The following is the text of an article that was
published under my by-line at www.etherzone.com and
www.libertyforall.net recently.
MY OWN PRIVATE DURHAM
PUT UP YOUR DUKES
The cases against the three Duke lacrosse team members
are all but done. Michael Nifong will go down in
American legal history as one of the most unprincipled
men to ever enter the bar and will be the poster boy
for Actons dictum about power.
There are several problems with the aftermath of the
case. Those three young men will never have their day
in court against Nifong. Although there are rumblings
of legal proceedings and even criminal charges against
him, he will cower behind the curtain of Sovereign
Immunity. Further, he will have his own attorney who
may be one with whom he has crossed swords in the
past, but in any event, will be the very
creme-de-la-creme of white collar criminal defense
lawyers. Nifong knows exactly who the good ones are
and may be represented gratis by an attorney seeking
national repute, a la O. J. Simpsons Dream Team.
Even further, he will have the support of many, among
the legions of prosecutors, federal, state and local,
across the country, who will claim that any
prosecution of him will have a chilling effect on
the pursuit of criminals. If even one court listens,
he buys time and stretches out his day in the
spotlight. No matter how loathsome the vast majority
of prosecutors thinks he is, there will be a hard core
who will support him, strongly. Make no mistake about
any of these things. I will be surprised if Nifong
receives any punishment more than a 90 days suspension
from the bar.
He may write a book about the entire affair and under
an exemption from the law against profiting from
illegal activities, will reap a fortune. Hell go on
a national tour, appearing on Today, Oprah Winfrey
etc. After that, hell open up a private practice as
a celebrity defense attorney.
David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann will
be tarnished for life and their parents will never be
able to recoup their financial losses. After all,
they will have had the option of choosing a public
defender. There is little recourse for those falsely
accused and government criminals (I apologize for
redundancy) are rarely, if ever, called to answer.
They may be able to sell their stories to Hollywood
for a movie but due to their races and that of the
accuser, its not likely to treat them as victims.
Look for one with Alec Baldwin as hero Nifong and
Halle Berry as Crystal Gail Mangum the accuser,
possibly directed by Danny Glover.
Nifong and the State of North Carolina may just shrug
and say, Oh, I guess we were wrong. Ha, ha. Sorry,
like they usually do. Theyll lament frustrated
justice that coddles criminals and for once, the NAACP
will agree.
As far as any Grand Jury indictments, it is crucially
important to realize that they are usually one man
shows. The only requirement for an indictment is a
majority vote, usually 13 of 25 members. If one grand
jury declines to indict, the district attorney can
convene another, and another, and another...
In Rhode Island, where I lived most of my life, we had
an Attorney General named Arlene Violet who would seek
indictments on the flimsiest of evidence and, almost
invariably, got them. Widely regarded as our worst
attorney general in history, she went on to a
successful career as a radio talk show host after an
ignominious defeat for her first re-election, having
had a fourteen point lead with three weeks to go. No
former politician ever starves.
This is just one small part of the problem of the size
of government as it exists today. Michael Nifong had
at his disposal, an immense power of resources and an
essentially unlimited budget and manpower to pursue
this case while those boys had to come up with their
own. This all comes from the funding necessary to
enforce all of governments other laws and regulations
but there is no check on exactly how a prosecutor is
to allocate it. He can, and likely did, divert many
resources from other pursuits for his grandstanding.
No member of his staff, no matter how much he
co-operated with Nifongs witch hunt, will be
disciplined. The worst that might happen will be that
any co-conspirators will be re-assigned. The
Catholic Church has had to pay out millions for that
euphemistic process but, unlike private agencies,
middle and low government employees never get fired.
They are merely re-assigned. The guys on top get
huge contracts with Washington companies. See Donald
Rumsfeld.
I am confronted with an analogous situation, far less
sensational but with no less potential for wrecking my
life.
I treat patients for pain. Its part of my function as
a physician. I started doing it a few years ago.
Its a necessity and according to most sources, both
medical and governmental, pain is a problem that is
persistently undertreated. This has become an area of
great concern over the past twenty years or so.
Various agencies have encouraged physicians to treat
pain.
However, most physicians perceive a danger and are
reluctant to do so under the impression that it is an
invitation for actions against their licenses.
Treating pain is fraught with danger for the
practitioner because one never knows when a patient is
truly in pain and when he is seeking drugs. Its a
very fine line that must be treaded very carefully.
In spite of all this, just about every government
agency has gone out of its way to assure physicians
who sincerely treat pain, that they are in no danger.
I can assure the reader that it a lie because right
now, my license to practice is under attack by The
State of Florida for doing just that. It confirms
Ronald Reagans adage about the most frightening words
in the world being Im from the government and
Im here to help you.
In July of 2005, I received a letter from a woman
demanding that I stop prescribing narcotic medications
for her son because he was and addict. I telephoned
her, her initials KH, and she demanded that I stop
treating him. She told me all sorts of things about
his background of which I was unaware, such as that he
had been in rehab several times. She also stated that
he was on a list, at the local hospital, of patients
who were not to be given narcotics. That wasnt true.
I told her that because he was an adult, I couldnt
even confirm that he was or was not a patient. I
added that I needed some type of official confirmation
from a police department, a pharmacist, a physician or
a hospital. I had clinical evidence that he had a
condition that justified narcotic prescriptions.
KH responded by writing a letter to the Florida
licensing board, stating that she wanted to stop
physicians like me from practicing. Members of the
licensing board signed off that there was sufficient
evidence to investigate the complaint, fully knowing
that the patient was an adult and that she therefore
has no real standing in the case. In fact, right on
the form they signed is a space for the parent or
legal guardian in the case of a minor! Yet they
signed off on it as did several attorneys! Such is
the level of competence of the people who enforce our
laws and protect us.
An investigator, WF, then subpoenaed my records,
gathered a lot of other information and sent it off to
the states attorney, JBH who then sent it to a
physician reviewer, CWP, who issued a statement that I
treated the patient inappropriately without citing a
single source. At this time, the state is demanding
$13,500. in administrative fees and penalties plus
various other requirements such as taking special
courses in narcotics prescription and notifying the
board of my precise activities for a period of time,
as if on parole, as a condition of keeping my
license..
The State of Florida is talking out of both sides of
its mouth but is also saying is that we make the
rules, but will not abide by them. Not only that, but
we will decide when and which rules we will enforce
and if you happen to fail to meet any requirement that
we happen to think is correct at the moment, then you
will be prosecuted.
The Duke lacrosse case is a moderately large one, far
smaller than the miscarriage of justice that is being
played out in Guantanamo right now. My case is far
smaller than either but there are probably thousands
going on right now in this country. All are
travesties and are turning this country into a Gulag.
We now have more people in prison than the USSR ever
did. We should blame the Democrats and the
Republicans but most of all, we must blame ourselves
for putting up with this.
At the present time, I have no idea what the outcome
of my case will be. I am frightened to the core at
what will happen if the worst case scenario ensues. I
dont know how to do anything else.
My case is a microcosm. Government has too much power
and constantly demands more. This ends when the people
finally decide they have had enough. Until then,
Nifong, Waco, Ruby Ridge and licensing actions
continue. America as an idea of personal freedom is
dead.
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