgar Cordova
I don't think that the nurse should be blamed for it. A nurse's job is to prescribe medicine to people for their problems. Also i do think that medications can change the way you act and make you do things you wouldn't normally do. My cousins always take ambien and they do crazy things on it that they don't remember the next day. So i would say that they aren't responsible for what they do when they are on it. It is hard to say with david ragsdale though, because we don't know for sure that he was completely out of control. he could have still been partially in control of what he was thinking and doing. I think that the mind and brain work together to form our actions and behaviors, but that sometimes one of them can take over and then we don't have as much control. I dont think that he shouldn't be punished for what he did though, killing your wife is still killing your wife no matter the excuse.
ReplyDelete-Nichol Murdock
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the sister should be blaming this on the nurse, the nurse just did what she was told. In the article, the sister says that she is a nurse herself and she could tell something was different with her brother, so why didn't she do something to help him? I feel like she is just trying to blame this on everyone else except her brother, when he is the one that was taking the medication and clearly it was doing something to his brain. I believe that drugs can make us do things that we don't normally do, but we still have to be responsible. When someone tries to drive home after getting drunk and they get pulled over, the police officer still arrests them and makes them suffer the consequences. If David or his sister knew that something was different about him, they should've been more responsible and had someone watch him, just like when a person gets drunk they are responsible to find someone to drive them home.
ReplyDelete-Emily Douma
I think that the medication did have something to do with the husband decision. the drug dint have a good effect on him, and probably he wasn't thinking clearly when he committed this crime. But I think the nurse is not responsible about this, the sister should not be blaming her.Also they cant just blame it all on the drugs and nurse. The husband needs to take responsibility about his action, and live with the consequences. He did not just hurt a person, He murder his wife, Left a family with out a sister daughter, and mom. He should show his children that he is responsible enough about the murder he committed and take the consequences.
ReplyDeleteI think that he chose to kill her yeh the drugs could change somethings but ive never had any drugs make me want to kill someone. so it was all his choice. Kyle Sorensen
ReplyDeleteThanks class for your very insightful thoughts on this very complex issue. I have to say that I have gained additional understanding on this topic thanks to each of your responses. As I have pondered this issue, I cannot help but feel that to relegate David’s behavior to anything else but choice would do more harm to us as humans than good. Let me explain. I certainly agree with the notion that determinism does have a certain degree of influence on our behavior, but to suggest that we are ultimately not responsible for our decisions reduces us to mere animals and machines. (Sorry, no offense to Fluffy or Rex.) I like to think that humans are more than that. Call me an idealist, but I like to believe that humans are endowed with something unique and special that separates us from the beast.
ReplyDeleteIs there room for mercy? Of course there is. Are there deterministic (nature or nurture) factors that can mitigate our guilt? Of course there is. But the difficulty lies in determining the extent those factors actually do influence our behavior. Herein lie the limitations of what science can tell us without a shadow of a doubt. Hence the need for a verdict deliberated by a jury of our peers is probably the best we can do in this mortal condition.
As a postscript to this story, the guardians of David Ragsdale’s children filed a civil lawsuit against the health care providers, including the nurse practitioner. The case initially was thrown out but upon appeal, the Utah Supreme Court overturned the lower courts decision. Following is a link to that story:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865551073/Utah-Supreme-Court-rules-medical-staff-had-duty-to-children-in-David-Ragsdale-case.html