$1.73M Given to Family of Illegal Immigrant Who Died Of Cancer After Prison Release

Court: $1.73M award for illegal immigrant denied care in custody

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury has awarded $1.73 million to the family of an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who died of penile cancer that went undiagnosed for more than a year while he was in state and federal custody.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury said state prisons were to blame, in part, for the 2007 death of Francisco Castaneda.

After he was convicted of methamphetamine possession in 2005, Castaneda spent more than a year in state and federal facilities, where he was repeatedly denied adequate care for painful lesions on his penis, his lawyer Conal Doyle said Thursday.

Doctors who examined Castaneda twice ordered a biopsy, but he never got one. The first time the procedure was ordered, it was denied by a prison's chief physician. The procedure was apparently forgotten the second time because a doctor failed to follow up. A third time, a federal physician ordered a biopsy but Castaneda was released before it could be done.

The Chronicle reported that state lawyers denied the doctors were responsible for Castaneda's death, arguing his cancer was untreatable."

www.thecalifornian.com...

Penile cancer is very rare... It is caused by either HPV, unknown factors, or poor long-term hygiene... or it is a metastasis from another area of the body in a very, very rare case...

My call is this gentleman was ill with cancer when he was arrested, as he was in jail for a little over a year.

I don't know how to feel about the result of this lawsuit. Nobody deserves to be ill treated if they are sick, no matter how they came to be in jail or in this country. He was given pain medication.

However, the way this seems to be presented is that the man went into jail healthy and came out at death's door. I don't see it that way. Penile cancer just doesn't work like that in that short a time. He could not have been cured. It usually is deadly. He was arrested for Meth possession. He probably wasn't in great health when he went into jail.

Also, $1.5 million of our taxpayer money to an illegal's daughter...
I am sorry, but this doesn't seem right to me.
I feel badly, but this still doesn't seem right. We should definately pay his medical bill arrears, even his funeral costs. But, that's where the line ends. I don't believe the United States is responsible for his death, nor should we give an exhorbitant amount of money to someone who is related to a person who broke the drug laws, spent a year in our prisons, and was here illegally in the first place.
I doubt he supported this child when he wasn't in prison.


Thoughts?

reply to post by thegoodearth


I don't think he was entitled to anything more than he got. I'm still ticked off that the family even won, it's disgusting.

reply to post by AdAbsurdum


I would agree, if not for the attention brought to the matter while he was in custody.

He was seen three times for the issue. It was obviously a problem that needed care that

he did not get while he was in jail. As I said, pay the medical. But that's all.

reply to post by thegoodearth


I would agree if the VA didn't go out of it's way to deny vets by pretending that their disabilities were "prior service" and therefore not meeting compensation requirements. He is a human being, yes but, when we can't even manage our vets right and some illegal immigrant's family wins 1+ million this is an outrage.

reply to post by AdAbsurdum


Illegal or not, a human is a human, you can not put a price on a human life. Instead of saying, I can't get something why should he? it should be more along the lines of, his life is worth more, and so is mine, we should all be treated equally. if the same happened to you in a foreign country, you might think differently.

What I am really trying to get at is, do not allow TPTB to divide us all on issues such as this. There are far worse things that taxpayers money goes to.

According to some, the CIA funds drug distribution into the US, there are too many angles on these issues. If the cancer was truly untreatable, and he had it before he was jailed, well, more so, if it was untreatable before he was imprisoned, then certainly it is not the facilities fault. How do we know for certain?

Either way, it becomes a bit depressing how some people feel that human lives are worthless if they have an "illegal" status.

I agree on the points raised, in so far as the man deserved to be treated while in the custody of the United States.
If we took him into our care, then we bear the responsibility of treating him. If not, we should have extradited him to his country of origin. Since we did not do that, his care is upon us while he is in our custody.
That said, I do not agree with the punitive award given to the family.

related to a person who broke the drug laws, spent a year in our prisons, and was here illegally in the first place.

And?

I'm related to someone who ticks all those boxes.

In the end, the prison system has a duty of care. They failed. Your justice system allows compensation for these kinds of cases. The fact that the deceased was an illegal alien or a criminal does not make those laws null and void.

Originally posted by Majestic Lumen

 

Illegal or not, a human is a human, you can not put a price on a human life. Instead of saying, I can't get something why should he? it should be more along the lines of, his life is worth more, and so is mine, we should all be treated equally. if the same happened to you in a foreign country, you might think differently.

I think that the US Government should be serving it's citizens first then worrying about the health care needs of illegals second. So instead of attempting an over simplistic analysis maybe it would be better to understand my position?

What I am really trying to get at is, do not allow TPTB to divide us all on issues such as this. There are far worse things that taxpayers money goes to.

I find the idea that us and Mexicans are the same, laughable. We are two different cultures with different perspective, outlooks, and desires. Your statement is in of itself divisive.

According to some, the CIA funds drug distribution into the US, there are too many angles on these issues. If the cancer was truly untreatable, and he had it before he was jailed, well, more so, if it was untreatable before he was imprisoned, then certainly it is not the facilities fault. How do we know for certain?

I don't think the CIA has anything to with meth. Cocaine and heroine, yes. Meth, no.

Too many angles for you to wrap your head around, maybe. Not for me though.

I never said the cancer was untreatable, that wasn't the issue I have.

Either way, it becomes a bit depressing how some people feel that human lives are worthless if they have an "illegal" status.

His life is, in the grand scope of things, meaningless.

My point is that we see all kinds of moral outrage that he was mistreated but the inherent way our own system mistreats it's own citizens get's a collective 'meh'. You will sit here and defend that system, these TPTB, instead of rallying against it because I don't see the world exactly like you do.

That's my problem with this globalist crap you're talking about and what we see play out here. Not everyone is equal. Some win the trophy while some lose. But, lets erode national sovereignty because you think it's divisive and we can all be "worth" the same thing? That doesn't work, but it does play into the interests of the IMF, WTO, and NAFTA.