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Seventh Circuit debates a federal death sentence

By Douglas A. Berman

Today's read of the day has to be US v. Mikos, No. 06-2375 (7th Cir. Aug. 25, 2008) (available here), in which Seventh Circuit Judges Easterbrook and Posner debate over the legality of a federal death sentence.  While the legal dispute between the jurists concerns vulnerable victims and lack of remorse as aggravating factors, the first paragraph of the majority opinion by Judge Easterbrook reads like a Coen Brothers script:Medicare does not cover the costs of routine medical procedures.  Ronald Mikos, a podiatrist, performed nothing but routine procedures, such as trimming the toenails of people unable to clip their own.  Yet he billed Medicare for thousands of surgeries. When officials became suspicious, Mikos arranged for some of his elderly patients (many of whom were not mentally competent) to submit affidavits stating that surgeries had indeed occurred (though at trial Mikos?s secretary of seven years testified that he had never performed a single surgery during her time in his employ, and medical specialists who examined these people found no signs of surgery)...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).