Free Speech: Grand Jury Subpoenas Prominent Pain Relief Advocate Who Has Criticized the Prosecution of a Kansas Physician
Siobhan Reynolds, head of the pain patient and doctor advocacy group the Pain Relief Network, has been targeted for a grand jury investigation of obstruction of justice for her role in supporting a Kansas physician and his wife in their legal battle against federal prosecutors who accuse them of unlawfully prescribing pain relief medications at their clinic.
Siobhan Reynolds at 2004 Congressional briefing
Last July, Treadway sought a gag order barring Reynolds and the Schneiders from talking to the press and another order barring Reynolds from talking to "victims" and witnesses in the case. The judge hearing the case, US District Court Judge Monti Belot, denied that motion to stifle dissent.
At the time, Treadway said in court documents that Reynolds had a "sycophantic or parasitic relationship" with the Schneiders and alleged that she was using the case to further the Pain Relief Network's political agenda and her own personal interests. Reynolds and the Pain Relief Network advocate against federal prosecutions of pain relief doctors, whom they see as victims of overzealous federal prosecutors and DEA agents who know little about proper medical care standards.
Now, Treadway is at it again. In a subpoena made available to the Associated Press, she demands that Reynolds turn over all correspondence with attorneys, patients, Schneider family members, doctors, and others related to the Schneider case. She also demands that Reynolds turn over bank and credit card statements showing payments to or from clinic employees, patients, potential witnesses and others.
The feisty Reynolds has no intention of complying. Instead, she has filed a motion seeking to throw out the grand jury subpoena. In that motion, she argues that forcing her to turn over such information would destroy her work as a political activist and violate her First Amendment rights to free speech and association.
She told the AP she would go to jail before turning over any documents. "This is an attempt to silence and intimidate me. I am going to fight it as far as I need to," she said. "If I were to give in here, lawful advocacy against the United States in court will effectively be brought to an end. So... a lot is at stake here."
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Comment posted by Giordano on Tue, 04/21/2009 - 5:06pmAssistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway will have much to explain at her next job interview, assuming she can get an interview once Obama replaces the U.S. attorneys appointed by the Bush administration with his own appointments. In fact, Treadway may go from being unemployed to being unemployable, much like Alberto Gonzalez.
It’s bad enough to be professionally tainted by working for BushCo, but to abuse one’s judicial powers in a high profile federal case by targeting individuals such as Siobhan Reynolds for her pursuit of her first amendment rights, as well as her obvious compassion for others, is really over the top.
If conservatives without a conscience, such as Tanya Treadway, are to occupy the U.S. attorneys’ office in the future, then something must be done to reduce the legal powers and the lack of accountability afforded to assistant U.S. attorneys in order to rein them in. It might be easier to perform psych profiles on the Tanya Treadways of the world to keep them out of public service altogether: no conscience, no job.
Whatever Ms. Treadway’s future job turns out to be, her example adds to the mounting body of evidence that says the U.S. drug laws arouse and amplify the most egregious imperfections existing in our justice system.
Giordano
Well said.
Comment posted by mlang52 on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 9:03pmIt hurts , even more, knowing you could have helped, had it not been for the DEA and drug war zealots, making sure you never practiced medicine again! Then, to have to suffer in chronic intractable pain, knowing how it could be treated, adds insult to injury. Sometimes it seems like death would feel better.
Keep up the good work, Siobhan! Don't let them win.
In the memory, of your late husband. Just one of the many drug war victims, who suffered, and died, from inadequately treated pain.