Wife Shoots Husband in Hospital - Ellen Gilland Sentenced to Only One Year

Family members frequently assist each other to commit suicide in the face of intolerable illnesses. When those family members are later criminally prosecuted, the penalties are typically light. After all, the defendant acted not from malice but from compassion consistent with the victim's wishes.

This week, Ellen Gilland got only one year for shooting her husband in a Florida hospital. And even that duration of sentence was due not primarily to the fatal shooting itself but to the fact that she threatened hospital staff and police with the gun.