cannabisnews.com: When Is There Mercy?





When Is There Mercy?
Posted by FoM on April 10, 1999 at 12:10:57 PT
Source: MAP Inc.
Dane County Authorities Tried To Incarcerate Terminally Ill Man For Smoking Pot. Deborah McCants would like to ask Dane County authorities a simple question: "At what point does mercy kick in?" The answer, based on her experience, is "apparently never.
"On March 18, the Dane County District Attorney's Office, cued by the county's alternatives to Incarceration Program, sought to jail Deborah's husband, Abe McCants, even though he was dying of cancer. His crime: smoking marijuana, which Deborah McCants says brought him relief from disorientation caused by heavy doses of morphine and Dilaudid. The justice system didn't care that Abe McCants was using these addictive narcotics, because they were legally prescribed. But his use of marijuana, which cannot be prescribed despite Its known medicinal utility, violated. the terms of his release on an electronic monitoring program. Judge Angela Bartell, after ascertaining that Abe McCants was complying with other aspects of the program, refused to return him to jail. McCants went into a coma that very afternoon; he died early the next morning at home. "They prosecuted him until his last day, "says Deborah McCants, Abu's wife of 18 years; the couple had seven children. He, a cement finisher described in his obituary as "wise, opinionated, fun loving, funny, prickly, generous, good-hearted, passionate and full of life," was 47. The case has left observers appalled by the callousness of Dane County authorities. "I was very disappointed with the way they conducted themselves," says Dr. Feilpe Manalo, McCants' physician at Group Health Cooperative. "I thought they were overzealous in trying to impose the law on a dying man." All medical science can do for people like McCants with advanced terminal cancer, says Manalo, is to try to keep them comfortable: "if marijuana is making them feel better, why shouldn't we allow it? Why should we make them criminals?" Attorney Ed Garvey, the Democratic candidate for governor last fall, witnessed McCants' March 18 hearing while waiting for another case. "I was shocked," says Garvey. "He clearly was in terrible shape. It seemed to be beyond the pale that anyone would call this man into court and try to put him in jail. It was a perfect example of someone living by rules without common sense. Somebody exercised some pretty poor judgment. "Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) in Washington, D.C., says prosecutors are usually reluctant to enforce marijuana laws against terminally ill patients. He calls what happened to Abe McCants in Dane County not only unusual but "simply, in a word, malevolent." The DA's office refuses to discuss its actions. Mike Alesch, manager of the Alternatives to Incarceration Program, blames McCants and others for what happened. He insists the system gave McCants preferential treatment in calling for a hearing, since It could have returned him to jail without one. Alesch sums up his position by rephrasing Deborah McCants' question: "At what point does a program ignore the rules?" The answer, apparently, is never. Abe McCants was not a saint. He spoke his mind even when It was imprudent, and had several minor scrapes with the law, including an arrest for drug paraphernalia.On Sept. 18, 1998, Maple Bluff police tried to pull McCants over for driving too fast. McCants kept going to his home on North Seventh Street, and ran for the door. The upshot McCants was convicted on two counts of resisting an officer and one count of disorderly conduct. The DA's office ignored a request for leniency on grounds that McCants had terminal stomach cancer; on Jan. 16, 1999, he reported to the Dane County to begin serving a 5-month sentence.McCants' health quickly deteriorated, as the cancer spread to his liver and lungs. His new lawyer, Jordan Loeb, arranged for a hearing before Judge Bartell. Dr. Manalo wrote a letter to the court noting the advanced state of McCants' cancer and estimating his life expectancy at about six months: "I would recommend that for humanitarian consideration, he be released to the care of his family."At a Feb. 9 hearing, Bartell agreed, ordering that McCants be released under the Alternatives to Incarceration Program (ATIP). But McCants remained in jail, in great pain and unable to receive medication, until Feb. 19. Under ATIP rules, McCants had to provide weekly urine samples. On March 12, ATIP staffer Rebecca Repaal notified the court that McCants had twice tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. She also noted that McCants had failed to come to the ATIP office when summoned. McCants could not make the trip cause his feet were too swollen to put on shoes. Dr. Manalo confirms this, saying he told McCants to stay home ENFELD and called Repaal to explain. That weekend, Manalo visited McCants at his home. According to Deborah McCants, the doctor remarked to Abe, in reference to Rapaal and her ATIP colleagues, "These people are sicker than you are." The following Monday, March 15, Deborah and Abe McCants went to the ATIP office in the City County Building. Deborah says Abe was slumped over Repani's desk in pain as she accused him of noncompliance and fired questions at him. "Did she think he was faking all that pain?" exclaims Deborah. Repaal declines to comment, but ATIP head Alesch says the problem wasn't just that McCants tested positive for "THC but that he lied about it: "Abe tried to come up with every other reason for why this drug was in his system, other than the truth, which is that he was using marijuana." That said, Alesch confirms that McCants would still have gotten in trouble had he been honest "We just can't have folks testing positive for controlled substances when they're not prescribed." According to Alesch, ATIP merely reported that McCants was not in compliance and left It up to the DA's office to decide what should be done about It. At the March 18 hearing, Assistant District Attorney Lyn Opelt recommended that McCants "be revoked from that program and placed back in the jail." Alesch, asked for his two cents, told Judge Bartell: "We have program rules and we have to enforce those rules no matter what the situation." Opelt did not return phone calls. Neither did her boss, District Attorney Diane Nicks, who on the campaign trail last fall rejected charges that her office picks on pot smokers. "We make a distinction between the big dealer and the small user," Nicks told Isthmus."Our resources are precious, and we want to get at more serious crimes."St. Pierre of NORML believes the DA's office in this case "misused taxpayer dollars and wasted the criminal justice system's valuable time and resources" to compound the pain and suffering of a dying man. While the DA's office isn't talking, Alesch says the key decisions were made without foreknowledge that McCants would die within 24 hours of the March 18 hearIng: "We were as surprised as anyone." But Deborah McCants says her husband was clearly at death's door during this hearing, unable to lift his head from the table and at one point weeping. Loeb, McCants' attorney, presented a note from Dr. Manalo attesting to the dire state of McCants' health. At-tached was a wire service article about a federal panel's finding, released the day before, that marijuana appears to have legitimate medical uses, including pain relief for terminally ill patients. "From a medical perspective, the biggest problem in Abe's life is that he is dying of cancer," argued Loeb, asking the court not for forgiveness but fairness. He conceded that McCants had "a bad attitude" toward the authorities, another infraction cited by ATIP, but explained that his behavior was affected by the large doses of narcotic painkillers he was taking. Dr. Manalo's letter made the same point. Judge Bartell ordered ATIP to continue the electronic monitoring, rebuffing Alesch's attempts to get her to weigh in on drug testing: "That aspect of your program is not of concern to me." Loeb praises Bartell ruling. (For the hearing transcript, check Document Feed at www.thedailypage.com.) "I think the Judge handled this with intelligence and compassion," he says. "I didn't see the same mercy from the Alternatives to Incarceration Program or the DA's office." But Alesch insists the case of Abe McCants was handled as it had to be by the rules. "If we had to do it all over again," he says, "we'd do the same thing." No doubt.
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Comment #2 posted by Dr. Ganj on April 10, 1999 at 18:06:47 PT
              Where's the mercy?
Oh sure, he can get morphine and dilaudid, but if he uses a little marijuana, which is safer than aspirin, he is threatened will jail time! So, gobble down morphine, stay at home. Smoke a joint, go to jail. Yeah, that's real justice. It's 1999 people, and I just can not believe this is still happening. What is it going to take? For judges, prosecutors, and lawmakers to get horribly ill and discover that marijuana does work?The answer is so simple too. Let sick people have access to the medicine of their choice. It's the least we do for them.Dr. Ganj 
http://www.drugpeace.org/mmm/
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Comment #1 posted by Rainbow on April 10, 1999 at 16:26:56 PT
Where is it
Where is dane County. I want to make sure i steer clear of that place. Sounds like there are a few mean people who reside there.
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