Another victory in The War on Drugs

[7th Ninjai]

Cruel and Unusual: 25 Years for Taking Own Pain Meds (46 comments )

READ MORE: New York Times
In a mind-boggling act of sadistic legal legal buck-passing (I can't bring myself to glorify it with the word "reasoning"), the Florida District Court of Appeals upheld a 25 year mandatory minimum sentence for a Florida man convicted of "drug trafficking" for possessing his own pain medication.
Richard Paey is a wheelchair-bound father of three young children.


He has no prior criminal record-- in fact, he's an Ivy League law school graduate. He has not one, but two extensively documented and excruciatingly painful chronic disorders: multiple sclerosis and chronic back pain due to an injury suffered in a car accident that was treated by a surgery that made matters worse. (This surgery was so egregiously misguided that TV exposes and numerous large malpractice judgments resulted). Paey has already been in prison for three long years.

In prison-- a place not exactly known for medical kindness-- he has been given a morphine pump, which now daily gives him similar or higher doses of medication than he was convicted of possessing illegally.


So why is he serving 25 years? Tipped off by a pharmacist ignorant of pain management, Florida authorities decided that the doses of painkillers he was receiving were so high that he had to be selling the drugs, not taking them. They found no evidence of this, however, even after putting him under surveillance for months.
But they did manage to convince his New Jersey doctor-- who Paey claims authorized his prescriptions-- to testify that, in fact, Paey was forging them. The doctor was told that he would face a similarly lengthy prison sentence for trafficking if he'd authorized such high doses for a patient who had moved from New Jersey to Florida. (See here for why he had reason to fear, despite prescribing legitimately and appropriately).


To add to the exquisite ironies of the case, the reason Paey qualified for such a lengthy sentence was due largely to his possession of acetaminophen (Tylenol), not opioids. Paey was taking pills that included acetaminophen and oxycodone-- but the state counted the weight of the acetaminophen towards the weight of illegal drugs when it determined the charges that led to his sentence.


In upholding his sentence, the majority argued that it was not so "grossly disproportionate" as to be "cruel or unusual" under Florida's constitution. It is the legislature's role, they said, to determine the appropriate laws based on harm done by drugs to the community and prior case has law upheld lengthy mandatory minimums for drug crimes.
Essentially, since Paey's sentence wasn't death or life without parole, it was OK, even though it was a nonviolent first offense committed by a person suffering extreme pain without evidence that he was actually planning on selling drugs. Paey's family-- who had been hoping he'd be home for Christmas-- will have to wait.
The bottom line, for the majority, was that the law had been applied appropriately. Because the outcome was unjust in this particular case, Paey should seek clemency from the governor, not appellate court relief. Noting that the facts of the case "evoke sympathy" for Paey, they concluded that "Mr. Paey's argument about his sentences does not fall on deaf ears, but it falls on the wrong ears."


The only glimmer of hope was the thundering dissent by Judge James Seals. He gave hypothetical examples of situations in which an innocent person could be similarly convicted of drug trafficking by dint of simple possession of large quantities of drugs. He then concluded:


I suggest that it is cruel for a man with an undisputed medical need for a substantial amount of daily medication management to go to prison for twenty-five years for using self-help means to obtain and amply supply himself with the medicine he needed...
I suggest that it is unusual, illogical, and unjust that Mr. Paey could conceivably go to prison for a longer stretch for peacefully but unlawfully purchasing 100 oxycodone pills from a pharmacist than had he robbed the pharmacist at knife point, stolen fifty oxycodone pills which he intended to sell to children waiting outside, and then stabbed the pharmacist...


It is illogical, absurd, cruel, and unusual for the government to put Mr. Paey in prison for twenty-five years for foolishly and desperately pursuing his self-help solution to his medical management problems, and then go to prison only to find that the prison medical staff is prescribing the same or similar medication he had sought on the outside but could not legitimately obtain. That fact alone clearly proves what his intent for purchasing the drugs was. What a tragic irony.


In a letter to the governor requesting clemency, Paey's attorney, John Flannery, wrote, "In more than thirty years of practice as an appellate law clerk in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a federal prosecutor and as a practicing appellate and trial lawyer, I have never seen an opinion such as this in which the Court agreed the sentence was wrong but could not agree on how to correct it."
This is a sorry time for justice in America-- and an even sorrier time for the media, which continues to ignore the ongoing disgrace of our drug laws and their enforcement.

(For more information and to help support Paey and others caught up in the war on pain doctors and their patients, visit the Pain Relief Network.)

cliffs: Disabled man is sentenced to 25 years in prison for taking his own, prescribed pain medication. He will receive morphine in prison. This is absolutely disgraceful.

Richard Paey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[AVengeance]

I'm so glad we have these War On Concepts. It makes me sleep so much better at night, knowing I am safe from these dangerous drug trafficking criminal masterminds.

So much safer...

[Scrum]

Wow. That is fucking shameful.

[Ardentfrost]

I fail to see how the war on drugs is still around when there's shit like this all the time.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

I fail to see how the war on drugs is still around when there's shit like this all the time.

I don't see how sane people could go through with a sentance like this.

[Phantom]

This seems likely a pretty one-sided article. I have a feeling we are missing quite a bit of the story here, but I could be wrong.

[7th Ninjai]

Originally Posted by Phantom

This seems likely a pretty one-sided article. I have a feeling we are missing quite a bit of the story here, but I could be wrong.

There's a wikipedia link at the bottom of the first post - the content in the first post is definitely from a blog/opinion piece.

[7th Ninjai]

In other war on drug news, the son of a Miami police chief was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to buy 400lbs of pot with $455k in cash.

Newsvine - Miami Chief's Son Sentenced in Drug Case

Of course, a man in a wheel chair taking his own pain meds is a much greater threat to society so it only makes sense to lock up him over 15 times as long.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by 7th Ninjai

In other war on drug news, the son of a Miami police chief was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to buy 400lbs of pot with $455k in cash.

Newsvine - Miami Chief's Son Sentenced in Drug Case

Of course, a man in a wheel chair taking his own pain meds is a much greater threat to society so it only makes sense to lock up him over 15 times as long.

Did someone get hurt in the would-be sale of that pot? Or was he going to smoke it all and go on a rampage (you know, since pot makes people crazy... according to those old movies from the 30's anyway). Or he was going to distribute it and THOSE people would have probably gone crazy and killed people right?

Who the fuck cares of people are buying pot except the federal government and uneducated people?

[7th Ninjai]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Who the fuck cares of people are buying pot except the federal government and uneducated people?

I have no idea. I do know that I do not like the government using our tax dollars to imprison people who's only crime is voluntarily putting a substance into their bodies.

[Ardentfrost]

But we have to protect people from themselves because we, as a society, are smarter than everyone individually and know better!

I should stop being so sarcastic...

[lew]

But the War on Drugs saves lives.

[Kytro]

Combination of multiple stupid laws

[RMNIXON]

The amount of drug use was just cause for suspicion but not conviction. They should have backed off when the circumstances became clear. It is a very bad practice of law enforcement that when they are proven wrong their first reaction is often to get you on what ever petty matter of the law they can. Sometimes they just need to say "sorry" and let go and because they don't people like this poor person get hurt for it.

[Diamond Cross]

Sacrifices must be made for the bigger picture.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by 7th Ninjai

I have no idea. I do know that I do not like the government using our tax dollars to imprison people who's only crime is voluntarily putting a substance into their bodies.

And "the government using our tax dollars" to take care of people who destroy themselves on substance abuse should not happen either. I will defend the Libertarian position, not the touchy-feely liberal one!

[7th Ninjai]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

And "the government using our tax dollars" to take care of people who destroy themselves on substance abuse should not happen either.

Agreed.