Category: Law

“Ms. Treadway’s conduct in the case has been nothing short of shocking and ruthless; she has in fact displayed the kind of ‘win at all costs’ mentality that you have publicly stated your department will no longer tolerate,” Reynolds wrote in her June 18 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder… The ACLU has taken up the Reynolds defense in the grand jury proceedings, claiming in initial court papers that subpoenas sought by a “frustrated prosecutor seeking to silence a dissenting advocate” have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

[Dr. Johnston's] case offers the Obama DOJ the rare chance to reaffirm the architectural structure of our federal system by joining in the PRN’s 10th Amendment-based request for a full hearing by the court. [Reynolds:] “The Administration can also show substantive empathy right away, for the 50 million Americans in pain currently being denied pain treatment by doctors terrorized by the [DEA]. These desperate Americans shouldn’t be made to wait for the President to appoint a new justice.”

“Given the sweeping nature of the subpoenas here, their chilling effect on First Amendment rights, and the circumstances under which they were obtained – a frustrated prosecutor seeking to silence a dissenting advocate – this Court should quash the subpoenas as an unjustified infringement on Ms. Reynolds’ and PRN’s First Amendment rights,” the ACLU wrote in its pleading.

“I will not be intimidated and I will not be silenced,” said Reynolds, who founded PRN… “As I testified before Congress, an obsession with prescription drug abuse has resulted in the gross under-treatment of pain in this country. We have turned honest physicians and desperate patients into criminals, and policymakers and the public need to hear about it…”

These subpoenas constitute an abuse of the grand jury process… Because [Treadway's obstruction of justice] investigation lacks any good faith basis, Ms. Reynolds does not claim a Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to any of the materials sought by the subpoena.(1) Ms. Reynolds maintains that she has committed no crime and that there is nothing in the requested materials that could inculpate her in the obstruction of justice, witness tampering or jury tampering. For all of these reasons, this Court should quash the March 10 subpoenas issued to Siobhan Reynolds and PRN.

Dr. Sharon Johnston comes to this Court having been convicted of a crime that does not exist, by a court without jurisdiction to enter a conviction, and affirmed by a court that did not confirm that it had jurisdiction to do so and – worse yet – blatantly attempted to “bury” its decision through depublication… This entire proceeding has been indelibly painted with the bright and unmistakable color of unconstitutional outcome-driven caprice.

Maybe we all deserve the pain. If we are too stupid to understand that aspirin kills way more people than morphine, and that there are a whole lot worse things for you and your damn Federal prosecutors to worry about than if maybe your neighbor is getting too much pain relief (sheesh!) – if you are that effin stupid then maybe you deserve the chronic pain which YOUR government has already imposed on you and your children as the defacto law of the land.

AUSA Treadway wants to drag Ms. Reynolds before a Grand Jury for, get this, obstruction of justice! in the case of U.S. v Dr. Schneider. If we were not talking about the mockery of American justice Bush appointees routinely make in cases like Schneider and Shaygan this would be really funny. Siobhan Reynolds is obstructing justice? Utter nonsense. It is prosecutor Treadway for the USA who, if not obstructing justice in this case, is surely doing everything she can to delay it.

Review of the outcome of the Shaygan Govt Misconduct hearings in which Dr. Shaygan’s Govt. Prosecutors concede to witness tampering and violation of discovery obligations to the defense, amongst other offenses. Link to PDF of Govt’s Response brief to Shaygan’s Motions for Sanctions.

Shaygan’s attorney Markus discovered that govt prosecutors authorized two witnesses to surreptitiously record conversations with the defense team and attempt to bribe Markus, and failed to disclose that the witnesses were paid, confidential informants for the DEA. U.S. District Judge Gold said there were “flagrant violations” of basic rules by Shaygan’s prosecutors, and that “important safeguards were not met.” An order from Gold is expected in a few weeks.

Wow. To win acquittal on federal drug trafficking charges is very difficult and very rare, as I have [discussed before][rm]. A resounding win is almost unheard of. I will be very interested in the outcome of the prosecutorial misconduct case being brought by Dr. Shaygan’s defense attorney, Mr. Markus.

Excerpt: “Dr. Mangino has been unjustly prosecuted and convicted in Pennsylvania. His case is unusual. He is currently incarcerated at SCI-Cresson… Essentially, in PA and nationwide, if this conviction is allowed to stand on the grounds presented by prosecution, then any single opioid prescription can be deemed illegal.” — Dr. Mangino

Many physicians are concerned that prescribing opioid analgesics in chronic pain treatment is accompanied by an unacceptable risk of unwarranted prosecution. The validity of this fear is evaluated by examining the standards through which physicians are targeted and prosecuted. Prohibition law is identified as an error in social policy that distorts medical standards.

I am very glad to see physicians, who have themselves been savaged by the government, publishing their stories. Consider Dr. Jackson’s article, Conviction without a Crime, to be a companion piece to Dr. Rottschaefer’s article discussed in the previous item here, The Criminal Criminal Justice System. Together these two articles will give the reader a good sense, I think, of the utter breakdown of professional ethics, common sense, and fairness in any case involving controlled substances.

I came across the article linked to: “Third Circuit Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Criminal Justice System’”, by Dr. Bernard Rottschaefer, himself the victim of federal prosecutor Mary Beth Buchanan in what Radley Balko, who wrote “Sex, Drugs and a Federal Prosecution – The Shabby Case Against Dr. Rottschaefer,” calls “Buchanan’s most outrageous case.” Balko writes: “Since Rottschaefer’s conviction, Buchanan’s case has fallen to pieces, as each of the five witnesses who testified to getting illegal prescriptions from Rottschaefer have since been shown to have lied. Buchanan refuses to reopen the case.”