Nurse acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in 2019 death of a 24-year-old California jail inmate
ABC News
A nurse at a California jail has been found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2019 death of an inmate who collapsed in her cell
EL CAJON, Calif. -- A nurse at a California jail was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter Friday in the November 2019 death of an inmate who collapsed in her cell. But jurors deadlocked on charges against a jail doctor.
Danalee Pascua was acquitted in the death of 24-year-old Elisa Serna at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in the San Diego suburb of Santee, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The paper said the Superior Court panel in El Cajon deadlocked 9-3 for the acquittal of Dr. Friederike Von Lintig. Prosecutors didn't immediately say whether they would retry her on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Serna, who was five weeks pregnant, was booked into the jail five days before her death. She was suffering from alcohol and drug withdrawals and had told the jail staff that she had used heroin hours before her arrest, prosecutors said.
Serna had vomited and had multiple seizures in the 24 hours before her death, prosecutors said, but when she passed out in front of Pascua, the nurse failed to check her vital signs and left her on the floor of her cell for about an hour before returning with deputies to begin “futile lifesaving measures.”
