My own private Durham: Put up your Dukes
Posted in The Freedom Beam by R Lee Wrights on January 16th, 2007 by Roderick T. Beaman
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 Acton’s 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. Simpson’s 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 think 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. He’ll go on a national tour, appearing on Today, Oprah Winfrey etc. After that, he’ll 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, it’s 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. They’ll 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 government’s 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 Nifong’s 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. It’s part of my function as a physician. I started doing it a few years ago. It’s a necessity and according to most sources, both medical and governmental, pain is a problem that is persistently under-treated. 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. It’s 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 Reagan’s adage about the most frightening words in the world being I’m from the government and I’m 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 wasn’t true.
I told her that because he was an adult, I couldn’t 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 state’s 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 don’t 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.
Roderick T. Beaman was born in New York City in 1944. He majored in mathematics at New York University where he fell in with the wrong crowd and became a pre-med. He has been a board certified osteopathic family physician in Providence, Rhode Island but around the age of 50 realized that his true calling was to be a writer, musician or actor. He is hoping to accomplish a career change and is proudest of being a published poet, has composed one blues song and written a politically incorrect novel. You can reach him at thefreedombeam@comcast.net.
Yianni Papadojiannis said,
March 14, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
“Presumed Guilty” The other side of the story from a “little guy” accused of big white collar crimes…I am currently under Federal indictment and awaiting a trial for allegedly committing white collar crimes I am not guilty of committing. I have never committed a crime of any type, paid my taxes, respected others and even law enforcement. I believed that overall our law enforcement agencies were honest and their agents honorable, I was so very wrong. I operated several small businesses that unfortunately failed to gain enough funding to realize their full potential. Many of my investors and clients were retirees…THEY LOST MONEY, and I have to take responsibility for someone else’s poor choices. Everyone’s a Victim now, especially the elderly! I am very sorry that people lost money and would do anything within reason to change the past, but that’s not going to happen! I wanted to give everyone my side of the story or at least a summary of it.
My life, marriage, and reputation have all been flushed down the toilet. I spent over $100,000 on paying for the best legal advice I could find, a prominent securities attorneys and I even had a full time corporate Attorney on staff plus he was a major shareholder and I STILL GOT INDICTED ANYWAY, AMAZING ISN’T IT? My disclosures were over the top and my agreements very detailed. In 2002, the State of California sued me and by default won an eight figured multi-million dollar judgment against me personally. I went Bankrupt, started drinking heavily, friends disappeared, I was the subject of multiple search warrants in march of 2003 which produced nothing that was not already on public file.
Mistakes were made by me, I took risks and they did not pay off. Are we going to prosecute everyone who dares take a risk? Entrepreneurs are the life blood of this mighty country! Guilt has been presumed since the beginning. “PRESUMED GUILTY” First with ridiculous civil judgments and penalties for untold millions and when no assets turned up after a few years, a criminal indictment is sought after and it’s almost a word for word copy of the States Civil case, Imagine that?
The trial could take months because I have over 100 Witnesses I want to call and the A-USA will have that and more. Their case is very weak but will probably be effective, the prosecutor will simply parade dozens of seniors who will sob and point at me…Sounds like a fair trial with a jury of my peers, right?
“Presumed Guilty” Hand cuffed, booked, stripped, searched, finger-printed, kept in jail for two weeks, made bond-cannot have a glass of wine, was subject to drug testing with the lowest life crack heads in my area, every week, I have to report in each week, I have to have permission to leave the city I live in for any reason. I cannot work in any of the fields I have experience in or am licensed to work in. ALL THIS AND still no trial.
Sincerely,
“Presumed Guilty”