Richard Paey is a husband, a father, and an Ivy-league educated lawyer. Some years ago, he suffered a catastrophic auto accident that required a number of surgical procedures. Because one of those procedures was badly botched he now suffers from debilitating and excruciating pain.
Richard is now serving a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence in a Florida prison. This is because he did, in fact, violate the law in order to obtain pain medication. In fact, he filled prescriptions for 700 oxycodone pills and large quantities of other pain relief medications within a period of just 36 days.
The evidence that Paey tampered with the prescriptions is, in my opinion, conclusive. But I have yet to see any evidence that Paey intended to do anything else with the medicine. That is why the 25-year sentence is such a tough pill to swallow for many observers, whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian.
After the state charged and convicted Paey under a drug trafficking law, he appealed on the basis of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Two members of a three-member panel voted to uphold Paey’s sentence because, quite simply, there was no legal error. A very bad law was followed properly – at least in the court of law.
But now it is time to move Paey’s case into the court of public opinion. The executive branch can and should be appealed to for a pardon given the futility of Paey’s legal case.
It may be difficult for many to believe that Paey – who uses a wheelchair and has attempted suicide twice – really filled prescriptions for 700 pills in seven weeks merely for personal use. But that raises fundamental questions about the law used to secure Paey’s conviction.
For example, most would agree that it makes sense to assume a person with no previous history of medical dependence is a drug dealer based merely on circumstantial evidence of the possession of hundreds of illegally obtained narcotic pills. But, given the highly addictive nature of the pills, should the law not require direct evidence when the suspect has a history of medical drug dependence?
When I hear the story of Richard Paey sitting in prison hooked to a morphine pump that is currently providing him with a dose stronger than the medication he was convicted of obtaining illegally, I am reminded of something that once happened to me. In fact, it happened just a few months ago.
The night of my second shoulder dislocation in eleven years, I was lying in bed writhing in pain – apparently from a severely pinched nerve that was hit directly when my shoulder went back into socket. I started punching the mattress before I went – in the middle of the night, mind you – into a steaming hot whirlpool meant to ease the pain after I took all the medication I could find in the house.
Shortly after I found myself desperately dangling from a rafter trying to use my 180 pounds to yank the shoulder out of socket and try again, the sun came up and I got into the car to head to the local doctor’s office. He gave me oxycodone and anti-inflammatory drugs to take for a period of two weeks. And, fortunately, I was able to start recuperating without surgery.
But what about those who have serious spinal injuries, which cannot be cured? What lengths will they go to when their prescriptions are cut off by a physician well after an addiction is established?
As I contemplate the case of Richard Paey I am tempted to ask some very broad questions such as “What would his punishment be if his father had been the Governor of Florida?” and “Does the barbed razor wire keep him from climbing the walls of the prison in his wheelchair?”
But, for now, I will simply ask two questions of the Governor of Florida ( [email protected] ): “Do you personally believe that Paey was trafficking in narcotics?” and, if not, “What service does his incarceration provide for the people of your state?”
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Mike S. Adams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on October 30, 1964. While a student at Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX, his team won the state 5A soccer championship. Mike Adams graduated from C.L.H.S. in 1983 with a 1.8 GPA. Mike Adams was ranked 734 among a class of 740, largely as a result of flunking English all four years of high school. After obtaining an Associate's degree in psychology from San Jacinto College, Mike Adams moved on to Mississippi State University where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. While living in the fraternity house, his GPA rose to 3.4, allowing him to finish his B.A., and then to pursue a Master's in Psychology. In 1990, Mike Adams turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. Mike Adams also played for free beer.
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Upon getting his doctorate in 1993, Adams, then an atheist and a Democrat, was hired by UNC-Wilmington to teach in the criminal justice program. A few years later, Adams abandoned his atheism and also became a Republican. He also nearly abandoned teaching when he took a one-year leave of absence to study law at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998. After returning to teach at UNC-Wilmington, Adams won the Faculty Member of the Year award (issued by the Office of the Dean of Students) for the second time in 2000.
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After his involvement in a well publicized free speech controversy in the wake of the 911 terror attacks, Adams became a vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia. After making appearances on shows like Hannity and Colmes, the O'Reilly Factor, and Scarborough Country, Adams was asked to write a column for Townhall.com.
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Today Mike Adams enjoys the privilege of expressing himself both as a teacher and a writer. Mike Adams is also an avid hunter and reader of classic literature. Mike Adams published his first book, Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel, in 2004. His second book, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus, was published in 2008.
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