Defense attorneys for George Huguely, a former University student and men's lacrosse player facing a first-degree murder charge for the death of his former girlfriend, Yeardley Love, filed a motion last week to release Love's medical records. A public hearing to address the motion will be held at 5 tonight in Charlottesville Circuit Court.
During last April's nine-hour preliminary hearing which featured testimony from more than 20 witnesses, Rhonda Quagliana, one of Huguely's attorneys, questioned Virginia Chief Medical Examiner William Gormley about whether Love may have died from use of Adderall, a medicine for which she had a prescription. In his reply, Gormley maintained that Love died from blunt force trauma to the head.
A police affidavit shows that Huguely "shook" Love, allowing her head "to repeatedly hit the wall" the night she died in May 2010.
This is the second time Huguely's lawyers have attempted to gain access to Love's medical records. Last December, a general district court judge granted Huguely's lawyers access to information concerning Love's prescription for Adderall, but denied access to her full medical records.
Assoc. Law Prof. Josh Bowers provided possible insight into the second attempt to gain access to Love's medical records.
"I can only speculate," Bowers said in an email, "but I would think that a defense attorney in a murder case might want the medical records of the deceased in order to demonstrate that the defendant's alleged conduct was not a sufficient cause of the death. Under certain circumstances, an unforeseeable pre-existing condition may be able to break the necessary chain of causation between the prohibited act and the prohibited result."
A grand jury indicted Huguely, 24, last April on six charges: first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery, burglary, statutory burglary and grand larceny. Huguely has now spent 17 months in jail. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 6-17 in Charlottesville Circuit Court.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office declined to comment on the motion, and Huguely's attorneys did not return a phone call for clarification on the issue.
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