Five Quarts_ A Personal and Natural History of Blood - Bill Hayes [69]
Finished with the psychologist, the prosecutor laid out his own theory of what had occurred. Elaine Giorgi’s actions were calculated, he contended, and were motivated by the desire “to curry favor with SmithKline Beecham and make patients happy.” Giorgi, who’d once been fired from the company for her inefficiency, sought to make the most of this second chance. The problem was, she wasn’t a very good phlebotomist. She had to perform thirty to fifty blood draws per day and, despite her training and experience, had a hard time using the standard needles. She found the small, light butterfly needles easier to use. Patients also found them less painful; hence fewer patients made complaints. Just one drawback, though: Butterflies were expensive—eighty cents apiece as opposed to five cents for a standard needle—and they were intended for use with only a small number of patients, mainly pediatric and geriatric. Giorgi reused the pricier butterflies because, if she ordered them in mass quantities, her bosses would notice.
There was my aha.
Sanderson said in closing, “It is inexcusable that she’d value a human life at seventy-five cents.”
Matthews spoke next—a candle to Sanderson’s fireworks—and meekly summed up with, “I don’t think society needs to be protected from her.”
Finally, Elaine Giorgi read a prewritten statement. Her quavering, peeping voice obscured each syllable before it reached my ears, but the judge nodded at her when she’d finished.
Up to this point Judge Mullin had said little beyond requesting the occasional clarification from one of the attorneys. Now he took aim at Giorgi and said in a voice of seven thunders, “What you did was as dangerous as holding a loaded gun to your victims’ heads.” He then paused, whether to wring the disgust from his voice or to let it build up, I couldn’t tell. And those patients, he resumed, “were as vulnerable as you can get.” She was lucky beyond words that no one had died of AIDS or another fatal disease due to her actions, a comment that was powerful but, it struck me, inaccurate—HIV rarely progresses that quickly. Still, obviously, the judge wasn’t out to educate the crowd. Under this barrage, I don’t know how Giorgi was able to remain standing.
A butterfly needle, the item at the heart of the Elaine Giorgi trial
Judge Mullin then broke from addressing the defendant and spoke more broadly to the court: Had someone died, he declared, she’d be facing a long stretch in state prison. “In this case, prison would—” He stopped and shuffled through some papers. “—do absolutely no good. Except as punishment.”
Wha—? I’d been right there with him up to that point, but . . . Was she going to go free?
“But I am going to punish her. To a year in county jail, plus four years probation.”
For the next couple of minutes, while the various fines that Giorgi would have to pay were entered into the record and the details of her future parole were clarified, my brain kind of zoned out. I found myself with that surreal sensation one has after enduring a long flight—your plane’s landed but it’s still taxiing—that contradictory feeling that you’ve reached your destination though you’re not quite there yet. Around us people started standing and we fell in line, following the folks in front of us toward the exit.
I took a deep breath of sidewalk air and realized I’d arrived at a moment I’d never thought beyond. Jerry, who’d steered us out of the Hall of Justice, seemed to have already placed the day into a healthy perspective. Yes, he agreed with Steve, he was disappointed by how short a sentence she received but, in the long run, he was glad that she would never be permitted to draw another person’s blood.
Behind us, on the opposite side of the courtyard, reporters had congregated. “Are you a victim? Will you speak for the camera?” they called out to