Charged
decision

It’s not the first time the word “stunning” has been used in describing the results brought forth by Taser International, but usually it’s in conjunction with a wide-eyed, jaw-clenching twitching on the ground. Now it can also be tied to a legal victory, as the company has won a ruling against Summit County, Ohio, medical examiners who had attributed the death of three men directly to the lovable fistful of electricity.

In a move that’s becoming as common as Taser deaths, Taser International, along with the City of Akron, sued the medical examiners for attributing the deaths of three men to the 50,000-volt charge they’d been hit by, demanding that the opinions be struck from autopsy reports. An Ohio state judge’s ruling in Taser’s favour could set the precedent for numerous similar suits across the U.S.

Where once the company had used coroner reports to prove their product was safe, they now claim state medical examiners are neither qualified nor informed enough to accurately rule on the Taser’s effects. According to Taser, the more likely culprit is “excited delirium,” a non-medical phenomenon often used in police reports to describe how those in their custody wound up dead.

by SCOTT SAXON