Pain Sufferer Tries to Get Drug Conviction Overturned
Feb 7, 2006
Author Unknown
Tampabaylive.com
A Pasco County man is trying to win his way out of prison.
Richard Paey was badly injured in a car accident and later developed MS, so the painkillers became a way for him to have some sense of normalcy. But he was convicted for having more than the law allowed; now his family is trying to get that conviction overturned.
“I believe that both Rush Limbaugh and Noelle Bush were treated fairly,” Paey’s wife Linda said Tuesday. “I believe we were not.”
“Without medication, it’s like his legs are on fire,” attorney John Flannery said in court.
Paey is serving 25 years for his 2004 conviction. But his lawyers are trying to win his freedom, arguing that it’s cruel and unusual to punish a man for only having the painkillers he was prescribed.
“We treat a person who is a patient as a criminal by the fact that he requires medicine for his condition? Because that is what we have here,” Flannery argued.
In fact, Flannery said, Paey gets more medication now while in custody than he ever did back when he was arrested. But the state of Florida would not back down.
“Mr. Paey didn’t just possess the pills. Mr. Paey had a little self-inclusive prescription factory running from his house,” stated John Klawikofsky of the state attorney’s office.
The judges hearing the appeal have not announced when they might make a ruling.
http://www.tampabaylive.com/stories/2006/02/060207pain.shtml
