Nicole Hong and Sadie Gurman report for the WSJ:
Jeffrey Epstein died by hanging himself, according to an autopsy released Friday, capping days of speculation about how the disgraced financier died in his jail cell.* * *In a brief statement, Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner in New York City, said Mr. Epstein's cause of death was suicide by hanging. She didn't elaborate further, saying she reached her determination after "careful review of all investigative information."
Here is one of the many things I find strange about this incident:
After an earlier incident in which Mr. Epstein was found unconscious in his cell with marks on his neck, he was put in the suicide-watch unit on July 23, but was removed from the watch days later at the request of his attorneys and after daily psychological evaluations. The July 23 incident is also under investigation.
A clean psychological evaluation is not a reason to take a person off suicide watch if his suicidal ideation is not the result of a mental illness but rather because he is facing a fate that some rational people might conclude is worse than death. Fully rational people do kill themselves on occasion.
But why did his attorneys request it? Surely they had to know that a completed suicide on the second try was a realistic possibility.
We can only speculate. Conspiracy theories aside, I wonder if Epstein’s lawyers had a client control problem. He was probably the one who insisted on ending the suicide watch. He may have told them he felt the constant scrutiny oppressive and no longer necessary. Perhaps his “price”was continuing to cooperate with his counsel. Rightly or wrongly, they may have felt compelled to, at least, advocate his position and then to accept a compromise of “special observation status” - which the MCC did not follow. The lawyers may have even been unpleasantly surprised that MCC was willing to take their client off watch at all. I had cases in which lawyers inexplicably did or did not do things. The only reasonable conclusion I could draw was they were respecting the wishes of the client.