60 Minutes covered the outrageous case of Richard Paey (discussed previously here and here), a chronic pain sufferer imprisoned for 25 to life.
At one point, when the Florida State Prosecutor Scott Andringa said they threw the book at him because he wouldn’t accept a plea, I almost had a stroke I got so angry. In other words, Richard Paey is in prison for 25 years because of a prosecutor who openly acknowledges that they have no evidence Paey was selling the drugs (he was not), but who was angry because Paey would not accept his plea.
And why was Paey arrested in the first place? Because he couldn’t get adequate pain medication, because Doctors are too afraid to prescribe adequate pain medication to chronic pain sufferers. Why?
Because of vindictive pricks like Scott Andringa and a law enforcement community emboldened and empowered by years of idiotic laws.
Paul Wartenberg
That’s not the worst of it. The reason Paey wouldn’t accept the plea deal? Even though the plea allowed no jail time, the *plea would have meant a criminal record that would have blocked Paey from getting any more of his medications*. So it all respects he was offered a plea he couldn’t take. The prosecutor should have known this was a bloody Catch-22.
MN Politics Guru
But hey, at least that War on Drugs is preventing everybody from abusing drugs, right? Right?
I have an aunt with MS. Stories like these disgust me.
ppGaz
America is being run by people who get ahead by waging war on other Americans.
So, what are we going to do about it?
He rhetorically said, to the talented blogmeister.
In the words of Muley (The Grapes of Wrath), “Who do we shoot?”
John Cole
Vote libertarian.
Slide
Why? Because of Bush’s Justice Department.
Is there any crevice of the Bush Administration where if you look close enough you don’t see this sort of thing? They are the most incompetent, venal, corrupt, naive, and un-American group of scumbags that ever ran the government. This is but one tiny example. WAKE UP AMERICA – your country has been taken over by people that are truly dangerous to our democracy.
Slide
Yeah, that’ll make a difference.
Andrew
Let me know when they win a race that matters.
In the meanwhile, those of us with good sense realize that the best restraint on government is a divided government. Divided between branches, divided between parties. Not all executive branch, all Republican, all the time.
Anyone who currently supports Republicans is taking a position in direct odds with libertarian philosophy.
ppGaz
Ah.
I think that’s called “making a statement.”
As opposed to “making a difference.”
It’s ….. Naderesque.
:-)
Kirk Spencer
In this case – and recall I honestly despise Bush and most of his people – Bush’s administration isn’t to blame. The War on Drugs has been going on for many years, fed and appeased by both sides. I keep hoping we’ll see somebody we elect with both courage to oppose and ability to make a difference in that opposition, but am not holding my breath.
Kirk
Slide
True, we’ve always had this ridiculous war on drugs (and this is coming from a life long law enforcement officer that has seen the waste of money, resources and time prosecuting small time pot dealers) but I don’t think prior to Bush we went after doctors for prescribing pain medication and actually telling medical practionshioners how to do their job.
ppGaz
I agree with you, Kirk. But no change whatever is going to happen until you can get rid of the spuds in control now, and bring in the chance for reform.
Of course, if we just replace the party of Frist with the party of Lieberman-Biden, we haven’t really done anything useful. So your point is well taken.
Slide
Actually 30 State Attorneys General thought that there was something NEW with the way the DEA is approaching doctors prescribing pain medications. They wrote a letter denouncing the DEA. In part they said,
When you get 30 State Attorneys General (not your most liberal left leaning lot) protesting the Bush administrations policy then I say you can blame the Bush team for situations like we saw in Florida
Slide
Actually 30 State Attorneys General thought that there was something NEW with the way the DEA is approaching doctors prescribing pain medications. They wrote a letter denouncing the DEA. In part they said,
When you get 30 State Attorneys General (not your most liberal left leaning lot) protesting the Bush administration’s policy then I say you can blame the Bush team for situations like we saw in Florida.
Slide
sorry about that
Angry Engineer
Damn straight. Hasn’t fixed anything yet, but I least I feel good after leaving the voting booth.
ppGaz
Arrggghh. I hope you are being sarcastic.
MI
As soon as people did this with an issue I was against, I would probably turn into a hypocrite and start ranting about the rule of law! But I really wish with instances like the drug war, or specifically something like medical marijuana, doctors would just say fuck it and start prescribing pot to their cancer and aids patients who need it. I’m sure rounding up a few thousand doctors and prosecuting them would last for about ten seconds before the public finally got appropriately outraged and demand a change in the law.
Bob In Pacifica
My father’s death was painful. I had to shout at the nurses to get him some pain medication a couple hours before he passed. The worry was that he would become addicted. Like the poor son of a bitch was going to fall out of his deathbed and crawl down the street and knock over a liquor store to buy a fix.
There is nothing un-Democratic or un-Republican about providing pain relief. In fact, it’s downright CHRISTIAN to do so.
Once this particular band of greedheads are dispatched all political parties ought to sit down and start looking at all the wars we’re in and how well they’ve gone, starting with the War on Drugs.
Bruce in Alta California
The one positive effect of people voting for third parties is that it tends to unite Democrats and Republicans. They’ll do anything and go to any measure to cooperate in putting down competition from outsiders.
Steve
The Democrats will pick up zillions of votes the day they get brave enough to advocate a more sensible drug policy, including legalizing marijuana. The problem is they’ve become conditioned by years of elections in which the “tough on crime” candidate inevitably prevails.
srv
Ah, FINALLY. Welcome to curtain #3. Now, if we can just get about a 50 more of you “republican” bloggers to join the dark side, the libertarians (or dems if it doesn’t work out) might actually get somewhere.
J. Puckett
Look, if you want to make a difference, Mr. Cole, you’ve got to vote for one of two parties in our winner-take-all district, state and federal elections. America is a two-party system through and through.
What I say is: The Libertarians, instead of saying, “Hey, vote Libertarian — you’ll feel better,” should say, “This year, the Libertarians support the Democrats!” when the Democrats are the better of the two.
Or, when the Republicans grow some balls and throw out the autocratic schmucks who currently run their party, the Libertarians should say, “Hey, this year, the Libertarians support the Republicans!” That way, the Libertarians would actually have some influence. The Greens should do the same thing, as should the Reformers.
But through it all, everyone on all sides of the political spectrum should be saying, “We need a new system of voting if the best candidates we’ve got are Kerry and Bush!”
The Other Steve
So apparently Rush Limbaugh is getting treated differently.
He’s not in prison.
Krista
Bob in Pacifica – isn’t that terrible? The medical profession has become so cowed by the fear of prosecution. You have people in the hospital who are clearly dying, and in considerable pain, and they won’t give them enough meds to ease their suffering, because they’re afraid of making them addicted (oh for the love of mike), or they’re afraid of overdosing them and speeding their death up by 5 minutes (heaven forbid). It’s pitiful, isn’t it?
Vladi G
I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I think this is pretty much a travesty, and I’m a big believer that mandatory minimums and stuff like that lead to gross miscarraiges of justice. When we’re talking about taking someone’s liberty from them, we should make sure that the punishment is commensurate with the crime, and it’s a lot easier for a judge to do that after having heard all of the facts than it is for legislators trying to look tough on crime to do it in a blanket fashion.
But in the prosecutor’s position, a plea deal is pretty meaningless if you don’t go for the maximum in the event the proposal is rejected. Otherwise, what’s the point? If I come to you and say “Plead to this crime and serve two years, but if you turn it down, I’m going to push as hard as I possibly can to throw you in prison for TWO AND A HALF years!”, well, you’re not going to get many people to accept your plea bargains. There has to be stick big enough to make the person take the deal, otherwise, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. I’m not so sure that’s as much vindictive as it is the reality of prosecuting crimes.
By taking the sentencing decisions out of the hands of judges and juries with mandatory minimums, you end up with the only option being a lot of undeserved years in prison. I realize that this creates other problems (who gets lucky enough to get the easy judge, or unlucky enough to get the hangin’ judge), but I have to believe something could be worked out eventually to make the system more fair and accurate.
Lee
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Video
Here
Passing it along, I recommend doing the same
Robert Chavez
Sorry, VladiG, but there’s also such a thing called “prosecutorial discretion”. That’s where a prosecutor looks at a case, and sees that prosecution would result in a horrendeously unfair outcome, and he decides not to prosecute. Too many prosecutors, anxious to prove that they’re tough on crime, forget that they can do this.
And that’s assuming the evidence was there. There’s a lot of indications in this case that it wasn’t, and a lot of people possibly perjured themselves on the stand.
slickdpdx
You are really being unfair to Andringa. (I realize you probably don’t care about him, but you should want to be accurate, regardless). I read the entire 60 minutes link you provided. Andringa conceded that he could not prove drug selling, he did not say there was “NO EVIDENCE”. You also do a disfavor to your readers by not pointing out what he was convicted of (with ample evidence). Your point about excessive punishment or whether there should be any at all is valid without those distortions. Also, you shouldn’t be fooled by the rhetorical trick involved when they dismiss the testimony of the physician. So he was mistaken and some of the 200+ prescriptions were written by him – it is clear that many many others were not. Could it be that the doctor trusted well to do attorney Paey not to swipe his prescription pads?
Also, are there any doctors out there who want to give an opinion about the possession of blank scrip and a patient’s forgery of their scrip to obtain CDS?
Finally, let me quote the most relevant portion from the 60 minutes post (near the end, of course). The culprit behind the long prison term is Florida weight law and sentecincing law: “…under Florida law, the possession of just one bottle of illegally obtained painkillers — just 28 grams — is considered drug trafficking, which carries a higher penalty than trafficking in much larger amounts of cocaine. “The word ‘trafficking’ in a lot of people’s minds outside the law suggests sale,” says Andringa. “Trafficking can mean sale, but it can also mean possession of a quantity of a controlled substance over a certain amount.”
“Surveillance video shows Paey walking with difficulty, with the aid of leg braces. It also shows him obtaining 1,600 pills over a 41 day period, with eight prescriptions that his doctor said were forged. Paey was facing serious charges. Andringa’s office offered him a plea bargain, which carried no jail time as long as he admitted to the crimes.”
“This case is not about pain patients. It’s just not. This case is about prescription fraud,” he says. “We were very reasonable in this case. But once somebody says, ‘I’m not going to accept a plea offer however reasonable it is,’ then …” “You throw the book,” Safer says. “Exactly. And Mr. Paey knew that. He went to law school,” Andringa says.
A jury convicted Richard Paey of 15 counts of prescription forgery, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and drug trafficking. Under Florida law, the judge had no alternative but to sentence him to 25 years.
Barry D
Another: “So, what are we going to do about it?”
John Cole Says: “Vote libertarian.”
John, how old are you? How many years of life out in the real world have you lived? Didn’t you see what voting Green got the left in 2000?
J. Puckett had the right idea: “What I say is: The Libertarians, instead of saying, “Hey, vote Libertarian—you’ll feel better,” should say, “This year, the Libertarians support the Democrats!” when the Democrats are the better of the two.”
If the Libertarians did that, very conspicuously, in each election, then they’d have some clout with each party – it might be 1-2% of the vote, but it’d frequently be critical.
What it comes down to is that, still, after five years of the GOP doing it’s best to demonstrate it’s unfitness for rule, the majority of self-described libertarians are still really ‘Republicans in exile’; they have arguments with the current party leadership, but they are still Republicans before they’re ever Democrats.
Jennifer
Jennifer Bolen is a CROOK herself! Amazing that the former US Federal Prosecutor can throw so many stones. What a joke!